I have some glue, help me inhale. - Nirvana, Dumb

I had such a great blonde moment earlier today. So, I will usually check cnn.com every day to kinda catch up on major headlines. Today, I read one that said "Gabor's husband found sitting naked in Rolls". In my head, I literally did picture a man naked sitting in a bunch of rolls. Breadrolls.

Well, I read the article. It was talking about his Rolls Royce. My bad.

Saw Transformers last night. Bad ass.

Going to Annapolis with Tanya and Phil. Tanya's family lives out on the water and offered for us to go out on her boat. I hope it doesn't rain. So far, it looks nice outside. If it does, then we'll just go to all the little shops around Annapolis. I've noticed up here the weather will say there is a 40-60% chance of rain, and it might rain for an hour or two....but it never really rains all day or anything like it did down in Texas. Most of the time this summer, even when it showed a chance of rain, I never saw a drop. That's always a nice surprise.

I'm learning in the military you have to say goodbye a lot. Deployments, breakups, nurses leaving for another floor, personnel PCSing to another duty station. I don't know very many people here that have been with me since I got here. Just a few girls from OIS are with me now. Kerry and Elyse are in Kuwait. Then, the group of people leaving all started this spring. Soon after I got on my own as a nurse. My favorite corpsman left for Cuba for 6 months. I wonder if he'll come back to our floor. Another corpsman at that time left to work in an administrative position. Another left for field med training to go to combat medic stuff. Then, Abenojar and Bartlett left for L&D training in San Diego this summer and then they're PCSing to new duty stations, Longmire left for Africa, Tassani left to work in the ER, Vedder is now working in the APU, Hansen is getting out of the Navy and moving to Hawaii (very sad about this one....she is awesome and I'm seriously going to miss her), Venabel is leaving for RT school, Brown most likely will be leaving our floor soon. When you hit a year on the floor at the hospital, you can put in to move to another area, so most of the people I met when I got to 5C are now getting to their year mark soon. In a couple months, I'm going to be one of the senior nurses on the floor. Scary. I don't know if I will try and move off my floor or not when the time comes. Maybe I'll try to transfer to the ICU. I think part of me is scared to now. It's a bit intimidating. I don't know. I enjoy working with med/surg patients. I see the same people come in and out. I build a relationship. I just miss the way 5 center used to be. I miss a lot of people. But, I guess that's just the military. I said goodbye to Hansen the other day. You just have to smile, hug, and say you'll see them later. It's almost like I pretend they're all not leaving. Like, I'm going to see them again soon. It's a small Navy, and most likely I will see many of these people again, and if I move to Japan next, it'll be easy to go to Hawaii and see Hansen. I learn a lot from each person I meet along the way. Plus, then you start having friends in different areas of the hospital, which is really good because some day you'll need a favor from them, trust me. Ah well.

I wish you all fair seas and following winds....

Fortunately, I have come across the answer, which is go away and do not leave a trace. - White Stripes, Theres No Home For You

Talking with my sister this weekend, I don't know WHAT was going through my head this time last year. We had some good girl talks. We both talked about how you seem perfectly normal, and then you get in a relationship. You all of a sudden become CRAZY. I look back and was like...what the hell? Why did that little shit bother me? Why didn't I leave when that happened? Why did I become so un-fun when we'd go out? Now, I'm back to my good ole self. I'm comfortable in my skin. I'm fun when I go out again. Don't remember the last time I got upset. Don't remember the last time I yelled. Being honestly happy.

This video though is hilarious. I was watching this on HBO the other night and I was like "oh holy hell, that is SO true!" We girls are crazy. When you're hurt you say things that aren't true to try and make the other feel as horrible as you do. I wish I could take back a couple comments in my past.

Guys are jerks and girls are crazy. That's just the way it is.

Stop rolling down hill like a snow ball headed for hell. - Merle Haggard, Are The Good Times Really Over For Good

I got my snoooowwwboard. I got my snoooowwwboard. Weeee! It's so pretty. In the end I'm glad I went with the whisper. Just to wait for snow. :)

My seeester was in town this weekend. It was one of the best weekends I've had so far since being up here. Friday she came in and we hung out in downtown Silver Spring. Since it was Harry Potter night and there is a bookstore down there, it was insane! People were running around dressed up. THey had all these musicians out. It was crazy. We ate at the wine bar down there. That place is so good. Then, we came back and bummed around reading magazines and drinking wine.

Saturday, we went to starbucks next door and sat outside and talked and had coffee. In the morning it was clear and about 75. Gorgeous. Christy said the weather this weekend reminded her of Cali. The highs were in the low 80's and it was clear and sunny and there are trees everywhere. It has been amazing weather. After sbux, we got ready and went to Georgetown to go shopping! We were there all afternoon. Got lunch at J. Paul's and shopped some more. She loved Georgetown, like I thought she would. We came back home and made dinner and drank more wine and watched more tv and talked.

