Don't feel like working -
plan trip to Disney instead!
I should get job there.

I haven't been home much in June, and therefore I haven't been reading/posting on LJ. I spent most of the month in Minneapolis dumping my brain into the people that work at corporate headquarters so I can finally be officially done working on july 31st. The other week that I wasn't there I was in Disney World with my family, which I enjoyed sort of but it wasn't my favorite trip ever. Spending time with my grandfather was good, my mom is insane.
I just skimmed through the 400 most recent LJ posts that I was able to look at...but if I missed anything fun and exciting, feel free to let me know.
I'm stressed about money - darknbitter got laid off, which I'm actually happy about because he hated his job so now he can spend the time finding something better that he likes more - but because of the timing of when he got laid off he didn't get reimbursed for his spring courses and now he won't get reimbursed for summer either, so we're suddenly out $5,000. I had been saving for a rainy day, but, well...that was it. And I'm about to be unemployed as well.

Oh well...at least we can spend time at home together and fix our house, which is falling apart.

I just discovered that elissa_carey (who lives in TX, per her profile, but is on a good many of my friends' friends lists) knows my highschool friend dave, who graduated with me in suburbia PA but now lives in Champaign, IL.
Never ceases to boggle my mind, this interwebs.

I should not allow my very drunk coworker to convince me, at 1:15 AM, that it is imperative we get a cab to downtown minneapolis and meet one of our (very gay) friends at a gay bar. I should also not allow myself (on a work night) to get as drunk as I was when I said yes.

However, The Saloon in Minneapolis at 1:30 AM? EYE CANDY!

I've always heard about people's response, when the movie first came out, to Star Wars. It has this dream-like quality to them of being so incredibly amazing that, even now, years later, when technology has far surpassed its level and the plot holes grow deeper with each sequel, fan boys everywhere recount it as a formative moment in their lives.

Since I was 18 and it was 1998 when I saw Star Wars for the first time, I never understood. I mean, I didn't dislike the movie, but it just didn't have that kind of impact for me.

...the new Star Trek did.

I always said my political views were to vote for the candidate that most closely represented my viewpoint, regardless of political party, even though that generally meant voting democrat. Arlen Specter was my primary evidence - I vote for him even though he's a republican.

Maybe not so much anymore...

I was going to change my registration to republican for the primary to make sure he got into the general election, but now he made my life much easier.

Now if only Minnesota would get its act together.

You should go see darknbitter's update about the fairytale photo shoot we went to yesterday at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens - we had tons of fun!
First of all, I stayed up the whole night before (friday night) finishig the details of the costume - not intentional, but necessary since everything I had was only half finished. It turned out nicely, though there are a lot of details I need to fix or do better before I wear it again, and other things I'd like to add.

It was VERY HOT at the photoshoot. And I was in all black. I was originally going to wear a hoop skirt or a bunch of layers of petticoat, but that went out the window when I saw the weather for the weekend. We wandered the park for about 4 hours as a group and had a lovely time. The best part was all of the random people taking our pictures - it was the cherry blossom festival so the gardens were packed to begin with, and then we...attracted attention.

You can see all of my pictures here and all of the pictures anyone who was there have posted here. But to save you some time if you don't want to dig through that many, ( here's some of my favorite pictures that were taken with our camera. )
I also had a lovely time at sister Lauren's. The water taxi man-made beach with the view of Manhattan was an unexpectedly lovely treat on an evening where all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep - fun atmosphere, good music, and a beautiful view were perfect!
She and Andrew found Adam an Alice in Wonderland teapot, an alice in wonderlan cookie tray, and alice in wonderland magnets - which were wonderfully thoughtful gifts that she had bought back in December, which I thought was so cool since it was before we started working on our photoessay for school or the photoshoot!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, darknbitter
lOVE YOU!

