Jericho

I missed the first episode, but picked up the second episode. This appears to be the ideal drama for paranoid me. A bunch of people trying to survive after a nuclear attack, what could be better?

Well, Heroes could be better, but Jericho is plenty exicting, too. Enough so that when the DVR announced a conflict between Jericho and Bones, I promptly canceled Bones.

.. and on a side note, either Livvy or Anna needs to come by and visit with their nephew this weekend. They may bring a friend, and expect dinner. They just have to ping me tomorrow and let me know who, when, etc.

... and I quote "Boo Freaking Hoo"

The Washington Post has an article up today about how states and counties are starting to enforce immigration laws. As per usual, the reporter supplies a "sympathetic" person for the story, the poor illegal immigrant caught up in this vicious and racist program. This is the best they can do?

Among those snared earlier this month was Guadalupe Lara, an 18-year-old Mexican carpenter.

The fifth of eight children born to farmworkers in Queretaro, he walked across the border when he was 16 to find work. Two years later, he has only a wispy beard and stands 5-foot-3.

He makes $7.50 an hour and lives with four others in a small, sparsely furnished apartment. Though they lack beds, they have a television on which Lara watches his favorite telenovela, "Heridas de Amor." He sends money home monthly and calls home every week.

"It's difficult," he said in Spanish. "When I call they say 'How are you?' I say 'I am fine.' " On Monday night, Lara was pulled over by police after buying a pack of cigarettes. He was not drunk but had an open bottle of beer in the car. He also lacked a license. He was arrested and when asked admitted he had no papers.

So this guy was driving without a license, with an open container of beer, under age, and in the country illegally, and we're supposed to feel sorry for him? Sheesh.

HEROES

Uhm...I just wanted to say, that if you didn't watch "Heroes" tonight, then YOU TOTALLY MISSED OUT. That show was fucking AWESOME. I just finished it (dvr--I love it), and seriously, I had the shivers the entire show. My eyes are still bugging out of my head. BEST SHOW EVER!!!! Well, the pilot was anyways. I'll save it in case anyone missed it. Let me know!!! CAUSE IT ROCKED!!!!

Little Victories!!!

Hmmm. I wanted to get this documented and spread around before I forgot about it.

I BEAT NICK IN SCRABBLE!!!!

The score was 163 to 170 and the entire game Nick was in the lead. I had to listen to him boast about how he always won, and how he had been known to stop games of Scrabble due to his incredible board strategy. And then...when we were down to the last letters, I pushed ahead and came out on top. HUGE!

And I just thought that you all would want to know that!!!!

CHEERS!!

Not much to say except I HATE IT!!!

I HATE IT!!!

I'm sorry, but this is starting to piss me off. It's not attractive and I'm insanely confused as to why this particular fashion is even coming back into style! Not to mention, most women can't even pull it off because it's horribly unflattering. Even the model in this picture, looks ridiculous. Her hips extend farther out than the waistband of her jeans!!!! Why, they are using this picture as an advertisement is beyond me. It's just plain ugly.

So, that is all I have to say about that.

Area Woman Disappears Once Wed

Police are on the lookout for Alicia Salanick, formerly Alicia Bilby. She was last seen making a run for it with an armload of wedding presents, and has not been heard from nor seen since. Reached for comment, her sisters expressed bewilderment and confusion over the complete lack of word from Alicia since she returned from her honeymoon.

"It's like she forgot she has sisters," said Olivia, one of Alicia's abandoned sisters. "The twit hasn't even bothered posting a link to the wedding pictures she had taken. She gave it to dad, but couldn't be troubled to let us know."

"She was in such a rush to leave us all behind, she didn't even bother getting her wedding cake out of my freezer," said Celeste. "I'm thinking of feeding it to the cats. That'll show her!"

"Eh, who cares?" said Orianna. "If she isn't gonna take the time to even post on the blog she created so that we could all ostensibly keep in touch, she can just bite me. I've got my other sisters at least."

Alicia's sisters are requesting that you kick her in the shins if you actually get lucky enough to spot the elusive bride.