Sunday, we did the same sbux run in the morning before hopping on the metro to go down to Chinatown for lunch. Ate at matchbox...duh. My favorite place to eat. She enjoyed that place. Then, we walked a couple blocks down to the National Mall area and sat in the shade and people watched. Then, got on the metro a couple stops and went to dupont circle. Got more sbux (notice a trend here...I think we could live on sbux and wine) and picked a spot in the circle in the shade. We watched all the people running around, or a bunch of older guys playing chess. One man in particular got very heated over a move. haha. It was so peaceful and relaxing. It's amazing that you can feel that way when everything around you is going fast in the city. Eventually, we dragged our butts off the ground and headed back home to... you guessed it. Wine, magazines, good girl talk, and bad tv. :)

Just got back from dropping her off at the airport. She didn't want to leave and I wish she didn't have to. It was so much fun. We didn't do that much....but neither one of us wanted to do anything in particular. We just had some good time to catch up and enjoy the weather.

Now, I'm thinking again about trying for grad school in san diego. She said if I went there and she wasn't dating anyone at the time that she would move out there with me! Hmmm....well. I still have time. I hope she can come out soon again. I miss having my big sis close. Just in the past few years have we really been able to relate to each other. I love it.

And. Again. I love this city. It's going to be sooo difficult to leave it.

Computer souls, controlled by confusion. - Public Enemy, Crash

I'm doing something I never, ever thought I would do. I'm considering buying a mac.

THERE. I said it. Geez. It feels good to finally come out of the pc closet. Let me explain what made me a pc person and what has made me start turning....

Growing up, I was always used to dad having computer equipment around. Being the fancy electrical engineer, my dad was a computer god to me. He fixed them, built them, and glorified them. PC's. You can't really upgrade or build macs. So, we always had pc's. Just like any small child conforming to their parents views, I always was a pc girl.

"Macs are expensive"
"You can't upgrade them"
"What happens when they get old? You have to buy a whole new setup?"

And then my world came down on me about a year ago when my ex was looking for computers and he was considering a mac. I went to my dad to talk to him about it, and my dad started saying things I never thought he would say!

"Well, they are impressive"

MEH? What to think now? My pc godfather has just said something good about the dark side. I still maintained I would never do it.

Then, I got the crazy itch for a new mp3 player since my rca crapped out on me. I just couldn't find one that lasted. No other mp3 player from 3 years ago is still around. I took a big breath. I was staring at the big blue buildings with yellow letters. "I can do this..." I had done my research at home. Walked in. Pointed to the 30gig black video iPod and clearly stated "I want that one!"
Within 15 minutes I was walking out with an apple product. I've been in love with it ever since.

Now, within the past week my printer (which I just bought last fall and have babied it) has started with error messages and my ipaq had to be factory reset for about the 12th time. I started considering a palm. Then, I got to play on Brit's new iBook. The wheels were slowing down to a grind and all of a sudden they started moving counterclockwise. What was happening? A year ago I hated to even walk down the apple isle at the store. Now, I'm browsing at them online. And odly enough....I feel at peace just looking at them.

Now, I have to say this. My dad has built a great computer for me. I haven't had any problems with it in a while. But, the thing is....what happens when it breaks. He's not here to fix it. When I want an upgrade? He's not here....

In the end I think I just had a bad electronic day and I'm frustrated. I don't think I'll run out and buy a computer. My computer right now is working great. I just had to share my strikingly liberal computer thoughts to the world. And I feel much better.

*****************EDIT
So, after the post, I looked up the printer error code and read about the same problem other people had with the printer. I tried everything, but I couldn't figure out which mechanical piece they were talking about. Some squeegee like thing. ? Who knows. An hour after cleaning and trying to move pieces, I just pushed back what I thought was the part they were talking about... come to find......a bobbypin!!!!!!! How the hell a bobbypin got on the inner parts of my printer, I'll never know....but I learned a lot about my computer and the insides are a lot cleaner now.

Who needs a man? This is why I've become so independent. I like doing things on my own. I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment when I turned it back on and NO error message or blinking lights!

