Erin's Blog

Link/Tip of the day:

Comedian Mike Merrifield rips into ricers in a hilarious tirade on kids who put "fart pipes" and wings on their cars.

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More boring stuff about my life....

I know, I know. It's been a long time since I updated. I just got an e-mail reminder from a a reader in Afghanistan (I kid you not!) to update my blog. Apparently, I've been letting my readers down. If you want to see some of the more recent things that I StumbleUpon in between my blog updates, check out my StumbleUpon page.

Since the last posting, I've really gotten into shooting. I bought a Remington 870 shotgun (pics here). I took it shooting in the Colorado mountains and had a blast! (no pun intended!) I put about 50 shells through it and my shoulder hurt for a week!

I went on another shooting outing with some people I met on the internet. I had a great time and got to shoot some very interesting weapons! It was very windy that day, so much so that I was almost blown over several times. Here's a pic of me shooting a Saiga AK-47:



Now I have to get me an AK!

More pics of the meet available here.

That same night (October 28th), I went out drinking with my friends C and D and D's daughter, L. C went as a man, D went as a woman (if you know these two, you would get it!) and L went as a little she-devil. Here are some pics that I took of that night.

I went as Velma from Scooby Doo! Here's a pic of me before the fake glasses and freckles:



And here's a pic of me AFTER drinking copious amounts of alcohol at several different drinking establishments:



L got very drunk. We were at our third or fourth adult beverage serving commercial enterprise of the evening. D and I were splitting a pitcher of beer. We each had maybe half of a glass left to drink, and L got very impatient. L wanted to move on to the next drink-serving establishment. D and I are not the types likely to waste good alcohol, so we told her to wait until we finished our beer. L stormed out of the place and that was the last we saw of her all night. We reasoned that she was an adult and could handle herself.

The next morning she was still missing. I was passed out on the couch (see above picture), but I remember hearing C and D talking about L. It turns out, L got picked up by the drunk wagon and she ended up spending the night in detox. C went and picked her up from jail, and she spent some time with us recounting her story. Here she is talking to her grandmother on the phone, explaining what happened:



In other news, my best friend's boyfriend had a birthday -- his 60th! We had a party at my best friend, T's place.

Here's a pic of me and T:


(if you can't figure it out, I'm on the right!)

Her boyfriend, J, is a bus driver (heh, brings back memories!). After the party, we decorated his bus with balloons, streamers and all kinds of funny road signs before he got to work the next day. Here are some pics of the party and the bus (click on any image to see all of the pictures):











Speaking of birthdays, my birthday was on October 9th. T bought me a ticket to go to the circus. I can't remember that last time I was at a circus! We went on October 11th. They had it at Denver's Coliseum. We went with T's daughter, B and B's best friend from school, S. Our seats were pretty high up, but that turned out to be an advantage as we could see everything going on down on the circus floor. Continuing on my previous theme, of course I took my camera (click on any image to see all of the pictures):









We all had a great time and I would certainly recommend it to all, even those of us who are just grown-up kids!

Going further back in time, I had the opportunity to see Mike Doughty in concert again. He put on a good show at the Soiled Dove, in their new location in Lowry. Of course, I took the camera. Click on any image to see all of the pictures:









As you can see, I've been busy the past few months. Sorry to keep you all in the dark. And to my reader in Afghanistan, thank you for your service to our country! We all hope that you will make it home safely!

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

"You know what the Easter Bunny is doing the other 364 days of the year? Kicking ass!" I know it's nowhere near Easter, but I thought this was funny.

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More boring stuff about my life....

Wow, I am really getting into shooting these days. It's a fun hobby and it is certainly a stress reliever! I just (read: earlier this evening) took a concealed carry class. I learned quite a bit and thoroughly enjoyed the class. I went with my friend from work, T. We both decided that it would be a wise thing to be able to carry.

I also bought a rifle. I picked it up on the 29th. It's an LMT M4. Basically, a shorter version of the M16. Here are some pics of the M4 along with my handgun, a Springfield Armory XD9:









More gun porn here.

In other news, I got my PowerBook back from the repair shop and the screen is beautiful! It's great to have it back, and I am impressed that the screen doesn't have a single stuck or bad pixel. I would highly recommend the people that repaired my PowerBook's screen to anyone.

OK, it's getting late and T and I are going shooting early tomorrow.

'Night!

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

Ever wonder what the whole "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." filler text means? Check it out here. The generator will even let you create certain length fillers and even fillers in other languages like Russian!

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More boring stuff about my life....

Yikes, it's been a while, hasn't it?

