Erin's Blog

Today we left from Omaha in the rain. It steadily got worse as we drew closer to Denver. In fact, it turned to snow.

I was tired (I stayed up pretty late last night) and Bonnie took over driving at a rest stop. Just as she took over it turned to snow. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican joint called "Carlos O'Kelly's" -- I kid you not. Apparently it is a chain in Nebraska and Kansas. Mel kept pondering if it was really going to be Mexican or if it could be Irish, too....

We kept driving until the snow just got too bad. We saw at least 5 cars stuck on the side of the highway, one of which had flipped at least once and was on its' roof. There was also a semi that had slid off an exit ramp. When it got dark and the snow drifts were covering the lines on the road, Bonnie decided it was time to stop.

We ended up in a little town called Brush, CO -- about 100 miles outside of Denver. This is one of those towns that only exists to serve the passersby on the highway (in this case, I-76). It has a few gas stations, a couple hotels and a few restaurants. That's the whole town -- not even a traffic light. We got a hotel room at the Best Western (where I am writing this from a dialup connection -- blech!) and walked to dinner -- a Chinese buffet restaurant that is right next door to the hotel. Dinner was good.

Now we are all in the hotel room. I am online, Mel is reading a book, and Bonnie is sleeping. I know why too -- it was stressful enough driving in the rain, she had to drive in the snow.

I will prolly stay up a bit and surf and chat via AIM.

Night!

_erin

Today was interesting -- we got up, packed the van and hit the road. This time the van had a lot less things, so the rear is a lot less crowded. There are a few additional things, though: my set of tires and a dismantled cat "maze" that Mel's brother-in-law made so his cat wouldn't track litter through the house.

See, we have 3 cats, but their boxes are all out in the garage. Mel's sister has two cats in an apartment, so we got it for her. Oh, yeah. The reason we got the cat stuff was our own fault. Their cat is a scaredy-cat. Literally. His box was downstairs in the basement where Mel and I were sleeping. He doesn't like strangers. Because of this, he refused to come downstairs to the basement to use his box. He pooped in the master bedroom. Because of this, Mel's sister decided to put the cat to sleep. Sure enough, the day after the pooping incident, she took him to the vet and put him down. :-(

In any case, Toby, Mel's brother-in-law helped us dismantle the maze and load the van. Everything fits quite well, and in fact, I think we have more room than we did on the way to MN.

We drove just shy of 400 miles from Minneapolis. We stopped in Omaha, NE and had dinner at a Cracker Barrel at exit 440. We are staying in a hotel right next to the Cracker Barrel. It's a nice place, really. They have free DSL, which I am taking advantage of while writing this. :-)

In any case, it is late, I need to get up tomorrow to drive some more.

Night!

_erin

Today was kind of plain.

I got a few e-mails from close friends. I took almost all morning to respond to a bunch of them. OK, so I was interrupted by IMing and watching TV. :-) I cut down, color-corrected and burned CDs of all of the pictures I took while I was here, too. It took 3 CDs. The new camera takes much bigger pictures, and therefore they take up a lot more disk space, too. I will probably need to upgrade my hard drive in my laptop just to be able to store the pictures, even temporarily.

I did some laundry today. I asked Mel if I could get some done last night and she snapped at me, "Haven't you seen us doing laundry all day?" Um, no, because I was _gone_ all day. It would have been nice if she said they were going to do laundry, I would have separated my clothes out for them and everything. Oh well, I got it done.

We had fondue for dinner tonight. Toby, Mel's brother-in-law is a very good cook. He made an awesome cheese sauce, a home-made teriyaki sauce and a great dessert fondue as well. Good stuff.

We are leaving Minneapolis tomorrow. We don't have any definite plans besides Bonnie wanting to have breakfast with a friend out here before we leave. I guess that gives us time to pack in the morning, vs. tonight.

Off to surf!

_erin

Today I took my friend's advice and borrowed the van and got out of the house.

I bought a set of tires on eBay for my car, and the seller was local, so I picked them up (strangely) at the Perkins restaurant we were at yesterday. The set is of four barely used Blizzak snow tires. Good deal, too.

