Category: hobbies

things I do in my spare time

Categories
general complaints shopping texas

yeehaw and darn tootin: driving all over town edition

I dropped the sister off at the airport in the morning, giving her plenty of time to make it through any amped up 9/11 security. And then I had the day to myself, to accomplish one thing: buy hoses, a vent, and a power cord for the washer and dryer that were being delivered the next day.

The first Best Buy I stopped at had none of the things I needed, but they directed me to a store that would have them. I put in a major shopping effort at the Target next door (I bought at least one of everything), and unloaded it all at home before venturing out again.

I found the next Best Buy, but all they had was the dryer vent. So I bought that. And then they directed me to another Best Buy.

I had asked the husband to research me a microwave, and he found one. I passed a Sears before I found the next Best Buy, so I stopped in and picked up the microwave. And also washing machine hoses, since they had them in stock.

I found the Best Buy, and they had 4-prong power cords, so I picked one up. And also washer hoses, just to be on the safe side. In case Best Buy hoses are different than Sears hoses.

Mission accomplished! Or so I thought …

Categories
food life nerdly texas travel

yeehaw and darn tootin: tourist edition

The sister had one day of fun before she had to head back home, so we went downtown to see the Alamo and the River Walk. She wanted to see the Alamo because, come on! It’s the Alamo! And the River Walk because of something about Cloak and Dagger. Which makes me wonder, why has she even seen that movie?? She was born in 1990. I’ve seen the movie about a thousand times because it was somebody’s favorite (maybe b2?), but I don’t even remember anything about it.

Even though my new home is in the boonies, we made it downtown and found a place to park in less than 30 minutes. Yay for 70 mile an hour speed limits through the heart of a city! Unless you don’t know where you’re going, then good luck to you. Just keep moving!

We wandered through the Alamo, and I recounted the story as best as I could remember. William B. Travis! Santa Anna! All the women and children hiding in one room! Nobody came to help! Everybody died! But, they slowed the Mexicans down long enough for Sam Houston to get into place and then he wiped out Santa Anna! Texas independence!!

It was early, so the river walk was pretty dead, but we found a place to eat lunch. The sister doesn’t like Mexican food, but I doubt whether she’s ever had Tex-mex. The parents were raised on Arizonan-mex, which is not the same kind of food you find in Texas at all. For one thing, Tex-mex isn’t ever a man-vs-food style heat challenge like Sonoran food often is. And another thing, Tex-mex includes chili! As someone who grew up with Sonoran-mex, that’s just blasphemous and silly. But, it is what it is. And, it’s yummy!

So, suffice it to say, we ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Because what says San Antonio like the Rainforest Cafe?! We were seated by the animatronic pandas, and decided to split the chicken parmesan. Which worked out well, as we are both tiny people with tiny appetites. Ok, so she’s a tiny person, I’m just a small one. 🙂 And I never get to split anything!

Given the fact that the Rainforest Cafe isn’t an Italian place, the chicken parmesan was surprisingly good. And we still didn’t clean our split plates! I was closer than the sister, as I’ve got 6 inches and 40 pounds on her, but it was still more food than I could eat. And I can put down an 8″ Deli like nobody’s business, so it was definitely a generous portion. No wonder America is fat.

After lunch, we hit the mall to do some shopping, and caught Batman at the IMAX theater. I had already seen it (duh), but the sister hadn’t, and she doesn’t live near any IMAX screens. So Batman it was! She liked it better than the husband did, but she, too, was bothered by the Ra’s al Ghul story not adding up. Because she reads comics. All of them. While I am conversant with many of the major characters in the major comics, she actually reads the things. It sure does make a geek girl proud. /sniff

We grabbed some Yummi Japanese on the way home, and the sister introduced me to Ramune. Which is just soda in a glass bottle. With a marble in it. And also tamago. Not only does my sister out-nerd me, she out-japaneses me, despite the fact that I have the Japanese name. Just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.

