EBAY

BUT IT NOW!

So.. just posted my first EBAY auction. I have a feeling this will be a learning experience. Let's cross our fingers someone wants to buy my boots/bindings!

Weekend Highlights

M and I had a blast saturday afternoon when she decided we had to make masks for the Mardi Gras party we were heading to that night. I wasn't as excited as she was initially, but once I went into the craft room to see what supplies I had... I was hooked. It's days like this when I'm glad I have too much crap :)



Last night I saw the benefits of a DVR firsthand! I've heard all the hype and praise, but had not previously experienced. We were at the Ultimate Superbowl Party :) First off good friends! Secondly we watched via the Replay. So we started a little later... watched a play, 30 sec skip, presto the next play was being snapped, 30 sec skip, next play :) AMAZING! If we wanted to see the replays or rewatch a play ourselves we could. Want us to pause it. Sure :) Seen this commercial already, skip :) Stupid movie trailers, skip :) Halftime... pause, time for some hot tubbing :) Don't have to get back to the game til you feel like it :) And the best part of the game... McNabb lost :)

NASCAR quote of the day: NASCAR driver Morgan Sheherd, on why the NBA brawl couldn't happen in his sport: "None of our fans would ever let go of a beer for any reason, much less throw it at somebody." (SI - Dec 6, 2004)

Countdown to DAYTONA - 13 days!!!

Blog Dump Time-

I like this method people are following as of late on their blogs-

~Chocolate Chip Pound Cake update: take II turned out much better. A little burnt cause I forgot about it, but that's was fixable! Third try is sure to be perfect!

~BUDGET: That's my new vocab word. We aren't gettin along to well. But I'm trying! So far so good. Things I've said no to so far this week...
Having my snowboard grinded
The cute snowboard stampin up set
Kenny's new CD
Eating lunch out at Kayo
Getting my eyebrows waxed
Going to snowshoe this weekend
I'm no worse for the wear. Maybe I will survive :)

~Verizon: Has a new text messaging google feature. Example. Send message to 46645 (GOOGL) stating "Pizza Hut. 24060" or "Pizza. Blacksburg VA". You will get a test back listing all the Pizza Huts (or Pizza places for ex 2) with addresses and phone numbers! Cool huh. You can search Businesses, Residential, Prices, Definitions, get Google snippets, or use it as a Calculator.

~Running: Not going so well. Hopefully I've got the shoe situation worked out. We'll see how the runs go this weekend. Hopefully the shins won't hurt too bad! Countdown to Nashville is less then 12 weeks!

~NRV Fair: Chris Cagle will be at the fair this July!! Woohoo!

~Weekend: I'm looking forward to relaxing, spending time with the roomies and other blacksburg friends, and if I'm lucky maybe I'll even get to meet Asian Pete :)

Snowboard Trip #3

So far the best trip of the year!!! I could probably blog 4 pages about it.... so I'll try to just highlight parts ;)

Elk River - This was the first time I've stayed at a non-Snowshoe-owned place. The people who run Elk River were so helpful during the planning, and just as great this weekend. They have a main lodge with a bar, very nice restaurant, and little store along with a couple cabins on the property. We had a Hot Tub right out our back door and a hot breakfast awaiting us both mornings at the main lodge 50 feet away. Very convienent!! I highly recommend!

Boarders! - This is the first trip I've been on with other boarders, not just skiers. This confuses some people, yes everyone goes down the same mountains. It's just great to tear down the slopes with other boarders :) It was exciting to see three friends try snowboarding for the first time and start to 'get it'. And to see their excitement going down the mountain!!

Lesson - I took an advanced lesson so I could get technique pointers. It really helped me notice some little things I wasn't doing. Like 'bending my knees' more. Making sure my body was perpendicular to the mountain. (leaning down the mtn) Using my knees, hips, and shoulders to turn instead of pullings my back leg. As a result I have a lot more control and am way more comfortable with higher speeds!

