when life hands you lemons...
that good ol' california traffic struck again. 6 car pileup blocking all southbound lanes, plus a secondary accident a bit further north. i sat at the signal to get on the freeway for about 15 minutes before i got a call from mom, who was right behind me. she told me about the accident. i figured, if i'm going to be wasting gas sitting at a traffic light, i might as well waste it driving someplace beautiful. i pulled out, passed by all the cars and headed out over del dios toward rancho santa fe and solana beach. traffic was a little worse than normal, but nothing like what was going on down the 15. rolled down my window, turned up the radio, and 5 was a piece of cake. what a great day to be late to work and driving around. :)
that moving movie again
i finally got it to upload where you could retrieve it from the server. it's a zip file with a wmv inside, 6 mb, pixelated and small. but it is what it is. moving.zip maybe i'll get around to redoing it in iMovie. not sure if that will be better or worse, but it'll probably be a quicktime, at least.
i have a friend who is a self-admitted drama queen. aside from the fact that she's a very dear friend who i can tell anything to, i love talking to her because her life is always so much more interesting than mine. i tell her that i have to live vicariously through her because my own life is so dull. trust me, i'm not complaining since i'm just getting over some drama of my own. i miss living near her, though, and hanging out. now if i could just conspire to get her out to california...
mom and i went to look at curves for women. i'm skeptical, because i really love my yoga classes and would love to find a place that offers them, but the thought of being done in about 30 minutes appeals to me. on the other hand, seeing the machines that they use and knowing that they probably aren't being used "right" at that speed... then again, i suppose it's better than not exercising at all. i'm totally out of my mind - i agreed to go at 6am tomorrow morning for an orientation. that's the other issue i have - they close at 7:30. me? i'm so not a morning person, and i have a tendency to work late. we'll see. at least i can try it for a week for free and see how it works out. then again, i had a 3-day pass to bally's and was there, oh, maybe just the first night that i went and signed up... ;)
i'm ready for it to be friday. or maybe tomorrow night, so i can be dancing. i suppose if i were closer, that would be my exercise of choice. perhaps i can make it so. we'll see.
it's been forever since i've been to church. this morning, though, mom and i got up and went to the easter vigil service at an itty bitty episcopal church in idyllwild. i'd always meant to go to the easter vigil service, but usually they start around 6am and trying to get out of bed that early...well...
i did discover that i miss singing. the (small) choir was doing bits from handel's messiah, and it was all i could do to keep from singing along. not that i can sing at full strength yet - i'm still getting over the coughing reflex - but still. i miss it. especially right this moment when i just found the hallelujah chorus from beethoven's mount of olives. another of my favorite pieces that we did for special occasions at church...
easter was rather relaxing. my grandparents and uncle and cousin came up to the cabin and we visited, hung out...and i took a nice long nap. one thing this uncle and i share in common is a love for jazz and swing music. we got into a long conversation about music history, dancing, and people that played a prominent part. i really think he should teach a history of jazz class at a local college - it'd be great to hear it from a drummer who's played with quite a few bands. he's also talking about trying to get a scene together for the junior high/high school age group with the students playing and dancing both. talk about great!
but after this weekend, it's nice to be home again in a warm place. unfortunately, the heater at the cabin was out and it was a mite bit chilly there. :) thank goodness i was the day's designated pyro, and that i make a good fire...
i've learned to adjust to the odd roads (grooves along the road and across it, seams that cross lanes with small divots where the bumps used to be before they moved the lane over a foot and a half, narrower lanes...) but sometimes the driving here still gets me.
case 1: plenty of room. changing lanes. accelerated even, to make sure i wasn't cutting off the car coming up. oh, heavens. they had to race up on my bumper and flash their lights at me. ooOOOooOOOoo. that'll teach me.
