Thursday, March 11, 2010
Mark's Dad and Technology...
My lovely fiancee's hobby is exploring the seemingly endless possibilities of the iPhone...and convincing his father that Mac's and iPhones are second to none. It's my favorite past time to watch this debate go down. The instructional video is for Mark's Dad, who apparently decided to buy the Verizon Wireless Droid because the salesman Googled "How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?" with his voice and Wikipedia pulled up the info for him. Mark was in disbelief that this was the convincing factor that his father needed to decide upon buying a Droid. Mark's response was to show his Dad that he too could Google "How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?" with the iPhone and come up with the same response. Take that, Droid.
My other favorite past time is watching Mark try and teach his Dad how to use the chat feature with Google. Just tonight we were talking with his parents and they couldn't find the video chat window, which apparently was hidden behind another window on his screen. I have included the previous chat with Mark, who is "me," and his Dad, who is "Mom." The best part about this chat is that Mark's Dad lost sound--apparently his microphone quite working (yet another reason to buy a Mac)--and the video chat conversation resorted to Mark's Dad responding with nodding yes or no. I was laughing so hard at work tears were rolling down my face.
10:05 AM
me: you there?
10:06 AM
you there?
10:07 AM
Mom: good morning
10:09 AM
me: there you are
10:10 AM
Mom: can you see me now?
me: not
i can hear you
10:11 AM
you can see me typing stuff
8 minutes
10:19 AM
me: she is at work
Mom: ok
10:20 AM
me: click next to my name and select video and more
10:22 AM
Mom: hi
me: select my name and then select video and more
initiate video chat
10:23 AM
Mom: i did
me: is you camera working
5 minutes
10:28 AM
me: you still there?
Mom: yes
10:29 AM
me: did you plug it back in?
Mom: yes
me: see why i like apple products, they just work...
can you still see me
or hear me
Mom: yes, i can hear you
10:30 AM
ok
yes, and i accepted
10:31 AM
me: good
Mom: yes
ok
10:32 AM
good
yes
no
10:33 AM
i can see my picture
me: is that a yes
or no
Mom: yes
10:34 AM
minus
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wedding dress nightmare
"It was the best day ever!"
"I'll never forget the moment I laid eyes on my dress!"
"My mother and grandmother cried when I came out of the dressing room."
"It made me feel like a princess."
...those are definitely not thoughts that will ever come out of my mouth when referring to the day I went wedding dress shopping. While most of the wedding plans have been coming along quite smoothly, I will have to say that wedding dress shopping was one of the worst shopping experiences I've ever had. Did I mention that my mother came along?
First of all, I had expectations--not even high ones--and I should have had none. I guess I expected that I wouldn't hear my mother say "If only you were five pounds lighter" when I was standing in front of a room full of people in an uncomfortable gown, but I was wrong. To add to my nightmare, the dress I did love cost close to $1,000, which I think is a ridiculous amount of money to invest in an article of clothing that isn't supposed to prevent bullets from penetrating your skin.
So, the dress I did finally settle on looked absolutely gorgeous on me. Everyone's face lit up when I walked out of the dressing room. It just wasn't what I had pictured and it has taken me about three months to finally warm up to my decision. But now I love it. I love the birdcage veil even more, though. It was the fifth or sixth dress I tried on that day and I was already breaking out in hives just having to stand up in front of a room full of people when I tried on the dresses. Since everyone agreed it looked great, it fit my price range, and I wanted to put my normal bra back on, I quickly made my decision and got out of there as quickly as I could.
The whole dress fiasco took less than two hours. I guess I could have been humiliated, but if you knew my mother--I mean really knew her, like only close family really know her--you wouldn't expect anything less. The only thing equally as awful that day was having the sales girl describe the history of a veil and how a husband 'unwraps' his bride, his gift. Too late, I wanted to tell her and giggled instead. It's all going to be worth it, though, when I see his beautiful face and gorgeous smile as he sees me for the first time in my wedding dress.
"I'll never forget the moment I laid eyes on my dress!"
"My mother and grandmother cried when I came out of the dressing room."
"It made me feel like a princess."
...those are definitely not thoughts that will ever come out of my mouth when referring to the day I went wedding dress shopping. While most of the wedding plans have been coming along quite smoothly, I will have to say that wedding dress shopping was one of the worst shopping experiences I've ever had. Did I mention that my mother came along?
First of all, I had expectations--not even high ones--and I should have had none. I guess I expected that I wouldn't hear my mother say "If only you were five pounds lighter" when I was standing in front of a room full of people in an uncomfortable gown, but I was wrong. To add to my nightmare, the dress I did love cost close to $1,000, which I think is a ridiculous amount of money to invest in an article of clothing that isn't supposed to prevent bullets from penetrating your skin.
