summer summer summertime

The air is sweetly scented with orange blossoms and we are enjoying some of the best weather ever! Today has been a grand day - Brian started his new job and had a wonderful time, and I got back to my regular schedule. I got a lot done today and managed to cook a healthy meal tonight, complete with a healthy dessert!

We're thankful for Brian's work and for this early summer. Soon I'm going to begin work on a garden.

Tonight I finished reading "Marley and Me" by John Grogan. It was a truly wonderful book. I would recommend it to anyone! It's seriously laugh-out-loud funny, and if you're an animal lover, you are most definitely missing out if you haven't read this book. Just a warning though - get out the Kleenex for the last few chapters. I was reading it in the bathtub and bawling like a baby! Thanks, Denise, for lending me this treasure.

Idol tomorrow! Can't wait!

spacejase, this post is for you!

OK, I have to make a little clarification. Not ALL guys look bad with long hair, in my opinion. But most of them do. What I can't stand is that scraggly, looks-like-it's-never-been-washed-or-combed looking hair. As I was typing my last post and Brian was reading over my shoulder, he said, "But what about Jason? You like HIS hair." This is true, and I even mentioned to Brian that maybe I should put a little note about that in the post. But I didn't, and now look what has happened! LOL Jason, dude, your hair is cool! Don't cut it! :-)

For those of you who are wondering, following is a picture of our beloved and dearly missed friends, Jason and Alicia. They moved to California at the same time we moved to Florida, from Albany. This was taken around last May, I think, at Rob Gallerani's birthday party at Kobe Steakhouse. Of course, this is Jason and Alicia PRE-lasik, since they are both spectacle-free now!
Speaking of you, Jase, I hope you picked my correct top four AI contestants!! My top four, not in any order, are Mandisa, Taylor, Elliott, and Katharine. I also like Paris, but she's been making really bad song choices, so she's not in my top four. I'm harsh, I know. Hope you win the big bucks, J! :-D

While we're on the subject, I was very happy with who went home on Thursday night, except for Bucky. I don't like Gedeon either, but Bucky should've gone FIRST!!

Anyway, let's get on to our day at Islands of Adventure on Thursday. We had a spectacular time. We started out the day with the Incredible Hulk coaster - it was awesome! You start out going up a hill inside a tunnel, and about a third of the way up, you just get LAUNCHED the rest of the way up the hill and straight into a hair-pin loop! It's fab! I took some pics of the coaster from the other side of the park. I lost count of how many flips and loops there were, but I LOVED it!



We also rode the Dueling Dragons, Fire and Ice, two steel coasters that start off side by side and then take off on their own courses, intertwining and coming within a few feet of each other three times during the ride. They were both GORGEOUS rides - so smooth and just relaxing, despite all the loops and corkscrews, etc. I liked the Fire Dragon better - I just thought it was a little smoother.

We rode the Spiderman ride four times! It was so cool! And Brian loved it - he's not big on thrill rides, too bad he married me! Ha! I drag him on all the coasters. But he was loving Spidey - you get in this little car and put on the 3-D glasses and your car gets jolted all around and stuff while a scene plays out. At one point they blow wind on you and the screens on either side of you rush downward, so it looks like you're flying straight up. Then you do a nose dive - but not really, it just looks that way and it's SO COOL - a simulated 400-foot drop, and you get caught at the very last second by Spidey's web. Awesome!

It was a wonderful day - hot and sunny - we wore shorts and got a little sun, and we were still hot! We rode other rides, but those were our favorites. We also had a funnel cake - yum! - and saw a cool show about Sinbad rescuing the princess from the evil witch or something. The stunts were amazing and it was nice to rest our feet for a little while.

Yesterday we headed down to Winter Haven for me to play at Chris' church again. It was great. Man, that band is just so tight! They are so awesome to play with. The service was wonderful. We got home late this afternoon (I noticed on the way home it was 91 degrees!!!!) and cleaned up a bit and rested, then I made a big pot of chili and one of Brian's friends from EA came over for dinner. They're in there chatting about games, comic books, movies, etc. B starts his new job tomorrow at n-Space and we're so excited! It will be great to have things back to normal.