I uploaded a lot of the pictures from darknbitter and my trip to New Orleans here

We ate tons and tons and tons of food, drank a fair amount (though the heat and humidity limited us a bit), took lots of afternoon naps to relax and escape the heat, accidentally met up with Jonathan and took a Vampire Tour of the city, tried absinthe, shopped a lot, and had a generally good time.

I'd go back again, particularly for French Quarter Festival, which I found a great way to try a lot of different foods/restaurants and listen to a lot of local music.

Warning: album contains tons of pork and shellfish. Tons. I couldn't have eaten 3/4 of the stuff if I wasn't willing to accept that.

I'm listening to Disney radio nonstop. It never ceases to put me in a good mood. I wish I could go work there - maybe by the time I'm done with all my school, they'll be hiring again.

ANYWAYS. I had a really good birthday last weekend. I was surrounded by a lot of my favorite people at the Wings game, watching men with sticks beat each other up (although there weren't as many fights as I would have liked - I'm violent, you know ;)). I actually think I enjoyed the bar before the game the most - there was a mediocre band playing really fun songs, and we were all sitting at the bar drinking and chatting and enjoying each other's company, and it was just..really nice. (And Baby Rachel was there - get her started as a sports fan early, you know)

We went to swanky bubbles afterwards - no experience at that restaurant will ever top moriah's bachelorette party, but still, it was good. I think I have a new favorite though - I always order the edamame gnocchi because I LOVE LOVE LOVE it, but Mr. lauraluvsbacon ordered baked goat cheese (or something like that) and it was YUMMY. (The food at swanky bubbles is designed for sharing)

It was rough organizing a birthday party from minnesota while I was really busy so I missed out on seeing a few people I would have liked to - but it was really nice being surrounded by good friends and good fun.

I'm taking a completely unscientific survey for a possible future project for school, and I was hoping people who have been to Disney could answer a few questions for me:

1) What is your favorite thing to do at Disney (show or attraction - so shopping, food, drinking around the world, etc, don't count. I'd prefer it if the show/attraction still exist, but one can't be too picky)

2) What is your favorite restaurant on Disney property to eat at? (assuming you've eaten there - I know not everyone does! (heathens))

3) What Disney character do you most love to get an autograph of/your picture taken with (or would you enjoy most, if they aren't actually currently a character that roams the parks)

(For the record, my answers:
#1: Nemo the Musical (which surprised me, when I really thought about it)
#2: Boma
#3: Mary Poppins)

I had already worked a 40 hour work week by the end of day yesterda - a Tuesday.
(Granted, part of that is because I'm hourly, not salary, and I spent 9 hours in an airport & traveling on Sunday. but still.)

It was very strange reading Neil Gaiman's blog and seeing this: "And it's all an odd sort of way to wake up on an April 1st when there's something that seems to want to be a blizzard going on outside the window." and knowing EXACTLY what he's talking about.
(He lives outside of Minneapolis)

and I miss my husband very, very much.

I've been gone since Thursday evening as I went down to my parent's in maryland for the weekend and then went immediately to the philadelphia airport to head to Minnesota.

...and then sat at the airport for five hours waiting for my plane. Stupid philly. stupid thunderstorms. stupid flight attendants unions. whatever.

It's snowing in minnesota today. I was at the beach in maryland on sunday.

I worked 17 hours yesterday, and i'm probably going to be working about that again today. I'd say I'm happy they keep bringing us food, but I have an expense account while on business travel, so I could technically be eating at good restaurants and instead I'm eating pizza and hoagies. I don't mind that so much, but I WOULD like to get to the bar tonight for drinks from my favorite bartender, and of course the hotel bar closes at 11 PM.

Eh well.

I'm sitting in a room with a bunch of people that are helping us out with our business. the only reason i'm in this room with them is to answer their questions. This room is in the basement of my company's corporate office, and has no windows (though it has doors, unlike the haunted mansion....but sometimes it does feel like the room is shrinking...)

I've started calling it the dungeon. but the people are nice so it's all good.