So, the dress I did finally settle on looked absolutely gorgeous on me. Everyone's face lit up when I walked out of the dressing room. It just wasn't what I had pictured and it has taken me about three months to finally warm up to my decision. But now I love it. I love the birdcage veil even more, though. It was the fifth or sixth dress I tried on that day and I was already breaking out in hives just having to stand up in front of a room full of people when I tried on the dresses. Since everyone agreed it looked great, it fit my price range, and I wanted to put my normal bra back on, I quickly made my decision and got out of there as quickly as I could.
The whole dress fiasco took less than two hours. I guess I could have been humiliated, but if you knew my mother--I mean really knew her, like only close family really know her--you wouldn't expect anything less. The only thing equally as awful that day was having the sales girl describe the history of a veil and how a husband 'unwraps' his bride, his gift. Too late, I wanted to tell her and giggled instead. It's all going to be worth it, though, when I see his beautiful face and gorgeous smile as he sees me for the first time in my wedding dress.
Google Voice, my new friend
I got a new iPhone...which is so intimidating and super trendy for me, but I will have to say that I love the Whole Foods app, which chooses healthy recipes with a clickable list to check off in the store. It makes life easier, but to counteract the new cell phone bill, we canceled our long distance phone service. This is where the technology of Google Voice comes into play. If you don't know much about it, please don't ask me to explain it. Pretty much all I need to know is it's free, you call via the computer (some sort of Internet magic), and you can get your voicemails via email and those voicemails are transcribed. The transcribing is the fun part. Sometimes I make up words when I'm leaving messages for Mark at the house just to see what Google Voice can make of it. Other times I don't try hard at all and I get equally as good results. Here is a product of Google Voice transcription that I would like to share:
Molly, Rick. O'Lincoln miss once, and cup cakes and we're home upside down.
Molly, Rick. O'Lincoln miss once, and cup cakes and we're home upside down.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Boys and Mirrors
Have I spoke on this topic previously? Perhaps, but I would like to express just how ridiculous it is to see guys at the gym checking themselves out. It happens quite frequently and I laugh out loud when I catch them doing it. I work out at the Clemson University gym which is a great gym, I will have to say. But there's something different about the men here...they remind me of most of the boys I went to high school with--they all look the same. Preppy white dudes who wear khaki pants and hiking boots; only now they have a new addition: the popped collar. Needless to say, it's a favorite past time to find imperfections in men who think they have none. As I was working out a couple months ago in the free-weight area, a guy walked past and flexed his arm muscle in the mirror. Another day a guy turned his bottom toward the mirror, lifted up his shirt, and flexed his butt muscles. Most of the time they are checking themselves out and it really is a treasure to know that men are also struggling with body image. Perhaps I should not be so joyous to know this is true, but I feel as if women are now not alone in their quest for bodily perfection. Ahh, but this is all leading into another interesting observation about gender roles/clothes/styles and the guy I saw at the gym wearing a headband. I stopped and stared.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Grammar: The Agony of my Life
I hate grammar. I failed my grammar test in 8th grade English. And did I tell you that I'm getting a Master's to teach English to Middle School/High School students? I'm taking a test this coming Saturday to be certified to teach English. And here I am, stuck in a rut again with grammar. I would like to share with you my favorite grammar lesson yet from The Basic Cozy Grammar Course, which I found on a google search.
"Marie is out by the wood pile chopping and splitting wood with an axe. "Just as this piece of firewood was divided into two parts, so a sentence is divided into two parts - the subject and the predicate." The subject tells what the sentence is about and the predicate tells something about the subject. As she gathers up an armful of kindling she defines what constitutes a subject and a predicate, then makes her way from the woodpile into the house where she slips off her shoes and slides into her slippers, stocks up the wood bin on the hearth, feeds the hungry fire and settles into her rocking chair, all the while providing us with examples of subjects and predicates culled from sample sentences."
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Thistle Hair The Christmas Bear
Merry Christmas, from Alabama
http://susie1114.com/Christmas/ThistleBear.html
http://susie1114.com/Christmas/ThistleBear.html
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
too good to keep for myself: Muthafucka with Cup-Holders
I woke this morning to hear a moving truck backing into our back driveway, a 4-driveway-wide plot of land on which the 4 tenants each have 1 parking space. We live in the back, upstairs apartment.
“Beep, beep, beep,” made the truck, in reverse – the alarm clock for the partially employed househusband.