Oh, and if you want to see the rest of our silly photos from Universal, click here.

it's just idol chat

The girls weren't so hot last night. Mandisa was my favorite by far - she was definitely the best singer last night and like Simon said, she was in a different league than the others. I believe Kinnik is definitely going home - nearly her whole song was sharp and it was actually painful for me to listen to. It seriously hurt my ears!

Tonight I'm blogging while watching the guys. I must say that I'm over Gedeon. The clip before his song with the painting put the last nail in his coffin for me. I've never heard a person sing runs more slowly. Seriously! Black people are famous for being able to flip their voices and do runs really fast (think of Stevie Wonder, Brian McKnight, etc.) but Gedeon just sings them so slowly, he drags them out, it sounds wierd.

Chris is good. I like him. He had a few little flat notes toward the end of his song, but he saved it. I don't think he deserves to win, but I think he'll probably be in the top 6. I like Kevin, too - he did a great job on Starry Starry night. He has a very trained sounding voice and it showed on this song. He really has a nice voice, but he just doesn't have the stage presence. I hope he makes it to the top 12 though, because I always like the underdog. :-)

Ooh, looks like my boyfriend, Taylor, is coming up! But first I have to endure Bucky. Ugh. Seriously, I just can't even stand hearing his name. OK, started out sharp. I just think he has no business being here, he's totally out of his league. And he's GOT to cut the hair. It looks so scraggly! Of course, this is all my OPINION!! Remember.

Will, doing How Sweet it is. Eh. Mediocre. Also needs a haircut. His hair looks like my hair looked in the 5th grade when my grandmother gave me a home perm in our kitchen sink. WHY do guys think they need to have long hair??!!

ANYWAY! During the boring parts, (while Will sings), I'll tell you about our day. Today we went to Universal Studios! We're celebrating Brian's new job! We went to the Universal park and we'll do Islands of Adventure tomorrow. The Mummy ride was BY FAR the best ride at that park!! We rode it FOUR TIMES!!!! LOL! We got there around noon and got in line for Shrek. We waited for that for like 30 minutes. It was pretty cute, but I didn't enjoy the wait, so we ran over and got Express Passes. Those made all the difference. Like I said, we rode Mummy four times and each time, we didn't wait for more than about 2 minutes. We seriously walked right up and got in a car. That ride rocks! It's nice and fast and it surprises you! Love it!

We had a wonderful day. But the Mummy was the only thrill ride at this park. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and some big, huge, fast, loopy roller coasters! Yay! I did like the Men in Black ride and the Back to the Future ride, though. I just got tired of all the ride "introductions," meaning that when we got to what we thought was the end of the line, they would herd us all into a big room and show us some 10-minute-long movie clip. I just wanted to get on the ride already!

Woo! Taylor is gonna sing! I LOVE him! And Elliott is coming up! Yay! OK, Taylor is so adorable and I just love the sound of his voice. Don't tell anyone, but my hair is just as gray as his, and maybe even more. I used to get it colored it about every 3-4 months, but now I have to get it done about every 5 weeks. :-( And the highlights are getting lighter and lighter to cover up the incoming gray!

So, Taylor just makes me wanna get up and dance and play the harmonica or something!! He is such a performer! He was great. I'm gonna rewind it and listen to him again. :-D Like Brian says, Taylor can tear it up!!!! WOO!

Here comes Elliott, my second favorite! Let's see what he does. Ooh, Bryan Adams! Awesome! LOVE this song! Elliott's not the best looking guy, but he has charisma on stage. He's doing great, and it's interesting to hear this song sung with a straight vocal, instead of Bryan Adams' raspy sound. I do love the raspy sound, but this is really good. Elliott has a lot of control. Awesome job! (Brian says he looks like Frankenstein! Mean!)

