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Archive for July, 2009

I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for the lack of bloggage as of late.  I’ve just been busy with work and, well, doing absolutely nothing (which is a great thing, don’t get me wrong).  The list of things I would like to write about has been growing, and I realized I need to tackle at least some of it before it grows so long that I can’t remember what’s on it.  So anyways, here goes.

I went to Long Beach Island twice in the past week!  I drove down on Tuesday to visit Nadia, and it was delightful seeing her for the second time this summer.  Her family rented a beautiful house right on the bay in Brant Beach.  We were on the beach all morning and afternoon, and I successfully made the transition from ghostly pale to somewhat pale (I think?).  Back at the house, kayaked and relaxed a bit before dinner.  The family made a great dinner (pork, mashed ‘taters, spinach, and even some cake to top it off), and it was great chatting with everyone.  I unfortunately had to eat and run, because I wanted to be home early enough to see…

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!  Julie and I went together, and saw Scotty and Jeff at the candy stand.  I swear the candy stand jacked up prices for opening night…I bought a miniscule bag of Sour Patch Kids for $3.  Obscene.  But anyways, I thought the movie was great!  I LOVE Daniel Radcliffe, and I basically want to be Emma Watson.  I love how Daniel, Emma, and Rupert Grint have grown up over the span of the 6 movies thus far.  I guess I’ve grown up too…I was in 4^th or 5^th grade when the first book came out.  Geez, I feel old.

Scott, Adam and I planned a spontaneous beach trip at 11PM Friday for the next day (best decision ever).  I managed to (quite easily) convince them to go all the way to LBI, under the condition that I drive (which, if you know me, is perfect since I love driving anyway).  It was a beautiful day, and it was nice being back on the same strip of Harvey Cedars beach that I’ve been going to for the past 13 years of my life.  The water was so rough, though, and I pretty much almost died.  It was the first time I was actually scared about swimming.  I went in ahead of Scott and Adam, and as I swam out, I saw this MONSTER of a wave starting to build up.  I swam out as far as I could, which wasn’t quite far enough, but I was too far to go back, and the four-foot wave crashed directly on top of me and tossed me like a rag doll for a good minute under water.  I have never ingested so much salt water in my life.  When I finally surfaced, I was just in time to find another GIGANTIC wave descending upon me.  I turned to look at the boys with an absolutely petrified face (what the hell else was I supposed to do?) and proceeded to get tossed around again.  Needless to say, I hauled ass out of the water and refused to go in for the rest of the day.  We went to Chicken or the Egg for dinner (so good), and the Meltdown for ice cream (even better!).  One of the girls working at Meltdown is actually going to be a junior at BC, too, so that was pretty cool.  Small world.  But yeah, just an amazing day overall, and I slept so well that night, quite grateful to be alive.

The two drives down to LBI provided me with ample time to ponder the various people and numerous signs of the Garden State Parkway.  First and foremost, what’s up with those gigantic “ONE WAY” signs?  Obviously the road is one way, and it would take a seriously shitty driver to enter the parkway and go the wrong way.  I mean I guess it’s silly of me to assume that all people understand basic driving concepts; I vaguely remember my mom telling me about one experience she had, where an old geezer was driving the wrong way and miraculously didn’t die.  Second, I despise people who merge slowly.  WHY do people think it’s a good idea to merge, especially from the left, going a measly 45mph?  If the speed of traffic is 80mph, it’s just NOT a good idea!  These people need to learn how to push the pedal to the floor, at least until they get on the road and into their right lane.  Uch, that’s one scenario that definitely gives me road rage.  Lastly, those “SPEED ENFORCED BY RADAR” signs scare the poo outta me.  I have these mental images of troopers dropping out of the sky and landing on the hood of my car, signaling for me to slow down and pull over.  How scary would that be?  Has anyone ever gotten in trouble via this method of speed limit enforcement?  Uch.

Anyways, I guess that’s enough rambling for now.  Just beware, there are a plethora of other topics I’d like to explore in future posts…so check back soon!

On the second Sunday of every July, a full moon descends on Amtrak in Laguna Niguel, California.  I’m not talking about the celestial body that orbits Earth.  No, it’s much more exciting than that.  I’m talking about thousands of people giving the passing train a glimpse of their tokus.  My uncle, who moved to Orange County a few years ago, stopped by for dinner this evening on his to the Bronx, and he told us about this crazy tradition that has been going on for about 30 years.  He had us all laughing as he told us about it, so I decided to do some research after he left.  Sure enough, I found a website giving the details of the tradition.  Apparently, the tradition began in 1979 when a man who was drinking at The Mugs Away Saloon told his friends he’d buy a drink for anyone who ran outside and mooned the next train.  It has obviously grown considerably, as the mooners stretch for miles along the tracks.  Since it’s a little too late to fly out there to make the tradition this year, who’s with me for next year?!

