Botcon funnyisms

I'm in beautiful downtown Lexington, KY, home of Transylvania University. And Botcon 2006. You know, the Transformers convention. Ben is super excited, though the convention hasn't technically started yet. Today was a tour of a Toyota plant and a Kentucky Bourbon distillery.

On to the funnyisms....

While waiting in line for lunch at Buffalo Trace distillery, I overheard two Botcon attendees debating whether or not one of them should have painted a model Ford GT with pink fingernail polish so it would look like RC, a female Transformer who is actually pink. Yup, feminists unite. Anyway, they seriously went back and forth on this for about 10 minutes. "Dude, how could you paint a Ford pink?" says the dork incredulously. Other dork replies with, "well, if Hasbro won't release an RC Alternator, then I just have to settle for a model. And model companies don't make Fords pink."

So, still in line, I imagine this young man standing in the nail polish aisle of Walgreens trying to pick out the right shade of pink for RC. So what happens... I begin to giggle. Incessently. At least I didn't burst out laughing the way I did when my baby sister mentioned something about the importance of graduating.

Other funnyism: while standing in line waiting patiently for Ben to purchase some TF (Transformers) souvenirs, they actually started to play the Star Wars theme. The funny part: some dudes actually started to rock out to it. Imaginary lightsabers and all.


The most amazing thing to me... I've been to a few conventions with Ben & Friends (affectionately called "The Street Geeks"). Usually, it's a bunch of stinky uber-dorks who the Queer Eye gang couldn't make attractive after a whole week of help, let alone a day's worth. Anyway, there are actually a few attractive gentlemen here. A few scary guys thrown in the mix, but it's not all unattractive.

Shennie's New Age

On Sunday morning, Jessica and Aunt Sher (now called "Shennie" because she's part Sher, part Jennie) decided that Aunt Sher is no longer in her mid-50's, she must be in her mid-40's.

This whole conversation started with Aunt Sher saying that she had celebrated her kidney's 29th birthday on Sept. 8th (my birthday). Jessi told Sher that since part of her now is 29, that must bring down her average age, because statiscally speaking, one outlier will bring down an entire mean. so one body part aged at 29 will bring down the average age of a mid-50 year old body. But we're only counting major body parts, you know, like heart, lungs, intestinal tract, liver, minor ear bones. OK, not the ear bones.

So, Happy New Age to Aunt Shennie! Love you!

P.S. There was another kidney donor at Sarah's wedding. Unfortunately, his recipient rejected the kidney and he's now on dialysis. So prayers for the little boy in the Hawai'ian shirt at Sarah's wedding would be appropriate.

My Cousin's Wedding

On Saturday, Jessica, Katie and I flew into Connecticut with our parents. We landed shortly before 1 p.m. Eastern time, and promptly headed off to get our rental car. We got a cute little Hyundai Accent. I kinda wish I had taken a picture of it, oh well. Jessi drives down to Cromwell, CT, to our hotel. It was in a shadier part of Cromwell, but not horrible. The hotel sufficed. It was within 25 minutes of anywhere we needed to be in CT. My grandfather was west of us, my grandmother was south of us, the wedding was due east of us, and the airport was due north. Not bad planning there, Pops! I'd stay there again.

Yesterday was my cousin's wedding. The church was very pretty. It was an old style, Pilgrim built church. Wooden pews (I think one of the Congregationalists had made some pads for it), rafters, an old organ. Her flowers were very pretty. My father's whole family was there. She even invited my aunt's ex-husband. That made for a slightly awkward social tension. But it was nice to see him again. I hadn't seen him since I was in 7th grade. I'm 29 now.

The wedding was great, Sarah and Doug seem like they'll be a happy couple.

Murphy Hates Me

You know, Murphy... the guy from Murphy's Law. He hates me. Ever since I've been in charge at the CLC, stuff has been going wrong left and right. And there's nothing I can do about it. None of it was my fault.

Let me count the ways that Murphy hates me:

1) Storm in July knocks out the power around St. Louis, forcing me to...

2) Cancel a whole week of summer camp. That ended up losing our facility about $3,300.