After our gyoza and sushi, we slept in the new house on air mattresses that Amazon left on the front porch for us. Despite the fact that they are 4-in-1 mattresses, they clearly only have 3 configurations: 2 twins, 1 twin, or 1 king. I guess maybe math isn’t a requirement for marketing majors?

Categories
food life texas travel

yeehaw and darn tootin: road trip edition

A few months back, the husband decided we should move to Texas. After some thought, I decided I was up to the adventure. I married a Texan; I knew the day would come when I, too, would become a Texan. I’m pretty sure it’s in the marriage vows.

And so ensued a whirlwind of activity: renting out our house, finding a rental home, finding jobs … I thought it was all supposed to be hard, but everything fell into place without too much effort. Moving is easy y’all! I think I’ll do it more often!

To get my car to our new home, we decided I’d drive down early and take care of logistics (internet and cable, really … the husband might just die without internet and cable). But I didn’t want to drive for 26 hours all by myself, so I flew my sister out. She couldn’t take a whole week off (ah, the shackles of adulthood), but she managed a long weekend for a ‘road trip’. Little did she know it was less a road trip and more just a whole lot of driving.

I quit my job early in the afternoon, hopped in the car, picked up my sister, and we were off! We managed to beat DC traffic and had ourselves a looooong drive through Virginia.

At the recommendation of a few coworkers, we stopped just shy of the Tennessee border, and called it a night. The Virginia side of the border is supposedly ‘nicer’ than the Tennessee side; I had to laugh when I looked out our hotel window and found a lumber yard. Admittedly, it was a clean and orderly lumber yard, but I was promised mansions and golf courses!

Day two took us through Tennessee, with a quick stop in Nashville for lunch (and a t-shirt), and another stop in Memphis for another t-shirt. Both Nashville and Memphis seem like happenin’ places, I’d like to go back sometime and spend more than 30 minutes there.

We stopped just past Little Rock, and the sister decided to have a swim. I had forgotten a bathing suit, so she risked the dangers all by her lonesome, and managed to not get kidnapped by hill folk. The hill folk were a bit odd (“there was a guy in the hot tub … wearing a trucker hat “), but were apparently friendly enough. They told my sister they’d “see her later,” which left her hoping they meant at breakfast the next morning. And me hoping it was just an expression that they said without thinking of the meaning behind it.

We did manage to get out of town the next morning without incident, and made it to Texas. We drove through the husband’s home town and ate some really terrible barbecue because the good place was closed. Chicken Express would have been a much better choice.

Later that night we made it to our destination, and picked up some Rudy’s. This time the sister was impressed – brisket, sliced white bread, and cream corn – and decided that Texas barbecue doesn’t suck. Which is a good thing, otherwise the husband would have had to disown her. I’m pretty sure that was in the wedding vows, too.

Categories
knitting technogeeky

my ravelry machine

This iPad thing is pretty nice, I have to admit. The only reason I ever turn my laptop on now is when I need microsoft office. Or to print something. But the printing thing will someday turn into a thing of the past, when the husband lets me buy an iPad-friendly-color-network-laser printer. 🙂

But the thing I love the mostest about my iPad? It takes me to ravelry! Which is the best social networking site to be found on the innerwebz.

Now I can take (poor quality) pictures of yarn and projects with ease from my iPad and upload them to ravelry! And when I want to upload better pictures, I can take real pictures and plop the sd card into the handy-dandy card reader I bought.

I know laptops are portable, but the iPad is super duper portable. I don’t even think twice before taking it to my yarn room for a stash-recording session. Or to the neighborhood stitch night so I have access to my patterns. Or to the basement to organize my queue while we watch tv.

There are a few features that can’t be handled on the iPad, so I’m crossing my fingers for an iPad app. None of the drag and drop works, and scrolling in a pop-up window is cumbersome, to say the least. (Keep my thumb in contact with the screen and perfectly still while scrolling with my index finger … Once my thumb moves, I’m zooming in and out on the whole screen …)

So, just for ravelry, the iPad has totally been worth it. :-). Who needs Facebook when there’s so much fun to be had on ravelry?