The First Supper

Mark your calendars, girls! Today, September 24, 2006 at 9:30AM, Roy had his very first meal. About two tablespoons of Gerber Rice Cereal mixed with mommy's milk. No spitting up, no icky faces, and no trouble figuring out how to use his tongue to move it to the back of his throat so he could swallow. He ate it all, just like a pro!

The Boobie-Nazis

There have been a spate of recent articles about offended breast-feeding moms being denied their right to breast-feed their child anywhere, at any time. In response they've been organizing mass nurse-ins, where militant breast-feeding moms will all appear at a site that has pissed them off, and proceed to nurse en-masse. That's not nearly as titillating as it might sound, especially considering how many of us are still struggling to lose weight after we've had the kiddo. And honestly, I feel more like a dairy-cow than some sort of fertility goddess when I'm feeding Roy. That doesn't make feeding him any less satisfying, but so is taking a good shit, and I'm not gonna drop trou in the middle of the store to do that either.

I'm all for the right to feed your child anywhere, and given a choice between letting Roy scream, or plopping down on the floor of a department store and letting other shoppers thread their way around me in the aisle while I feed him, I'll sit on the floor of that store - no matter how dirty it is. But the options are rarely as stark as that. Before I whip out the tit, I'll collar an employee and ask to use a dressing room, or a break room, or the manager's office. I have yet to encounter someone who, when presented with my dilemma, will refuse to find a way to help me out.

So it makes me wonder what compels these women to engage in displays like this. Yes, breast-feeding is natural, and its nothing to be ashamed of. But there's nothing particulary special or impressive about it. And the floor of a store, even if your back is up against a wall, is possibly the least comfortable position I can think of for feeding your child, save standing upright, and in my experience, outside stimuli makes it that much harder for the baby to actually settle down and eat. Not to mention that even as un-sexy as breastfeeding is, there are still creepy types that are going to stare intently at any portion of boob you expose, and as far as I'm concerned, when you feed in front of other people, you take that risk. I can only surmise that the women doing this are making a political statement - and I just don't believe in playing politics with an infant.

Step 3: Profit!

The absolute worst thing about the job is that the marketing and product people never bother to actually fucking plan their shit out. Or, they'll plan it out, but they'll neglect to tell anyone who actually has to implement the plan until the day before. Bastards.

So now Russ has to work until god knows when on a Friday night because the massive mixed-media promotional deal that the company has had in the works for god knows how many months is set to launch, and they only just NOW thought to themselves, "Hmmm, we might actually need some servers for this." Oh come ON! You nitwits have been hyping this promotion as the biggest thing coming for the company for months now, and you only just thought to add server space? My husband (and countless others) gets to work a 16 hour day today because you assholes are too fucking dumb to plan your way out of a walk-in closet.

I feel like I work for a company running the underpants gnomes business plan.

Stolen Thunder

So I was totally planning on blogging about the Covenant, but Livvy yanked the glory rug right out from under me! Thankfully she focused more on the intense homo-eroticism that colored 90% of the scenes. It was like watching a boy band vanity project. For real; there was the bad boy skater, the bad boy biker, the one no one cares about (the Joey Fatone if you will), and the charismatic lead. For those of you who saw Sky High you might remember the charismatic lead as . . . um . . . the boy who had the fire power; antagonist turned ally? Anyone remember his name?

My favorite part of the movie was probably that they played Zombie's "More Human Than Human" over the opening credits. Livvy and I turned to each other and shared a "this movie already kicks so much ass" moment. I was also tickled pink when Livvy turned to me eyes wide and aglitter and chirped "there's a dance too?!" Yes kiddies, there was a dance too. There was also a beautiful (tatted up little tart) blonde who falls into an enchanted sleep. I was not sure why she was there, cause all the male leads were queer, but she was cute to look at.

In summation, this was without a doubt the best movie of the year. I fail to see how anything could possibly top it . . . then again . . . I haven't seen the Dukes of Hazzard sequel yet.