Winter fell upon them and it caught them unprepared. Bringing wolves and cold starvation, and the hearts of men despaired. - Rush, Dionysus

Well, I will not be unprepared. I just bought the lamar whisper and flow flite 3 bindings. I'm really excited about the bindings. They were a lot more money, but they're going to be more comfortable and easier to get in and out of. That was one big frustration I had when I went last winter...I'd be trying to get my darn feet to clip into the snap and I couldn't...but I'd start to move and freak out. haha. At least I won't have to deal with rentals and the clip-in boots anymore. That sucked. This will give me a lot better control. I know through the poll, that a few more liked the merlot better, but Jessica had already ordered that one...and being the girl that I am, I couldn't have the same one. Plus, I was able to get the better bindings with this setup and this one was my first love. I'll go with my gut. I cannot stop thinking about snow. I'm so excited about this winter. The good thing about my job too is that I get weekdays off and it's cheaper to ride during the week and less crowds so I won't feel too dum. :) I'm even starting to put together a mix on my ipod to ride to. Let's see...includes Prodigy, Incubus, Steppenwolf, mxpx, newfound glory, the Ataris, Less than Jake, Rage, Deftones, Finger Eleven, NIN, etc.....man, I'm getting psyched. I think I might buy a beanie that Burton makes with built-in headphones.

I think I have found my obsession. Also, good thing to note. Japan almost leads the world in chairlifts apparently. There are tons of great places to go over there so I should be fine. Then, hopefully cali or seattle and we all know there are great places to ride there too.

Okay, sorry. Nuff about that.

I work again this weekend. It's been so busy on the floor. We're just too short staffed. We only had one corpsman helping us the other night because we had four 1:1 watch patients that the other corpsmen had to be in with all the time. Today, on the schedule they only had 2 nurses scheduled. And 26 patients. Ha. They had to find a bunch of contract nurses or float nurses from other floors, but all the floors in the hospital are really tight. Hopefully by tonight they'll have it worked out. Oh well. The good thing about working this weekend is I work with Erin! I'm so psyched about that. I've missed working with her. Nights aren't the same.

I had something weird happen the other day. This has never happened to me like this, but yeah. So, I'm leaving work in the morning and I'm sitting at the stoplight at the gate to leave. I'm first in line and it turns green. Now, up here in dc if you're not already half way through the intersection as soon as it turns green you will get a horn, but for some reason I hesitated. I looked left and right to make sure they had stopped. I had this bad feeling. The guy on the left in the first lane had stopped and the guys on the right had stopped so I started to go, but because I hesitated I pulled out real fast so the people behind me wouldn't be mad. As I'm turning through the intersection I see this car come flying at me! It was in the second lane on the left and there was no way I could have seen him before. He slams on the breaks and I go speeding out of the way to miss him and look back and he's in the middle of the intersection. He came so close to hitting me. It would have been on the drivers side too. I was freaked. The rest of the way home was like that. There were two buses way ahead of me and the first one stopped so I put my signal on and moved to the left lane to go around them. At the last second the second bus switched lanes right on top of me! I had to slam on the breaks. I just had this erie feeling the whole way home that someone was trying to do something to me. As soon as I got home in my parking spot I could breate a sigh of relief. It was odd.

Sometimes the snow comes down in June, sometimes the sun goes around the moon. - Vanessa Williams, Save The Best For Last

<<----THE POLL IS IN THE LEFT COLUMN






I'm trying to pick the final snowboard choice and it pretty much comes to looks. The Whisper is a bit more advanced board, but not by much. Price is about the same. The lamar board is more gray...not the navy blue color. So, which one can you see me more on??

The heat is making me dream of snow...haha. It's just cheaper to buy them now. I also found a dc snowboarding group so hopefully I can find some people to go with this winter if Jessica and Jeff are busy.

4th of July Fireworks in Washington DC

Someone else got this video of the finale....we were on the other side of the monument closer to the show, but seriously amazing...

I can remember the 4th of July, running through the backwoods bare. - Creedence Clearwater Revival, Born On The Bayou

I did have an urge to go streaking through the national mall area.....

