Twice in one week

I have once again been brought to the brink by mail merge. So no road trip report because, quite frankly I am not in the mood. I am not in the mood to do anything except throw my computer through the window. Depending on whether my computer makes it to tomorrow there might be a report tomorrow.

Good luck everybody.

One weekend, six states

I don’t really have time for this today, it’s after 6.00pm and I need to go home for my tea but I just wanted to show off tell you about my weekend. I took myself on a road trip (and in the process was in six states). More details about what I did and saw will hopefully follow tomorrow if I get time to write about it tonight. However I also have to pack up my stuff to send home tonight but there were some truly hilarious moments that I need to write about so I’ll try to make the effort for y’all. In the meantime you can enjoy this:


I saw a lot of road this weekend but this bit was particularly pretty. I ended up driving right past the rainbow, couldn't see any pot of gold though which was more than disappointing.

Mail merge: stripping every last ounce of my patience

I have to take a break before someone gets hurt. I hate Excel, Word and in for a special mention on the hate list, mail merge. The information is there, take it you stupid excuse for a computer programme! Thank goodness it’s Friday afternoon, I need the weekend before I can look at this again. My head actually hurts from trying to work out why the blessed thing is not working.

Anyway it’s the weekend and I am very excited, I’ll tell you about it on Monday no doubt, although I said that about Korea once and you’re still waiting.

If you’re reading this at work on Monday, or even during the weekend, you can have a little think about this puzzler. Why, when I ate two bowls of cereal this morning and a banana mid-morning, did my stomach rumble so loudly Chryl thought there was a thunder storm. True story. Seriously though, I went years without ever having anything to eat until lunchtime, much to the consternation of my dad but yet I never was hungry. Yet when I have breakfast I am so hungry the noise confuses others into thinking they ought to let go of all metal objects and run from surface water.

Oh hilarious, I just looked out the window and saw that someone forgot to tie up the tour boat on the lake and it is floating out to sea as it were. I, in my thoughtfulness, took these photos for you. You too might be having issue with a mail merge and need a laugh and this worked for me.


'Hmm...odd they took the boat out with no one on it...hang on there's no one on it AT ALL!'


To the rescue!


But can only be one hero!


Headed back to port where all will be right with the world again.

All the same, I think I’d rather have forgotten to tie up the boat and be having that bad day than have to go back the life draining mail merge from hell.

Flip book fun

I took these in Korea and thought y’all might like to see them! Scroll down really fast while looking at the same spot and you’ll get to see some of the fun Dee and I had with an automatic umbrella.








Shut up, it was a long day, and the umbrella provided all the entertainment we needed!

And the plastic is still on

Dear myPod,

Happy Anniversary! Six months ago I was iPod-less, my goodness I cannot remember my life before you came crashing in to it with all your great music and fun videos and cool photos (right enough I put them there but they are still super!). I can’t think of a day when I have not used you, which proves to me the worthwhileness of my investment.

I’m sorry for the times I swear at you when you cause the blue screen of death on my computer when I connect you to update. I realise this isn’t so much your fault as a Windows compatibility issue. Rest assured when the time comes to get a new computer, it’ll be an Apple so hopefully if you’re still around then and you’ll get on better with it. But it might be a good few years yet, although if there’s another hard drive crash it might be a whole lot sooner.

I’m also sorry for the time I sat on your earphones on the plane, that was completely my fault and I am just thankful for Apple’s superior online customer service which got the problem solved quickly, even though it was 100% my fault. They could teach O2 a lot!

I should also take this opportunity to apologise for the number of country songs on you, I am hoping that this is simply due to my location. I think there must be something in the water here, and as soon as I return to Irish shores you’ll not have to play them so much, if at all.

So thank you for helping me discover the joys of downloading music (legally I might add) and finding albums that I haven’t listened to in years. You make car journeys, walks round the lake and my life in general much more music filled.

Here’s to another six months (I actually hope for many more, goodness knows you were expensive enough to warrant it.)

