Daze Inn

So I travel back and forth a lot between Missouri and Ohio due to my mom's illness, and I haven't taken much time off of work to travel, so I usually drive at night. Sometimes, though, the drive gets sooo long I have to stop at a hotel and crash.



Last night I stayed at the Days Inn and it was bad. Very. Bad. The front desk clerk was Lohan-esque. There was a condom wrapper right outside the door to my room. And...

I might have crabs.

Kidding.

::scratch::

Tammy Faye, 65

May you now rest.



Photo courtesy of ridorlive.com

Tammy Faye

I have CNN set to my home page on my MacBook, and today when I opened it up I saw that Tammy Faye had been on Larry King Live. I watched part of the video, and it was so sad. She has inoperable lung cancer and is down to 65 lbs. She is literally skin and bones, and I found myself wondering if my mom is going to become that gaunt.

It was in the middle of that horrifying thought that I decided to Google Tammy Faye, and I found an abridged version of her CNN interview and something I read made me smile.

On Gays

A caller asked how she found it in her heart to love and accept them when other Christian contemporaries didn’t.

“When we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue,” Messner said. “And I will always love them for that.”

This, I believe, will be how acceptance is won.

Car Damage Pics

Here are a few shots of the damage that was done to my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. I dropped it off at the body shop this morning and received a rental from Enterprise--a 2006 Nissan Sentra. It's not a bad car, but it only gets about 38 MPG on the highway, considerably less than my Civic. Oh well.

Untitled Post

Yes, I've long been absent from this blog. Lots has been going on, so bear with me.

The most pressing thing going on right now is my mother's losing battle with cancer. Five years ago she had lung cancer and had half of a lung removed. We thought we were going to lose her then, but she's had five good years since then. Every birthday since has been has been a celebration, and my family realizes that she had been granted an "extension" of sorts. Now we're down to a matter of weeks; hospice has been called and she is finally getting some relief from the pain. I'm in Missouri every other week (thankfully my job allows that) and it's great to spend so much time with my family.

Dale and I moved into a house on the east side. It's a four-bedroom, two-car garage with a huge back yard. It was basically move in ready, but we're working on painting it now and getting things unpacked. There's a big job ahead of us, but considering we plan on being there for 10 years or so, we've got time. I'll post some pics soon, but we're very excited about it.

I've had a little car drama going on, too. I ran over a dresser drawer on the highway in May, and it did $1800 worth of damage. That is mostly fixed (waiting to have one part installed). Yesterday I rolled into Potosi, MO (hometown) and went straight to the local internet cafe Sip n Surf. I parked on the street and went inside and began working. About a half hour later, some elderly man poked his head in and asked, "Does anyone have a little Civic parked out front?" I told him it was mine, and he told me he had just hit it. My car was sideswiped by the boat he was hauling on the back of his RV. So in addition to everything else I have to deal with, I get to deal with this too.

So that's what's going on.

Weekend

We went to Missouri for my mom's birthday (62). We had a blast and it was great to see everyone. Here are a few pics from the trip.


We got Mom a birdhouse for the front yard.


Dale snapped this from the car as we drove into the city.


My newphew Ryan


My brother Roger blowing bubbles.


A hummingbird at my mom's feeder.


My nephew Brock


A cute little kid with marshmallows at the park.


My nephew Chase.


My Uncle Donald and my step-dad, Bill.


The fuzzy dice hanging in Uncle Donald's Cataline convertible.

Day at the Park

Dale was having an open house at his condo, so we had to be out for three hours this afternoon. It was really nice today (80º and sunny) so we went to Goodale & Antrim parks. Brody had a GREAT time.





And a random guy kicking back on the shore at Antrim.