3) A large school district did not show up for their two missions and two Discovery classrooms today. Come to find out, their science coordinator (who was in charge of telling the teachers when to come to our Center and she was in charge of getting us paid) had resigned a month earlier and noone contacted us. She was our only contact in the district, and her voicemail did not indicate that she had left her position (We called her twice last week to find out whywe hadn't been paid yet). Oh yeah, this large school district was signed up for 15 missions and 15 Discovery classrooms over the next two weeks. Cost: over $8,000.

These are just the major things that have happened... I'm not counting all the little stuff that has happened over the past three months. I swear, if one more thing happens while Tasmyn is gone (only TWO MORE WEEKS!), I will cry. I will sit at my desk and weep like a frickin' baby.

Just so I don't end on a downer, Ben said the funniest thing at dinner tonight. He says, "Honey, in the future, would you mind not talking to me about major life decisions as we're laying in bed about to fall asleep? The other night, you bring up the baby talk* after you're already on Ambien... then blah, blah, blah, baby, SNORE!"

*baby talk = when do you want to start thinking about having a baby? Not let's have a baby now... no house, no baby.

Football

Well, the Rams buggered this game up. The offense just doesn't seem to be in sync. Marc Bulger looks uncomfortable on the field, and I think it's because he doesn't have much faith in his line. They aren't giving him much time, and when they manage to give him a few extra milliseconds, he can't complete a pass to save his life. He overthrew his receivers like mad today. Thank God Torry got that touchdown. I can't imagine what these guys would be feeling if they lost AND they hadn't scored a touchdown yet this season.

My Cowboys rocked the hizzy though!! They played like I wish the Rams would. They were hitting hard on defense, not just sitting back and waiting for the other team to come to them. The offense did well, too.

Man, I love me some football...

Loads goin' on....

Today, Ben and I each cleaned out our office areas, and I am actually typing this blog from my desk. I haven't been able to type from this computer for almost a year. Check out my newly clean area!!

Our new staff at the CLC are trained on the Mars mission. The new Lead Flight Director is a fast learner and is now doing the parts of her job, which are now leaving me time to do my job (and my boss' for another two weeks).

Last weekend was my 29th birthday, and I had a nice weekend. I went in to work on Saturday morning to get a project completed, watched the shuttle launch (OF COURSE...), and then went out to lunch with friends, went to the Science Center with them, saw an Omnimax movie (Adrenaline Rush), and finished the night off at Dave and Buster's.

Next weekend, I'll be in CT with my parents and sisters for my cousin's wedding. I'll try and publish photos from that trip next Monday night.

Well, Rams are about to start playing, and the Cowboys are on after that. I am so happy the football season is up and running again. Sundays are so nice now!

Long Time No See!!

Sorry that I haven't blogged in such a while, but as I've said before, work has been pretty rough, but things are improving (I think...). And, last week I was in Houston for the National Challenger Learning Center for Space Science Education Conference. The week was pretty good. Monday was AWESOME! For those of us who got there a day early, we got an up close and personal tour of Johnson Space Center. I was in the Mission Control Room where the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and first shuttle missions were run. For a space geek like me, that was like being in Jerusalem or Mecca for a Jew or Muslim, respectively. I saw the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (otherwise known as the largest pool in the world where astronauts train underwater in their 185 lb spacesuits), Building 9 (one full size shuttle mock-up, two cockpit mock-ups, one International Space Station mock-up, etc.) and Mission Control. I got to meet four astronauts last week. Barbara Morgan, Scott Paraczynski (sp?), Bill McArthur, and Rick Mastracchio. Rick and Barbara are training together for their June 2007 mission (STS-118). They were both incredibly nice and Rick was really great for talking with Mellisa and me for two hours. We were able to pick his brain about living in space, training to be an astronaut, going through the application process, etc. I also talked with him a little about Waterbury, CT (his hometown, where my mom and Aunt Shennie grew up).

This week also began training for our new staff. Day One went well, tomorrow we get our interim receptionist. So yay! I don't have to learn another job. I'm down to 2 and a half jobs rather than three (Kim's still training, so I'm still doing half her job for at least another two to three weeks...)

I'll make up a flickr account or something for my Houston pics. I'll post the link once I've got the hookup.