Love,
Tina xxx

PS Those people at Apple should come up with some sort of WiFi thing that means you can actually read this.

Done

Last night I did it, I finally signed up to Bebo. I still don't really understand it all, but no doubt given a little time and a few friends I'll catch on. I'm pretty quick you know.

Depending on how this goes, I may sign up for My Space too, working under the in for a penny, in for a pound theory.

Read ‘em and weep

Friday night turned into a impromtu Poker night.


It was a tense game with high stakes. (That's Mellissa in the middle, is it me or does she look like me?!)

This was only the second time ever I’ve played, and I like to think I am getting better at it because I won a hand! Yessssss!

It was a major triumph for me because the people who were playing were hardcore, they knew exactly what they were doing, whereas I had to refrain from shouting 'Jack change it'!


Look at the piles I won! In the distance you can just about see Mellissa's chips (or lack thereof).

Truth be told I don’t really know how or indeed why I won, but it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that I won a hand, which got me more chips and thus, I avoided a dare like Jessica.


She had to let the boys write on her with Sharpie (yes, that'd be a permanent marker).

The date on this should be Friday

Blogspot seemed to have a few issues when I came to put this on so it’s going on today, but y’all can still read it in work on Monday!

Actual title: According to studies

There was one story this week that just made me smile. You probably heard it, it was the story about the younger sibling being funnier. You can read about it here.

It’s something I have long suspected, and something that David would deny, but it’s official, according to studies I am funnier than him.

Sure he makes me laugh a lot, but that doesn’t matter, because in terms of making the rest of the world laugh, I’m better at it. Apparently that’s because of my need to gain my parents' attention, although I also liked using the ‘he hit me!’ method of gaining attention, but I guess over recent years that method is much less believable. Another disadvantage of growing up I’ve found.

Anyway Buddy Boy just you go on being the smart one, I’ll be the one to make everyone laugh.

Now, what are the words I’m looking for?

Oh yes, sooooooooooooo yoooooooooooooooooooooooo!*

*The official way to end an argument in our house.

Delia, Nigella and Martha have nothing on me

The other night I returned all the kitchen stuff Betty and Art. You’ll be pleased to hear that the forty nine year old bowls (that's bowls that are forty nine years old, I didn't borrow forty nine 12 month old bowls) that were a wedding present were returned in the same condition they were given to me. This was largely because I never used them, they sat in the cupboard all year. Anyway, as a way to say thanks I thought I’d make a cake. I decided on chocolate as I would have much less temptation to eat it myself and argue that the card was enough to say thank you.

Art just came in to my office there to say thanks as they have been enjoying eating it over the past few days. He said that it was perhaps the finest cake he’s ever tasted. I find hard to believe because in his former life as a minister he must have had his fair share of cakes at cake sales. Also Betty is a former HE teacher and the equivalent of the MWI President for the area. Again, this points to a life of fine cakes. The other reason why I find it hard to believe it because I made it from one of those packs, you know the sort, just add water.

The thing was that as I came to make it I realised I didn’t have butter which the directions called for. I wasn't sure the supermarket own brand ‘You Might Think This Is Butter If You Have No Taste Buds But It Sure Doesn’t Rip Up The Bread Like Butter Does’ spread would work. So I added 1/3 cup of vegetable oil instead.

Looks like it turned out alright though, Art said so. And a man of the cloth wouldn't lie, would he?


*For illustration purposes only, this is not my chocolate cake. I would hardly take a slice out of and then take a photo before taking it round to them. Plus mine had M&Ms on top. Far more colourful if you ask me.

Catching up: Charleston, South Carolina

You haven’t heard many of my recent adventures, so I’ll make amends with writing about the weekend to Charleston, South Carolina last weekend.


I was excited about the weekend for two main reasons, the sun and the sea. The sun did indeed shine and sea does what it does best, look pretty.

On Saturday we went to the beach. There was six of there and nobody really knew anyone else and it is for this reason that I didn’t push my proposal that we should move further up the beach because the tide was coming in. I was sensible enough to move my bag further up the beach but not my towel, in accordance with the group’s decision not to move.