case 2: coming home from work last night about midnight. (yes. a different story.) i get onto the off ramp for the freeway intersection and this car changes lanes across 5 lanes of traffic, barely missing the concrete 'v' that convinces you that you really need to make a decision. i noted with glee that a police car happened to be on the freeway too. serve him right! this off ramp had another 'v' (east/west) and this person decided at the last minute to go the other way. of course, he jerked his wheel too hard, spun out, ended up facing oncoming traffic, stopped only by the concrete barrier on the side of the road. (to me, it sounded like a soft 'thud' as he hit it.) ...at which point the cop pulled over right in front of his car and proceeded to get out. (i thought i was watching america's dumbest criminals for a moment...) but really. my first thought when i saw this? holy crap. i hope he's not about to drive the wrong way down the freeway....toward my car. i was kind of relieved that he hit the barrier.
and those are just two cases of many. i swear, i don't know where these people learn to drive...or why they're in such a big hurry. riding on people's bumpers doesn't really get them there any faster. if people would just be courteous and let others over when they need to be in your lane, there would be dozens of roadways in california where people weren't stressed out and half-mad with road rage. wouldn't that be a better world?
be careful what you wish for
i will never again say the following words at work or anywhere else: 'gee. i'm starting to feel like i'm finally getting caught up.' every time i say those words, all hell breaks loose and i end up working until midnight.
i think, though, that i'm starting to see the end of the database transfer. i hope. if only i could find all the mistakes from the past three controllers. what i've found so far scares me enough...
but i asked for a challenge. that's what i got.
i don't think i've really ever had as much fun at a dance as last night's. when we ended at midnight, i was wanting to go on for another three hours. i really think that balboa is quickly becoming my favorite dance. oh, sure, i still like lindy hop, but when you get a great bal lead...whoa.
i was flipping through my pictures from my trip and those that i pulled off my camera before the trip. i really hadn't looked through them yet, and i wasn't sure what had been on my camera when i hastily downloaded to clear a memory card. i found my moving pictures along with a couple of short movie clips i shot with my camera. i found the movie maker on my pc and, well, you are now partially obligated to look at it. ;) it's large - probably about 6 megs or so, it's probably only playable on windows media player (i'm apologize, but i got what i got...and it was spur of the moment) and the quality isn't probably all that great, but at least you get to see what it was like to be in the driver's seat of a car traveling behind a moving van halfway across the country. no complaining about the size. you think it took a long time to download? think about how long it took me to upload. on a dialup connection, no less. and yes, i was bored. and yes, no cars, people, objects, animals, or moving vans were harmed in the making of this movie.
(i'm having issues with getting it to download, so toss me an email at kendra@crimsonkite.com for now if you want the zipped version, which is less than a mb)
this weekend is the balboa rendevous here in san diego. last night was the pre-weekend dance, which was held during a normal venue. i wasn't going to go to the weekend because, well, i was out of town during the signup time, thought i'd have to help get the house ready for next week's (cancelled) family reunion...and well, i just didn't think about it.
last night they announced that you could still sign up for things. i really wanted to go to balboa island on sunday, dance, and just hang out. i'm going!
anyway, at the dance last night steven mitchell showed up. he's one of the big shot instructors in lindy hop. which is why it was weird when his name wasn't called with the other instructors. part of me wishes i was taking the classes this weekend, but i couldn't bring myself to give up the whole weekend.
nyquil, my friend
i've finally reached the tail end of my cold - you know the part where you're fine, you can breathe and smell, but your body decides periodically to try and cough up a lung. singing is still out of the question as i found out when i tried to sing in the car the other day. even quietly. no go. i ended up trying to stay in my lane on the freeway while i tried to stop coughing. but my friend nyquil knocks me out. so i don't know if i'm coughing or not. i'm zonked.
finally got my girl scout cookies tonight too. :) everyone was laughing when i was talking about heating up the samoas in the microwave for about 5 seconds. mmm. they're so good warm, though!
random
coldplay is a good listen while driving over a winding road in the evening.