Categories
nerdly shopping technogeeky travel

procrastination: it pays off!

The husband and I have been planning a trip to Phoenix for months. We’ve carefully planned out our itinerary: a Star Trek Convention, an Easter Pageant, some theater (Nine), a Cowboy show, the Grand Canyon, the Phoenix Zoo,  the Arizona Science Center, and the Pueblo Grande Museum.  Do we know how to party or what?

We purchased the Star Trek tickets ages ago (priorities!), but I hadn’t booked the theater tickets or the cowboy dinner.  It was on the to-do list, but I just kept putting it off.

I signed up for the Phoenix Groupon and Living Social emails when I knew we were going to be in the area, as that strategy paid off for our trip to Vegas last year.  (Half-price Gameworks day passes and Atomic Museum tickets!)

So, what should appear in my email inbox but a Groupon for the Cowboy show!  Followed shortly by a Nine deal.  I’m still holding out for Grand Canyon, Zoo and Science center deals.  Here’s hoping I get lucky!

Categories
life technogeeky

don’t even try to out-nerd me …

I’m blogging from my doctor’s office!

Thanks to the marvel that is iPad, I can take my computing just about anywhere! Unlike the husband, I didn’t opt for the 3G version, so I assume the blog won’t update until I get back home to the safety of my wifi network. But because I’ve got the handy-dandy wordpress iPad app, it doesn’t matter that I can’t reach the internet.

My hope is that my new iPad will replace the aging laptop. So far, there’s been one ie-only website, drag-and-drop website functionality, and office docs that I’m missing out on. But that’s what the work computer is for, right?

My 15 minutes is up, I haven’t died from my allergy shot. Time to go!

Categories
fashion shopping

5’10”, baby!

oooh, strappyI’ve always been wary of heels.  There is the discomfort part.  And then there is the wobbly-walking part.  I manage to trip over my own feet when I’m walking in sensible flats; better for me to stay away from extravagant heelage.

The husband’s company party is coming up this weekend, and in an effort to not embarrass him again*, I thought it best to invest in some appropriately flashy shoes.

I sent the husband a link to JC Penney’s ‘evening’ shoes, and asked him to pick out the ones he liked.  He was immediately drawn to a pair of 4″ heeled, 1″ platformed, super strappy, painful looking shoes.  I then asked him for a backup option.

Much to my surprise, however, I found that when I tried them on at the store, I could really walk in them.  Slow to regular speed, of course – there ain’t no obstacle-course running going on in these shoes.

It does take some, uh, serious finagling to get the shoes on.  If there had been anybody watching me try them on at the store, I’m sure they would have suggested I try a larger size.  But once they are on, they fit like a glove, and hence, no wobble.  My normal instinct is to buy my shoes half a size (or more too big) for, you know, comfort, but that has generally backfired for me on my past heel purchases.  Hence my tendency to stay away from them.

Now, these shoes are not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination.  I don’t know if I’ll really be able to wear them all night at his party – I may be saved by the fact that a large portion of the time I will be sitting down.  I did manage to wear them for about 30 minutes tonight, walking up and down two flights of stairs several times, without my feet complaining to me – but now that I have them off, my ankles are quite upset with me.

Better wear the ortholites tomorrow!

*I’ve never really embarrassed him.  What he doesn’t realize is that nobody even notices what I wear to his work parties.  I bet not a one of his coworkers (nor their wives) could tell him what I wore last year.

Categories
food travel

seattle

I booked a red-eye out of Seattle for our trip home from Leavenworth, because I wasn’t sure when the rest of the family would be leaving – and also because it was really cheap.  Turns out people don’t like to spend the night in a tiny airplane seat …

With the family departing early in the day, that meant the husband and I had a long time to spare before our 11 pm flight.  So we spent the day in Seattle!

