Okay, it's not really an album review at all. Heh. I got my fancy schmancy boxset in the mail yesterday, and today I headed over to the L.A. County Arboretum. It's only $5 for students (or people who aren't students anymore, but are still poor and in possession of their old student I.D.), and about ten miles from my house. I thought, I want to make the first time I hear the album memorable, and this was the prettiest, most zen-like place I could think of to listen.
Of course being me, I took one picture with each song, and that's what I'm posting here. I think I'll have to listen again to pick favorite songs, but overall it's brilliant. And the weather, scenery, etc. made everything just perfect. Not to mention there's totally clapping on this album. WIN!
So... there was some thunder and lightening, which just does NOT happen here much. And I knew it was gonna start pouring soon, 'cause that's what happens. It starts raining and then it REALLY starts raining. Then I look out and it's not just rain. It's tiny pebbles of ice! Woooo. That happens even less frequently here. So my entire family ended up outside at 1245am, playing in the rain/ice. WIN. Also, our neighbors were doing the same. Oh, California. Never change.
Of course an occasion like this cannot pass without me taking photos and a wee bit of video. 'Cause I'm like that.
Dave and I were semi-crazy and decided to go up to Sacramento yesterday to protest Prop 8 at the state capitol building. It was something like a 6 hour drive each way. For those of you not in this state/country, LA is kinda at the bottom, and Sacramento is kinda near the top. It's a tall state. Heh. I'd never been to Sacramento before, so I crammed in as much tourist action as I could in the... 3.5 hours we were there. 2.5 of which we spent protesting. Essentially, I took pictures of anything we walked by on the protest or to and from the car. Woo! Anywhoooooooo...
I've got about 5 pictures of the protest/the capitol building. And a video of the protest plus a bit of footage at the end of me being a nerd. Sacramento is something like 400 miles further north, so it's colder! I was excited, okay. So sue me. I'm putting my favorite picture outside the cut, because I CAN.
So... I'm nearly dead to the world. I got up at 8 to drive to Dave's in downtown L.A., met with him and walked to the L.A. City Hall. Met Court and Pam there and OMG it was so hot. I'd say... 90 something? Lots of people there, lots of speeches. Mayor Villaragosa spoke, and Ricki Lake, and Lucy Lawless, and that guy from Little Britain and lots more. It was pretty cool, only REALLY HOT. And then finally we got to march. There were LOTS of people, man. This is the route we took. Each block is approximately 1000 feet. (300m for you crazy Metric people.)
Sadly, there's almost nothing in the news about all this, because apparently California is burning to the ground. Sadface. Click the cut for a 2 minute video of some rockin' clips of the rally, protest and stuff. Also some cell pictures (3?) and a few awesome Dave pictures.
I was kind of just going to ignore this, but then three people tagged me (needleandspoon, pop_daisy, and stateless) and I had a half hour to kill before lunch, so why not? These took me way too long to come up with and really aren't that interesting. It's this meme:
a. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself. b. Tag seven people to do the same. c. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it".
1. This is something that was only recently brought to my attention as being weird. I never ever ever delete a comment or an email. Gmail gives you so much room! And I can search for comments/conversations easily that way. And I hate getting rid of things like that. Because I can be nostalgic about anything, quite literally.
2. I love my jeans. Like, they are so comfortable! (I always only wear Levi 515's.) The funny thing is that last night I told Ken's mom that I could sleep in my jeans and I wouldn't mind... and I ended up falling asleep in my clothes by accident! All night I wore my jeans. Woo. I know a lot of people that strip them of as soon as they get home and put PJs/sweats on or something, but not me!
3. I am hyper sensitive to smell (unless I'm sick or something). It's kind of not a good thing, because there are a lot of bad smells. This is sort of a gross one. Moving on...
4. I watch at least twice as much TV on YouTube as I do on the real TV. Which still isn't really very much, but I just don't watch TV. Though I did see an episode of House last night at Ken's. That was good.