On the way home from Flagstaff, I got a speeding ticket. I was coming down this huge hill on US 89. The trooper was at the bottom of the hill. He got me on radar doing "approx. 90" according to the ticket. The limit was 65. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck, even! The trooper was nice enough about it. I asked how much the fine would be. He didn't know. I asked how many points it would be. He didn't know. He didn't even have an envelope for me to send in my payment. He had used them all up earlier that day (apparently he was busy at the bottom of that big hill).

I've been hanging out with my friend T from work quite a bit recently. She has found a new boy toy, B, so we've all been doing stuff together. Nice enough guy. He certainly treats her the way that all women deserve to be treated. Yay, T! :D

Work has been going OK. I'm still looking for a tech job. Just sent out about 20 resumes last week. Haven't heard anything back yet. My friend (and ex-girlfriend) C in Philly offered me a place to stay until I can find work out there. She really wants me to come back to the east coast, and I am seriously tempted to just pack up and go. You'd think I would have learned my lesson from doing that the last time, when I moved to Portland without a job. Let's just say that it wasn't exactly a rosy situation. I ended up taking a $9/hr job and working my ass off (120+ hour paychecks were common) just to make ends meet.

I've been to the shooting range a few times recently. I put 400 rounds through the gun at one range visit and I cleaned it the first time the next day. I bought my gun (a Springfield Armory XD 9, or "XD9") in April of 2005. I picked up a few extra magazines, a range bag, some safety glasses and some ear protection at a surplus store. I am going for my concealed weapon permit. Luckily, Colorado is a "shall issue" state, so all I need to do is pass the background check and take a safety course. Total cost, about $250 including the course. T owns a gun, too -- a little Beretta .25 auto. We are planning on taking the course together. Should be fun!

My car is starting to piss me off. I had a tire blow on me. There is a crack in the sidewall, which means I need to buy a new tire. $210 worth of tire. I've been riding on my full-size spare for a few weeks now. My driver's door lock isn't working with the power locks anymore, either. I have to manually push the knob down to lock the car, and actually use my key (gasp!) to unlock the door from the outside. Hopefully that is something easy to fix. Sounds like something is slipping inside the door panel.

I broke the screen on my PowerBook. I have a super-nice PowerBook that I got last year and I broke the screen on it. Fuck. I sent it off for repair. Should be at the repair shop tomorrow. Luckily the screen is a lot cheaper to replace than the laptop is. And the price of the LCD panels have dropped quite a bit, making this repair affordable, too.

Recently I've been suffering from heartburn. Don't know what is causing the burning sensation, but I've been chewing on Tums tablets to alleviate it. They seem to help, but I don't want to live on them forever.

My legs and arm are all healed up from the sunburn. I ended up seeing the dermatologist twice. And I just got a bill from her office. Fuck, why do I pay so much for insurance if they only covered $20 of each visit?! That's right, the insurance company only paid $20 of the total for each visit. I also had to pay for one medication entirely out of my pocket because the insurance didn't cover it. Aetna fucking sucks, kids. Work offers better insurance (they offer several "levels" of Aetna coverage), but it is literally more than twice the price of what I have now. Just not worth it, IMO.

I had a pretty nasty cold/flu thing going on for a while there. I actually called in sick for the first time at this job. I usually only call in sick if I want to go do something other than work -- it is very rare that I call in when I am actually sick! This time I needed it; I was feeling pretty crummy. Luckily, it only lasted 2 weeks. I still cough occasionally, but for the most part, I'm all better.

OK, I should probably get to bed now.

_erin

More boring stuff about my life....

Today I went to the Meteor Crater, not far from Flagstaff. I took a hundred and change pictures. Aubs, when you see the pics, then you will see what Arizona looks like!

Recently I changed my wig. Since going full-time back in March of 2004, I have had three wigs. The first one I had for quite a while -- I bought it back in 2000 with Melissa. The first wig was darker than my natural hair and short. I wore it up until a few months ago.

Then I bought a slightly longer one that wasn't quite as dark. Everyone at work liked it, though I didn't much care for it. Especially in the heat. It was very hot. Here's a pic of me at a wedding in May wearing the longer wig:



So, I got a much shorter one and have been wearing it for the past few weeks. It is brownish-red. A lot more red than before:



I took this pic a few minutes ago. When I first started wearing it to work, I got a lot of compliments. I wasn't too sure about the red, but everyone seems to like it. The shortness is what I like about it: it is a lot cooler than the two previous wigs.

I was talking with a good (blonde) friend at work (who knows about my past) and she told me something that I thought was funny as hell: "Redheads are just blondes that haven't had the fire fucked out of them yet!" T, you rock!

OK, I should probably get to bed, I have a long drive back to Denver ahead of me tomorrow.

'Night!

Link/Tip of the day:

A very funny commercial that will never be seen on TV in America. Sad how prudish most Americans are these days.

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More boring stuff about my life....