I cannot believe the amount of time that passed between Michael Jackson’s death and his burial, nor can I believe the commotion they both caused. I’m not going to deny the incredible amount of musical talent he possessed, nor am I going to comment on his questionable personal life. I am going to comment, however, on the amount of time American people spend gossiping about celebrities and discussing the intimate details of their private lives. Why are so many Americans content knowing so little about world affairs, and yet crave ever more celeb gossip? If people were as willing to learn about other cultures as they are to absorb more celeb gossip, then I believe people around the world would be better equipped to understand each other. I hate how people are not interested in discussing the recent death of say, Robert McNamara (the architect of the Vietnam War), but can spend 10 days discussing the tiniest details of the controversial life and death of Michael Jackson. And again, I don’t mean to discredit him, I think he was incredibly talented and deserved the beautiful memorial service he received yesterday. I just think more people should be as passionate about other pressing issues in the world, too. Anyways, that’s my rant for the day. Moving on…

Julie and I decided to go golfing last night…FUN! It was the first time I had picked up my clubs in over a year, so I had no idea how it would turn out. We got lucky and got a couple of tokens for free because we went so late, and were pretty much the only two knuckleheads on the driving range. I fell right back into the groove and hit a few really nice shots, and I know if I keep up with it for the rest of the summer I’ll have my A-game back in no time. Aside from feeling good about that, I managed to pick up a few lovely bugbites on my legs, arms and one right below my eyebrow (fabulous). Spook Rock is so damn buggy at night!

I’ve been working a lot lately, and I still love my job! I really think I should go into something that allows me to interact with and talk to people. I love meeting new people and talking about them because I feel like there is always something to learn. And I never really thought about it before, but the hotel business is actually a great way to do that and can be very profitable if you make your way into the upper echelon and/or are wealthy enough to own your own hotels. So maybe I can do something with that…internationally?

Hmm, am I a dork if I sit here memorizing French vocabulary for when I go abroad to Paris? I’ve been learning my fruits and veggies, and I’m moving onto meats later on today. In my eight years of French classes, I have always felt that too much time was spent on grammar and not enough on vocabulary. I can conjugate verbs and change tenses pretty well at this point, but if you ask me to describe what I’m wearing, what’s for dinner, or what’s going on in the world, I’m pretty much at a loss. I figure these are the things that are important, so for the rest of the summer I”m going to work on increasing my vocab. I know, I know, I’m a nerd, and I’m pretty sure I can hear my brother chanting “Nerd!” from his office in Hackensack…

Also, I’ve been thinking about how I want to organize my pictures here on spazzle. I can put them on individual pages as I had them before I transfered my blog to Wordpress, or I can create albums much like my photograph albums found at the top of the page. What do you guys think? Any opinions/suggestions/preferences?

I was just driving home from work, and saw a pretty ridiculous sight: Steve’s Lawns was using an old school bus as its method for transporting its lawnmowers, weed whackers, and the like.  I actually burst out laughing at the dinky, little, white short bus speeding by.  School buses just look funny when they’re a) not yellow and b) are used for anything other than busing children (and delinquents) around.  Except, then I started googling funky school buses, and found this awesome jungle gym of a school bus, and I decided I kinda want one.  I mean, there are SO MANY possibilities on what you could do with a gutted bus.  So, who wants to buy me a school bus so that I can do fabulous things with it?!  I know you do…teehee :)

So anyways, rumor has it there’s a Sonic in town, and it looks like it’s here to stay.  It’s pretty far south on 17, down near Teterboro Airport (from what I understand), and yet there are always massive crowds of people.  Crowds that are so big, in fact, that the po-pos are needed to keep an eye on everyone, lest someone becomes rowdy while waiting for their delicious burger and/or milkshake.  The fact that the place is going over so big is proof that advertising works.  We’ve been seeing Sonic commercials here in NY and NJ for years, and yet the closest ones were always in Pennsylvania.  The commercials make the food look so damn good, and as a result, everyone and their mother (and maybe even their grandmother?) has been craving Sonic for years.  Suggestions on what I should order when I go?  I’m still a “noob.”

Guys.  I’m hooked.  I was stumbling, and I found cardtoss.com.  And proceeded to play for a solid 30 minutes.  I’m awful…my high score was only 97,774.  Check it out.  But if you haven’t already, you MIGHT want to enjoy this weather first…only God knows how long it’s going to last.  I know I’ve been enjoying it all day.  I sat outside shortly after finishing breakfast, and I’ve been out there all day sitting by my pool.  I think I actually got some color (I forgot I was capable of not being Casper’s pasty sister), which is just lovely.  I decided to swim laps for half an hour to get some exercise, and now I feel muscles in my shoulders that I didn’t quite know I had (which, I suppose, is a good thing).