Haircut & Movie

Quick Update: I dyed my hair and got side bangs!!! If you haven't seen it yet, then you'll just have to wait I guess. I don't have any pictures and even if I did, I'm way to busy to upload them to the computer. School and work are sucking up all of my free time. I had to work this weekend and squeeze in class work and exercise...poo poo.

Anywho...CELESTE, way to never respond about going to see the Covenant. It was FAN-FREAKIN'-TASTIC, by the way. So weird though, cause there was more gayness in it that naked girls. The camera guy was obviously in love with the WAY hot guys they got to play the four main characters. Me and Anna LOVED it. It was JUST like one of those teenage novels we like to read. Dad of course thought it was dumb, but that was probably because there was so much gayness in it. There was an entire naked all male locker room / shower scene in the movie AND at one point, I joked to Anna "I bet they're going to kiss now!" AND then they totally did (two guys)!! It was awesome and I totally recommend it to EVERYONE!!!

Anywho, just thought I'd send a quick update on what was up. Hopefully I'll see everyone soon. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

MSN Messenger is the coolest

MSN Messenger has a feature that allows you to switch between regular typing and "handwriting" mode. I once told a coworker how hilarious it is to be innocently talking to someone and then send a handwritten




He immediately got on it like white on rice. I'm not sure why he wasn't working, but Monday yielded the following masterpieces;

Roy Gets His First Lesson On Sharing

... and he doesn't even have a little sister yet!

Missing Sleep

Being a full-time mommy and a full-time employee is hard. Breast-feeding makes it especially hard. Even if Russ conspires to let me sleep in and wakes up early to make a bottle so baby doesn't wake you up, I still wake up because the absolute maximum time I can go between feedings is 8 hours, and that's only if the baby ate especially well right before he went to sleep. Better to just wake up the baby, feed him myself and hope he goes back to sleep so I can. But by the time the baby's done feeding I'm wide awake and hungry, and I've got so much crap to do I can't go back to sleep... I figure I'll take a nap later in the afternoon. And of course, one thing or another conspires to ensure that almost never happens. I figure of two or three hours of sleep I'm losing each night, I manage to make up for maybe three of them on the weekends.

Juggling work and the baby himself isn't a problem. He naps a lot during the early part of the day, and otherwise has enough toys to amuse himself or is content to sit on my lap and watch the screen on the computer. I'll just run music and sing to him and play with his little toes while I'm waiting for scripts to run, and I try to time my conference calls to when he's either napping, or eating. But the lack of sleep means I'm having trouble concentrating by 5 and I'll frequently start to drift off to sleep any time I sit still for more than 5 minutes by 7. Of course, other than feeding the baby, I don't get much time to sit still after 7 - we still haven't had dinner yet, and I frequently end up sacrificing my lunch break to floor time with the kiddo, so I'm starving by 7. The baby doesn't normally go to sleep until 11 - although we start trying by 9 - so there's a couple of hours before I can go to bed and I'm like the walking dead I'm so tired. I've drifted off to sleep sitting upright on the couch while I'm trying to get Roy to go to sleep, only to wake up at 2 in the morning because Roy wakes up again. The other night, Roy kept waking up, and by the time I finally got him down to sleep, I crawled into bed only to have the alarm go off 5 minutes later.

His one year birthday is going to be a much bigger day for me than it is for him, because I'll finally get to wean him. But despite all the whining about wanting sleep, I am getting this in exchange, so it's totally worth it:

Eat your heart out Alicia Bilby!

So, I know this post is all about me, but I'm like totally excited for myself. Yesterday, I ran a mile in 10 minutes and 15 seconds. I finished up my 2 mile run in 22 minutes and 30 seconds. Isn't that good? I totally couldn't breather afterwards and think that I should probably go to a doctor and get another prescription for albuterol, but aside from that, I think I did really good. Also, I am now able to bench press 50 lbs. I started out at 40, so I am improving overall! YAY! And to top it all off, I think that my ass is looking slightly nicer in jeans - although that could just be a reflection of my vanity. Not sure.

