NCAA Tourney

So, the Huskies did AWESOME yesterday beating New Mexico (just as I predicted), which was awesome. But possibly more exciting for me right now, is the fact that I picked a CRAZY good bracket this year (except for Kansas winning it all... but for now it looks good).

Check it!

Almost Christmas!

Image via Wikipedia

I can't wait. I've been holding myself back on the pre-Thanksgiving decorating, but I can say that I've already put up my icicle lights, and have made sure that I have all of the hooks and stuff to put up everything else IN ONE WEEK, the day after Thanksgiving. I got a few small decorations from Target to complete our apartment. It is going to be festive.

I had an interview today. My third one in the last 2 weeks, and I get to do another one on Monday! I still need to apply for more jobs though, cause I really only have 2 options right now, assuming they want me in the first place. Hmpfh.

Class is almost over, which means I am almost done with my masters degree!! Wow. Craziness. I am slacking pretty bad. Mostly because I don't really have much left to do, but have a good 3 or 4 weeks to do it....

I've been running a lot lately. This week I haven't run as hard as usual, but generally I've been running 4 days a week, around 2 or 2.8 miles each time. This week I've taken it fairly easily, sometimes walking parts, but I figure- MEH, it's still better than nothing. Seriously though, my post a few weeks back was not a lie- Virginia drivers are terrible at seeing pedestrians. You can't trust them to stop, so I have to stop at every single intersection, whether or not I have a walk signal. Which sucks.

Running

Dear Virginia Drivers:

It is UNLAWFUL to take a free right-turn when there is a pedestrian crossing with a WALK SIGN.

Also, while I'm at it:

Dear Jerk-who-honked-at-me-because-you-were-impatient-to-turn-right-but-I-wasn't-illegally-crossing-even-though-there-were-no-cars-immediately-going-to-hit-me:

suck it.


Other than that, running is going well.



--

Time Flies Like an Arrow

Fruit Flies Like Bananas.

This semester is already going by way too quickly. Here's an update on the happenings. Or, as my blog calls them, the Goings On.

First, a frog attended my Facilities Management course a few weeks ago. We took a break to free it from the building, but still haven't quite decided where it came from:

We also went to the awesome Sounders at DC United game, where we (Sounders) won 2 to 1:

A very sad Redskins helmet:

My friend Katie came too, and brought her friend Nicole:

DC United fans were pretty intimidating, but no comparison to what it would have been like at a Sounders home game:

We got some awesome Sounders scarfs:

Non-Sounders:
We had an awesome Beatles Rock Band session with Steve in Seattle. Skype + Rock Band is the future of gaming:

I've been a bread-baking fool lately. With Patrick's awesome cooking skills and my baking skills, we created.... BREAD BOWLS! Or as we have lovingly named them, Bread Bowels. don't ask, it doesn't make sense.

I played in my quintet for the International Children's Festival at Wolf Trap this weekend, which was pretty neat. There were all sorts of tents up for the thousands of kids to go to, and I was providing musical entertainment with my brass quintet at the Instrument Petting Zoo, where the kids got to actually play on the instruments and such. Even though I've never been inclined to be a Music-Ed person, it was cute to see all of the little kids that were intrigued by the instruments, and I took every opportunity to engender an early interest in the Trombone. If a kid looked over my way with interest, I'd go up to them and show them my Trombone up close and show them how it worked and what it sounded like. They liked it a lot. It was very fun for me too.

Today Patrick and I went up to Baltimore to see my relatives. I forgot to take pictures, but it was fun, and they made us deeeeeelicious food. My cousin Sadie who lives in Oklahoma with her husband Steve and new little baby Edward came to visit her parents, so it was neat getting to see her again. I haven't seen her in forever, and had never met her husband, even though they've been married for five years. We also got to see my other cousins, Dave (with his baby boy Tanner), and Mary (with her husband Bob and new doggie Ziek). 'Twas good times.

That's it for the Goings On for now! This week is going to be extremely busy at work as we're ramping up for ARTS by George!, which is this Saturday. I hope it all goes smoothly.

Thanksgiving

Welp, it was a pretty good Thanksgiving, despite the no dinner with family thing. Patrick and I did a darn good job of making dinner. First, I made a pumpkin pie, which I was very excited about cause I love pie.
The crust turned out particularly good, but for some reason I am just good at making crusts. They always seem to turn out well, or maybe it's just because I'm comparing it mostly to store bought crusts, which are... horrible. The actual filling I need to work on it seems. Kind of bland... Oh well. Will work on a new one later. Then we did the actual dinner: Patrick made the turkey and gravy, and I made the mashed potatoes and dressing. We used a boat load of rosemary, thyme, and garlic in everything. We actually bought that Costco tub of garlic cloves a while back- where they are all nicely peeled and everything- and it has been amazing. They are finally starting to go south, and we are about half through it. But we've used like at least 8 cloves per dish since we've bought it. And we used like 20 cloves in Thanksgiving dinner. Highly recommend the giant tub o' garlic cloves from Costco.
The mashed potatoes were half homemade, half potato flakes in a bag, which turned out great actually. We had two leftover potatoes that we needed to use, but didn't really want to buy more for Thanksgiving mash, so I just made those two and added two packs of the instant mash, a ton of garlic, and rosemary and thyme. Pretty darn good, cause it still tasted homemade with a chunk of real potato every now and then, but super easy. The dressing was also packaged, but we made it extra special by making it with chicken stock rather than water, and of course adding all the leftover garlic, rosemary, and thyme... trend? hhaha. But it tasted awesome. That chicken stock really made that taste great. Oh ya, we used a lot of half and half in stuff like the mash and the gravy, cause we bought a whole pint of it, when I only needed about a cup for the pie. So, overall, a highly fattening, artery clogging Thanksgiving success.

We ate our scrumptious dinner and watched our Seahawks lose... I was even wearing an XL Seahawks sweater in their honor. (a free band sweatshirt is a free band sweatshirt- no complaints.) Then we watched our Netflix movie, which was the 2005 version of The Producers. Disappointing. Gene Wilder is just so much better at Leopold Bloom than Matthew Broderick. Got nothin against Broderick, but he is no Wilder. I think we gave it 2 stars on the Netflix rating...

Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!!!!