An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I decided to ride with Annette on Thursday night as we left the Oasis after dinner. I thought it would be nice to give her some company. We followed the Captain as he headed to Cholla Bay. We were chatting and driving and, as we got to one of the roundabouts near the hotels, there were flashing lights and the cops pulling the Captain over in front of us. Annette wanted to make sure they were real cops (there are some guys down there that try to shake down the touristas) so she pulled in behind the cop truck. There were three cops and one came back to us right away to tell us we needed to move ahead of the Captain's car. I can understand why they wouldn't be comfortable with their backs to us. Annette checked out his badge (they wear them around their necks) to see he was the real deal then she started sweet talking. "Why did you pull him over? I'm a vecino (homeowner for my gringo audience) and he's my guest." The cop said, "For running the stop sig...

Fool: A Novel by Christopher Moore My review rating: 5 of 5 stars I find myself in every Moore book thinking, "Man, I wish I could write as cleverly and entertainingly as this guy." Fool was no exception. Laught out loud funny, skewed version of King Lear told by the Fool. My faint memory of Lear (I read it in college) was enough to keep me in the story and Moore made it his own with lots of "that wasn't in the play and I don't care because this is better" moments. Wonderful book! View all my reviews.

We have some traditional drinks while in Mexico. The girls always have Mimosas for breakfast, everyone has their favorite beer and the boys sip Tequila (shudder). Unruly Julie bought 3 bottles of Champagne for our trip. Consider that there are three girls and we were there for five breakfasts. That's not enough. However, The Captain thought she bought too much and gave her a hard time about it. It got worse when we got there and Annette said she had four bottles for a total of seven. That's getting to about the right number in my book. Annette asked The Rocket Scientist to open the first bottle for our Mimosas. Apparently, he clinked the bottle ever so gently on the counter first and it was enough to make the Champagne overflow. He just stood and watched as 1/3 of the bottle spread all over the counter. Alcohol abuse - it's not pretty. Blocking up the spout with his hand would have worked. Or, maybe pouring into the three glasses sitting in front of him. Or, gods forbid, ma...

There's a running joke about what time (and even what day) we will leave for our Mexico trips. While I sometimes get asked my opinion, it matters not because the Captain changes the time and it's just lucky for me that The Rocket Scientist thinks to let me know. TRS said they were picking him up at 3 PM on Thursday. I waited until Thursday morning to start packing but I only had to put my curling iron and blow dryer in my bag to be ready so I didn't need much time after I got home to be ready. After getting antsy at work, I decided to bail out about 1:45 and head to Dress Barn. I need (OK, want) to get some cute stuff for my next weekend of travel. $105 and 30 minutes later, I had two pairs of shorts, pair of capris, new top and a light weight denim jacket that is perfect for the beach. Sweet! That left me with plenty of time to get home, finish up my packing and impatiently wait. I spend that time texting TRS "how about now" several times (which I started about 1...

I just hope George doesn't forget me while I'm gone... It's coming up on that time of year when I am frequently out of town. Some people might think I've gone out of a town a lot already this year but the big stuff is just starting. The Rocket Scientist, Unruly Julie and the Pirate Captain and I are leaving tomorrow (allegedly at 3 PM) for Rocky Point and Annette's house. We're coming back on Tuesday to avoid the Memorial Day border crossing delays. Then, it's back to work for a whole 1 3/4 days. Dawnie and I are headed to LA come Thursday afternoon, returning home on Monday night. Originally, the plan was to go on the Bob Karwin cruise but that got postponed. Not until after Dawnie and I bought our airfare, though. It was going to cost us $150 each to switch to somewhere else so we decided to spend a long weekend at Hermosa Beach. The cool thing is that Tracy, Scott and Rachel are going over the same weekend so we'll have some homies with us. ...