So, I'm in Arizona for work. This whole traveling schtick and getting paid to vacation is kinda cool, I must say. Sadly, my phone doesn't work here, so if you are trying to call me, good luck. :D

Anyways, I am in Flagstaff, Arizona. That's about one and a half hours away from the Grand Canyon. I've never been to the Grand Canyon, so today I took a little road trip.

I took over 400 pictures. To say the canyon was awesome would be a serious understatement. I got there about 5pm or so local time (Arizona is weird in that it doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time). I walked from the Canyon View Information Plaza to Mather Point, then on to Yavapai Point, and then took the free shuttle from there to Hopi Point to watch the sunset. I talked with the bus driver on the way over, and even got a few bus fanning pictures. (For those interested, I rode in an Orion VII and a Carpenter on the way over, and an unfamiliar bus with a trailer on the way back.)

At Hopi Point, the highest point along the rim of the Canyon, I watched the sunset. The sun set at 7:47pm, so I had plenty of time to get over there. I got there and had more than an hour to kill. I took a lot of pictures before the sunset and talked with a lot of the other visitors there. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and would love to go back. I would highly recommend visiting if you've never been.

The wireless net connection here in the hotel is pretty weak. So weak that my Yahoo Messenger keeps cutting out and keeps signing itself back in. Bleh. I won't be FTPing the 400+ pictures to my server, so you'll have to wait until Friday or Saturday to check them out.

When it works, I've been using Yahoo's Messenger to talk to some friends back home. T, if you're reading this, I miss you! You rock, girl. Hopefully our boss will let us have that time off in August! :D L, if you're reading this, I miss you too! ::hugs::

'Night!

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

The Rasterbator. If I don't answer my e-mails, I'm off Rasterbating.

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More boring stuff about my life....

Sunburn is bad, mmmkay? Second-degree burns! I went to a dermatologist on Friday and got some antibiotics (the leg wounds are infected!) and some cream. They are doing better now, but I am still limping around. Arghh! (click on pic for larger version)





So, I went on a cruise. My first cruise ever. It was a Disney cruise and it was with my friend Br and her 2 daughters. I had an awesome time, despite the painful sunburn (see above) acquired in the Cayman Islands. Here's a hint kids: Don't fall asleep at the beach!

We stopped in Key West, the Cayman Islands, Cozumel, and Disney's private island in the Bahamas. Some highlights from the cruise (click on pic for larger version):


Me getting a drink on deck 9 / My room


The ship at night / Riding the Conch Train in Key West


Sunset in Key West / Character Breakfast


On the ferry to Cozumel / Horse-drawn carriage tour of Cozumel


Castaway Cay, Bahamas / Saying goodbye to our waitstaff

Check this link to see all of the pictures.

So of course, the day I got back from the cruise was Denver's Pride Festival. I went with J and A, and we met up with Ci and D. I took a bunch of pics there, but haven't processed or uploaded them yet. When I do, I will be sure to link to them.

After the Pride Fest, it's been pretty much back to the normal routine. I went back to work on Monday, and I've been working since. In fact, I'm getting paid whilst I write this blog entry. Ahh, the joys of not having a boss look over your shoulder constantly!

Speaking of work, my boss kind of pissed me off yesterday. See, at my job, I work 7 days a week unless I request off (in advance, in writing) whichever days that I want off. The way I usually do it is request off the days that I want for the upcoming month at the end of the current month. So I did that at the end of June and was denied for 2 of the 4 days that I asked off in July. Reason given: too many other people had already asked for those days off.

"OK," I thought, "I will just request the days I want off for the rest of the year NOW, so that I will be one of the first people to ask for that day off." So, I sat down one night after my shift and filled out all of the requests for the days I want off for the rest of the year and left them in my boss' inbox.

Yesterday I went into work and in my box were all of the requests along with a note, saying that I can't have a set schedule. GRRRR.

I am looking around for a job now, because that just threw me over the edge. I am going to quit as soon as I get a good job lined up. Anybody need an honest, reliable worker? I have 13 years of commercial driving experience with a decent driving record, a ton of experience with computers of all sorts and no criminal history.

I've recently starting talking to an ex of mine from Maryland via Yahoo! messenger. She knows about me and is cool. It's been nice catching up. K, if you're reading, hi!

I finally caved in and got a myspace page under pressure from friends at work. OK, a very specific friend. Hi, T! :D

I've been seeing a girl I met on alt.com. We met back in May. Her name is L, and she lives in Colorado Springs, which is about 60 miles south of me up here in Denver. I've been to her place a bunch and we've done a few things together (ahem!). Here are a couple of piccies:



She lives with a few roomies who totally rock. I spent the Memorial Day weekend at her place, and had a great time. L, if you're reading this, seeya on Friday! :D :D

OK, I guess this is probably one of the longest posts I've ever done so I should shut up now.

_erin