Terrain Park - I'm still determined to be landing jumps by the end of the year. M&N finally convinced me to just go off the big jumps! It wasn't til late the last day that we hit the terrain park so by the time I realized it wasn't so scary I only got to try a couple times. I still can't land em.. but it's so fun!! I'd been trying to go off the sides of the jumps (much smaller) and gotten some air and landed most of them. MOST. I did take one nice spill that surprising didn't hurt too bad or jar me like some have in the past. Well didn't seem to, til I woke the next morning and could feel the whiplash. That's twice this season :) Oh well, the pain it totally worth it!!! Hopefully next trip I'll get some pics of my jump attempts! :)

Hot Tub - Back to the hot tub :) It's so nice to treat your muscles after a long day on the slopes! So friday night I was convinced to jump out, roll in the snow (more like ice), and jump back in. It was fun, but would be better in fresh snow! (I knew M would aprrove, even though it wasn't rolling down a hill)

The Pain - What surprises me most is that everytime I get back from a trip something is pretty darn sore. I always feel sore all over but it'll be riduculous somewhere... Trip 1 - My right oblique Trip 2 - My back Trip 3 - My neck. You'd think with the same sport the same thing would hurt!

Friends - We had 16 people on the trip which was awesome. It was fun to meet new people, catch up with folks I don't see often, and hang out with the regulars. It's great to have lots of friends who share the same passion you do and get to share the amazing views, awesomeness of snow covered mountains, and adrenline rush flying down a mountain gives you!

I can't wait til the President's Weekend Trip!!!

The Joy of Cooking... OR NOT :)

After celebrating a friends birthday last night I arrive home around 9:30 and get to work making a homemade Chocolate Chip Pound Cake (c/o Paula) for another friend to take to work today. Everything's going great, bundt pan greased/floured, the mix is coming together quickly (I might have time to pack tonight afterall), things are rollin. Well then I open the cabinet (above where I'm mixing) to grab the oil. Crash.. I knock a ceramic pepper shaker (the frog one from my childhood!) to the counter. It hit's the edge of the mixing bowl and shatters. Now I have course ground pepper and broken shards of glass in the cake mix and all over the counter. I cuss, realizing later my roommates' 4 year old nephew is probably sitting in the living room (doh), luckily he was in bed. I stare at the problem for a couple minutes hoping some bright idea of how to fix the situation will come to me. Then my roommate reminds me there is no way to salvage this with possibly feeding someone glass. Crapola!! (My great roommate helps me clean up the mess!!) Now it's after 10, and I'm not happy! I decide I'm not packing tonight, I'll skip the gym in the morning and pack then. And I guess C's not getting a birthday cake. M saves the day with a boxed cake mix she had on hand. Not as good as homemade but it'll do. So I made the cake in the bundt pan (it was already greased!) and all was well. Kinda.

This is why I do not try to do things after 9pm. I go to bed and get up and do them at 5am.. when I am much more awake!

What you've been waiting for

2005 Hokie Football Schedule

VT/UVA is not thanksgiving weekend! Ack, I think the world is coming to an end!

This is the true story....

...of 24 strange people self-selected to take a challenge and change their lives. Find out what happens when people stop being lazy and start running. The Country Music Marathon, Nashville!

If you guys follow the links to other Blogs on my sidebar I'm sure you've seen a couple of blogs solely dedicated to training for the next big race! I was reading them the other day and had the realization it was our own reality TV show online. There's so much analysis, support, and advice within the blogs that they seem full of drama :) I thought I signed up for Bachelorette, not Runners World :)

Speaking of TV. I don't like arranging my life around a certain TV show. Example: No I can't hang out with you because ______ is on tonight. (Yes I know there are things like a VCR and TIVO but A - I don't have TIVO and B - I can't figure out the VCR with digital cable, never know what channels to set etc C - I won't find the time to watch it anyways) In other words I haven't been addicted to a TV show in a while. Well last year I felt like I was missing out. All these conversations about Apprentice, Arrested Development, CSI, Survivor etc and I was lost! So.... I decided to have a show :) My roommate and I watched the Bachelorette with Meredith and the Bachelor with Jesse Palmer. It actually turned into more of a roommate bonding time and we enjoyed making fun of the entire show :) So.... why am I blabbing. I have two shows right now. The roommates and I enjoy Desperate Housewives. What a soap opera. So many story lines we can hardly keep up. But it's addicting, and you want to know what's going to happen. Actually right now it's all stuff in the past we are anxious to find out about. The second is the latest Bachelorette. I know all this quality TV, hey it's entertainment :) The nice thing about Bachelorette is it only lasts about 6 weeks, so you only have to block out your schedule for a couple weeks :) Of course half the time I totally forget what day it is and end up having to read the recap on televisionwithoutpity. Funny site :)