Ace. All the girls love Ace. He looks kinda funky to me when he's talking - his mouth and eyes go all crooked. I mean, he's cute, but I don't think he's all that. And you know I think he needs a major haircut. He's an okay singer. Brian saw online that some website has predicted he will win. I'm appalled at that! He doesn't hold a candle (in my book) to Mandisa, Elliott, Taylor, Katharine, Paris, or even Chris. And what the heck was that in the middle of the song? He sounded like Horatio Sanz doing an impression of Aaron Neville on SNL.

It's over, time to vote. Guess who I'm voting for! Taylor and Elliott. If I had my way, Will and Bucky would go home. But I can't predict what America will do. I'll say this - I think that the two going home will come from this list:
Bucky
Will
Kevin
Gedeon

Woo hoo! Bo Bice tomorrow night! I'll enjoy the roller coasters and then top off a great day seeing some crappy people go home and Bo Bice sing! Sounds good to me.

a new job for brian

Well, folks, the search is over. Brian has accepted a job with n-Space, a game company here in Orlando. Praise the Lord we don't have to move! n-Space has been very good to B during the whole interview process. (For instance, he got lost TWICE going to interview - two days in a row - and they didn't hold it against him! LOL) They are currently making games for the newest Nintendo system, Nintendo Revolution, which is not yet on the market. Here's an article that was in the Orlando Sentinel recently. Brian really likes it there - it's a smaller yet growing company that has a family-like atmosphere among its employees. More like VV, nothing like EA. :-)

And now I will reveal where he has interviewed over the past month! (Like it's some big exciting news!) He's travelled to Champaign, IL, Albany, NY, and Emeryville (Oakland area), CA. He's also had phone interviews with numerous companies, including companies in Raleigh, NC, Phoenix, AZ, TONS of places in CA, Seattle,WA, and Austin, TX to name a few! You can imagine how relieved I am to not be packing up and moving across the country yet AGAIN! Some of these places gave him offers and some offered to fly him out for an interview and he declined. All in all, he had a big choice to make, and many places to choose from. We're thankful that he was in such a great position. And we feel really confident and happy with n-Space.

Brian made me a delicious dinner last night - pasta with a sauce of sauteed garlic, grape tomatoes, and fresh basil - yum! I've been trying to get the house back in order after last week's craziness! On Saturday, B and I headed down to Winter Haven where my cousin Chris is the minister of music at Winter Haven First Church of the Nazarene. He needed someone to play piano for the contemporary service, so he asked me. We rehearsed on Saturday night and that band is AWESOME! I've barely touched a piano since last May (!) so it was really nice to get back into it. Plus, Chris' sister Kay and her husband Fred came to visit, too. They live in south GA and it was great to see them again!

Sunday morning's service went really well - I enjoyed myself immensely. The music was rockin'! And the speaker was Larry Dennis, the DS for the Central Florida district. He was great, too. I'd really missed being on the platform! Chris needs me for the whole month of March, so we'll be heading to Winter Haven every Saturday night/Sunday morning in March. Oh, and we stayed at the Pastor's house and they had the cutest little dog in the world! I LOVED that doggie!

So B only has this week before he starts work and we're going to try and make the most of it! We're planning to spend 2 days at Universal - I think we're going Wednesday and Thursday. I hope we can squeeze in a romantic dinner too - maybe Friday night.

MUCH less stress now that B is going back to work. Maybe I'll actually start working now, too!

Jenn - we're obviously going to be here, so you and Pat head on down!!!!
Jenni - we'll definitely join you at Disney for a day or two!!!! Can't wait!!!!

It's in the 80's all week this week - anyone else wanna come for a visit? ;-)

busy, busy, busy!

Well, Brian is gone on his THIRD interview out of state in a WEEK, and I'm just exhausted from all his traveling! I could drive to the airport in my SLEEP!! I've missed him, but it's been nice to have some "alone" time - I've gotten a lot of things done around the house, watched a few movies, read a few books, scrapped a few pages. He'll be back tomorrow, and that's the last far-away interview that's scheduled thus far. He might have another one coming up, but it's not on the calendar yet.