Also, this week I upgraded my MacBook. Since October of last year, I've been using a white Core Duo MacBook that had a 60 GB hard drive. Well...60 GB didn't last long. I sold it on craigslist and upgraded to the black Core 2 Duo Macbook, running at 2.0 GHz, rocking 2 GB of RAM and sporting a 120 GB hard drive. Since Macs can also run Windows, I installed Windows Vista Home Premium on it as well. It's pretty sweet.

My Favorite Commercial

This is SO my favorite commercial nowadays.

House Hunters

Yesterday Dale and I went to Noah's Bark for a pet adoption event for a local Doberman rescue group. There were some cute dogs, but we want a puppy and would prefer to wait until we move to a new house. The condo just went on the market, so we had to stop at Lowe's (the gay Lowe's, Dale tells me)to get a key made for the lockbox. After Lowe's (btw if you're the muscle guy in the blue T-shirt and backward baseball cap...call me, 'kay?) we drove around a nearby neighborhood to see if we should expand our house search to include that area. Well we're driving down Oaklawn and there happens to be an open house. Though it's obviously smaller than we're looking for, we decided to go in anyway.

The kitchen was nice. The yard was nice. So we go downstairs and there's a couple holes that look like were punched in the drywall. I joke and say, "Hey Dale, look! Gloryholes!" So I turn to look at Dale, and in a corner of the basement there is a wooden door with a crotch-level hole cut into it. Holy blowjobs, Bat-man! It really WAS a gloryhole. We open up the door, which reveals a small room. We look up, and there are metal eyelets drilled into the ceiling. Four of them. For a sling, no doubt. I look in the corner, and sure enough--chains are neatly coiled in a milk crate. Jackpot!

With glee, we run upstairs to look for other signs of homosexual activity. The upstairs is mostly bedroom. There is a TV with a DVD player. I lean forward to hit the eject button to see if the cocksucking owner was watching "Dawson's 20-Load Weekend" or an Audrey Hepburn classic. Dale says, "Don't! It might turn on!" I glance over to call him a retard only to find him going through the guy's nightstand. I'm incredulous. Dale yells at me for looking too closely at pictures or books I see when we're going through an open house. Now he's rummaging through a complete stranger's nightstand looking for tawdry evidence of mansex. This is the double standard I live with.

The nightstand yielded only condoms and lube. Disappointed, we left and headed to Champps for an early dinner. And to giddily text message all our friends.

Bluejackets Game

St. Patty's Day!

Hottie Shopper @ Banana

Test Post - Living room

I can upload pics from my camera phone to Blogger while on the Go. This could be fun.

Oh No She Dit'nt

So today I was at Barnes & Noble Cafe on Polaris Parkway...I had ordered a chicken panini and sat down at a table to wait. I wait for a few minutes and then walk back to the counter, and see someone walk away with a sandwich that I believe to be mine, but I'm not sure so I don't say anything. I ask the girl if my sandwich was still on the grill, and she said no. She had put it on the counter, but someone must have taken it. "No worries," she said. "I'll put another one on the grill for you."

So I go back to my table and watch the couple paw all over the sandwich before determining it wasn't theirs. They return it to the counter and I round the corner just in time to see the cafe girl with the sandwich...which she tries to hand to me while saying, "Here you go! They picked up the wrong sandwich."

I was incredulous. Are you fucking kidding me? She is going to give me a sandwich that they've just pawed all over?

I politely asked for a fresh sandwich, since the smarmy couple had it at their table for a solid five minutes, breathing on it and touching it.

The fat bitch copped an ATTITUDE! She rolled her eyes and walked away without a word. I watched her make me a new sandwich, and drop it on the counter quite angrily...again without saying a word.

So I had to talk to her manager...and the health department.

Weekend Update

Sunday night at 9 o'clock. The week turned out to be pretty good. Of course the highlight of my week was getting my NIC Advanced interpreter certification. Even though I was already certified, I still feel a sense of accomplishment.

Saturday Dale and i went to the Pet Expo & RV Show. Both were mildly disappointing. We did get a good deal on a new retractable leash for Brody. And we got him some ridiculously expensive treats that resemble human food.