After Perkins, I went to the Mall of America. Man, that place is crazy! Huge. I was hungry, so I ate some lunch at a barbecue joint there. Did I mention that I can't get good barbecue in Denver? This wasn't so good, either. :-)

After lunch, I walked around, and around, and around.... The place makes a big circle, and is three levels of shops with the fourth level on top for a movie theatre and some food places. I started at the top level, and worked my way all the way around, and then went down a level. I did this 'til I was back where I started.

After the Mall of America, I went to a few local shops closeby to the family we're visiting. I met a great sales girl with an equally neat name: Drenda. That is a name I'd never heard before. Besides being oh-so-cute, she was a lot of fun and walked me through all kinds of fun stuff. She is truly a fashionista, and must be bowed to! ::bow, bow:: I think it helps that we have similar tastes in, um, _everything!_

I got home around 7:30pm and Mel is asleep. She hasn't been feeling well recently. We stopped at Walgreens and picked her up some medication yesterday. I didn't check to see if it caused drowsiness, but I bet it did considering she is asleep and it was still early when I got home.

I don't know why, but my hip hurts. It has been bothering me off and on since the end of last year, but it is really getting to the point where I am thinking of taking pain medication to relieve the pain. It is weird -- the pain isn't like a sore muscle or anything I've really experienced before. It just _hurts_.

Oh well, gonna run and do my nightly surfing! :-)

_erin

Today was fun -- we got up and went to meet family at a nearby Perkin's restaurant. Good food, good company and no bitching. Nice.

After we got home, the family started working on these tiles for Mel's sister's baby. See, his granddad on his dad's side is a carpenter, and came up with this idea back before Thanksgiving to build a table with 4" square tiles on the top of it with each letter of the alphabet. Each family member was assigned a tile letter, and had to come up with something to paint on the tile representing that letter. Neat idea really. I was assigned "W" but it was taken away from me and given to someone else. No biggie for me.

Mel made a few tiles -- she did her letter -- "L." She drew a ladybug. She also did the letter "F" which her dad was supposed to do before he passed away. She did a fish for that tile. Since the tiles don't make an even rectangle, they needed to come up with two additional tiles. They decided to do one with the baby's name, and the other with his birthday. Mel did the "name" tile, too.

They just asked me to take some pictures of the finished tiles, so I will do that. I will work on the pictures tonight, as I took a _lot_ of pictures while they were painting the tiles. :-)

I asked Bonnie for the van tomorrow. I want to go to the Mall of America to take some pictures. Should be fun. She didn't really say yes or no when I asked though. Hopefully I will be able to.

Night!

_erin

Today was rather boring.

In the morning, I got up. The baby was being cute, so I wanted to take pictures. I start taking pics and Mel yells at me because she hasn't showered yet. So freakin' what?! People won't be looking at you in the pics, they will be looking at the baby! Arrgh!

I basically sat in front of the TV all day today. I was freezing, so I sat under a blanket.

Mel offered to make me lunch. Not interested, thanks, trying to lose weight. Later on I got a little hungry so I ate another 1/4 of the Cheetos bag that I started yesterday. Mel was playing with the baby on the couch next to me, and she started letting the baby play with the Cheetos bag. He wouldn't stop putting it in his mouth, and he kept drooling in and out of the bag. I threw the rest of them away. Blech!

For dinner Mel made biscuits and gravy. Normally, I would eat a bunch, but I just wasn't feeling it tonight. I figured I'd be nice and eat with the rest of the family tho, so I ate a biscuit. I sat down and watched some more TV while they all went upstairs to do whatever they were doing....

While they were upstairs, I grabbed a container of peanuts and snacked while I watched TV. Then they all came down and offered some birthday cake. I said sure, again trying to be friendly, and was going to get up to eat it with them at the table, but Bonnie was nice and brought it over to me. So, I ate it while watching TV.

Then, Mel comes into the office to get on the computer. She's on the computer for literally _two hours_ (I had watched two one-hour shows on the History Channel) when I ask if I can check my e-mail. She says, "I just got on..." Riiiight. Last night when I had been on for a while and she asked to get on, I made an effort to finish what I was doing so she could get on. At least she could return the courtesy. Nope. I am now online, AFTER she has gone to bed. ARGH.