Snowboard Trip #2

So this is old news - but I wanted to blog about all my board trips this winter. J and I headed up to snowshoe last weekend, yes when it was still summertime. We had booked a great deal a couple weeks before not realizing there would be a heat wave. We weren't too excited about the snow, but it was great to have a weekend to catch up. Friday night we met up with my friend K who is working up there this winter and went to the Comedy Club. I'm a little weary of comedy clubs these days, seems the more they cuss the more people laugh - not me, but we'd never been and I wanted to give it a shot. The best part was that since K was with us it only cost $3 instead of $13. It wasn't too bad a show... for $3, wouldn't a been worth $13. I think a couple of the audience members were funnier then the comics. Then K and I headed to Connections, the dance club. Met some of the folks she works with, talked to Conner from New Zealand for a while. Why someone would come to the states to work at a ski resort and end up in W VA instead of CO or UT has me confused!

It drizzled all friday night which made me even less excited about the snow! We got up, ate breakfast, watched a movie, went down to the village, ate lunch, then decided we might as well head out and see how the conditions were :) It's so crazy to be able to see the ground up there... usually it's packed snow everywhere!! The snow was all man-made, granular icey. Only down the center of the slopes with some bare spots. I was plesantly surprised though. It was slightly faster then powder which was great for me on the flatter runs. It was kinda fun to weave between beginners and bare spots on the narrow runs :) It was really nice not to be frozen solid :) We spent some time at Snowshoe then headed down to Silver Creek. Stayed in and watched a movie Sat night. Sunday night they actually made snow and groomed the slopes, so the conditions were a bit better, less bare spots. We spent a couple hours on the mtn before heading home. I spent about an hour on the western territory. I little bit icey but not too bad, very tiring!!!

Forgot to mention, we stayed at Mountain Lodge, mostly one bedroom condos, nice enough but def not the best the offer, more like a hotel room. Well... we happened to be in one that was privately owned and very very nice! The kitchen had been redone, comfy couch, wood accents on everything, wooden blinds, DVD player... I think we'll be requesting that room from now on!

So even though I was skeptical it was a great trip! Not the greatest conditions but we still spent lots of time on the slopes and had a blast!! Can't wait for trip #3 :)

PS. This was the first trip for my new roof rack/cargo box. It passed the Beta Test :)
PPS. I found PINK PANTS :) WOOHOOOOOOOO!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR :)

So.... my weekend in Blacksburg has given me time to catch up some on life. I feel like from the beginning of Dec til now has been a big blur! My laundry's done, my room's clean, I'm finally mailing Chirstmas presents, and my blog has a new look!! I wanted the first blog of the year to come along with the new look, so even though lots of blogable (word?) stuff has been happening I haven't had the time to post.. hopefully that will change!!

This weekend started with my desktop not working. I thought a power outage had killed the power supply. Great. So I decided that was the last straw I needed to finally get motivated to get rid of my desktop which I've hated for some time. So all I needed to do was get it working long enough to grab my files. Then I could break it down, make some money on ebay, and be done with it. Or course I put off dealing with it til today cause I didn't want to ruin my weekend! Well... today.. the thing decides to work :) Woohoo!! Now let's see how motivated I stay with getting it cleaned off and dumped!

The weekend run. Went for my 6 mile run Sunday with J. I've been having some calf issues so it wasn't exactly easy. But wasn't too bad either. My avg pace was about 9:30 which is big surprise cause I thought I was a lifetime 10 min pacer :) Well today I pull out my schedule to see what I have to do and realize I only had to run 5 miles this weekend. DOH!! Oh well, it was good for me. Side note... I also realized my old shoes had at least 500 miles on them (wow, I ran 500 miles in the past year?) so today I hit up Runabout. I can't wait to run in the new kicks and see how they feel :) Maybe new shoes will help with the leg pain!

On a side note. I'm at minute 387 out of 400 and they don't start over til friday. So if you don't have VERIZON, you better not be calling me before 9!! Well you can call, but if I don't answer you'll know why :) I'm hooking mom up with Verizon this weekend, so I won't go through my minutes so fast!!!