On another note, Nick is getting his very first tattoo on August 19th. It will cover 1/2 - 3/4 of his back. It's a satyre and his brother drew it and it looks totally, friggin' awesome! It won't be completely done until later this year though because Nick will have to sit 2 times to get the whole thing since it's so big, but still...I think I'm more excited about it than Nick is. Or at least I express my excitement more. Anywho, CHEERS!!

I'm a sucker for a pretty face!

Some of you may remember an incident that occurred when I was living with Dad. A cute little teenage boy came to the door raising "points" toward a post graduation trip to Europe. I listened to him for ten minutes getting more and more agitated then finally when I could get a word in edgewise said "If I give you $20 bucks will you go away?" So I did and he did and it was awesome, but not cheap.

I did it again. *sigh*

I was eating lunch (a salad with no less then 1000 cals) when someone knocked on my door. Lo and behold it was an incredibly cute little boy. I say little, but he totally hit on me and he was totally legal and I totally could have hit it, but I didn't so let's not go there. Anyway, after telling me how cool I was no less than three times, taking off his shirt, and expressing shock when I revealed I was single, he left with $54.50. Bright side, if it wasn't a complete scam some little kid shacked up at the Children's Hospital in D.C. will be reading a Disney magazine courtesy of me.

-I didn't take a picture of the little salesman, so instead I'm posting one of me and Alison's little brother. Someone who is also totally adorable and too young for me.

Hanging out with Dad

Last night (Sunday), me and Anna went over to Dad's for dinner and a movie. We saw Miami Vice, which I thought was surprisingly good, despite the fact that there was absolutely no comedic relief what-so-ever throughout the entire movie - except for the scene where Jamie Foxx pretends to prematurely ejaculate during intercourse with his on screen whore, which occurred within the first 20 minutes of the movie. Miami Vice was stock full of drama and very soap operish. I really enjoyed it; I especially enjoyed me and Anna's out of place comments that forced us to cackle, no fewer than 4 times during the movie.

After the movie all three of us went to chipoltle, where me and Dad embarassed Anna by loudly commenting on the queer male with the rose tattoo, clearly visible on his neck, standing in front of us while we were waiting to order. Overall dinner was ok, but I was really annoyed by the loitering teenage males sitting accross from us, with there one female whore (which Dad felt the need to point out to us). But, to make up for it, at the end of dinner Dad declared that he was completely stuffed and then proceeded to chow down on a basket full of chips which he dipped into Anna's left over burrito. Thoroughly shocking, completely surprising and very funny all at the same time. Who ever would have guessed that dad would eat someone else's leftovers?

Although the entire evening was lots of fun, I think the funniest part of the night was before we even left for the movie, when out of the blue, Dad called Anna a "milk toast" because she starts to blubber and cry whenever anyone says anything mean to her! LOL. Anna's overt protesting and refusal to drop the subject in response to this little bit of fact that Dad threw out there, made the comment all that much funnier.

Fiasco

Yesterday was the longest I'd ever been away from Roy. My team had their big install for our launch yesterday, and the CTO got it into her head that the best way to make sure everyone had their full attention on it was to make all of us sit in one big room for the install. It was like one of those japanese dev sweatshops. Something like 30 people stuffed into a conference room with their laptops out.

The install went without a hitch, actually.... it was trying to get around being a breastfeeding mom while I was at the install that was a disaster.

The company has 'mother's rooms' for those of us who aren't trying to feed our babies with formula, and they're actually pretty nice. Curtained booths with comfy chairs, and they even have hospital grade pumps if you have your own accessories for them. The are not, however, set up for visiting employees, and since I was there for only the day, it was a complete mess.

The first time I tried to use the mother's room in CC3, it was no problem. Swung by the receptionist's desk, made sure there wasn't anyone who currently had the room reserved, went upstairs, slipped in and took care of business without a problem. However, two and a half hours later, I needed to go back, and when I returned, I encountered issues. It turns out the mother's rooms are supposed to be kept locked, and it was a fluke that I got in there without a key. So I had to go back to the receptionist's desk and ask for a key.