I’m hooooome…unfortunately.  I really would give anything (well, maybe not an arm or leg, but perhaps an eyebrow?) to be back up in Boston for the rest of the summer.  Ashley and I drove up Friday afternoon and actually didn’t hit too much traffic.  As soon as we got off the good ole Mass Pike at Newton, I started to get incredibly giddy to be back in pretty much my favorite place in the world.  As in, my head was bobbing, my arms were flailing, and I was bouncing around my seat (Ash may or may not have feared for her life, as I was still behind the wheel…), and let it be known that the feeling lasted the entire weekend until I got back on the Mass Pike to come home (boooo).  Anyways, so we picked up Steve and Shwin, and headed directly toward Cafénation (wooooo).  For those of you who know me, I have a difficult time picking what to eat, but I eventually decided on the BBQ Chicken Crepe, and it was delightful (although Ash deemed it too sweet for her spice-craving taste-buds).  We went back to Steve’s after to hang for a bit, and ended up getting dinner at Wagamama with Pete and Nadia.  Aliya and Sofia got to Steve’s pretty late, but we had such a fun time.  I was pretty much dead to the world on Saturday, but we managed to go to the Museum of Science (SO MUCH FUN).  I wanna go back there when the kiddies are in school; they were hogging all the fun toys and gadgets (bastards).  We had an excellent dinner at Giacomo’s Saturday evening, where I chose the usual linguine with shrimp and scallops, doused in fracomo sauce.  We also took Aliya and Sofia to Mike’s so they could have the ultimate pastry experience.  And Sunday was nice, too; I met up with Alicia, Ash and Swhin at Panera and saw Alicia’s place afterward.  It’s such a cute apartment, and it’s exactly the kind of place I’d love to reside next summer.  We ended up going to UBurger (oh man, Big Papi with extra chipotle sauce = my favorite thing ever) and Angora (okay, vanilla frozen yogurt with fudge brownie, caramel, and Oreo crumbled on top is equally my favorite thing ever).  And then I got a coffee that was entirely too big for my own good, picked up Ashley, and started driving home.

SLASH, re-reading the above paragraph made me realize I get entirely too excited when I talk about food.  Mmm, food.

I had my first day of work yesterday, and I’m thinking I should consider it a success; only one guest wanted to murder me.  In case you haven’t been keeping up with my blog (shame on you), I’m working the front desk at a nearby hotel.  I’m very good at making key cards, scheduling wake up calls, and baking cookies (which, believe it or not, is part of my job description).  Hotel software?  Not so much.  At least, not yet.  The guy who probably wanted to kill me was supposed to have a reservation, but he wasn’t listed in my arrivals, and I couldn’t find his reservation.  And of course my boss had stepped out to lunch, so it was literally me, alone in the hotel.  Sad.  So anyways, I fumbled around for a good 10 minutes trying to find his reservation, and then once I found it (it had been mischeduled) I fumbled around with the payment process.  Disastrous.  But like I said, the rest of the day went smoothly, and I kinda had fun.  I’m somewhat looking forward to working again tomorrow and Friday (even though I have a shitty shift, from 5pm-11pm).

Can you believe all the stuff that has been going on in the world the past week or so?  I was watching the news at the gym this morning and realized just how much has been happening.  I don’t really know what to make of the ousted president of Honduras.  I had never even heard of him prior to the recent coup (if it can even be called a coup), but he’s kinda been launched to international fame as a result.  Critics claimed he was trying to change the constitution to end the one-term limit for presidents, and was thus abusing his power.  But I mean, FDR was elected to office for four terms, and we didn’t exactly give him the boot.  Then there’s Iraq, and the American troop withdrawal.  I never thought I’d see the day.  I’m glad that our troops are finally starting to get out of that mess, but I dont know if Iraq’s strong enough to stand on its own two feet to quell the uprisings.  There have already been bombings amidst the Iraqi celebrations.  I guess we’ll see.  Oh, and the recent Iranian election.  I know it’s somewhat old news, but hey, it’s still a mess over there, and from what I understand the U.S. still hasn’t recognized Ahmadinejad as the country’s President.  It’s just really fishy considering in some districts there were more votes than there were people (really, Iran?), and that the recount claimed that Ahmadinejad received more votes than originally thought.  What a mess.  And I watched a really disturbing video of an Iranian singer who was shot and killed during the protests.