Week 63 (+45) Been a while again

63

-Sixty-three is Ascii for question mark: '?'
-The number of chromosomes found in the offspring of a donkey and a horse.


Been a large handful of days since I've been back to update or anything on my LJ.

Had to change the sibling road trip (SRT) for this year. /sadpanda Instead of Oregon and the beach and the Wildlife park it is going to be Bear Lake with swimming and a cookout and smores. Also a couple friends on FB suggested Minnitonka Caves. Sounds fun and I think that Paul 'n Rach will like it. I know that we are all excited for Bear Lake later this month.

But mark my word we will make it to the Oregon trip this next year or sometime in the near future. It will happen! lol. Sounds to fun to skip and was planned out and all things it was green light and good to go. Only problem was that we could not get all four of our free days to line up for it thanks to John's section head yanking his vacations days. >.> Arse...

Other then that its just been the norm with School prep, work adult crap and life in general.

I've also been really excited for Craig and his new life adventures. Dropped him a house warming gift and I have another planned. I think it is a very exciting time in his life right now even with it being hectic.

Anyway while out and running errands I was listening to Pandora on my Droid phone and found a shit-ton of new bands that are awesome that I want to explore some more!

All these bands have that awesome Celtic folk/rock sound to them that I love in the band "Enter The Haggis" (ETH). Honestly I'm still on the fence about Flogging Molly. I grabbed a CD of theirs' after hearing a song on x96 and was kinda disappointed by it compared to ETH. I mean I love Scot-Irish traditional music like bagpipes, drums and flutes and I love celtic-alt/rock but their music just did not seem to click with me. I've tried letting it grow on me like I have had to with other CDs, even CDs from my fav bands. No such luck. :/ Oh well some of their songs are good.

Bands from the Dropkick Murphy station:
-Dropkick Murphy (yes I need to still look into them)
-Blaggards (kinda like Celtic-rock with sea shanties really neat)
-The Pogues
-The Real McKenzies
-Tossers
-The Tossers (I'll have to double check if this is the same group)
-The Young Dubliners
-The Briggs
-Gaelic Storm (They are the same band that was the 3rd class band in Titanic)
-Great Big Sea
-The Bollox

I really should use Pandora more often. I mean it has been how long since Craig told me about it? more then 3 years I think. I dunno but a long time and John uses it ALL THE TIME... In the car while running around. Want to listen to one of the many CDS in the car? Nope Pandora. lol.

By the way my Pandora username is my hotmail right now but if I can I'll change it to my gmail. Just if you are interested in my channels. *shrugs*

Anyway just a tiny update and more rantage then update. Oh well.

laters my interweb peeps

Its that time of year again. Oi... lol

Just pasting my wall post from FB here 'cuz it says it all.

Just finished up all the lil details that *I* need to do for the SR this year and I'm not to surprised at the end product. I'm leaving the gas figures to John. As I was sitting here knee deep in mapquest, hotel addresses, room prices and dates, John who is on the couch playing WoW says that I'm great at this planing stuff and could do it for a living. Thx for saying so John but ummm no thx. It is as Ina said last time (or the time before I can't tell) my mother bird phase in the trip and doings. If I don't then it will never get done lol. Now just to wait for it to get close so I can go into panic mood and start doing the packing (or should I say bugging them to get packed) and entertainment and food ready. *sigh* more planing.

Week 59 (+31) Last couple of weeks could have been a bit better

59
-The number corresponding to the last minute in a given hour, and the last second in a given minute.
-The number on a button commonly worn by feminist activists in the 1970s; this was based on the claim that a woman earned 59 cents to an equally qualified man's dollar.


So This last year or so I've been a slacker in posting. Lazy yeah but also kinda busy with other things. Still wish I was more consistent like I use to be.

So I missed getting my annual blood draw due to the preceding appointment running long and so when I checked the lab they had closed for the day. Been trying to get back in and have yet to have much time. Oy... Later that week dad told me that Tortaro looked like he had a chunk bitten out of his backside when he saw him outside my parent's place. I asked Paul to round him up (since he is the fastest) and bring him on over here so I could get a look at it. He did and when I got a look at it I knew he needed to get in to a vet ASAP.

Pic of his wound after Paul brought him over for me to get a look at.


Tried our regular vet and they where working on a dog so they could not take him that day so we had to take him to one up on the East side that they recommended. We go there and after all the regular waiting and talking to the techs and the on call vet we ended up paying $215 to get him stabilized and cleaned up a lil bit. Took home some pain killers and antibiotics and a cone. He seemed okay pain wise and in every other aspect except for the massive wound on his backside, that the vet had informed us it looked infected. They wanted us to come back that Monday or hit up our regular vet. So that Monday bright and early we rounded up Tortaro which has been staying with us and stopped by the other vet since they had handled him already. Got there and they had a look at him and said that he was healing so well on his own that they wanted us to just keep and eye on him and his wound to see if it would heal together and scab over without the surgery to pull his wound together and sew it shut.

Some of the pics of his wound healing together.



Another one later one. Don't know why it is so small of a pic. >.>


Right now it is only a bumpy healed area with a sliver of a cut left to heal with fur growing over most of the old wounded area. I'm so glad.

...I've yet to get back into the doctor to do the blood draw... Oy.

Found a ton of new music and books in the last few weeks. Really diggin' Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons. Heard it on the radio and just loved it. Will have to listen to some of their other stuff and see if I like as well. Also looking into "Dropkick Murphys". They sound better then "Flogging Molly" but not quiet as good as "Enter the Haggis" so who knows. Also heard the new-ish The Ballad Of Mona Lisa by "Panic! At The Disco" and
Help is on the way by "Rise against". I have not really been listening to a ton of mainstream bands much other then the ones I fallow like "Linkin Park" so if these have been out for awhile oh well. lol.

