Currently Reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone By J.K. Rowling see related

Moving Time

My New Year's Resolution is to give blogspot a chance.  It has such a prettier background.  I'm still not sure about it, but I guess it's time to move on....  This will be my last blog here.  I don't really want to type out the new address so the internet can't link them together, but...what can ya do?  The address is ___.blogspot.com  - The ___  is just like my name on this page, but I've added an a between the j and w .  Ha!  That probably won't help my plan.

So much has happened...Let's see if I can remember! 

I flew up to Seattle watch White Christmas with Tasha - our Christmas tradition.  That was a few days after the windstorm of last entry.  My parents still had no power, thank goodness for generators!  There were still power lines down everywhere!  It took me 6 hours to get on a flight home the next day.  Suck!

I had Christmas off!  Twas a Christmas miracle!  We celebrated Christmas on the Eve and then my family came down to Portland on Christmas day.  I stayed home so that I could see my friends.  I ended up getting invited over to my friend Robin's house for Christmas dinner.  It was fun!!  We wore paper crowns and laughed and played this game ImaginIff  - I highly recommend it!

For Christmas the thing I wanted was a GPS receiver so that I can take up geocaching!!  I'm quite the nerd.  Find out more at geocaching.com if you have no idea what that is.  If you ever want to go with me, I'll always be looking for someone!  It will be better when the weather is warmer though.  I've been freezing my butt off on the few that I've done so far.

So I got to see my friends at home and we went out.  We ended up at a total dive bar in Kent.  I sang some bad karaoke, Sue sang some good karaoke.  The drunk white trash people were entertaining.  One guy was asking Robin's boyfriend Tom to dance.  Tom has shoulder length brown hair and a beard.  The guy goes, "I wanna dance with Jesus!"  Haha!  And some drunk lady kept telling him that he couldn't afford us.  How did she know we're prostitutes??  Crazy. 

New Year's was spent in Medford.  My pilots and I went to a bar which ended up getting really full.  Those people were also entertaining.  We had a great time people watching.  We saw a girl making out with 2 guys, some drunk girl kept crying around this one guy and a second later would be laughing with her friends.  Lots of large people were wearing things they definitely should not wear, egh.  I had some peach lambic beer from belgium, it was really good!  I think I like fruity beers.  I had some pear cider when I went out with my friends, that was good too.  This holiday season has had me drinking more than I ever have in my whole life!

Last week I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I just flew up to Seattle for the day.  My mom took me, and payed, and payed for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  MMM!!  I have a good mom!  There was this homeless guy outside his sign said "Cold, wet, and ugly"  He asked me how I was.  Then I asked him how he was and if he was cold and wet.  Then he showed me the other side of his sign that said, "Smile if you masterbate"  How can you not laugh at that!?  I tried to give him a disapproving look.  He was like Gotcha!  My mother did not see that thank goodness, but she didn't hear him talk to me first, so she thought I was just talking to random homeless people, not that there's anything wrong with that.  Can I write about that next to the dead sea scrolls?

Anyway, the exhibit was really cool!!  At the beginning there was talk about how they were found, what the scrolls had been through, the culture of the time when hidden, who they thought the people of Qumran were, etc.  They found hundreds of scrolls.  Most of the pieces were only the size of a fingernail and they had to figure out which ones went together!  It was interesting to learn about their processes.  I didn't know that parchment was made of animal skin, so they could use DNA testing to help them!  When they were first found they didn't take good care of them.  They put some together with tape!  Someone sold some scrolls in the Wall Street Journal, ridiculous.

They had 8-10 or so segments to view.  They wrote so tiny!  I guess if you don't have paper around you write small to save on resources.  My favorite one was Psalm 119.  If you know anything about that Psalm it's the longest one.  It goes through the Hebrew alphabet.  Every section (like 8 lines or something) all start with the same letter.  This of course doesn't come across when translated into English.  But you could look at the Hebrew and see that each line started with the same letter!  The coolest thing about it was that the writer of this particular segment distorted the name of God everytime he wrote it.  You could see YHWH in other scrolls, but in this one it was always larger than the rest of the writing and the letters were not what they should've looked like.  The Hebrew people had such a respect for God that they wouldn't speak his name, and this writer felt that he couldn't even write it out. 

