Chilly legos....

http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=4277645

First of all, they need to make it available in the US. Second of all, they need to make a top layer so that it can mold to function like actual legos. Hours o' fun... :-D

Randomly Vicious and lucrative gigs...

So, there's this climb at Great Falls, 5.10+...it's called Randomly Vicious. Folks, there was nothing random about it...it's just plain hard!! And yes, it's going on my 'list'. That was Saturday and I must add (for the lazy who decided to stay in that day), best climbing weather EVER. It was absolutely gorgeous out. Also came to realization that Juliet's Balcony is a really cool place to climb. I've done some routes there before but never ventured to the cliffs below which are fantastic. :-)

And so that night, I made up for my Friday-night-$15-unlucky-poker-streak...second gig in a row in Georgetown and with the generous pay we've been getting in that neck of the woods I'm ready to start throwing up some Swiftkick posters on the street corners.

New Orleans report, don't get excited...

There are some cities that were just not meant to be business trip destinations...and New Orleans takes the #1 spot in this category.

So we got there and walked around the French Quarter and Bourbon Street for about 3 hours. And thus concluded the extent of having any fun at all. We were up literally all night...no hurricanes, no hand grenades. Just work. Sheesh, I'm depressing myself just writing about it!

Anyhow, I did get a shot of a pretty building while I was there...

Fun gig, mean cops...

Apparently, Georgetown police aren't very nice. After a gig of very sporadic playing, at a volume that wouldn't wake a sleeping baby, we were politely asked to end early at last nights gig. Drama, drama.

Folks, when having a house party....always invite the neighbors.

Work, work, and more work...

So, during my NM trip I ran into a former co-worker who had quit the NRA, moved out to Denver and started his own design company (of course, the NRA being his #1 client). I felt rather envious...but more so, hopeful. I figured, if this guy could do it...so could I (not to knock the guy at all, his writing and photography would put me to utter shame). And to make matters even more tempting, my old boss requested that I become an official vendor so that he could outsource some design jobs to me. While these are all good things in terms of fulfilling my freelancing full-time fantasy, it also means putting more work on my plate in addition to my full-time job. Sheesh....I complain enough as it is....oh well. :-)

Now, in terms of my full-time job...it's been quite a frustrating week. But a good learning experience, none the less. I was building a website and thanks to our designy-designer, it was a challenge. Turns out, the client is just going to use some of my build and using tables for some elements (of course, the same elements that took a while to figure out in CSS). Why he would use tables for these things is beyond me...it's so much harder to update. Most of the time, the answer is just because they don't want to come to grips with the fact that tables are the old way of doing things. Nothing much I can do about that, but if they come back wanting it built in a table...be prepared for a long blog rant...

Admit it, you all eat cake like this at home...

Happy 1st Birthday, Grant Man!!

Pondering life's meaning over ice cream...

Tyler's thought: "I wonder where my Ben Ten watch is..." (and he's probably still wondering...). Parker's thought: "I need to teach Tyler how to have perfect posture like me...". Any other takers?

My cameo appearance in New Mexico...

Just driving to work like any other Monday morning...cell phone rings, "Amanda, can you help out in Albuquerque?" says a former co-worker. And after a few rushed last minute phone calls and a quick stop by work to get the laptop...I was off to NM. Lemme give you all a little background here. In my NRA days, I went to Police Nationals for two weeks as the awards officer. Well, after I left the NRA, two things changed in regards to the event...1) it went from Jackson, MS to Albuquerque, NM and 2) the long-time coordinator of the event resigned, oh about, 2 weeks prior to. So, basically....very few people were there that had worked the event before.

Anyhow, things were fine...but I was pretty bummed about running the awards office, as opposed to the 'helping out' (as advertised). So, maybe I'll go out there next year if they don't tie me down to a cramped awards room. One 'oops' happened with the stat office, but given the situation, I was pretty impressed how smooth things went, relatively speaking. And it was nice to see all the familiar faces from the good ol' NRA days...

We did manage to break free for a couple of hours to head up the Sandia Mountains (pic coming soon). I'll definitely be back to climb that!! And in case you all ever head out there, kinda dusty!

Got back late last night...next stop, New Orleans!! I might not share those details....hehe.... ;-D