Problem one: the keys aren't kept with the receptionist, they're signed out permanently, and you have to go over to the fitness center at CC5 to get one. So I walked over to CC5 to see about getting a key. By this time I'd started to leak.

Problem two: the attendant obviously had never had to deal with breastfeeding before, because her first response was "Why don't you just use the locker room?" Well, that would be because I'm not too keen on hooking myself up to a contraption when anyone walking in can see what I'm doing. Breast-pumps are just kind of embarassing, not to mention that I wasn't looking forward to the idea of sitting on a hard bench for half an hour while I did the deed. So I refused, and she agreed to sign a key out to me.

Problem three: she didn't have any keys for CC3. So I asked for, and received a key for CC5. But when I went upstairs in CC5, the key didn't work. Couldn't get the door open, and by this time I was leaking badly, and pretty frustrated. So I went back downstairs, gave the inoperable key back to the attendant and told her to forget it, I'd just go find a huddle room or something. Trudged on back to CC3, and back to the conference room, and asked one of the other women who was working on the install if she knew of any huddle rooms nearby. Her suggestion was that I just use a bathroom stall - obviously, she'd never had to deal with pumping milk either. Like I was going to sit on a toilet with no seat back for half an hour while any woman walking in would get to hear the pump operating and wonder what the hell I was doing, not to mention that's not the most sanitary idea either. By this time I was pretty upset, and it was obvious, so she pointed me to a video editing room that wasn't in use behind the conference room we were staying in. I was leaking badly, humiliated, and nearly in tears, so I slipped into the editing room and tried to do my job. No real luck - wasn't comfortable, and was just so upset, I couldn't really pump.

So I gave up, went outside for a cigarette to calm down, and then said to hell with it and went back into the conference room, praying that install would finish soon enough that I could just go home and feed the baby properly.

Well my boss noticed I was upset, and he took me outside and found out what the problem was, and he handled it for me. Went to the receptionist, got facilities on the phone, and when that didn't work, got security and told them to get the mother's room unlocked. It took two tries, because the twits in security changed shifts, and didn't bother letting the new person on the shift know that I needed to have the room unlocked, but finally, two hours after I'd started looking for a way to get back into the room, they finally got it unlocked for me, and I was able to go in and relieve some of the pain I was in. Did I ever mention how painful engorgement is?

By the time I was done, the install was just about complete, and 15 minutes later we were released and I was able to get back to the truck and just go home. Exhausted, embarrassed, and missing my baby so bad, I was amazed I didn't just lose it in traffic on the way home.

But at least the install went off perfectly, and I wasn't going to have to repeat the process and go back up to Dulles today. And dad and baby did just fine without me, since I had a good supply stocked up in the freezer. I sure was grateful to get home though. Next time I have to go to Dulles, I'm going to make sure they have a key for the mother's room in the building I'll be in waiting for me at reception, and I'm going to refuse to go until they do.

Oh, and did I mention it had been so long since I had been on campus that my badge had expired, and I couldn't get through the front gate without a call to security? What a day.

FUN WITH LISSA AND MIKE IN FL!!!

We all had a fantastic time visiting with Lissa and Mike in Florida. Thanks for putting up with us you two!!!
These pictures are by popular request. ENJOY!!!

This better be the last picture!
Little did they know that it WASN'T!!!

Teaching Mommy A Lesson

Hey Girls.... You wouldn't believe the burn I put on mommy today. She had a really important end to end test demo that she had to do, and it was supposed to start at 11am, and kept on getting pushed back further and further. It was past 3pm before they finally got started. I found that really annoying, so to express my displeasure, I laid in wait and pretended to be napping until mommy was right in the middle of her presentation and then I started screaming.

Ain't I a stinker? I got her good!

You should have seen her scrambling, trying to calm me down and carry on with her dumb old presentation at the same time. I thought her head was going to spin completely around. It was hilarious.

Anyway, I know y'all were just dying to see another shot of me, so here's my latest pose for the camera, from our photo shoot last night. Does the camera just love me or what?