Christmas Weekend

I headed down to Charlotte last thursday to celebrate Christmas with J&C in their new house. Well new since April, this was the innagural Christmas. Mom arrived on thursday too. The house was decorated beautifully! C could have her own decorating or cooking show on cable :) 3 decorated trees including one old school aluminum style. They had done their research and drove us by two amazing outdoor decorations. Christmastown USA, I was napping - but we prob sat in traffic for at least 45 minutes before we even made it into the neighborhood, and continued moving at a snail's pace through Christmastown. It was very cool :) People come from all over the US to see Christmastown. Just make sure you leave plenty of time... they mean business when they say it ends at 9pm. (ERT - you never told me you had your own town!) Another less known smaller display, but no less cool, was a single family home that was decked out with lights choreographed to music. The guy had music broadcast over a radio station you could pick up within 500 ft of his house. Many of his neighbors joined in the fun and went overboard on their houses. These people are serious about their christmas lights! J&C surprised mom by taking us to a Christmas Eve service at the church of our old choir director from home. It was great to see them and put a smile on her face :) Christmas morning I surprised everyone by coming downstairs dressed as an ELF! Josh couldn't believe I had dressed up. It was fun :) If I can figure out how to post a video on here I will. Everyone must have been really good last year, Santa was very generous. The weekend was rounded off by a visit from Grandpa & B on sunday. It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend shared with family. Can't beat that!

McAdenville Story:
from http://features.aroundcarolina.com/mcadenville/
~The quiet little town of McAdenville, which lies along the South Fork River in Gaston County, N.C., comes alive in spectacular fashion each year as Christmas draws near. This is the 48th year the small textile town, population about 800, once again transforms into "Christmas Town, U.S.A."
~The McAdenville Christmas Lights date back to 1956, when the McAdenville Men's Club conceived the idea of using lights to decorate a few trees around the McAdenville Community Center. Nine trees were decorated that first year.
~This year, from December 2 to 26, you can see more than 450,000 red, green and white bulbs on some 400 trees. Hours are Monday through Friday, 5:30-9:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 5:30-11:00 pm. From December 22-26 the lights will glow from 5:30 p.m. until 11:00 pm.
~Town residents add to the light show, decorating houses in their own original styles. By the carload and busload, people come from all over the country to see the display.
~One of the favorite spots for viewers is the lake which is situated near the heart of town. There are 75 trees, ranging in size from 15 to 30 feet, which circle the lake. A fountain located in the center of the lake jets water 75 feet into the air.
~Overlooking the lake is a large display of Santa and his reindeer. The display is nine feet tall and 75 feet long, just another way for the residents of McAdenville to say Merry Christmas.

Christmas Future:
from the Charlotte Observer - Dec 15, 2004 Steve Lyttle
30,000 LIGHTS. 600 YARDS OF ELECTRIC CABLE 100 YARDS OF COMPUTER CABLE. 107.5 ON THE FM DIAL.
~It's time to put Santa in the retirement home and Rudolph in the barn. Jeff Lacey is the future of Christmas. Well, the future of Christmas light displays, at least.
~Lacey's high-tech combination -- radio broadcasts of holiday music to passing cars, with 30,000 lights that seemingly dance in time to the music -- is luring big crowds to his Mint Hill home and providing a glimpse into the future of Christmas decorations.
~"I could have thrown a ton of lights up, but I'm going for the oohs and ahhs," said Lacey, a quality systems consultant when he's not programming lights and music.
~Using software from Kansas-based Animated Lighting Limited, Lacey spent hours writing computer programs that synchronize each of the 40-plus displays in his yard to any of 10 Christmas songs.
~"It takes almost a day to program a song," Lacey said.
~The music is broadcast over a low-wattage FM radio station (107.5) with a range of about 500 feet along Forrest Rader Drive in the St. Ives subdivision.
~Mark Spencer, marketing director for Animated Lighting Limited, said Lacey's program is "next-generation" for home holiday displays but added a caution: Don't try this at home, unless you've got a lot of computer savvy.
~"The challenge for companies like ours will be to lower the technical hurdle more," Spencer said, adding that his company produces preprogrammed products for those not willing to spend the time Lacey did. In the subculture of Christmas-light lovers, Lacey is king.
~"It's far and away the most incredible display I have seen," said Ray McCrodden, another Mint Hill resident whose home displays have been a big hit for a decade. "It's what you'd expect to see at Disney World."
~Lacey and his wife, Sandra, have added a charitable element, putting up a sign asking passersby to show their appreciation by donating food items to Jackson Park Ministries, a nonprofit group that helps a low-income west Charlotte neighborhood.
~"I couldn't do this without the support of my neighbors," Lacey said. "They've been patient with all the traffic, and many of them have put up big light displays of their own."