I'm going to watch men with sticks beat each other up for my birthday on sunday. yay!

darknbitter and I went to the Philadelphia Zoo today to celebrate the 150th anniversary. There was birthday cake, Victorian games and storytellers...and The Wheelmen, a group of people who study, restore, and ride historical bicycles.
They gave a demonstration that was tons of fun to watch!
Ad and I went to the zoo a bit costumed (though nothing over the top as I didn't want anything getting wrecked while walking around at a "dirty" zoo all day). We also knew we wouldn't be out of place as the zoo brought in Victorian storytellers for the event (who were obviously dressed up). We got lots of fun comments and people taking our pictures, so it was a great time. The giraffes, fruit bats, river otters, and colobus monkeys are my favorites as they all make me think of Adam. (Apparently, the hippopotamus makes Adam think of me ;))

Adam also bought me a membership to the zoo for my birthday, good for myself and one guest, any time I want to go, with an expiration date of March 31, 2010. I hadn't ever been to the zoo before our 4th anniversary last year, and I fell in love with it in one trip - so I'm really excited about this present! We decided it's good exercise walking around there; it's as nice as walking in a park; and we only have to go twice to make the membership worthwhile.

Anyways, ( here are some of my favorite pictures of us from the day )

Let me start this out by saying i'm completely in love with Ian McShane and he can do no wrong in my eyes. So. There's your salt.

I thought Kings was really good...and it's a show that I wanted to watch without any prompting from Adam...which therefore means it is absolutely doomed to failure.

Most of the critics couldn't decide if it was supposed to be a political drama, a soap opera, science fiction...where the story was going...what the point was. I knew critics were idiots. It's a retelling of a biblical tale (and a really interesting one at that). If all you know about the story of david and goliath is that david was small and killed goliath who was huge and therefore became king...I guess you wouldn't get the idea of this show either. But no, it had complex characters, was visually stunning, had amazing dialog...some of it might have otherwise been over the top, but delivered by Ian McShane, it was lovely.

(oh, it had its flaws too...don't get me wrong...but for a network show, I really enjoyed it.)

My favorite two reviews are here and here (after the first few paragraphs, at least...)

It could go downhill, but I think if it continues it will only get better.

Also, Terminator saw a 21% increase in ratings this week. I've only seen a couple episodes, but it makes Adam happy so I'm happy.

"Throne Room" from Star Wars is playing on Disney Radio* right now and it makes me smile.

That is all.

*Disney Radio is Subsonic Radio, all park music all the time. Yes, when I'm in a room by myself where I can't irritate other people, I listen to it non-stop.

I got an unexpected bonus today (well, not entirely unexpected...it's our "incentive compensation" bonus based on the performance of the company that we used to get every year at Christmas and now we're getting around the same time as our appraisals. I knew this, in theory, but wasn't expecting to get anything due to the poor performance of the company and the fact that I'm about to be unemployed. While it wasn't as much as in previous years, it was still a decent payout. But I digress)

Anyways, unexpected money always makes me smile =) I'm vaguely weirded out by the fact that darknbitter and I are doing better than we have been in..well, forever...with money right now while the whole rest of the economy is going poorly....which isn't gloating, so much as nervousness around what catastrophe is about to strike that is going to bankrupt us (beyond the possibility of me not being able to find a job come July).

We've been reasonably responsible with all my bonuses, paying off my credit card and Adam's school and my car...and we're getting a really good income tax return that I'm hoping we'll put entirely in savings (as well as my severance check, when that comes). But we've also booked more vacations this year than we should have (my fault), and we inevitably spend more money on said vacations than we should (both of our faults). But still.

I hope my good karma for the year continues, and if you're having a bad year, I hope it rubs off on you! (can I go to Disney World now? =))

-I took the week off from work this week to do nothing but clean. Hopefully, the entire house (or at least, everything but the basement). I figure once that's done, then I can actually work on fixing up the house, but right now I won't let anyone in it to help so I haven't been getting far.
I want the wife of the year award for using a week of hard earned vacation to clean by myself.
It's a good thing my husband spoils me rotten.

