Star Wars Lego Symphony

Darth Vader Lego Figure leads an orchestra of storm troopers. Coolest Video Evah!

Things I'm lovin' this week (and it's only Wedneday!)

1. Starbucks Coffee Lite Frappuccino Mocha Lite - Only 2 points on Weight Watchers and much cheaper to buy and have them in my fridge than head to my local Starbucks.


2. Motorola Q - I'm finding this phone to be more and more fantastic each week. I finally synched my Outlook calendar so I can see what my whole week looks like just by glancing at my phone. I also love that it checks my many email accounts.


3. Rain - I know, the people in the North East would prolly smack me for saying it but we really needed it here. My grass if finally looking green.


4. Late night commercials - Thank you for making me laugh so very hard when the commercial for "The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World...Ever!" What is so funny is that they have a Volume II so I guess it wasn't really "The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World...Ever!"


5. Quiet time at work to get all of my homework done. Leaves my time at home for fun.


6. Dove - Cool Moisture Beauty Bar has the most amazing scent. It makes me linger in the shower Also if you head to the Dove site you can get lots of great samples!

Water me drink must

The next couple days I'm going to be all about Cinderella. I have finally put together a short synopsis of the fairy tale and now will have to spend the next few days translating it into ASL. Thankfully I will have lots of time at work tonight. Last Monday night was soooo slow. I'm hoping the same for tonight so that I can work on this story. I did learn the signs for step-mother and step-sister today, so I'm already ahead of the game. I really want to do well on this story. Anyway...enough of that.

WW is going okay. Not wonderful but that's because my mind/thoughts/feelings get in the way of my diet healthy eating. I know I need to drink more water so that's what I'm working on this week.

Dining Deaf

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to experience a dinner without being able to hear very well. My ASL III class went to Chili's and all wore ear plugs. The waitress knew ahead of time that we were an ASL class. (She was training that night..how fun for her) It was a very neat experience. Lots of pointing to the menus and the waiters talked really loud and slow to us. We could hear a little with the plugs in our ears. The biggest problem was keeping up with all the conversations going around at the table 21 people all signing and vying for "eye time" was exausting. You caught little bits and pieces of conversation. In a hearing world you can multi-hear and gather in many conversations at once. Sign language doesn't allow me to do that. Maybe when I get better but right now I really have to concentrate one conversation at a time. Another thing I learned is that I know a lot more than I thought I did. I was able to converse pretty much the entire evening without resorting to fingerspelling or looking up words in Angela's dictionary that she brought along to dinner. All in all...a neat experience and a slight confidence boost. This week I have to give a synopsis of Cinderella.

Shout Out

Happy Birthday Mark!

Hope you have a great birthday weekend!

It's been one week...

I didn't think it was necessary to update all of you on the absolutely boring details of my week. What have I been doing? Not much. Lets see if I can break it down.

Wednesday at my last update, oh yes...I had gone shopping. After shopping of course I had my ASL III Class like every other wednesday night.

Thursday... hmm... oh right...I played Everquest2(EQ2). That's right...i'm a gamer junkie.

Friday, work and then headed over to Jerry's parents house to do their payroll. Everquest2 after that.

Saturday, Work....and played EQ2...(woo hoo..aren't I fun?) Jerry and I were trying to get me leveled fast because I was falling behind.

Sunday was fathers day so after I got home from work we went over to Jerry's sisters friends house and had a picnic of sorts. I ate too many hot wings and later my tummy was mad at me for it. Watched Deadwood. I love HBO original series.

Monday I played EQ2 until I had to go to work. This is the only night I have to work. Most of the time I work in the mornings.

Tuesday. Oh right...I worked (7am after getting out last night at 10pm) , went to Verizon to buy a car charger for the Motorola Qs and then home to play EQ2. Tuesday is also "Laundry Day" so I got to do that too. Wheeeeeeeee

Wednesday has been quiet so far. I finished my ASL Number story that I will have to sign tonight in class. I think it's cute. It's about a picnic where I eat a spider by accident. Tonight our class is heading over to Chili's for a Silent Dinner. This means no talking and we have to converse in sign. Should be fun and quite a learning experience. Going to be hard not to just blurt out what I want to say.

Shopping

I've been on a mini shopping spree the past few days. I just ordered a couple Mr. Potato Heads, Star Wars Spud Trooperand ARTOO-POTATOO with PRINCESS TATER and they shipped today. So I should have them either in a few days. It will go smashingly (tee hee hee) with my Darth Tater.

Today, I got done early at the ASL Sign Lab so I decided to head to Dillards. I was on a mission for two items. The first was a perfume called Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker. It's a wonderful smell. I can't describe it very well...it's light but flowery, but not overly sweet. It's got kind of a clean smell to it. I really like it. The second item was a pair of pink Crocs. These shoes are soooo comfy and light. I was really suprised how light they truly are. I fell in love with them so much that I got a pair in white too.

