happy halloween

Happy 16th Anniversary

To Greg...

"What are you doing the rest of your life?
North and south and east and west of your life?
I have only one request of your life
That you spend it all with me....
All the seasons and the times of your days,
All the nickels and the dimes of your days,
Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days,
All begin and end with me....
I want to see your face,
In every kind of light,
In fields of gold and
Forests of the night;
And when you stand before
The candles on a cake,
Oh let me be the one to hear
The silent wish you make....
Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes
In the world of love you keep in your eyes,
Ill awaken whats asleep in your eyes,
It may take a kiss or two...
Through all of my life,
Summer, winter, spring and fall of my life,
All I ever will recall of my life
Is all of my life with you..."

-What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life

Beautiful Things

Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes or love, joy and celebration. The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation.

misc stuff

Check out Lockwasher on Flickr. He makes stuff out of.....well....stuff.

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I happen to love the song "Kiss You All Over" by Exile. I was listening to my iTunes and it came on. As I was listening, I got to wondering what the guy singing looks like....he's gotta be really good looking, I'm thinking. So I hunt down the viedo on YouTube.

Folks, this video is hard to watch. It's.....bad. And the worst thing.....the singer is not at all attractive. I had a 70's sexy Tom Selleck pictured and this guy is not even close. Seriously....yeesh.

First thing, they have all these....lips....on the floor around them. Must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

At :45, looks like he has some kind of death grip on the keyboard.

At 1:09, can the drummers pants be any tighter?

At 1:55, that guy has a nice face....but that hair....um, no.

At 2:01, notice the dancing. I don't need to say who because only one of them moves through the whole thing.

At 2:34, more dancing...

At 2:41, he looks thrilled.

At 2:56, dancing....

At 3:04, not even sure I can call it dancing....and what are those pants he has on?!

Needless to say, the song has lost a little bit of it's sexy after seeing all this.

Cottage cheese, a vampire kiss and eye candy

I love cottage cheese.

Love it.

Imagine how excited I was to see a cottage cheese muffin recipe on 101cookbooks.com! I'm making these on Sunday I think. Can't wait to taste them :)

Cottage cheese not your thing? How about a vampire kiss?

**Note to the ladies**
If you're not watching Big Shots on Thursday nights.....you are missing the ultra fine Dylan McDermott. Serious eye candy. Soooo good to see him back on TV. Yum.

Kitten's quote of the day: "Any man that gives a woman a camping stove for a gift (unless she asks for one) has a long road ahead of him"

I heard this song over the weekend and had to download it. An oldie but a goodie.

Save Your Love

I wake in the night
to find you on my mind
Deep in a dream,
you'll always be
until the end of time
I look in your eyes
They touch my soul
My love is hard to hide
I'm never alone when we're apart.
I feel you by my side

And here in my heart,
where no one else will ever be
I know who you are,
so lock the door
and throw away the key
Save all your love
Save your love for me
When I'm alone at night,
you're all I see
I wake from a dream
and see you by my side
How could I belong to someone else,
when holdin' you feels so right?
And here in my heart
where no one else will ever be
We've made it so far,
so lock the door and throw away the key (YEAH)

Save all your love
Save all your love for me
When I'm alone at night,
you're all I see
Save all your love
Save your love for me
Don't turn your back on me
You're all I need
(guitar solo)
I know who you are
we've come so far
so baby stay with me yeah
save all your love
save your love for me
dont turn your back on me
you're all i need
save your love save
your love save all your love
save save all your love
save your love baby
save all your love save all your love

-Save Your Love, Great White

My Day In Julian {in photos}

Current Goings On

There are a few things going on at work.

First, there was a department lunch today on campus that I chose not to attend. I think of all 100 or so people, I was 1 of 7 who didn't go. Fact is, a free lunch does not lure me into doing work things when I'd rather do my own thing. So I bought my lunch and ate at my desk and surfed the net while they all sat and listened to the mucky mucks talk about things no one really cares about. However, I have a feeling not going is going to bite me somehow. Like I will get "talked" to or I will be looked at like I am not a team player. We'll see what happens.