-I'm working on a Queen of Hearts steampunk costume, and I don't know what I'm doing yet (though I have lots of ideas). Helping Adam with his Cheshire Cat was much easier, which is odd.

-I'm in the mood to go ransack my grandfather's attic, which is full of antique goodness just waiting to be plundered. I think this may be part of the motivation for me to clean my house.

-We had dinner at Adam's grandmother's saturday night, which is generally pretty tedious because we have nothing to say to each other. However, sister Lauren and her boyfriend Andrew were there so it was really just a visit between the four of us with mommom listening (which was nice, and upsetting, all at the same time). I mostly like lauren's boyfriend, though I'm not always sure she does.

-I think I want to go to a Phantoms or Wings game for my birthday, because we have a bunch of tickets we need to use. If you were picking, which sport would you choose? (I've been to several Flyers and Phantoms games before, but never a Wings game)

1) I finally posted my pictures from Wicked Faire last weekend...
The ones I like best, or that I cropped or modified in some way, are at my flickr account

The full (completely unedited) set is at my Picasa account

and pictures from the Gypsy Nomads concert are also at Picasa

2) Ad and I went to Monte Carlo night last night for the Springfield Junior Women's Club - it was more fun than I expected. My boss is a member and was selling tickets to benefit charity. We "won" a lot playing blackjack, but really that just bought us raffle tickets for baskets, and we didn't win any of them. Still, the open bar was nice and there were lots of pretty girls running around serving beer and wine.

3) I was thinking about going to NYC tomorrow to see one of my highschool friends perform at the Bitter End, a club in Greenwich Village...I haven't seen him or any of the other people that will be there in the past 10 years, but it still sounded like fun. Unfortunately, it's supposed to snow. A lot. Oh well.

4) I took off from work this week because it's spring break from school so I decided I'd stay home and clean and try and work on the house. We'll see how far I get.

Vanessa shortens to Nessie very easily. When I was a little kid and I got teased relentlessly for my name (as all good children do), people called me the loch ness monster...I always wanted a nickname, but I hated nessie for this reason.

One day, as an adult, I was thinking about it and three of my favorite people on the planet (my grandfather, my cousin Devon, and darknbitter) call me nessie. Then when we were at Celtic Classic in Bethlehem and darknbitter bought me this adorable green hat with the loch ness monster on it that I love.

When I was trying to come up with a username and failing, he suggested loch_nessie, and it just stuck.

...cause all I have are one-liners!

- Adam gave me a gorgeous diamond ring (for my right hand) that he bought just before Christmas for Valentine's Day - it's gorgeous, but I have to be careful not to gouge myself with it

- Eating at Hidalgo (our favorite Mexican restaurant) for V-Day was also nice - it took 3 hours to get our whole meal, but that meant we were chatting with each other for 3 hours..

- Coraline 3D was awesome - I loved that it depicted a "real" little girl, flaws and all

- I started sewing again. Why do I always wait until the week before a con to work on costuming? But this time I bought a bunch of patterns and fabrics on sale so maybe I'll just designate a sewing/crafting night for myself to work on things.

- darknbitter made a really spiffy steampunk backpack that I wasn't expecting to like, but it turns out I really do. (Though I still want him to attach the tiles better so they're not so loose and flowy, but that's just me)

- Speaking of darknbitter and creativity, we're taking a computing with images course that's basically teaching all kinds of imaging software for computers (photoshop, python, alice, etc). Ad and I are working together in a group on our photo essay (using photoshop) and he's having so much fun with making the pictures (from Alice in Wonderland) that he's doing more work than me for a class - there's a switch! His pics are awesome, though.

- I'm looking forward to Wicked Faire, which is ...unexpected. I only got excited in the past few days.

- I bought a new Nikon D40 with my giftcards from work that I had to spend by March. Now to find time to play with it!