I had a doctor appt. yesterday with my new fabulous doctor, Dr. Bedros. I LOVE him. He is wonderful. He's soft spoken and friendly, and I feel like I could just talk to him forever. He's very positive and has a great outlook about everything health-related. Here's the big proof that he's great: my blood pressure yesterday was 114/80. WOW!!!! That's AMAZINGLY good for me, being at the doctor. My blood pressure is usually WAY up when I'm at the doctor, and totally normal when I'm at Walmart or anywhere else. I guess I just get nervous at the doctor, but this is a great result for my new and beloved physician.

And then I had my book club last night, followed by a mad scurry to get B ready for his trip and get MYSELF ready for the Photo Trade Show I went to today at the Convention Center. More about that in a minute. We had to get up at 5:45!! Insane! But we did it and because of unusual traffic, Brian BARELY made it to the plane on time. He's now safely in "another state," preparing to interview tomorrow. Soon, when we have made a job decision, I will reveal all of these mystery interviews. But I don't want people to freak out or anything, so I'll hold off for now. Anyway, here's the page I did for book club:



And now....on to the Trade Show. Liz, the owner of Memory Lane Orlando, got a call from Scrapbook Retailer Magazine, wanting her to send a few people to their booth to scrapbook! They wanted the photography world to see what scrapbooking was and how their products can be incorporated. The show is basically for companies - it's not like the Scrapbook Expo that's open to the public, where you can buy things. This show has demos of new and upcoming products in the field of photography: cameras, lenses, kiosks, etc. So Liz called Denise and Denise called me, and she and I went and scrapped at the booth! It was SO! FUN! I was bouncing off the walls all day!

We met so many nice people - like the guys from 3M, (you know, the Post-It people!), who came over and admired our pages and demonstrated their tape runners, scrapbook glue, repositionable double-sided tape, etc. They even gave us a bunch of free stuff! Awesome! And there was the marketing director from Karen Foster, who we talked with all day. Karen Foster has teamed with Prism Papers, with Prism matching cardstock to Karen Foster's paper lines. Ultra cool! And they gave us tons of cardstock! :-D And their cardstock is GORGEOUS!!!!

About 4 million people looked through our albums and asked lots of questions about scrapbooking. Denise and I just talked and talked about our favorite subject! It was great! People took our picture, videotaped us (!), and took pictures of our pages. It was crazy fun. AND our booth has this awesome system set up with a printer, and you can just stick your memory card or photo CD in and print pictures till your heart's content! We did just that. You can even add borders and text to your pictures! It even prints digital scrapbook pages, 12x12 pictures, etc., but they only had the 4x6 printer with them. But it was still great! We got to print out our pictures in amazingly vivid color for FREE!

All My Memories was there, right next to our booth, and there was Scrapworks - we got to see all their cool new stuff that's coming out....whew! We talked to the people from McGill for a LONG TIME about their punches. There were too many people and companies to mention! We've just had a blast and we're going back tomorrow!!!! I'm EXHAUSTED! I'm ready for bed, but I've TiVo-ed American Idol, so I'm gonna go watch that and then turn in.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow after the show.

Edited to add:

My bottom three AI girls tonight, in order with my least favorite first:

1. Brenna Gethers - come on, people. She's horrible, both musically and personally. GOODBYE!
2. Kinnik Sky - she can kinda sing, but she was flat for more than half the song.
3. Heather Cox - should go home next week, not at the caliber needed for this show.

Just my (not so humble) opinion! :-P

enormous airheads

This is just one of the many acronyms that I have come up with for EA.

In the last 24 hours, Brian has received THREE calls from three different recruiters, all looking to hire him for EA. WHAT THE HECK!!!! All the jobs are in California, but still - what are they doing over there? They just laid off 5% of their work force. The layoffs took place mostly in CA, but included FL and Vancouver, Canada. (I know that around 38 people were laid off from B's office.) So they lay off a bunch of people in CA, and in a few weeks, give the recruiters the go-ahead to actively pursue hiring for jobs in CA??!!