It’s hard to put an accurate time on it but approximately 90 seconds later, a wave, not a big wave, but a wave nonetheless came in and swamped us (well except for me because I had gone for a paddle seconds earlier). The girls got quite a shock. I really had to try hard not be smug because I had said we should move, that I had moved my bag and apart from my towel nothing got wet and oh yes, I had said to move!

The tide coming in put paid to our beach time and we went into downtown Charleston which is a beautiful old city. We didn’t take too much time to appreciate the history and went shopping at all the shops that I’m sure were there during the Civil War, like Gap.

In our defence there is a old open market that we went to. Charleston is famous for, among other things, selling wicker baskets which people make right infront of you at the market. They also apparently line them with gold, a tiny basket the size of your palm was about $100. Needless to say I didn’t buy one.

Saturday night we went out to the best seafood restaurant in Charleston, according to a tourist brochure in our apartment. The crowd of people outside proved to us that it had to be good, and we were expecting a wait. But we walked straight in which certainly bumped them up a few points in our book. I was scared about what to order, not being a big fish fan. The menu had all sorts of fish I didn’t even recognise, so I played safe and ordered ‘fish and chips’ which actually turned out to be potato wedges. Americans!

On Sunday we struggled to come up with a plan. It was one of those times that nobody would ever say what they actually thought. I put that down to nobody knowing each other, so there was a lot of ‘I don’t mind, what do you want to do?’ Added to the problem, on Saturday Maggie had claimed that her Mediterranean heritage, and not sunscreen, would somehow shield her from the sun’s damaging UV rays. She paid for it all weekend as she got b-u-r-n-t! But it meant on Sunday even though it was the obvious activity to do, the beach was out because Maggie didn’t want to be in the sun. Mediterranean my foot! So instead we came up with the idea, eventually, to go to the USS Yorktown which is moored there.


The USS Yorktown is a aircraft carrier from World War Two, so I loved it. All except for the fact that there was no air conditioning, hence the photo from last week. Seriously, we all sweated the whole way around which made me wonder how they ever fought the war without A/C! I suppose they had more important concerns.


It was all a bit Top Gun.


Or Under Seige.

So that was that, Charleston, South Carolina. A great weekend all in all, and not least because I saw the sea for the first time in months.

Surely they made some sort of mistake

I find this very hard to believe. Maybe they mean across the whole company and have taken out the Hicksville store which has had must-be record profits since about October.

I forgot to put this on yesterday, I saw this in le supermarché the other day:


So that'd be pick 'n' mix then? We have got such a cooler name for it, just rolls off the tongue.

Nope, blank, can't think of a title

This weekend I didn’t do too much but as always I have stuff to write about from the weekend:

- I talked to Julie and Lynsey on Saturday and Sunday. It officially starts my re-integration into NI life, hearing all the news from back home.

- I watched a lot of Smallville. I’ve never watched it before, I don’t normally like things outside of the realms of possibility, but it’s alright and passes the time sufficiently. I can’t imagine that this interest will continue when I return to my (albeit limited) multi-channel world.

- Evening activities were thus:

• Museum Dinner on Friday night, I was the youngest person there. Ya ho.
• On Saturday night I went to the cinema with Maggie. Not much to tell you from that, we saw ‘You, Me and Dupree’. No clapping at the end though.
• Sunday night I flaffed a bit I made August’s playlist. There’s no country on it…yet. Songs on it include:
  -The Feeling – Never Be Lonely (love this song!)
  -Kiss – God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You (Was singing it all day after watching Jools’ video)
  -The Cardigans – Live and Learn (Used in Grey’s Anatomy)
  -Remy Zero – Save Me (Smallville is to blame for this)

- After the dinner I went to the supermarket. I was reasonably healthy and bought lots of fruit. I don’t buy apples because it would be cheaper to drive round to Granny Smith’s herself and offer to pay for her holiday to the Bahamas in exchange for a few of her produce. So I bought cheap bananas ($0.33 per lb) and excitingly some Georgia peaches ($0.48 per lb). I then spent all weekend wondering when the peaches would ripen, which is not some sort of euphemism, I actually did wonder. It made me laugh every time because of the Eddie Izzard bit on one of his Live videos (the traditional Christmas present to my Uncle), the bit about pears ripening, ‘not yet, not yet, hold it….NOW! And spoil’. You should try to see it if you don’t know what I’m talking about. You could ask my Uncle to borrow the video if you want. But I am wise to these peaches! They will not go bad!