I know I’m from Washington state and all, but I’ve never really spent much time in Seattle.  With this latest adventure, that brings me to 4 whole days in the city. 🙂

On our way to Seattle, we stopped at Jack in the Box for lunch.  I miss that place.  I don’t understand why there aren’t any in Virginia.  🙁  If one ever opens in the northern Virginia area, I think it’s safe to say that the husband and I will single-handedly keep it in business …

Once we reached the city, we parked by the waterfront, and made our way to the Aquarium.  There were a lot of people out and about, and the aquarium was no exception.  We did get to see the feeding of the sea otters and the seals (or sea lions?  I always get them mixed up …), which is always fun.

After the aquarium, we wandered up to Pike’s place market.  And I mean UP.  Unfortunately, it was ridiculously crowded, so we didn’t stick around to do any shopping.  We watched the fish guys holler at each other for awhile, but there wasn’t much throwing going on, so we left.

We stumbled across the BEST chocolate chip cookies ever.  The signage was a little disturbing – it’s a cookie masquerading as a cow-pie in a field – but we took the plunge.  And it was oh so yummy!  And the best part is … they deliver!  I haven’t ordered any yet – they are a tad expensive, especially when you add the shipping in – but I have a feeling I will some day.

Next up was the Ducks tour, but they were sold out.  Never underestimate the draw of the amphibious vehicle tour …

So we ended up across the street at the Experience the Music Project/Sci-fi Museum.  Everybody (b2, the husband’s work buddies) kept telling us to hit EMP, but it was actually the sci-fi part that got us in the door.  They have a great exhibit of sci-fi goodies: comic books, star trek props, star wars props, a fan-made borg costume (looked better than a lot of the real stuff, IMO), and an animatronic teenage mutant ninja turtle!

After we were done with that, we hit the EMP.  It was a lot of interactive stuff that we passed on, but I think if we had been in the mood, it would have been a lot of fun to lay down our own tracks and shoot a music video.

After that, we made our way to the airport, turned in the car, and tried to check in.  Except we couldn’t because the ticket counter was closed.  And the auto-checkin machines were turned off.  We were, admittedly, a little early, but if we’d have known we’d be sitting in front of the ticket counter for an hour, we might have laid down some tracks.  Or at least found one last Jack in the Box …

Once we checked in, we went through security.  As is expected when you fly.  It’s the place where you remove your jackets, belts and shoes.  And remove your laptop from it’s case.  And empty the change and keys from your pockets.  And put your 3 oz bottles of liquids and gels in a 1-quart ziploc bag in a bin such that it is visible to the security folks.

I know the drill.  The husband knows the drill.  Everybody who flies out of Dulles knows the drill.  And thus I am spoiled and shocked when I encounter people who do not know the drill.

We were behind one man who had to go through again because he didn’t empty his pockets.  And he GRUMBLED as he put his handfuls of change in a bowl.  Seriously?  Dude, you are walking through a METAL detector.  It detects METAL.  Like that $4 in change you just put in the bowl.  Metal detectors are not new at airports, they were there even before the 9/11 craziness started.  It’s not like they suddenly changed the rules on him.  If he’s flown at all in the last 20 years (that’s when my flying experience started, so I can’t vouch for before that), then he’s been through a metal detector.  Where he’s had to empty his pockets.

We were behind another gentleman who had trouble with the ‘remove your belt’ thing.  He removed his belt, but then proceeded to walk through the metal detector with it IN HIS HANDS.  Um, sir – they asked you to remove it so you could put it in a bin and NOT set off the detector …

And, lastly, a young man who was insistent that if he removed his belt, his pants would fall off.  Which was true, but the TSA gentleman had a suggestion for him:  HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS until you get your belt back on.  Which he finally did.

Everything else was uneventful, thankfully, and we made it safely back home.

Categories
shopping travel

leavenworth

Early this year, the dad and I plotted and schemed a vacation that would be a little more fun than just sitting around the hometown.  The husband and I only visit my family once a year (if that), so I wanted it to be, well, fun and exciting!  And the dad loves travel as much as I do, so he was easy to convince.  🙂

The dad suggested Leavenworth, a charming little Bavarian village 2 hours east of Seattle.  It’s all decorated in ‘ye olde’ Germanic style (even the McDonalds!), and it exists strictly for the sake of tourism.  Which means you should totally visit!  They need your money …

He found a house to rent, just outside of town.  With 4 bedrooms, a loft, and 3 bathrooms, it was perfect for our family-reunion needs.  There was no cell phone service and no GPS lock at the house due to the towering mountains on either side, but the location could not have been more gorgeous.  The lake and mountain view were amazing.  Having been out of the Pacific Northwest for the last 10 years, I now have a better appreciation for its beauty.