A Frozen Woman by Annie Ernaux My review rating: 1 of 5 stars This was a book club selection and not of my choosing. Our selector this month found it on a list of Motherhood books. Yeah, bad Mothers, maybe. I had to keep reminding myself that Ernaux was born in 1940 and her tales of marriage are from France in the early 1960s. Oh, and that the book is translated from French so who knows how much nuance was lost? Despite the reminders, I just couldn't relate to Ernaux at all. Her parents encouraged her to pursue a career but she wanders through school and doesn't apply herself. She marries young while barely knowing the guy and ends up trapped at home with a baby. Trapped is how she felt; that's not my description. Then, when her first son is just getting into school, she chooses to have another kid. Huh? Our group was divided in their feelings. A few really liked the book (even with its trapped tales of woe). A few agreed with me in that they just didn't dig it. I ...

Buffett at Cricket 2009

I spent a lot of DVR time this weekend... Fringe: Good stuff in that ending. Alternative universe with Leonard Nimoy . How can you top that? And, Peter is stolen from there? Hmmm . Looking forward to next season. I'm even warming up to Anna Torv and that's saying a lot. Dollhouse: After hanging on through some uninspired episodes, my patience was rewarded at the end of the season. Great reveals on Alpha and Dr. Saunders. Nice moment with Ballard and Melly. Neat way to tie Ballard into the Dollhouse. And Wash! It's so good to see Wash! Castle: I kept with this show because of Nathan Fillion . I would watch him in anything because he's that magnetic. The show built up steam and the cliff hanger at the end about Beckett's Mother's death is making me look forward to next year. Lost: WTF ? And, that is a good thing. Last season was weak but this one came back with lots of information, action and intrigue. I CANNOT wait for next season. Lie To Me...

I guess it was only a matter of time. After mocking my friends for being addicted to answering their emails and texts on their phones, I've actually become worse than they are. Oy vey . Here's what I can do with my phone despite not having web access on it: Update my Facebook status. Get notifications of others' statuses. Reply to and see comments on statuses, links and pictures. Upload pictures to my FB wall. Tweet. Get tweets from people I'm following. Create a blog post here. It's crazy how wired in I am and how addicting it all is. Now, I'm the one being mocked for my incessant phone use. I can't help myself. This social networking thing is crack to a social butterfly. I love being able to keep track of stuff while I'm out and about. Even though I know it's sometimes annoying to those I'm with. Sorry about that...I am an addict. BTW, if you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm az 48fan. I just started there and I'm not followin...

Undead and Uneasy by MaryJanice Davidson My review rating: 3 of 5 stars The books in this series are an easy read and entertaining. This one finds Betsy about to get married only her fiancee is missing and her friends have also left the coop. Betsy meets up with the Werewolves and has to solve the mystery on her own. Reading this was a nice way to spend an evening. View all my reviews.

I know people are quite used to seeing me with The Rocket Scientist in tow. It's VERY obvious when he's not around and I get the questions, "Where's TRS ?" I try not to let myself think they only want to see him and I'm now their second choice. Last night at Buffett , I should have kept track of how many people asked where he was. It was many. "Away fishing" was the answer and then the follow up question came. "You're driving yourself?" That was said in a tone of amazement. See, I'm also pretty used to people (especially TRS ) thinking I need him to be my driver and that I'm somehow lost without him. What do they think; that I can't find my way home? Yet, somehow, I managed to get myself to Buffett and home again without incident. Inconceivable! BTW, the funniest question I got last night was "Where's your husband?" I said, "I don't have a husband, he's my Not Boyfriend and he's fishi...

I was sitting in my office at 5:3o tonight when, pop, all of the lights went out. The only thing emitting light was my monitor because my machine is on its own UPS. The emergency lighting didn't even turn on. We gave it a few minutes then headed to the server room to see what servers were still up. Of course, there was no light in that room, either. We checked that everything looked to be still up and running on the UPSs in there. I got on the horn to our DBA , Unix Admin and Network Admin. While I was trying to get them up to speed, I got lots of text messages from the Big Kahuna and Sugar Daddy about the outage. Lots of multitasking going on. Our two main buildings were both out and there were lots of employees milling around. The power came back on for a few seconds then was out again. And, stayed out. OK, here's the deal. Our office is right by the airport. Two gridded areas went out at about the same time that President Obama was scheduled to land. He was the s...