The other thing is we are having a pumpkin decorating contest. I got really excited about this when I saw the email. I got two other people together and we came up with a theme and got started. I took it home and did the foundation of the decorating. Yesterday at lunch the 3 of us worked on it and 1 of them made a negative comment about what I'd done. So....that started things off badly. I will post a photo Monday and you all can see the finished project. I'm less excited about it now. Just takes one bad seed...

One month until we board ship and sail to Hawaii!

Can't come soon enough.

USS Indianapolis

History Lesson

After repairs and overhaul, the USS Indianapolis received orders to proceed at high speed to Tinian, carrying the component parts and uranium projectile of the atomic bomb "Little Boy" which was soon to be dropped on Hiroshima. Due to the urgency of her mission, Indianapolis departed San Francisco on July 16, 1945 foregoing her postrepair shakedown period. Touching at Pearl Harbor July 19, she raced on unescorted and arrived in Tinian on July 26, having set a record in covering some 5,000 miles (8,000 km) from San Francisco in only 10 days. After delivering her top secret cargo at Tinian, Indianapolis was dispatched to Guam. From Guam she set course to Leyte. From there she was to report for further duty off Okinawa. Departing Guam on July 28, Indianapolis proceeded by a direct route, unescorted. Early in the morning, at 00:15 on July 30, 1945, two heavy explosions (some say three) occurred against her starboard side and she capsized and sank in 12 minutes. The ship was silhouetted against a low moon, which made it easy for the Japanese submarine to target.

Delayed rescue: Four days in the water

This was a top secret mission, so there was no notice sent to the port of destination or about their estimated time of arrival, as was the usual naval procedure for normal missions. Thus, with no ETA they were never reported late at the arrival port. Also, the Indianapolis did broadcast two distress calls that were received at two separate locations on Leyte, though they were dismissed in both cases as being bogus transmissions due to the Navy's protocol of the time. The subsequent delay of the rescue mission led to the loss of hundreds of sailors. About 300 of the 1,196 men on board died in the attack. The rest of the crew, nearly 900 men, floated in the water without lifeboats until the rescue was completed four days later. 321 crew came out of the water alive, with 317 ultimately surviving. They suffered from lack of food and water, exposure to the elements, severe desquamation, and....shark attacks. The most fatalities from shark attacks in history by the oceanic whitetip shark species.

When the ship did not reach Leyte on the 31st, as scheduled, no report was made that she was overdue. This was due to a misunderstanding of the Movement Report System. Thus it was not until 10:25 on August 2 that the survivors were accidentally sighted by pilot Lieutenant Chuck Gwinn and copilot Lieutenant Warren Colwell on a routine patrol flight. The survivors were mostly held afloat by life jackets. Gwinn immediately dropped a life raft and a radio transmitter. All air and surface units capable of rescue operations were dispatched to the scene at once. The men had waited for assistance while floating helplessly for 4 days. Many men watched their friends die from shark attacks.

Upon completion of rescue operations, August 8, a radius of 100 miles had been combed by day and by night, saving 317 of the crew of 1,196 men.

Captain Charles Butler McVay III, commander of Indianapolis since November 1944, was wounded, but survived the sinking, and was among those rescued days later. In November 1945, he was court-martialed and convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag." Several circumstances of the court-martial were controversial: there was overwhelming evidence that the United States Navy itself had placed the ship in harm's way. The Navy had ordered McVay to "zigzag at his discretion, weather permitting." Also, the commander of I-58, Mochitsura Hashimoto, testified that zigzagging would have made no difference; and although 700 ships of the U.S. Navy were lost in combat in World War II, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed. The military court knocked him down 100 places on the seniority list.

However, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to duty. McVay retired from the service in 1949 as a rear admiral. While many of the Indianapolis survivors asserted McVay was not to blame for the loss of the ship, the families of some of the men who died blamed the captain. The guilt and shame mounted until he committed suicide in 1968 :(

In October 2000, the United States Congress passed a resolution that Captain McVay's record should reflect that "he is exonerated for the loss of the USS Indianapolis." President Clinton signed the resolution.