Been spending much more time digging through the alt or indie stuff thx in large part to people at FA posting songs.

Also looking forward to getting my new cell phone and that it is going to be a Android smart phone! :D John got me hooked to Android phones by letting me play with his. I love all the fun and useful aps. Like Shazam that listens to a song that is play on the radio and can tell you the name of the song and band! Helped me tell John what the Panic! At the Disco one was among others. I really like this app. Also I'm kinda addicted to FourSquare so that will be fun to have a phone that can use it. Also gotta love the Google Maps GPS feature! It was such a life saver on the road trip this last year. Also for someone like John that could get lost in a paper bag it really helps. Just click the mic icon and say "Navigate to..." wherever you are going and it will direct you there even with voice directions and will also re-route when you need to go out of the way from its directions like if there is traffic. I also found a app called
doubleTwist that will let me transfer my songs from iTunes to the Android phone! So I won't have to carry both my iPod and my Android phone! Also the camera is better then the one on my old phone and is great since I don't like to lug around my expensive big digital SLR camera with me in my day to day errands. I love this camera app that John found called
Vignette. It allows you to do a ton on the fly pictures changes/visual effects (my fav is toy camera in B&W with a square border). Do I sound like enough of a ad for Android phones yet? LOL! Anyway I'm excited.

Also just saw Rach off for her spring break a-capella trip. Also tried my hand at french braiding her hair for her. Was not to bad, for a first time. Oy, need another hand when doing that. lol.

Anyway school is winding down around here and summer means the road trip so I'll still be busy.

Week 56 (+23) In planning mode

56

-The number of Aubrey Holes (thought to have located wooden posts) in the first stage of Stonehenge.
-The number of men who signed the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776.


So I have been sick this past few days with it only hitting me the other night. I wondered why I felt weak and odd and it had me worried until all the rest of the normal start up signs of being sick hit me. Not fun. I spent the last night chilling and wrapped in a electric heated blanket watching crap TV until I felt tired enough to sleep. This morning I have mucus running down my throat and a lil hint of a cough every now and again. I always seem to be the one that holds out the longest in the family when sick. Then it hits me with 20 double barrow shot guns all at once. This time it is not that bad YET.

I've been working on a few projects and even got one that I'd been mulling over for a while done with. It was a sew project that I had been tinkering with in my head.

New music that discovered in the last lil bit:

This song is brought to you by a bored Rach. It is OAH by Alexander Rybak He is the 2009 Eurovision winner and a Norwegian musision.

I also like this song by Rybak.
Europe's Skies - Alexander Rybak


His music has a folk/gypsy/pop feel to them IMHO. To bad that his CD has to be imported at a cost of $30+ bucks.

Zircon - The Art of Zen

Found this one through FA. Tons of good music is link through the artist on FA. There is another one that I've been listening to on the laptop but I can't recall what it is or who it is by so that will have to be posted later.


Now onto the planning in the Planning post.

So the destination for Sibling Road Trip XI is going to be Oregon! The major things we are hitting up are Wildlife Safari and the beach! Sadly I was planning to try and make this trip shorter then the last one but ended up making it much longer. Two days there with a stop (when I say stop I mean for the night) in Winnemucca, Navada (5 hours) and another in Klamath Falls, Oregon (10 hours >.<) and then onto our vacation destination of Winston (3.5 hours) with two days for fun there. Then the inverse of it on the way home. Six days round trip. I tried so many ways to get the second leg of the journey cut down but I just could not find a place to stop and stay at. It looks like the place leaving Winnemucca is rather desolate until you cross the boarder into Oregon.

So now the grit of planning minus the money and hotel/motel stops that John and I have already worked out. Wildlife Safari is like a MASSIVE Bear County USA that we hit up in South Dakota. Bear County was a huge hit with everyone even more then I planned. I thought that all the other sibs would just kinda like it and I was going to be the only one that really, really liked it (I can't say looked forward to it as it was a surprise major side trip while in SD). But no it was a massive hit with them. Wildlife Safari is bigger and has not just North American wide life but African and Asian wildlife as well. After I looked it up and read their website about it and told Rach and John about it Rach was giddy as hell about it! A couple extras that we are also going to spring for while we are there is the elephant car was and the tiny train ride (kinda like they have at zoos). Rachel is extremely excited about the car wash that is to quote from their site "Guaranteed not to get your car clean!!!!!"



Did I mention that you get to stay in your car while they do it? John said about the extra cost of the wash "might as well since we are going to be there". It cost only about $10 bucks more then Bear County USA sans the elephant car wash and the mini train ($2 per person). (I kinda want one of the paintings that the cheetahs paint as my souvenir.)

Then either that day or the next the beach! I have a kinda stupid but fun idea for that. While we are having fun doing all the beach stuff they can gather up a lil bit of sand and put it in some small glass viles/jars I'm going to be picking up off of Etsy and bring it home as a memento of the trip and the day at the beach.



Been thinking if I want to bring food coloring as well so they could color it if they want in the hotel room later that day but the mess seem like a bad idea and I think the bottles with the sand alone will be cute enough. (Oy I feel like a half baked crafty soccer mom sometimes lol) I think that I should look up some sand castle buckets/kits and see if I could buy one cheep for the beach as well.



Anyway that is it for tonight.