It was pretty amazing to look at something so old!  I think they were dated to about 200 BCE...something like that.  It's incredible that they lasted so long!  It's kinda nice to know that people were reading the same things that I've read today, and that they valued something that is still valued today.  It's also pretty neat that they weren't found until 1947.  That's not so long ago!  What else is still out there to discover??

An added bonus was that the scrolls were at the Pacific Science Center.  So to waste some time before we could go in we sat in the tropical butterfly room for a while and marveled at the beautiful butterflies.  My favorite!! 

And another favorite...we got to watch the naked mole rats for a while!!  They're pretty stupid.  There were some cute little babies.  I learned that they don't need to drink water, they can get it all from their diet.  That they don't produce their own body heat - like lizards!  And that they can chew through concrete.  Not very quickly, but they can do it.

Well that might be everything interesting up to today.  Check in at my new blog, which as of today has very little on it...

Currently Listening Christmas Trilogy By Trans-Siberian Orchestra see related

Tis the season...

...for my life to be ruined!   Ok, it's not that bad. 

So there was a huge storm in the Northwest this last week.  A little on Wednesday, but mostly on Thursday.  I was of course at work during it.  My original schedule had me flying Wed. and Thurs. and then on Friday, all I had to do was deadhead (go as a passenger) from Eugene - like half hour flight!  Easy right?  I'll be home by 1:30 pm.  Great!  My captain was even talking about renting a car and driving home Thursday night.  I wasn't sure if I would go with them because Suzie was flying in from Chicago and would be arriving about the same time as my flight, assuming they were both ontime.  We had tickets to the Oregon Ballet - Nutcracker at 7:30.

Well, then all hell broke loose.  Wednesday things weren't too bad really, but Thursday was a nightmare.  We were coming from Pasco to Seattle (our first flight for the day).  Once we crossed the Cascades is started to get pretty bumpy, we're getting our butts kicked!  I was trying to do a crossword, but it was hard to right.  My passengers weren't enjoying it too much from the looks on their faces and the way they were clutching their seats.  No one puked, thank goodness.

But, we did get hit by lightning!!!  It was really loud - like gunshot loud, and of course there was a flash outside.  People probably thought an engine exploded or something, but I told them not to worry, just lightning.  Ha!  We were fine, but the plane couldn't fly until it has been checked out by maintenance.  I think a few other planes were hit by lightning and other planes were broken for this or that reason.  Maintenance was overwhelmed.  Add to that delays, and airport closures and cancellations due to the weather and yuck!!  There were so many people in the customer service line trying to get rebooked and whatnot.  I just avoided eye contact when I went by.

Well the rest of our flights were cancelled for the day because there weren't any other planes!  So we thought we'd get to go home, we were even scheduled to go home although the plane wouldn't get in till 10pm.  (We landed about 4:30 I think and had already been sitting at the airport for hours while scheduling tried to figure out what to do with us and everyone else!)  Then, they changed their minds and decided to send us to Medford!  Our flight leaving Medford was scheduled to leave at 4 pm.  Arriving in PDX at 5.  That gives me 2.5 hours to make it to the ballet - if it's ontime. 

Was it ontime?  Of course not!  Everything was still a disaster.  For a while there wasn't even a plane scheduled to come down to Medford.  Anyway.  We left Medford at 6:10, landed just after 7 and I got to my car at 7:30 - the time that the ballet started.  I knew I wouldn't make it so I sold my ticket to Carrie before leaving Medford - cause I wasn't wasting them!!  Except she didn't want to pay full price!  I paid $53 for 2 tickets total - with fees and everything - Carrie only wanted to give me 12.50.    So I'm out 14 bucks or so on a ballet that I didn't get to see.  I'M REALLY BUMMED!!!  I was looking forward to it.  I guess I'll try again next year.  Stupid storm, stupid airline.

Last night some of us went to Gustav's (German restaurant/pub) we had a long wait so we sat in the bar for a while.  I had some gluwein - it's a warmed wine with spices.  It was so good!  It just kinda tasted like cider almost.  Yesterday Suzie and I went downtown and watched some Kazoo players "play" Christmas songs.  That was entertaining!!  We went in the mall and looked at displays and stuff, to get festive!  Today Anna, Suzie and I went to get our picture taken with Santa.  We had to pay for one they wouldn't just let us use our own camera.  Jerks.  And it was a total rip off.  We don't get it for a week or so either!  Boo!  We had to stand in line with all the 2 year olds.