We saw wildlife, kayakers, and gondola-surfers glide by on the lake every day.  The department of fish and wildlife stopped by one morning with their scuba gear to check on things in the lake. I watched people scuba dive!  In a frigid mountain lake!

And the weather!  The weather was perfect.  I was a little wary, as we went in August, and Seattle had quite the heat wave right before we headed out.  But, once we arrived, the heat wave crashed and we had lovely 60-70 degree days.

Leavenworth is a ski village in the winter, but in the summer, they have a theater festival.  The mom got us all tickets to the three plays they put on this summer, so every evening, we had a show to see.

The first night was Singin’ in the Rain.  It was on a lovely outdoor stage – complete with rain effects (probably unneeded on many nights …) and a gently sloping hill for natural theater-seating for the audience.  We parked at a fish hatchery and walked through the fish hatchery grounds to get to it – so I suppose those are some very entertained fish.  Verdict: good play!  Liked all the leads.

The next night was Pirates of Penzance.  I was most excited about that play, because all I knew about it was the Ray Stevens’ song.  Unfortunately, the husband and I had skipped our afternoon nap that day (which is vital if you live on the east coast and are visiting the west coast), so the old, british, comic opera was a little lost on us.  The actors did their job, but watching a 130 year old commentary on 130 year old times meant, well, that we missed a lot. Verdict: meh, but mostly because I had no background on the play before going into it, and I was fighting sleep for the last 40 minutes.

The last night was their showcase play, Sound of Music.  They do it every year in a wonderful hilltop theater – so the hills are literally alive with the sound of music.  It’s quite a hike to get up to the amphitheater, but once you do, it’s well worth it.  They had some set changes that seemed unnecessary (2 minutes to change the set for a 3 minute scene), and there was a snafu where a nazi flag was left up after a set change.  Overall, though, it was their best play.  Verdict: if you only see one, see this one!  Oh, and be sure to bring a jacket.  Once the sun goes down, it gets cooooold up on that mountain, even in August.

So that’s the night-time review …

During the day, we took it easy with eating, b3 baked all manner of yumminess, and playing card games.  Oh, and the shopping in town!  They have toy stores, a crazy hat store, candy shops, ice cream shops, more candy shops, gift shops, tourist-souvenir shops, and a nutcracker store.  I bought a pound of fudge at the. best. fudge. place. EVER.  I’m thinking of joining their fudge of the month club … The sister bought a caramel apple at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  We are sooooo related.  🙂

I tried really hard to buy something from the yarn store, but every time I went, they were closed!  I tried first on Wednesday, which happens to be when they are normally closed.  So I headed back on Friday, just to find a note taped on the door to let me know they decided to close for the day.  After some pouting (on my part), the mom convinced me that the quilt store around the corner had a small yarn selection, so we headed that way.  I picked out some lovely (but expensive!) lorna’s laces sock yarn, that the sister said looked like ‘Jayne’s hat colors’.  And I’ve just finished her socks!  The heels turned out a little tight (it’s the first time I’ve done that particular kind of heel), but maybe some blocking will help.  I’ve never blocked socks before, so this could be an adventure …

I highly recommend a trip to Leavenworth for a laid-back touristy fun visit.  It is obvious that everything is done for the sake of tourism, but that doesn’t make it less fun.  The one downside is finding parking in town, but once you get parked, let the shopping begin!  (mmmmmm, fudge ….)

Categories
travel

home again!

I’ll write up a proper review once I adjust back to this time zone, but for now, pics are up!  I’ll also trim down the gallery a bit, for now I just removed the really blurry pics.