- Yesterday I made my traditional calendar which if you have ever been in my room will know what it looks like. Shut up, it helps me see the weeks coming up. Anyway in an effort to avoid the monumental laziness that has come of late, I have devised a points system, think along the lines of CE or Sunday School. But on my there are no points for attendance, memory verse or bringing your bible. Oh no, I get points for getting up early (alright not so much early as being on time for work), eating my meals in rather than being lazy and going out, and for doing some kind of exercise. I thought that once I get like 15 points or something I get some sort of a prize (but not stickers or a pencil sharpener with ‘Jesus loves me’ on it like in CE, something decent) How sad am I? Yeah, no need to answer that question in the comments, I already know.

- I spent an all together too long a time this morning finding out how unique I am in the UK (according to Electoral lists). I turn out to be quite unique, apparently as rare as a wombat’s wingnut. Woo hoo. I then of course checked everyone else I know (chances are if you are reading this I checked you). Turns out as rare as I am, at least three people that read this are unique in the UK. I’ll leave you to click the link to find out if it’s you. You’re not me (I made it grammatically correct. There’s no excuse for poor grammar).

The fridge of tomorrow today

Last night I went to Asheville and was in Best Buy (the equivalent of Dixon’s here). And I saw this:


It’s a fridge, and like most in America it has one of those ice and water dispensers on the front. But it also has a TV in the door!

It was like something you’d see on ‘Tomorrow’s World’, you know like reports of how we’d be flying to work in the year 2010. But there it was right in front me for sale.

I stood spellbound looking at the screen. My thoughts were a mixture of ‘wow, that’s the coolest thing I ever saw’ and ‘how ridiculous, like you couldn’t have a more than comfortable life with a regular fridge’.

The latter thought will mean that I will never have such a fridge. But that doesn't get rid of the first thought that to have one in your house would be soooo cool.

I knew Rupert Murdoch couldn’t be all bad

Last night I was trying to figure out how to connect the TV (remember minus the all important Cable) to the VHS instead of the DVD. As I connected the aerial and flicked the channels to look for the video that was playing, a sight more beautiful than I had ever remembered nearly caused me to kiss the screen (had it not been for the static gathered dust and the annoying mark that my lips would make and the fact I’d have to clean the screen, I really, honestly and truly might have).

I got a TV channel! It’s ever so slightly snowy, but highly watchable. My, how the mighty have fallen. A couple of months ago, in my multi-channel world, I would have scoffed at the idea of being overjoyed at one snowy channel. But now? Now, one snowy channel is pure bliss. I can have the instant background noise of nothing in particular that I missed so much in the ten days (surely it was longer than ten days?!) I was without TV. I mean, sure I had Grey’s Anatomy, but that programme is so good it demands actual viewing not to be merely treated as background noise.

Even better news is that the TV channel I got is not just any ordinary TV channel, mind you after ten days QVC would have been a triumph, hell, had I got C-SPAN I would have been delighted. But my TV channel is Fox. Let me just repeat that, Fox, I can get Fox! I mean, had I had a wish list of TV channels to get it probably wouldn’t have made it to the top five, it’s more like a top ten channel. Sure the channel has good shows, or so I hear. But back in my multi-channel world I was taken to ABC, NBC, the WB, Bravo…first of all before Prison Break, 24, House etc etc.

So last night I watched* ‘House’ (Hugh Laurie’s accent really is good, isn’t it?! But what is Billy from Neighbours doing there?), ‘So You Think You Can Dance?’ (welcome back Cat) and the local news (it was my favourite local news even in my multi-channel world! It has excellent traffic news every five minutes in the morning which I watched it even though it never came close to covering my minute long journey to work.)

