go Big Red!

Cornell's basketball team is in the NCAA tournament! And they won their first round game today! Against Temple, who was totally supposed to win! (at least, that's what I'm guessing, since they were ranked higher, plus who really expects an Ivy League school to be any good at sports? I went there and I don't expect it. Except hockey. But I digress.) They're even playing here in Florida, though today's game was in the middle of a work day so obviously we couldn't go, but I think their second game will be on Sunday which means that MAYBE we could go! Alfred totally hates basketball, but really, how often does something like this happen? I really want to go, but we'll see if he's willing to. Although I could totally go by myself. I'm not a huge basketball fan, but I did go to some games back in high school so I can sort of follow it at least. It's definitely better than baseball, although that's not saying much. And I bought a Cornell t-shirt and visor this summer that I could wear to the game! Oh man, I totally needed an excuse to wear my visor again! Obviously it will extend its magical properties to cover the team and help them towards another win! That's it, I'm going!

(p.s.: On this blog, I have purposely remained vague about where we live, except to say that it's in Florida, and I realize that this post sort of gives away that we live within a reasonable driving distance of Jacksonville, but I would appreciate if no one that knows specifically where we live mention it in the comments. Can't have all my millions of fans figuring it out and mobbing my car when I leave for work or anything. Thank you!)

my visor

Our whole trip, all I wanted was a visor. We borrowed one for me from Ellery, but it was too big for me, so I decided I was going to buy one from somewhere as a souvenir. Everywhere we went, I looked for a visor. I was hopeful about buying one at an In-N-Out Burger in Las Vegas that had a hard core gift shop next door, but Alfred wouldn't let me. Nice, huh. I finally found the visor of my dreams in Ithaca. It's blue and says Cornell in red letters. I love it. I wore it on the rest of my trip whenever it didn't clash too horribly with my outfit. It was especially good for days when we didn't get to shower, it kept the little hairs on the sides of my head from sticking up too much. Also, it gives me special powers. It's like an amulet. Let me give you some examples. Here my visor has stopped a bus in its tracks, saving my life:

Here my visor is giving me the power to command the ocean:

Today it gave me the power to jog in September in Florida at 6:30pm. It's still really hot and humid in September in Florida at 6:30pm. But with the protection of my visor, I could do it. It wasn't even sunny out, but when I tried taking it off I just felt so naked. I needed it. And it helped me jog for (almost) half an hour tonight. And so, I love it. The end.

back in the day

I'm all nostalgic and shit about college right now. So, 2 posts in 1 day! It's like Christmas!

Alfred took the picture on the left. I used to work in the building at the bottom right of the picture for one of my jobs. At the bottom left is the campus store. I'm really excited to go back and see Cornell when we're up there for Katherine's wedding this summer. We haven't been back since my graduation almost 6 years ago. Jesus, I'm old.

So we were eating dinner and somehow got onto the subject of me doing terribly in statistics in college when Alfred got a call from a 607 area code. It was Cornell! Not literally the university itself calling him, because that would be sort of science fiction-ish, but a student from the Cornell Fund. For those of you who don't know, the Cornell Fund is the part of the Alumni Relations department that solicits financial support from alumni. They call alumni and ask them for money. It just so happens that I worked for the Cornell Fund all 4 years that I went there. I've seriously been looking forward to this call for years. Well, I was really excited about getting a call the first couple of years after I graduated, since I still had friends working there. When I was a student, once in a great while we'd get a previous employee to call and it was always really exciting to talk to them after they graduated. But the bastards never called. They've started calling Alfred this year, but I've never been around him and in the mood to talk until tonight. And boy howdy, did I talk! I was on the phone for over 12 minutes with this poor girl. And yes, I donated. But I made her work for it. I actually used to really enjoy the alumni who would talk to me for awhile, even if they didn't donate, because it meant I had to make fewer phone calls. And it made your average call time go up, cause on the computer systems that we got sophomore year they kept track of all sorts of interesting statistics like that and used them later in your evaluation. And 1 nice person generally made up for the dozen or so rude ones you'd talk to in a night. So I hope I wasn't too weird, and that she enjoyed talking to me too.