The exact location of the Indianapolis is unknown. In July and August, 2001 an expedition sought to find the wreckage through the use of side-scan sonar and underwater cameras mounted on a remotely operated vehicle; four Indianapolis survivors accompanied the expedition, which was not successful. In June of 2005, a second expedition was led to find the wreck; National Geographic covered the story and released it in July. Submersibles were launched to find any sign of wreckage. The only thing ever found, that has not been confirmed to have belonged to the Indianapolis, is many chunks of metal found along the reported sinking position.

Many have claimed that the Indianapolis cannot be found. She was carrying quite a few explosives on board and was reported to have gone down burning. Many believe that she perhaps exploded after sinking beneath the waves. On top of this, the area in which she sank has some of the deepest spots in the world. The expedition led in 2005 found no actual bulk of the wreck, no deckhouses, turrets, or hull. This has not discouraged some shipwreck hunters who are bent on finding one of World War II's most famous ships.

All information is from Wikipedia

this isn't funny....but it is

You'll get to the funny about half way in.

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Authorities Chase Chihuahua At Crash Scene

A four-vehicle pileup injured at least one person Tuesday afternoon at Vista Way and Hill Drive in Vista, authorities said.

A fifth car, a Mustang, swerved to avoid the crash and smashed through a chain-link fence, stopping just short of plummeting to state Route 78 below.

One passenger in a blue sedan had to be cut from the wreckage and was taken to a hospital with serious injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, said a Vista fire battalion chief.

The 1:30 p.m. crash was apparently caused when the blue sedan driving east on Vista Way turned north onto Hill Drive in front of a white van carrying elderly passengers, said a sheriff's traffic investigator.

Adding to the chaos was an upset Chihuahua that was in one of the cars involved.

A community service officer from the Sheriff's Department placed the little dog inside his van, where the dog went to the bathroom and then bit the officer.

The dog was then placed inside the ambulance with its owner, but the dog again became unruly and jumped out.

The dog raced down Vista Way through the crash scene, with deputies, animal control officers and firefighters chasing after.

One Vista firefighter tripped and fell, doing an action-movie roll on the ground before popping back to his feet.

The Chihuahua was eventually caught.

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I'm sorry, but the visual image of deputies, animal control officers and firefighters running after a Chihuahua sent me into a laughing fit.

William Tell Overture For Moms

This is really creative and well done!

Chillin' in Mt. Laguna

Laura and I went camping this weekend in Mt. Laguna. I say camping, but you can't really call it camping because we stayed in a cabin. It was a lot of fun. We left Friday and got to the cabin at about 3pm. The cabins were cira 1970's and were nothing fancy but it was comfortable, clean and had a full bathroom....which was the best part, I think. The weather was perfect. Not hot at all. It was pretty cold Saturday morning when we got up at 6am to go see the sunrise, but it didn't stay that way the whole day. That morning the wind was blowing hard. I was trying to hold my camera still, but the wind was just to strong. Gloves would have been nice. My fingers started to hurt because it was sooo cold. Friday we drove to Julian and had dinner. On the way there...or maybe it was on the way back....I can't remember, we turned off onto this little road and came upon a man dressed in head to toe orange....bright orange, like a road cone. There was some kind of vehicle from the fire deparment there so we assumed he was with them. When we drove past him, he just looked at us with a very blank expression. It was kind of odd. Then we stopped and Laura noticed a man off in the distance standing on the side of the cliff. He was just standing there looking over at us, too. It was weird. I don't know what was going on, but it had that bizarre David Lynch feel to it, so we left quickly. On the way back to the main road, we passed a police car going back that way, so something was definitely happening. I guess we will never know. We hiked on Saturday morning for about 1.5 hours and then went back to the cabin and took a naps :) Laura was a really good sport and drove me all over the place taking pictures. When I got home and downloaded them, there was a total of 348 photos. All in all, it was a good time and I got to spend some quality time with my friend and I got a lot of good photos. Click below to check out the few I posted.

photos