So while she was on the computer, I noticed that she was writing in a blog. I thought she might have been snooping (which she is infamous for, alone _and_ with the help of her friends -- see the "chat" link, above). Turns out she has written her own "sooper sekrit" blog. I asked her for a link and she said that it was for her only. Um, OK. I share my thoughts with her, and she can't return the favor?

In any case, the snooping that she did was basically an IM that I had with her friend Shawn. Again, see the "chat" link, above. He sent it to his wife, who sent it on to Mel. I don't care that Mel sees that information -- we had already discussed it in person -- but I do care that he "violated" my trust. He is no longer my friend. I don't need friends that meddle like that. Reminds me all too much of my mother when my brother and I were kids....

_erin

Yesterday and Friday we left for Minneapolis. Melissa's sister and her husband live there.

I drove most of the way -- over 700 miles. Bonnie drove the 1st 150 miles or so. I drove the rest. We stopped in Des Moines, IA for the night.

Mel made a big stink about buying food, drinks and snacks for the trip beforehand, saying that we would eat our meals in the car and would save money by buying snacks in advance vs. buying them at convenience stores. I told her I would just buy whatever whenever we stopped. She balked, so I made a list of stuff to buy. We never even ate any of the meal stuff -- we _did_ stop to eat meals.... Arrgh! When we stopped at the hotel without having eaten dinner, I complained a bit that we hadn't even touched the food and Bonnie got all upset about it.

The trip was pretty uneventful. Drive, stop for gas. Drive, stop for bathroom break. Eat. Drive. You get the idea.

We made it to Minneapolis yesterday afternoon. After settling in, we went to a local hotel and met some more of the family. We had take-out BBQ dinner. Good stuff. I took a _ton_ of pictures of the hotel meet and a bunch more before that at Mel's sister's house.

On the way home from the hotel family meet, I asked Mel if Bonnie had told anyone about me. It turns out she had told them on the phone a few days before I came. I was like, WTF?! I thought part of the point to coming out here was to tell them about me in person.... Arggh!

Today has been pretty quiet -- I helped Toby learn how to create MP3s with his computer. I worked on the 393 pictures that I took yesterday. We just now ordered some pizza for dinner.

Mel is taking care of the baby while her sister and husband are out for dinner.

_erin

Today was pretty plain.

Mel went to the grocery store.

I pumped up the tires on my bike, lubed it and rode it around the block. I will start riding it regularly to get some exercise in. While I was in the garage I replaced two lightbulbs that had burned out.

Mel was still organizing the van for our trip tomorrow when I went out to the drug store. I picked up a "deluxe medtime planner" -- one of those plastic containers with little compartments for dosing out pills. The one I have now is falling apart. This one is NICE. It cost like $8, too.

When Bonnie got home, she and Mel made egg salad and some abominable concoction that they call "milk soup." They know that I don't like either of these things. I asked them what they made for me, and Mel told me to "go to the store." Bitch. I fucking hate it when she does shit like that, and she KNOWS it. She will probably read my blog and laugh at me. ARGH! It just makes me so mad when she does stuff like that.

Also, I put razor heads on the shopping list. It's been up there the past three times she went to the store. When I looked at the list when I was making my dinner (no thanks to Mel, above) Mel had written that they weren't groceries and I should buy them with my own money! WTF?! OK, if that's the case, toothpaste isn't a grocery, neither is dish soap, aluminum foil, etc. -- so buy them with your own money! ARGH. She is pissing me off to no end. And now I will be stuck in a van with her on a 2-day roadtrip, not to mention a week in a city where they will be doing "their thing" and I will be stranded elsewhere.

I thought I was being nice by tagging along -- sure, I want to see the family and everything -- but now it will be like pure torture, my blood boiling throughout the trip.

Enough venting for now.

_erin

Yesterday I spent all day working on my car. I installed a tachometer. It worked fine when I was testing it in under the hood, but once I got it installed in the driver's compartment, it would only show "0000." I re-did all of the connections regarding the signal wire, and still "0000." I decided to drive around a bit to see if driving would get it to read correctly. It was occasionally flipping back and forth between the "0000" and the correct reading. Then I decided to play with the recall/reset button. Turns out the button was stuck in, resetting it constantly! Arrgh! In any case, it is installed and working properly now.