5. I hate commercials so much that I always mute the TV when they come on. Whereas my dad will change the channel which drives me NUTS. He always misses random bits of whatever he's watching because of it!
6. We don't have any pets, and I kind of like it that way. I used to have a rat named Minnie back in Middle School, but since then... nada. I'm fairly allergic to cats anyway, and dogs are too much to handle. Really, I'm just too lazy for pets. I'd rather visit other people's animals, see how cute they are, and then go home and not have to clean up after them. Ha.
7. There are a lot of things I wish I could do, but don't make any effort whatsoever to accomplish. Like play an instrument of any kind competently. Or speak Spanish. Or knit! Or something...
Ken and I got pumpkins today and carved them so she could take pics for photo class. I'm so pathetically unartistic, so mine is rather old school and uncreative, but I thought I'd share anyway. Y'all should reply with pics of your pumpkins if you have them! Two tiny pictures of my pumpkin under the cut (even you could load them easily, Barb!). We (by "we" I mean "I") made toasted pumpkin seeds and they are sooooo good.
So, this is like my second post in four days or something and posting this often makes me not have anything to talk about! Hmm. Well, I've applied to a few non-profit organizations over the last week or so, so it's kind of wait and see and send out more resumes. Did I mention that I'm not really looking for a law job anymore? Being a legal secretary kind of sucks. So I'm looking for a non-profit office job. If any of you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know.
Oh! One more Halloween-related thing... I was thinking about dressing up in something easily and readily available in most homes, aka a throw-together costume, for answering the door on Wednesday night. I would love suggestions. You should note: I really can't sew.
What else? Oh, good luck Lissie on the law office thing tomorrow. Hope it's a cool place!
I should end now before I just start typing stream of conscious. As if I haven't already. GREAT.
Okay, so I was super lazy and a big old procrastinator and never uploaded my Family Reunion pics. So now I've got like 17 of those PLUS 7 more that I took on a wee trip up the coast that my mom and I took over the last couple nights. The Reunion was from August 3rd to 11th, and we were in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Northwest Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Michigan part was just my mom and me, as we were taking a day trip to her hometown. The Trip up the coast was August 21st to 23rd and included Ventura and Oxnard, because it was 20 degrees cooler there than here. Whoot. Now, on with the show...
Summary: Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota have a LOT of lakes. A LOT. They're in almost every picture of mine, geez. My family is awesome! And... the Upper Peninsula makes me sad because it's so freaking gorgeous but also economically not in a great place.
Summary: Ventura is so much cooler than the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys! It was breezy and there was almost always water within view. Totally have two hotels to recommend to people who want a short getaway to a cooler place in the LA area. We spent like 84 bucks on the hotels we stayed at and had a view of water and really really nice rooms. So if you're interested...
Possible video sometime in the near future. I know you're all waiting with bated breath.
Last one, I swear. I know I said I'd do this days ago, but I'm lazy. So I've got about eleven pictures left and I finally managed to get a video together of the trip. It's choppy, dizzying, ADD, and random in places, but if you're interested, it's under the cut. Nothing fancy with the editing, since cutting out unessential shit and getting subtitles on it took long enough. Oy!
Okay, so I meant to do this a couple days ago, but I got a killer headache after that last post and have been super busy since. So here's part two of my photos. I think there are like 19? This post is going to be Cardiff, Dublin and Kilkenny, I believe. Now, ( onto the good stuff...Collapse )
I promise to post the rest tonight or tomorrow. I don't want to leave it any longer, I swear. How's everyone?
I have a feeling that by posting these today I will be drastically cutting back the number of people who see them, but if I don't post them now, I never will. I'm going to be doing this in three posts (Ally style) with about 24 or 25 pictures in this post, 15 or so in the next and maybe a dozen in the last. They're gonna be chronological. I think limiting myself to like 40-45 pictures for a three week trip is pretty good.
I also have video, but I'm still working on that... it'll probably bore anyone who isn't me, anyway. Okay, without further ado: ( my pictures.Collapse )
Okay, I'm done for now. Think I'll post the rest after I have a bit of breakfast.