Our neighbor – a bald-headed, pot-bellied, always red-in-the face middle-aged man who speaks in rapid fire 20-word long sentences in under 3 seconds per sentence – was driving the truck and a friend/co-worker must have been waving his hands directing him for the back-in. I didn’t get up to check, but I could tell because they were talking to each other as if from outside the vehicle.
Baldy, whom I like very much – don’t get me wrong – the above was just a description, yells over to his friend/co-worker, “For $200, that muthafucka had cup-holders and everything.”
I got up, found my notepad and pen in the closet, and wrote down his quote. Mostly because I wasn’t sure it had really happened.
It made me realize that, on more than one occasion, interesting things on the fringe of reason that you would never expect to hear in real life – might not have actually been the average nonsensical dream fragment – these things might have really happened.
Things like someone actually talking about the above-said muthufucka with cup-holders.
~Courtesy of my favorite California househusband
“Beep, beep, beep,” made the truck, in reverse – the alarm clock for the partially employed househusband.
Our neighbor – a bald-headed, pot-bellied, always red-in-the face middle-aged man who speaks in rapid fire 20-word long sentences in under 3 seconds per sentence – was driving the truck and a friend/co-worker must have been waving his hands directing him for the back-in. I didn’t get up to check, but I could tell because they were talking to each other as if from outside the vehicle.
Baldy, whom I like very much – don’t get me wrong – the above was just a description, yells over to his friend/co-worker, “For $200, that muthafucka had cup-holders and everything.”
I got up, found my notepad and pen in the closet, and wrote down his quote. Mostly because I wasn’t sure it had really happened.
It made me realize that, on more than one occasion, interesting things on the fringe of reason that you would never expect to hear in real life – might not have actually been the average nonsensical dream fragment – these things might have really happened.
Things like someone actually talking about the above-said muthufucka with cup-holders.
~Courtesy of my favorite California househusband
Rest Area Interview
What better place to be interviewed for a holiday traveling story than the Alabama welcome center in Mobile? Traveling with the future in-laws and loving fiancee, we stop to use the facilities and are welcomed to Alabama with open arms by a local television crew, Fox 10 News. We're the last family to be seen in the following video.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
DDR and Auntie Sarah
"Come over and we'll practice this new dance game I have on the Wii." Is that something you've ever heard come out of the mouth of your beautiful, dazzing, 60-year-old auntie? Well, that's what my afternoon had in store yesterday. Completely awesome.
Afternoon raspberry iced tea and a fulfilling spiritual conversation was followed by a game of nothing else but Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR, a game which I've played maybe twice in my life. In college I photographed a student who had the game memorized and could play with his eyes closed. I walked back to the newsroom that day glad that I had friends.
But now DDR seemed kind of exciting, in that way you get when no one is watching. After about 30 minutes of play we finally figured out how to get out of training mode. My song choice of Young MC's "Bust A Move" was accompanied by the video of girls in jean shorts with large yellow bows in their hair, busting a move in a way that I would never be able to on the DDR dance mat. I felt more white and uncoordinated than I have in a while. I take myself as a fairly good dancer. DDR draws out none of my skill. Is it really for people who can't dance? Or is it for people who just like to click buttons and frolic around like they've got ants in their pants?
The highlight of the day was during LCD Soundsystem's "Tribulations" when lovely Auntie Sarah accidentally clicked the Expert setting. If you could imagine someone standing in place trying to escape an attacking beehive, that's the scene that I saw in her living room. I cried, she had to run to use the potty we were laughing so hard.
Uncle Lloyd sure missed out on DDR.
Afternoon raspberry iced tea and a fulfilling spiritual conversation was followed by a game of nothing else but Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR, a game which I've played maybe twice in my life. In college I photographed a student who had the game memorized and could play with his eyes closed. I walked back to the newsroom that day glad that I had friends.
But now DDR seemed kind of exciting, in that way you get when no one is watching. After about 30 minutes of play we finally figured out how to get out of training mode. My song choice of Young MC's "Bust A Move" was accompanied by the video of girls in jean shorts with large yellow bows in their hair, busting a move in a way that I would never be able to on the DDR dance mat. I felt more white and uncoordinated than I have in a while. I take myself as a fairly good dancer. DDR draws out none of my skill. Is it really for people who can't dance? Or is it for people who just like to click buttons and frolic around like they've got ants in their pants?
The highlight of the day was during LCD Soundsystem's "Tribulations" when lovely Auntie Sarah accidentally clicked the Expert setting. If you could imagine someone standing in place trying to escape an attacking beehive, that's the scene that I saw in her living room. I cried, she had to run to use the potty we were laughing so hard.
Uncle Lloyd sure missed out on DDR.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)