After the tach install, I washed my car and took it into the mountains for some pictures. They came out nice! I even got some pics of the tach install. Check out the pics here:

http://www.pycckuu.org/2004-02-17/

Today I scheduled my fingerprint appointment with the local police. This is the beginning procedure for a legal name change in Colorado. I guess they don't want you to run away from your record by changing your name if you are a criminal. I'm not, so I am not worried about the fingerprinting/background check.

I got some accessories for my camera in the mail today -- more batteries, a battery grip and the external flash. The external flash will help immensely -- the built in one works, but reflects too much light off of the subject. This one can be aimed upwards to reflect the light off of the ceiling and then indirectly off the subject. This provides a much less harsh lighting effect and is much more desirable.

The people that I came out to on the car site have moved from general acceptance to more like ridiculing me for what I am doing to my wife. They have a point. I apologized to Mel this morning for what I am putting her through. She pretty much ignored me and continued reading her book. ::sigh::

If anything interesting happens later today, I will add another entry.

_erin

Today was sort of my "trial by fire" on the car website. There were a few people who were rude, but the overwhelming majority of people are very supportive. That is indeed a Good Thing(tm). I knew my faith in people wasn't unjustified.

Speaking of faith, most of the people that were dissenting on the car website mentioned "God" and "His plans...." Just goes to show that overly religious people spew hate just as well as the next guy.

I went out shopping today to buy a few new earrings. I ended up getting exactly what I wanted, which is good. I also walked around CompUSA, Circuit City and Best Buy while I was in the neighborhood. I found a great TV stand for $159 at Circuit City. It was perfect -- light colored wood, frosted glass, and it was taller than most -- but I doubt Mel would want to get it because of its' price.

At CompUSA I was looking at digital camera accessories and I found a "3M lens cleaning cloth" for $5. I picked it up considering I am almost out of lens paper.

At Best Buy I was looking in the digital camera accessories section for a CompactFlash card case. I found one at CompUSA but it was a little too chintzy for me. They didn't have any at Best Buy. But they _did_ have the authentic Canon-branded Digital Rebel accessory kit -- a carry case, a battery for the camera and a UV filter. It was only $69, which I thought was a great deal considering the battery alone was selling for $69! In the same store, even! So I picked it up. :-)

When I got home from shopping, Mel was away at church. I wasn't home too long when she returned. She had already eaten dinner, so I went out to Arby's (I know, I know) and got dinner.

I surfed a little bit and chatted, but now I am getting tired.

Night!

_erin

Today was interesting.

This morning, Bonnie had a financial advisor come talk to her. He arrived around 9am and didn't leave until almost 1pm. Afterwards, she said he just "wouldn't shut up." Nice.

Mel and I ate lunch at home and then we exchanged Valentine's gifts. She gave me cookies instead of chocolate, which was thoughtful considering I'm not a big candy person. I bought her a nightie and a card. She tried it on for me after she opened it, but it was a bit too small. I will try to exchange it ASAP.

I am into cars. In a pretty big way, actually. I am a member of a forum related to the specific type of car I have. I was a member before my transition and I joined again as Erin, after I came out to my family. Well, someone just put two and two together and figured out who I used to be on the board. I commend them, actually. They did a good bit of detective work to figure it out. Good job turbodiesel! (You know who you are. :-) ) So, I am "out" on the boards too.

I think it is interesting because many people who are into cars are very conservative. Shit, I'm conservative, too. Being a conservative and being a transsexual aren't mutually exclusive, though they bump into each other here and there. Well, several of the board members have already expressed disgust with my condition. I don't mind. They don't know what it's like to be in my shoes. They aren't as well-informed about the transsexual community. Maybe I can help inform them, I mean, they knew me before when I was living as a man. They liked me then. What has changed since then? Nothing, really. I am the same person inside that I was then. I am just a bunch happier now.

Interestingly, there used to be a member of the boards that was transgendered, too. The mean people on the board basically scared her away with all of the ridiculing that was going on. Geesh, who cares what one's gender is?!!

Night!