How about Expertise Absent....? Or - Executives Arrested!

more judgement

It was boys' night on American Idol tonight, and what an interesting show it was. I have lots of things to say, LOL! (as usual) The poor Copa Cabana guy. Love his heart, he's like 50 years old! I think he's going home tomorrow. The first guy who sang, Patrick, was so full of himself. I don't like him at all. And I couldn't stand the guy named Bucky. He was awful!

I thought Simon was right on the entire night, even though Paula and Randy gave him a hard time.

Here are my top three guys:

Taylor Hicks (love him)
Elliott Yamin (but he's GOT to get those teeth fixed!)
Tie between Chris Daughtry and Ace Young

OK, I guess that's four. :-) I also like Kevin Covais, but I know he won't win. He can sing, though! There are some really good singers this year. And some pretty horrible ones - I can't believe some of them made it to the top 24! Let's hope the good ones make the finals.

PS - Jenni, I think our rendition of "Heavenly Love" would win AI. Ah, the memories! :-P We were definitely the Plaza Idols!!

ai critique

OK, I've got to give my opinion on American Idol. Not that anyone cares, but it IS my blog! :-D After watching over the last few weeks, there were 3 girls that stood out to me. And they were definitely my top three tonight! They are, in no particular order:

Mandisa
Paris Bennett
Katharine McPhee

They all kicked some major butt tonight. I voted for all three of them. I'm making an early prediction that these three girls will be the top three girls. If they're not, I'll be disappointed. Lisa Tucker is a pretty good singer too, and though the judges loved her tonight, I thought her performance was lacking. At the climax of the song, I didn't think she brought it. I do like her, but I like these other 3 better.

Brenna, the girl who's totally full of herself from NY, is on my LAST nerve! I hope she goes home FIRST!!!! (Plus, she really can't sing....)

I can't wait for tomorrow night - simply because I want to hear Taylor Hicks sing! I think he's fab. Even if he does have gray hair!

Brian's interview went well today. He really liked the people and the place. He'll be back tomorrow afternoon, and leave again on Thursday. After that interview, we should have 3 offers to compare. One here and two others in two different states. Please keep us in your prayers!

Oh, yeah - I wanted to say that yesterday, I watched the movie "De-Lovely" about the life of songwriter Cole Porter. It was great, and the music was awesome! My favorite performance was "Love for Sale" by Vivian Green. I've never heard of her, but she was amazing. There were also great performances by Cheryl Crow, Robbie Williams, Diana Krall, Natalie Cole, and Elvis Costello. And what I thought was a horrible performance by Alanis Morissette. I like some of her songs, but she just didn't fit the era of this movie. She turns her diphthongs WAY too much for my taste. ANYWAY! Rent it. Even if only for the music!

up all night

All in all, it's been a pretty crappy week. Mainly because while searching on Monster to see if there were any new and interesting jobs for Brian, I found yet another job posting by EA. This time, it's Brian's EXACT job, posted only nine days after he was laid off. I can't even explain how livid this makes me. Brian has moved on, but I can't seem to get over it. Why would a company do something like this? They said they were eliminating the positions of the level 3 software engineers.

Here is the posting. Notice that in the second line of the job description they state that revenues exceed $3.1 billion. But they don't have enough money to pay Brian's salary.

Brian called his old manager, who stated he was "unaware" that they were hiring for this position. Brian also called the director of human resources, who was also "unaware" of the hiring. I think it's very interesting that the director of human resources, whose job is to hire, doesn't know that EA is hiring. What in the world is going on?? You might try to imagine how upset I am about this. You just might try. But even if you tried really really hard, you would only be able to comprehend a fraction of the anger I'm feeling.

Meanwhile, Brian is still on the job hunt, and is being hunted. He's flying to two different places for interviews next week. I don't want to tell you where just yet, but I'll keep you updated. Please continue to keep us in your prayers and thoughts - mainly me, since I can't seem to let go of the EA situation.