There are some other things "ruining" my life that shall not be mentioned here, but you can ask if you really want to know!  I think this is enough though!  I have to get new plates this week.  That's expensive.  Tomorrow I have to go to the eye doctor, and I also have to do my Christmas shopping!  And work...  I got Christmas off though!!  That's pretty incredible!  My parents haven't had power since Thursday night I think.  Sucks to be them!! They have a generator at least.

Currently Reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal By Christopher Moore see related

I am fearfully and wonderfully made!

My brother is engaged....   He doesn't have a job.   It's weird.  That's all I'll say about that.

I was reading this book.  It was mine.  I left it on my plane after my last flight.  My name wasn't in it.  I'm soo upset!  It was really funny!!  And probably heretical!  It's about the years of Jesus' life that got left out of the Bible and his journey and adventures!  How he learned to be the Messiah.  I don't think it makes him look bad though, the author has some sense of respect!  Good stuff.  I was close to the end too.

I had a happy Thanksgiving.  It was so nice to sit down with my family!  I had to sleep on the futon in Justin's room because my grandpa is staying with us because he has vertigo.  Not cool!   The heat in my car didn't work the whole way on the drive up.  I was freezing!  My dad looked at it, I think it's working better, but he couldn't find the cause.  It snowed! 

I asked the passengers on my first flight what they were thankful for.  They were confused.  heh  They just said things like family, health, safe travel.  Good answers.  Safe.

I went geocaching with a friend.  I like it!  I think I'll be taking it up once I get a GPS.  It will be something active to do on my days off, or even in other cities too!

I went to see the Bodies Exhibit in Seattle.  These are some of the full body specimens there.  You can just walk right up to them and look all around at them!  Yes, it's a little disturbing, and controversial.  But it's just a body, and I'm sure the person gave their consent.  There were organs and such under cases for you to look at, even ones I've never heard of before!  Often things were dissected so you could see the inside, or how it all fits together.  Bodies were dissected in every possible way to give you a better understanding of them!  It's amazing to see how our bodies are put together!  There were rooms and areas just for arms, or legs, or the respitory system, vasuclar system, reproductive system, the brain, the nervous system, the digestive tract.  They had organs with cancer, or those that had been abused by smoking or drinking.  (Stop now!)  There was even a tetranoma - one of those growths with hair and teeth!  EYW!!  One room was devoted to fetal development.  The had fetuses from just about every development stage.  It's crazy that at 4 weeks the fetus is already starting to look like a fetus instead of just the puff ball it was before that, even though it's about the size of 2 grains of rice!  Everyone really looks the same under their skin!

I don't know how they did all the things that they did for this exhibit.  The dissection lines are so straight, even through an entire body.  They had the tiny tiny bones in your ears out to look at.  You almost need a magnifying glass to figure out their real shape.  They had just the nerves out, just the blood vessels out and suspended (they did something to harden them).  But how do you get just the entirely complicated and very thin network of vessels out of an entire body?  And keep them together?

I am surprised at how small my stomach is, not much bigger than my fist.  And my bladder!  Maybe a little bigger than a walnut shell!!  The pituitary gland is like a garbanzo bean.  And your liver is huge!  All of your organs are much more crowded in the torso than I would've thought.

Anyway, I learned SO much from going to see this!  You've seen pictures of the body before, but this really put it all together for me!  If you think you can take it - and can make it to Seattle by the end of the year - I would recommend it!  It's terribly fascinating!  I don't know how you could think that it's all an accident after seeing how everything works together. 

http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/  (looks like it's headed to vegas and NY eventually)

Currently Reading Turkeys Never Gobble By Joan Holub see related

Gobble gobble gobble!!!

THINGS THAT HAVE MADE ME SMILE OR LAUGH TO MYSELF LATELY:

Seeing a person riding a segway on an overpass, as I was driving under, as the sun set behind them - creating a silouette of a person riding a segway!  Who rides those?  Especially in Portland!

Watching my passengers bounce and sway together all in sync during turbulence although they are unaware that as a group they look absolutely ridiculous!

There may've been more, but who knows now!  I'm going to ask everyone at work what they're thankful for on Thanksgiving!  HA!  I'm thankful that I get to have dinner with my family this year!  How about you?