_erin

I added a chatterbox to my website. It is kind of like an instant guest book. I found it on a few friends' sites, so I figured I'd give it a try, too. You can try it out by clicking on the "chat" link at the top of the page.

I am getting more and more serious about the photography business. Unfortunately, decent equipment costs $$$$. I just bought a pretty decent camera. I needed one that was a bit better than my "prosumer" grade Olympus C-3030. The Olympus is great -- it takes very nice pictures that hardly need any manipulation in Photoshop, but the resolution at 3.34MP wasn't up to par for today's cameras. It will be a good backup camera. I have replaced it with a Canon EOS D-300 "Digital Rebel."

This camera ROCKS. The speed is amazing. The pictures are excellent quality and they are already in a 4x6 format, so no cropping is necessary for prints. Saved as JPEGs, each picture ranges in size from 1.5MB to 3.2MB. That is HUGE. I tried a raw photo and it was 5.5MB. Crazy. Photoshop CS already has a RAW plugin for this camera, so I don't even need to install the Canon software on any of my computers. I already have a FireWire CompactFlash reader and a few decent sized CF cards. I never thought I would fill a 256MB CF card, but now that is a real possibility.

Today was Mel's birthday. I bought her a few things that will aid her in her quilt-making, a hobby she recently picked up. She actually makes pretty good quilts, too, so I am glad I can help her with her new hobby. I also got her a card and some candy. We went to dinner to a place of her choice -- a local Mexican restaurant with some pretty darn good food at even better prices. After dinner, I made her brownies with English toffee crumbled and melted on top. She loves brownies, so I figured I'd make her one of her favorite desserts. :-)

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so I have another gift for her. I made reservations at a restaurant for dinner, but Mel and her family kind of interrupted those plans. I will have to call and reschedule tomorrow. Mel's sister Rachel and her roommates are going to have dinner with us. After dinner we are all going to an amusement type place with a bowling alley, arcade, etc. Sounds like fun, actually. I just wish they told me about it before I made my plans. :-)

Oh well, it's late. Good night!

_erin

Yesterday was interesting. Mel went swimming while I stayed at home. The mail lady rang the doorbell (something she usually doesn't do). I received an insured package that I had been expecting. She also handed me a bag from Silhouettes addressed to Mel. The bag was open when she handed it to me. Weird.

The package I had been expecting was a Motorola Maratrac radio that is setup to use GMRS frequencies. I have a GMRS radio in my car already, but have always wanted a "base station" at home so we can communicate not just car-to-car, but also house-to-car. I have designed a shelf system for the radio (I got it cheap, but it is older so is actually in a bunch of pieces - a shelf unit, a control head, a power supply) so we can move it around all in one unit.

We had a good dinner last night -- Pizza Hut. After dinner I went to a local chain called "Good Times" and picked up some of their fresh frozen custard for dessert. Not my favorite, but Mel and everyone else seems to like it.

We cleaned the house pretty good last night. There was a huge build-up of crap on our kitchen/dining room table. We put most of it away and ended throwing a lot of stuff away too. I like it when we clean! :-)

That's about it for yesterday.

_erin

Today was one of my meetings with the lady doing her college class. She is really nice -- I always have fun when we meet. We had lunch at a place downtown called Bayou Bob's. Good food. Reminds me of Virginia. Too bad Colorado doesn't have much in the way of barbecue. That is one thing I miss from the D.C. area.

After lunch, I had to get gas. I get gas at this little station that has good prices, but older gas pumps. I had to go inside to pay for my gas. I used my check card which has "Please see identification" written on the back of it. The clerk asked for my ID. He gave me kind of a weird look when I showed him my license. Oh well.

Then I went to the post office to mail a package to a friend in MA. I think the clerk made me, but she was polite and didn't say anything.

Then I went to the auto parts store to buy a wire stripper and crimper. I found one that I liked, but it was a tad expensive at $26.99 plus tax. I ended up with one that cost $7.99 :-)

When I got home, Mel was out. Turns out she was buying a bunch of random stuff at Target for her mom.

Recently, I have been thinking about doing wedding and portrait photography. For money. I think it is a job that I would like, and one I like to think that I would be good at. I have most of the equipment and the know-how. I just need to advertise. I have been working on a photography web site. Hopefully I can finish it soon and put it up on the 'net. Then I just need to advertise somehow. It would be truly nice to be able to make a living doing this, especially because it is so much fun for me.