Anywho, my first 4th of July in the nations capital. Ah.
Lyndsy got into town Tuesday before I left for work. Horray! Then, had a LONG night of work running around on my feet. Got home Wednesday morning, showered, packed up our stuff, went to einstein's and then jumped on the metro. We got into dc at the National Naval Memorial. They had all kinds of festivities there that day. We walked around and took pics there and then looked inside some of the museum. Then, we went and found a spot for the parade. The first part of it was really cool.....the second half was boring. It started being this huge mulit-national parade. They had the group of Peru people...with lamas! And all these other groups. Part of me is like, "ya, our country was founded by people of all nations and we should celebrate that...", but the other part is saying, "well, damn. We already have celebrations all the time for other cultures. This is the one day of the year we celebrate AMERICAN culture and history." Whatever. It just shows what dc and the northern states are like. There are many more separate cultures up here that hold onto their past. In the south, it seems that most of the people are decendents of people born in the us, so we are more into our nations pride. I think that's why the south has a harder time understanding immigration and being okay with it. Up north is where immigrants started coming to this country.
Anywho.....after the parade we went and got ice cream and watched the ringing of the bells at the national naval memorial. It's a thing on the 4th of July where every ship in the coast guard and navy ring their bells 13 times for the 13 originial colonies at 2pm eastern time. It's kinda cool.
After that, we went to some of the museums and then into the national mall area. It was like a big carnival with separate tents and stuff of...yep, other cultures. There were no American flags or anything down there. It was odd. There were on the parade route, but not in the mall area. So, Lyndsy and I found shade, got a 5 min nap, ate some pringles, and then met up with Richard and some of his friends. I haven't seen him since early February, so it was good to hear what he's been up to. Soon after, Jessica, Jeff, Tanya, and Phil met up with us right as Lyndsy and I were getting ready to go find a spot by the capital. Well, the 6 of us found a spot on the mall on the backside of the concert, but then they had to evacuate the mall area due to t-storms and tornado warnings and watches. We kept walking around avoiding being sucked into a building. We finally went into the national air and space museum b/c we either had to go in somwhere or leave. Well, they told us we had to stay in there until the warnings and watches cleared....so they had the air force band play. They sounded great, but it was REALLLY loud. We were there about an hr crammed into the small lobby area. Eventually, we asked someone if we could leave and they said through the back doors. We just couldn't go back to the mall yet. OH. So, we went and found a bar and had some food and drinks. Then, ran back to the mall because they had let people back in and we wanted good seats.
We decided the concert by the capital was boring so we'd get good seats by the reflecting pool where they were shooting the fireworks off. We had to walk a long way really fast, but we got a spot on the hill right by the washington monument. There were thousands of people everywhere. It was so great. There was a concert down there as well with Dierks Bently and some other country singers. When the fireworks started, I was speechless. We could lay down and it was the best seat in the house! I even started to tear up a bit in just amazement of where I was and what it all meant. They also had patriotic music playing. Everyone must come to the 4th and see the fireworks at least one time in their life.
After the show we split up and let the crowds go and then walked around a bit. On the way to the metro, Lyndsy and I were walking and heard this huge boom. We both kinda ducked down instintively and turned around and there were a couple fireworks that went off real low to the ground. I don't know if they just were duds that hadn't gone off or what. But, I hope no one was hurt....because they were low! For a split second, I really did think a bomb went off in dc right behind us. It was crazy.

Anywho. Kinda a busy day and very last minute decisions, but once those fireworks started and I could feel the boom in my chest and see the spectacular show, it was allll worth it. Especially since I got to spend it with such great friends. Times like this really make being in the Navy worth it.

Oh, and I didn't charge my camera, so I couldn't get any of the fireworks....soo, those will come later when I get them from other people. I posted some throughout the day of the crammed area in the museum, ice cream, etc.

We negotiate with chaos for some sense of satisfaction. - Ani Difranco, Overlap

A little sample of chaos theory. If you want to read up on what that actually means, wikipedia has a great explanation. Well, what I am going to talk about is more/less the butterfly effect of the theory. It's basically saying that even the smallest effect (like a butterfly flapping its wings) can change the course of the future.

Now. For my story. Jim went to Texas Tech and met some of his "nerd" friends in the dorm attached to Gordon Hall (can't remember the name of the dorm...). This group included Brian, Brad, Furry, etc. During this time, Shelley (my best friend from high school) was a freshman living in Gordon. She met Brian and then Brad through a church group I believe. Shelley and Brian hung out a lot for a while and therefore, Shelley met Jim. This was only a one time happening or maybe a couple times. Nothing really came of it. They didn't quite remember each other. When I came out as a freshmen, Shelley introduced me to some of these guys, but I could only really remember Brian. Things progressed and moved on and Shelley eventually stopped hanging out with that group of friends as much. Now, fast forward two years. I started dating someone in the same Marine unit as Jim and consequently, met Jim and Kristi. Kristi and I immediately hit it off and became great friends. Their friendship is one that I KNOW was meant to be. Now, to me, and them, it seems that we should have met 2 years earlier. The question then is....

Were we supposed to meet through Shelley, but because of choices and a small change, God had to improvise and create something else in my life to bring our friendship together?

Theeeeen. I have to ask myself, well...God has it all planned out so he would have known that it would happen like that. That gets into a whole discussion about free will vs. predestination that I'm not sure I feel can write about tonight.

On my flight back to DC today I was thinking about this because my ticket was for the very back of the plane and I was able to change it and bump it up. Well, I then ended up sitting next to a woman who's husband is in the air force and she had a 8 month old litttle boy on her lap and she asked me what I do up in dc and I told her and she informed me that she had her son at NNMC. Crazy. I just wonder how me moving my seat effected me, this lady, the baby, the people that I would have sat next to had I not changed my seat, etc.

Either way, it's interesting to think about how the smallest choices we make each second will forever effect our lives. Just think about that next time you decide to go out or order in...or use a public restroom or wait 'til you get home.