Crack of Dawn

The alarm clock went off at 4:30am, I hit snooze until 5:00am. Finally getting up I got ready and headed to work. It was eerie, I was the only one in the parking lot. Okay, maybe the others got dropped off. I walk in to an empty building. No one....I sign in to my computer at 6:00am sharply to start my shift. 6am until 10am....4 hours...I can do this. About 6:10am I see my team lead come in and she flips on lights, does whatever. Finally around 6:20am I popup from my cubicle like a praire dog and say "Hey" to her. She looks at me like I'm crazy. "Have you been here all night?" she asks me still looking at me oddly. "Nope, I got here at 6", I answer back. She shuffles a few papers and then goes to the computer. Typing she smiles and turns to me. 6 PM until 10 PM. That's right. I went to work 12 hours too early. I packed up my things and started to head out and my team lead stops me and says that she'll call the scheduler (heh..sounds like some mafia "fixer" guy) and I would just work today from 7am, when the center opens. Whew...that means I wouldn't have to go drive back to work later. It's nice that they have that much flexibility. The job is easy and the people there are willing to work with you for schedules...not a bad place to work. (Pay isn't great...but I'm not in it for the money)

I feel like a dope for not realizing my schedule said PM and not AM. I was used to working all mornings that I didn't even consider that they would schedule me for a night. The "Scheduler" had said later when he came in that I had put on my preference sheet that I could work nights. Needless to say I put in a new preference sheet. Not that I won't work nights...but I prefer mornings so I can be home with Jerry at night

Family Fun

Mom and Dad arrived on Wednesday! It's been fun having them here.

Thursday afternoon we went down to St. Augustine. We shopped and Lunched on St. George street. I love it there. Lunch was at a place called Cafe del Hidalgo where we had some paninis and free samples of their gelato.

Today I have to work for a couple of hours and then I think we are going to go down to The Landing to watch the river and stuff like that. It's been about a year since I've been down there. Which is stupid because it's SOOO close to our house.

I'm running late now...heh...I better get to work. Have a wonderful weekend

Fone Phun

This is the view from where I was sitting while testing out the mobile publishing.

Busyish

Wow! Lots going on right now.

Last Saturday I attended the Deaf Club Picnic. I met tons of people and got lots of practice in on my sign. I wonder when I'll stop thinking of it as practice and call it conversation.

We got our new phones yesterday around 1:00pm. I drove over to Jerry's work and we played with them for about an hour. I came home after that and began to import MP3, JPGs and other goodies to the new phone. Pretty nice phone if you ask me.

Jerry has a convention this week in Orlando so I am going to be home alone. Or so I thought. I called my Parents on Sunday and mom says to me "Your dad said that we better get a move on if we are going to make it to Jeanne's by Tuesday". Mom had told him earlier in the week that Jerry was going to be gone. They didn't quite get their act together fast enough. They won't be arriving until Wednesday I think we are going to go down to St. Augustine on Thursday. I love it there.

Being cutting edge has it's downsides

Verizon Wireless is clueless! But the phone is cool. Let me back up a little. Jerry and I have been wanting to upgrade our phones. The Motorola Q was due out around Christmas but it was delayed because there were some issues with Windows Mobile 5.0. Okay, fine...we can wait. So Verizion announced that it would be available on May 31st online. Now what I want to know is why they didn't do a dual launch both online and in the stores. We called one of the stores last night and they said they had it. We got ready and headed over. We walk in, greeted by a salesman who had no clue what the Motorola Q was after we asked. Jerry walked over to the display model that did not have any markings saying that it was "Coming soon" or "Not available yet" and held it up to the clueless sales person. We walked out frustrated that they were absolutely clueless. I then spent 2 hours on the phone trying to order the phones. I got a fantastic girl who was helpful until we came to the equipment order. She had to get her supervisor, fine, no big deal. The supervisor came on and after 30 minutes told me she didn't have a product ID code. WHAT?!? How clueless can you be? I quoted Jerry to her saying "It's never been so hard to give our money to a company". I gave up...

After calling several stores in the area today I was told that they have them "IN" but aren't able to sell them until June 5th. So at least they are getting the information out to the sales people. I wonder if they are aware that this launch is probably the biggest thing they'll have this year. Later I spent most of today on the phone with people on their 800 number. After 4 hours and 4 supervisors we are getting the phones sometime with in the next 2 to 3 business days. I wanted overnight but they were too clueless to even know how to do that. I was told by one "supervisor" that I would get a call back after 1:00pm. Now I do know that most orders have to be processed before 3:00pm to make overnight status. She called at 4:57pm. Terrible, terrible, terrible customer service!! The biggest thing that sucks is that we are very happy with the service. We always have coverage, even when we travel to remote areas. I don't think it's just Verizon, I have a feeling that all cell phone companies run the same.