The guy that did our wedding took some OK pictures, but then he messed up our order. We got frames, but they were the wrong color. We got an album for us, but the photographer messed up the pictures by adding weird coloration to the pictures. WTF? The pictures we got of us in the mountains were all ruined by him obscuring the mountains in fluorescent pink and blue! He also didn't give us everything that he promised in his "package." We never received the parents' albums. We never got the picture thank-you cards. We never got the CD of original pictures (he took digital pics). Arrgh. For those readers in Colorado, if you are getting married, DO NOT USE JEFFREY MARSHALL! You have been warned. Call me instead! :-)

Oh well, Law and Order SVU is on, so I'm gonna go.

_erin

Today I bleached my hair platinum blonde, and then dyed it pink again. The roots were getting too long and the color had faded quite a bit. The platinum blonde was actually a nice color -- I liked it. If it didn't have pink streaks in it, I was thinking of keeping it that way for a few days. Oh well.

This time I diluted the pink with some hair conditioner. I read about that trick on a board about hair bleaching and dyeing. Worked well too -- the color isn't as magenta as it was when I first dyed my hair. It still isn't as light pink as I would like it though.

Melissa doesn't much like it. Still.

Today we went to a candle party. Kinda like a Tupperware party, but instead of
Tupperware, you got it -- they sold candles. I gave Mel $5 and we put in for a drawing. We actually won $80 worth of candle stuff. Today was Mel's lucky day. She won three cans of soda at Safeway, too.

Mel made corn flake bars and rice krispie treats today. She knows I don't like the cornflake bars, so she made the rice krispie treats just for me! That was sweet and I thanked her.

Dinner was good, though no thanks to me. I cooked the chicken on the grill, but some of it was cooked completely, and some of it was still raw in the center. We had to broil the raw chicken. Doh! I guess I am not as good a cook as I thought.

Mel has been downstairs ever since dinner. Don't know what's up with that.

Night!

_erin

Well, I haven't written for a few days. I suck.

It is snowing. It has been snowing constantly for the past 48 hours or so. The flakes are small, so the accumulation hasn't been much over the past few days. We have about 5 - 6 inches on the ground right now. It is supposed to be sunny on Fri. and Sat., but then on Sunday we're expecting more snow. Welcome to Colorado!

Speaking of Colorado, I got my driver's license in the mail today. I look kinda retarded. The license itself is bizarre. The plastic feels flimsy and chintzy in comparison to the Oregon license that I still have due to their weird process of issuing licenses here. Mel's license is very similar to mine. She doesn't like her picture either and her signature looks "messed up." I am still waiting for the bank to send me the title to my car now that it is paid off. Once I have the title in hand, we will go get emissions inspected and register our cars here in Colorado, too.

Piercing news: My left ear has become infected. It hurt really bad for a few days and got really swollen, though now it is much less swollen, though still tender. The top piercing is the one that got infected. It itched for a while and I think it got infected from me scratching it. It still itches occasionally, but I try to not touch it. I actually took the piercing out (I know, a big no-no!) and cleaned it in the antiseptic that the piercing shop gave me. I also used the antiseptic on the hole. I got the piercing back in and things seem to be getting better.

I am getting a cold. My throat is killing me and has been for the past two days. Drinking hot tea with honey in it has really helped. It is a remedy I picked up from my Russian "mother" when I got a cold during my first stay in Russia in 1991. I am one of these people that avoids taking medications and seeing doctors as much as possible. I try to use home remedies and will suffer a few days to even a week before I go to the doctor.

My good friend Jesse from Virginia started a cool website, kind of like a blog all to itself. Check it out at:

http://www.predigested.com/

I did something illegal today -- I used an electronic device called a MIL Eliminator ( see: http://www.mileliminators.com/ ) and added them to my O2 sensors on my car. In the future, I will open up my car's exhaust by removing the rear catalytic converters and replacing the front ones with "high flow" versions. Interestingly, my car has such a good emissions rating that this will improve performance and the car will _still_ be able to pass even the strict California Emissions Standards.

That's about it for now.

_erin