Currently Watching Sing Along Songs - Disneyland Fun By Corey Burton, Tony Anselmo, Wayne Allwine, Bill Farmer, Russi Taylor, Charles Fleischer, Jim Cummings see related

The Happiest Place On Earth!

 Time to tell about the Disneyland trip!  So you'll remember when I mentioned on here how Randy and I were planning on going to Disneyland and maybe some other people would want to go.  Well some did.  So Anna, Amanda, Danny, Carrie and David came along too!  Our friend Michael that we went to school with and his wife met us there.  (Yikes this is long!)

 We flew down late Friday night.  Then we had to go pick up our mini-van.  Did you know that the major car rental places don't let people under 25 rent mini-vans?  We found an independent place that would let us.  It was pretty cheap, even with our underage fee.  So I got to drive everyone around like their mom all weekend.  When we got to our cheap hotel they had given our room away and sent us to another one.  It was kinda far away, but it was probably a nicer place, but still crappy.  We probably got to bed about 1:30-2.  And I doubt many of us slept very well.

I think we got to Disneyland about 8:30, so as you can guess we were all super tired all day!  We went on Pirates first - they've added Jack Sparrow to 3 places in the ride.  We were all excited at that point so we were singing Yo Ho Yo Ho, A Pirates Life For Me!  We went on Indiana Jones next.  Then Autopia.  I went with Randy and let him drive.  He didn't steer so we just bounced back and forth on the track then he started doing it on purpose.  We were laughing so hard.  I'm sure the people behind us hated it.  Amanda was really nervous about Space Mountain because she doesn't like rollercoasters, but she really loved it!

Anna, Randy and I had lunch together, it was the best.  Julietta stopped and made us Honorary Citizens of Disneyland.  We pledged to be happy 365 days a year!  We were sitting in frong of the stage where the pirates sing and they started as were were finishing our lunch.  So they were actually standing in front of us and we danced along.  They started talking to us.  As you can see in the picture above we made matching t-shirts.  You know how groups of kids wear the same thing so they're easy to identify?  That was our inspiration.  We put a picture of Mickey on the front and we made him say different things for each of us.  Randy's Mickey said, "That's what she said!" (from The Office, ya know??)  So the pirates were reading it and saying That's what she said!  on their microphones in front of everyone.  It was hilarious!

After lunch it was time for Splash Mountain!!  Danny and Michael are not in the pic.   We posed in case you couldn't tell.  Carrie wins the best face prize.  I was doing jazz hands, which don't come across very well in still life.  hehe  Amanda's just happy.  I think you can see the fear of all that water ahead in my eyes.  It was well founded too.  I got a lap full of water.  (When I get someone's picture, I'll show you!)  It was terrible.  My jeans were wet for hours.  Very uncomfortable!

Let's see, we did the Haunted Mansion (which was holiday ready with The Nightmare Before Christmas), Teacups, Winnie-the-Pooh, Honey I Shrunk the Audience (boo), Big Thunder Mountain (actually broke the first time we got to it, just was it was our turn...), the Jungle Tour, the Tiki Room, and rode around on the Pirate ship trying to get as many people to wave at us as possible (we were pretty successful!).  The Matterhorn and Small World were closed.  We watched the Fireworks, they were fantastic.  It reminded me how much I love Disney and the good old movies!  Dreams do come true!  You can do anything...believe!  Never grow up!  These are the ideals.  Fantasmic was fantastic as always!

Before the night's end we ran through and used our Fast Pass for Indiana Jones, we went on Space Mountain again, and then to Splash Mountain twice because there was no line.  Anna took some funny pictures of her and me riding Space Mountain maybe I will show one of those too.  The boys got in trouble on Splash for turning around backwards in their seats.  Naughty!  We also went on Pirates again at some point.

I had a super fun day!  I love Disneyland!  The only bad thing was that I felt like I was going to puke for several hours.  I think my lunch didn't like me.  On Sunday, the girls went to IHOP for breakfast, then we went to Downtown Disney and did some shopping.  We headed to LA to go look at the walk of stars.  Traffic was soo horrible on a Sunday afternoon we hardly spent any time there before we had to head to the airport.  Then it was back home from the sunny high 70's to the nasty rain storm that's been plaguing us all week.  (No comments about the game scores!)  What will the next trip be??