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell My review rating: 4 of 5 stars The material in this book has been quoted so often that I wasn't sure that I actually hadn't read it before. It took a couple of chapters before I was sure I had not. Very interesting discussion on what leads to success. Is it IQ, natural ability, nature, nurture...? Great stories for the examples - both success and failures - illustrate the answer. Turns out, it's luck and effort. Luck comes in to play to provide opportunity for the effort. It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert and a person has to be lucky enough to have the resources to put in those hours. View all my reviews.

So, apparently my friend Tracy the Overachiever was in Costco and saw a Jell-O cookbook. This is the woman who made 9 (10?) different Jell-O shots for our Jell-O Shot Express contest so, of course, she had to check it out. She bought it just for one recipe. In honor of some of us going over to their house on Saturday, Rachel and Tracy made said recipe. Sans alcohol which is not so like us but Rachel is only 10 1/2 so it was appropriate. Blueberry Jell-O is the pool, Cool Whip is the white, Fruit Roll Ups are the towels (Rachel's idea), Lifesavers are, well, lifesavers and there are little Teddy Graham guys enjoying the graham cracker diving board. Here's the final version with beach umbrellas. The side directions are mini-Oreo cookies. It was delightful but more work than I would have undertaken. But, then again, I'm not an Overachiever.

I signed up for a PetSmart card when I got George. They asked about my pet and her birthday as part of the process. I've gotten some percentage off coupons and whatnot but they sent her one for her birthday which was pretty generous. One cat toy up to a $10 value. Free gift! And, I didn't even need to make a purchase to get it. So, off I went to get the baby a present. I found a dozen catnip meeces for her to add to the four or five dozen she already has, gotten bored with and hid. She was also short on cat food so I went cruising down the aisle looking for Purina. Hey, it was good enough from my childhood cat and it's cheap. I never made it to Purina, though. The Science Diet chick was standing there and pounced on me. Well, nicely pounced on me. She asked what I was looking for, if my cat had any issues like hairballs or UTI incidents and I replied with a negative. That stopped her spiel briefly but then she started in on how much better their food is to prev...

I had to test out the new camera so what better of a subject than the baby? This was taken just as she was ready to jump up at the camera strap. They are irresistible to her. This is George in mid-leap. It was too much for the Image Stabilizer though it did pretty good considering how fast she was moving. She's so cute! I just want to hug her and pet her and squeeze her... Oh, and make smoochy kisses on her head because she hates that.

I was trying to get some pictures off my camera and it kept disconnecting. I tried two different ports on my computer but it still didn't work. However, when I took the memory card out and put it in my computer, the card was good and the pictures came off without issue. That means it was either the cable or the camera. I didn't care. I wanted a new camera and this was just the excuse I needed. The Rocket Scientist asked me if I wanted to consult with Sugar Daddy about whether I needed a new one and I said I wasn't asking him a frakking thing. There was no way I was letting him talk me out of it this time. A little research led me to two different Elphs, the SD1200 IS or the SD780 IS. They both seemed good so it was a matter of which one that Target had...and which color they had, too. It was Target because TRS had a coupon and I had two gift cards as well. Isn't it pretty? OK, it actually came down to the fact that they had only one camera in the store between the two t...

Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher My review rating: 4 of 5 stars Another great entry in the series. This time, Harry has to fight movie monsters (think of an actual Freddy Kruger) and save Michael's daughter who is nearly grown up. More fairies, less vampires but still entertaining and violent. View all my reviews.

Dead Beat by Jim Butcher My review rating: 4 of 5 stars Another great one in the series. Some great battles, fun with Sue the Dino from the Field Museum and the introduction of some new, engaging characters. These books are really fun! View all my reviews.