Saturday night we met Leslie, Liz and Maryam at Bonefish. I had two six martinis and a really good dinner. Today we went to Target, Pet's Mart, and Bed Bath and Beyond. I got a new comforter set. Looking forward to putting that on the bed tonight. And that was about it

Tomorrow it's back to the grind...which is even more of a drag. They upped the censorware program so that we can't really get to any of the good stuff on the internet. Apparently every site I enjoy is porn.

NIC Results...FINALLY!

Well...I finally got my National Interpreter Certification results. RID faxed them to me today.

:::drum roll please:::

I passed at the NIC Advanced level, which means I scored well on the interview and excellent on the performance portion.

I'm satisfied.

Toronto & Anniversary

Well Toronto was fun...great city. The more time I spent in Canada, the less I wanted to come home. I even asked Dale if we could move there--he said no.

Here are a few pics:


This was NOT indicative of the purpose of my trip.


A business district from the view of the CN Tower.


The CN Tower...I went all the way up to the top!


We ate at Gretzky's Restaurant (of Wayne Gretzky fame).


Gretzky's Restaurant

Today is also my one-year anniversary with Dale. This is a record for me, and I can't imagine being any happier than I am with him. We had a nice dinner last night at Barcelona and spent today with friends at Gameworks having a couple beers and playing games. It was a fantastic weekend.

Toronto

Hey ya'll!

I'm blogging from Toronto, ON. The trip wasn't bad. Only missed one connecting flight, and US Airways didn't lose my luggage for once. Toronto is a BEAUTIFUL city. I've never been to NYC, but the area of downtown I visited last night reminded me of it. There were gigantic electric billboard with brilliant screens, an ecclectic array of shops, restaurants and boutiques.

If you don't have a GPS Navigation unit, I strongly suggest one. In the last year, I've traveled to Portland, Maine, and now Toronto for work. While in Portland, I used the VZ Navigator on my Verizon phone. It was so NICE to not worry about getting lost. I had the navigation with me the whole time and found restaurants, stores and my hotel all very easily. Now in Toronto, I brought my TomTom One with me from home. It came preloaded with maps of the US & Canada, and has done very well getting me around up here. Without navigation, I'd be sitting alone in my hotel room watching TV and eating bed mints. With a navigation system, I'm able to get out and see the sites and enjoy the city without fear of getting lost.

I'll post pics next weekend when I get home.

Not Happy

Sigh. So I've been waiting for my National Interpreter Certification (NIC) Interview & Performance test results. Candidates are supposed to receive their results withing 90 days of their test date. It's all over RID's website, as well as testing materials sent to the candidate when they register for the test. Today is day 87, and RID had said they would fax my results to my work. So I called today to get an update because at day 87, if I'm to receive my results by mail within 90 days, my results SHOULD be at the national office.

Well they're not. And I was told by a staff member that my results weren't due to be in until the second week of March. Excuse me? How is this possible? I received an email from them a couple weeks ago stating that I should receive my results within 90 days. Now I'm at mid-March? That makes no sense.

So I'm not happy...there are supposed to be more raters for this test than any other in the history of RID. What gives?

Update:

After emailing the executive director, I received a response stating that my results were, in fact, due to be available the second week of March. The email stated that there were a number of things that could lead to late results such as UPS being late, raters not returning a candidate's score within the allowed time frame, etc. And I also was not-so-subtly chided about how members calling the national office interrupts the process of rating tapes in ALL stages of the process (so my results being late are my fault?). Well I took my test over 12 weeks ago. My Local Test Administrator (LTA) sent my tapes back to RID immediately after my test. So one of or a combination of two things happened: RID was late in sending out my tape (a possibility because it happened to another interpreter) and/or a rater has kept my test tape for MONTHS.

Either way it doesn't add up. And I don't have anything to do but wait.

RIP Anna