One more picture, because I was looking through Slope Day pictures and found this one. This was taken on the day that I met Alfred for the first time, although I don't remember meeting him. I know I did though because I remember meeting Ilya and their other high school friend Andrew, who were both visiting and both extremely drunk by 10:00am. Apparently Alfred was not drunk or loud enough for me to remember. And it's too bad that I only have his pictures from that day on the computer, because there are some doozies that I took on a regular camera. Ah, 2000. We were so innocent then. Only the nerdiest of the nerds had digital cameras. Also, the Pussycat Dolls are performing at Slope Day this year. Alfred's super jealous.

we had friends

We had a really fun weekend with Katherine and Katie. They got in Friday afternoon, and we immediately got started with the festivities by going to Claude's! After that we got a pitcher of sangria, at which point Alfred joined us, then we went out to dinner and a ghost tour.

Alfred and Katie were all sorts of cynical, but Katherine and I enjoyed the stories at least. She got some pictures of orbs. Whenever I'm on one of those tours I want to dress up and go roam around the back of one of the cemeteries to try to freak people out.

Anyway. Saturday was pretty laid back, we went to get pedicures (without Alfred), which was fun but a little weird. They apparently didn't have 3 chairs in the same room, so Katherine and I were in one room and poor Katie was off by herself. It was still nice to get our toes done though, we all picked nice bright colors. Very tropical.

Sunday we went to the beach, and Alfred got crabs.

Both evenings we spent at home, eating pizza

doing power hours

and on Sunday, playing Uno. Yes, Katie and Katherine have now been exposed to the excitement that is Speed Uno.

It was just really nice, we relaxed, had fun, and just enjoyed the company. It made me miss having lots of friends around.

Aw, so cute. We miss you guys!

Sweden

Looking at my Sweden pictures last night made me want to post more of them! So here's a mostly picture post for you. Hard to believe this was already 7 years ago.

These first couple of pictures was from our first weekend there as a group. We visited this island called Marstrand, it was this old fashioned little island, no cars, everyone rode bikes and stuff. And there was this cool fort thing right smack in the middle.

We're imitating this statue. I was the horse.

This was taken our last official day of the program. From left to right, it's Laura, me, Kimberly, Meredith, and Safi. This was later in the same day that I got my tattoo. Meredith got one too, but Kimberly backed out.

This is us with our professors. The two on the left are from Cornell, the two standing in the middle were from Goteborg University, and the one sort of next to me was a friend of our female Swedish professor. She was a preschool teacher, we visited her school and she helped with some language classes.

Here's my kids! This is about 2/3 of the class, the 3 and 4 year olds. The class I was in ranged from 18 months to 5 years old. There were only 2 full blooded Swedes among the 18 kids in the class. The one in the very center of this picture, the little blond boy with the big smile, is one of them. Most of the kids spoke another language at home, several were from the Middle East. This picture was from our field trip to the zoo.

Here's a good Goteborg landmark: the statue of Poseidon. Apparently the sculptor wanted to give him a nice big penis, befitting the god of the seas, but wasn't allowed to. So he gave him a little penis, conveniently tinted peach in this picture (no, I didn't do it), but gave him that big fish to hold in his hand. Very innocent from the front.

But from the side, it looks like Poseidon has a giant wang. I wish this picture was better, because it really is hilarious to see.

There's a funny story to go with this picture. First, yes I'm holding a cigarette. I smoked a little bit in Sweden. Just a little bit, honest. Anyway, one of our last weekends there, we decided to go to a club downtown. So we started at our little local bar, Olof's (it was right in our dorm complex, quite handy), did some pregaming, then started walking downtown. Partway there I really had to pee. We came across this building with these nice tall, thick hedges all around on a not-too-busy street. I was a bit drunk, so I went behind the hedges, dropped trou, and started to pee. I'm pretty sure Kimberly and Meredith were mortified, but laughing their asses off at me. While I'm back there, totally hidden, a group of guys come up and have the same idea. Instead of going behind the bushes though, they just stand out in front and go to town. Yes, peeing into the hedges that I am hiding behind. I'm done by now, hiding and trying not to laugh and give myself away. Finally I ran out towards my friends, laughing hysterically, practically giving the Swedish guys heart attacks. We all had quite a chuckle. Turns out they were going to the same place we were, so we walked the rest of the way together, and of course got a picture.

This is just kind of funny, there was a big hockey tournament or something one weekend and they had all these ads talking smack about all the other teams. Sahlgrenska is the name of the hospital in Goteborg, and tack means please.

And one last one: Goteborg at sunset.

busy day, sorry, etc

I was busy all morning and have been in a meeting all afternoon. It was really exciting. Oh, and the cheesecake yesterday was really good. It didn't look all that impressive when it was cut though, so no picture. I think if I make it again I'll use more raspberries.