*watched = supplied background noise while I worked out my expenses, did dishes and tidied stuff from the move.

I really am not that addicted to TV as this blog would make it appear. But it has been a quiet ten days without it.

Twinned with Stormont Presby

I saw this sign and it made me laugh (and stop and take a photo) because Charleston was hot at the weekend.


Has anyone ever passed a 'funny' church sign and actually thought 'wow there's a church I'd like to go to because if they can have a 'funny' church sign then what must the church be like?!'

I spent a much bigger portion of my day than I really should have looking at people's photos on Flickr. Some photos are amazing. I highly recommend you look at Dave Gorman's (yes that Dave Gorman). I think would buy any one of them.

It makes me want to be a photographer, know how to take photos properly and truly understand about shutter speed, exposure length and other such photographical terms. But for right now I will just try and convince Karen Next Door it's time she took her photography skills seriously! Probably not the best time when she started a new job today but look at some on Flickr Karen. A blindfolded man carrying his shopping in one hand and a disposable in the other while running for a train could have done better. Truly.

Bout ye!

One of the ways I have changed this year is all to do with accents.

You know the way when you watch TV and you think you sound exactly like the presenters until someone from NI appears alongside them and then you have to turn the TV down or off because you are so mortified that perhaps you might sound like them?

Well now I can hear my accent and what’s more, I actually like it.

I was watching Jools’ video yesterday (no time to blog, but time to watch videos!) and I could hear his loud and clear!

Before I could not stand my accent, and would have probably turned off the TV should someone from NI appear on it lest they shred my eardrums. But now, I actually like it.

Despite what Jud said in Korea about me going all American sounding, I have been assured that I still have my NI accent. I really am pleased about this. Watching the video yesterday I realised once again, it’s not a bad wee accent to have.

The weekend already?!

I cannot believe it's Friday already. Seems like a second ago I was moving out of my house! I guess that's what having no TV does to you, all the nights merge into one!

I am so excited about this weekend! Maggie and I are off to the beach!! It's about a five hour drive but it'll so be worth it. No doubt there'll be photos and a report to follow.

Have a good weekend everyone!

What a difference a year makes

Nothing in particular for today. But I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging everyday so I'll not let having nothing to say get in the way, sure it's never stopped me before! Oh, I did have to make an emergency run to Wal-Mart's Optician when I stood on my glasses this morning. Nice one Tina! I will miss Wal-mart!

One thing about today is that it is the anniversary of hearing about this job! Who knew what a crazy adventure it'd turn out to be?!

Right home time, spaghetti bolognese for dinner tonight. It's my favourite!

Should I be somewhere else?

Right about now I should be checking in at the airport on my way back to Dublin and CHW, but alas I am sitting in my office writing this!

So if anyone in the Atlanta area is reading this and can get a passport in my name, there’s a free ticket to Dublin waiting for you! But be quick, the departure time is 6.25pm. Oh and you’ll have to buy your own ticket to come back again. Unless you want to deal with the Irish authorities! A force to be reckoned with I think you’ll agree.

Swing seats for President

I cannot believe it is already after 5.00pm. It feels got very little done today.

But the exciting news is that I love my new house. The primary reason for this is the little terrace/veranda/porch/balcony.


This is view from my terrace/veranda/porch/balcony. There's a little lake/large pond that I might now set my sights upon running around. Keep your goals achievable! (If anyone knows what type of tree that is in the middle, tell me! I've decided it's one of my favourite types of tree. Look how I'm growing up, I have a favourite type of tree!)


I have my choice of rocking chairs, swing seat and picnic table. Looks like I’ll be eating al fresco from now on then.

One thing I do miss is cable TV. No more living the dream of multi channels for me, in fact no more TV for me. There is a DVD machine though so I’ll be watching a lot of Grey’s Anatomy. It could be a lot worse I suppose.