And that brings me to the title of my post. It's normal for Brian and I to go to bed really late, like around 2:00 or so. Last night was no exception, even though B had to take my car into the shop for an A/C recharge and an oil change at 8:00 this morning. At 3:30, I was doing a Sudoku puzzle online (B says I'm a junkie) and Brian was snoring. By 4:00, I had turned on my book on CD and was listening intently. By 5:30, I still hadn't closed my eyes, but began to have a horrible stomach ache. At 6:00, I got up to stay and watched the sun rise. I did my daily chores (cleaning, etc.) and woke Brian up at 7:15. I had pancakes for breakfast and continued to clean and wander around the house for another few hours.

Our house looks great. :-)

{I did manage to squeeze in a nap from 10:00 to about 12:30, though.}

I've been having trouble sleeping for awhile now, and I'm sure it has to do with the job situation. It would probably help if I was on some kind of schedule, and I'm REALLY ready to start teaching piano, but I can't begin anything until we know if we are going to stay in Orlando. It's all a big vicious cycle that I can't break out of.

In other news, Brian's childhood friend Glenn and his wife Lorie are here visiting us for the weekend. They live in Jacksonville. Glenn was the best man in our wedding, and it's really great to see them again! We've spent today just relaxing, talking and watching movies. We went out to Bubbalou's BBQ for dinner and it was delicious!

Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, is going to be speaking at Discovery Church in Orlando tomorrow night. I'm hoping to go. I think he's a great writer, and I'm sure I'd benefit from hearing him speak.

brian's fashion sense & book talk

I just have to say that my husband is a nut! He's been putting together some very interesting outfits since he's out of work. The other day, I noticed that he was wearing a polo shirt, pajama pants, and dress shoes. What in the world??!! Today, he's wearing his bathrobe and tennis shoes with no socks. I do not know where he gets these ideas!! :-P

A few of you have been suggesting other book series since Mitford and Southern Sisters have ended for me. Thanks for your input! While I'm sad that those have ended, I am still involved in several other series, and there are even more on my book list. I'll name a few:

The Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich. I've read all of them and am waiting on the next one to be published. I just checked, and Twelve Sharp will be released on June 20. Yay!

The Food Mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson. I don't think this is the actual title of the series, but they all have to do with food: Chopping Spree, Sticks & Scones, etc. I haven't read any of these yet, but they were recommended to me by my wonderful friend Jennifer a few years ago. They are on my list!

The Princess Diaries Series by Meg Cabot. So they're supposed to be for teens, but so what?! I've read most of them and they are hilarious.

The Traveling Pants Series by Ann Brashares. Also for teens, I've read them all and I love them. Great stories about friendship.

The Miss Julia Series by Ann B. Ross. I haven't read these yet, but they have been on my list for awhile. Thanks, Nancy, for reminding me!

The Bridget Jones Books by Helen Fielding. I've read them both and they are fabulous! Very funny. I hope she's going to write another.

The Shopaholic Series by Sophie Kinsella. These are wildly funny! I've read all four and they do not disappoint. You can't believe what Becky, the main character, gets herself into!

The Alex Cross Series by James Patterson. Full of mystery, action, and shocking plot twists, Brian and I cannot put these down! We've read them all but the latest one and it's reserved at the library for us.

The Women's Murder Club Series by James Patterson. Again, these are so exciting! I've read them all. The first one, 1st to Die, is my favorite.

The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling. These are awesome! Their popularity speaks for itself. Brian and I have read them all.

The Bailey Weggins Series by Kate White. Not the name of the series, but all of her books have the same main character, Bailey Weggins. They are mysteries with a touch of romance every now and then, and I have really enjoyed all four of these books.

The Rosato & Associates Series by Lisa Scottoline. This is not the name of the series. In fact, there is no name for the series that I can find. But a lot of her books deal with the lawyers (who are all women) at Rosato & Associates and these books are great. They are filled with mystery and suspense.

I just finished my newest favorite snack: a Starbucks Frappucino ice cream bar. They're low-fat and DELICIOUS! Mocha is my fave. :-)

Brian has been on the phone non-stop all day, and now he's taking YET ANOTHER programming test. We think he's working harder now than when he was actually working! LOL

Happy Valentine's Day!