Some of you know Alfred's friend from Cornell, Clare. Some of you may also have known that she was pregnant. Well, Alfred got an email from her this afternoon - she had a baby girl last month! I hope Clare doesn't mind me sharing these pictures, this baby is just too darn cute. (Clare, if you ever read this and want me to take these down, just let me know). The baby's name is Ella.


She was only 5 pounds 11 ounces, what a little peanut! At least the gift we bought for her will fit for awhile. Now I can finally mail it out - I've had it since the beginning of May and have been waiting to hear that she had arrived.
What a cutie.

Anyway, on to something more mundane: our weekend. Well, my weekend. Alfred's going hunting with a friend of his that he used to work with (he's gonna try to git him a hog!), so I'm all by my lonesome until tomorrow evening. Which was fine with me, until Alfred got a call from the guy we've house sat for with the big house (Billy). Guess who's out of town for the next week and a half and needs someone to stay at their house? So my nice day alone will now be spent at a strange house. That kind of sucks. Then we have to leave super early Sunday to be back home to meet the satellite guy who's scheduled to come between 8 and 12. Blah blah, bitch, moan. It won't be so bad. I can sleep in and lounge around and go to the mall. And get something to eat that Alfred doesn't like. See, it'll be great.

odds and ends

Katie, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to post more goofy pictures of you apparently. I got more comments on that picture than on anything else I've written so far. Thanks for taking one for them team.

So, what do you get when you have 3 19/20 year olds staying with you for a week?


Except for the couple of Red Bull cans on top, those are all from beer. We had an entire second bin full of our other recycling. We looked just like the house of alcoholics down the road this morning.

In other news, Alfred and I hit up the big main library downtown last night. I love libraries. I used to love to go to the stacks in the older libraries at Cornell and just look at all the crazy books they had there. The library near our house now kind of sucks. It makes me kind of sad. But now that I have Alfred's card to this one, and they have a self check out thing, I can go there and explore to my little heart's content, and no one can get suspicious that I'm not named Alfred. Anyway. I checked out a few teaching books, and Alfred checked out like 10 books on house design. He's got a whole station set up at home with the books and sticky notes and a pen so as he goes through them he can mark stuff he likes. I'm getting the feeling this house building process may take longer than we planned.

One last thing. Go look at this website with lots of passive aggressive notes that people submit. I spent a long time Tuesday looking at them and then my computer shut itself down overnight so I had to re-find it today, but I lost my place where I was, and I was several pages in. And I actually have work to do today, so I can't even read them until tomorrow. But you can, and you should. Have fun.

Embarrassing Photo Day

I was all set to whine about the crappy weather and other random whine-worthy items, but then I remembered that I brought my work laptop home this weekend and copied a bunch of pictures onto it. Yay for old embarrassing pictures! Unfortunately I didn't get started until 10 last night, which is my bedtime, so I didn't get too many. Anyway, today shall be Embarrassing Photo Day, Installment 1, Subject: Friends. I found this one from a 704 party.


It was the party in December 2001. Maybe you remember that party. Yes, this is the best picture of us from that night. There are definitely many pictures that I would not consider posting here. So I will post this one of myself looking stupid as a sign of goodwill.


What on earth was I thinking. Who knows where that thing had been. Good thing I didn't have any boobs, or I'd be popping out in this picture. (As a side note, it annoys me that whenever I lose some weight, my boobs are the first thing to go. Seriously, every ounce I lose is from my boobs. Why can't my ass shrink first and leave me a little something up top? I'm sure my brothers are enjoying this.)


Here we are enjoying some delicious hot dogs while looking like bums in NYC. This was New Years 2006. This picture cracks me up.

Alfred's graduation. Somehow we don't have any pictures of just the two of us from my graduation. Also, this could have been taken this morning and it would look about the same. Except my hair is a little longer right now. And I think Alfred has different glasses. There's a bunch of paint chipped off the ones he has now, so they could be the same and just look different, who knows. He's my friend, that why he's involved in Embarrassing Photo Day, Installment 1, Subject: Friends. He's going to fit into a lot of categories, I think. Lucky Alfred!

I seem to have run out of this variety of pictures. No more embarrassing ones, anyway. Stay tuned for later installments. For now I will leave you with some photoshop wizardry of another picture from New Years in NYC.