yearbookyourself.com

Fun. I noticed many of my Facebook friends coming out with pictures of themselves from the 50s and 60s. So I looked closer and found this website. It's super fun. It's best to start with a pic of yourself without glasses, looking straight at the camera. I couldn't get myself looking right in all the photos on the site because of my glasses. But anyway, I did make out with a bunch of pictures of myself from decades past:

1950

1952

1956

1958
Do I look like my mom?

1962

1966

1968

1970

1974
Now I'm a Brady!

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990
Full House

1992
This hair is very Harriet Winslow

1994
Am I on Saved by the Bell?

1996
I look cute with this hair...

1998

2000


2007
Well, this is the real picture. ;)

crystal beach

I had discovered this lovely, charming bed & breakfast. Reasonably priced honeymoon suite, with a double jacuzzi and a private deck, with a view of the Gulf of Mexico (it's no Indian Ocean, but it's what we've got, ok?). Problem is, said B&B was on Crystal Beach, which has been almost totally leveled, thanks to Hurricane Ike.

I found some arial photos of it, and it seems that the B&B building is still standing, but there's no telling when they will be open for business again. So, maybe I'll have to find another one.

Not exactly on the beach, as in on the sand, but only a short walk to the sand. Close enough to get the salty air on the private deck. That white circle is where the B&B is. [Click the pictures to see them full sized.]

Here is the after picture. The sand is much closer now. The whole area was flooded.

Zoomed out a bit

Before

After

it helps to know you're not alone

From a Facebook group I joined:

You know you're in a Long Distance Relationship when [with my comments in brackets]...

• you live simultaneously in two time zones, and have mad urges to ask "my time or your time?" whenever you schedule a meeting with someone [this one still happens with my friends and I, but Rod and I are now in the same time zone - yay!]
  
• you spend more time talking to a webcam than to a flesh-and-blood person [nope, never had the webcam, but I did talk to a framed photo of him]
  
• you have a Visit-Sweetie fund that's almost as big as your student fund
  
• you've developed an intense love/hate relationship with your sweetie's country/place of residence
  
• random songs start to speak to you on the radio ("no one ever said it would be this haaaard...") [for me it was "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" and "Right Here Waiting for You"]
  
• you have a contracted a phobia of kissing couples and want to smack them over the head with a broomstick [I think LDRs breed violence. It really helps you to cope.]
  
• your plans on valentine's day include talking long-distance for half the night and spending the rest of the time throwing beer cans at passing couples [There's the violence again.]
  
• every so often you're overcome with the paranoid thought that maybe, your sweetie is merely a schizophrenic jumble of moving pixels or, even worse, just a figment of your imagination [Yes, this one did happen. I was worried about myself, till I learned that others experience it too!]
  
• people raise their eyebrows when they hear where your other half lives [Yep, and then they ask "How do you do it?" I don't know. We just do.]
  
• stories of how people lived before webcams/wireless internet/e-mail/skype/msn/icq/cell phones make you feel oddly guilty for complaining about how hard LDRs are - but you do it anyway! [So true.]
  

It doesn't apply to Rod and I so much anymore, since it's now less than a full tank of gas round trip to visit each other, but it did apply to us. A lot. For a long time. In less than a week, we reach the 30 month mark in our relationship. 14 of those months, we spent on different contintents. The remaining 16 months (which account for 53% of our time together) we've been both in Texas, but never in the same city. The longest we've ever gone without seeing each other is 340 days. The most consecutive days we've seen each other is 13.

new digs

I'm getting settled in to my home-for-a-short-time.

It's in a nice neighborhood, near WalMart Neighborhood Market. There is a gas station near that Neighborhood Market, but when I tried to get gas there, they were only accepting cash. I haven't checked back to see if they have their card readers working. Three people live in this house besides me. Henry and Julie, who are married, and Peter, their youngest son. He's in 10th grade. There are also 2 large dogs here. One is half giant schnauzer/half poodle, named Maxine. She is the older one and is very affectionate and friendly, though a bit shy. If I'm watching TV, she'll come over and put her head in my lap so I'll scratch her ears. The other one is pure giant schnauzer. He's 2 years old, named Justice. He is aggressive and hates outsiders. Henry gave me a bag of dog treats so that when I first get home I can give one to Justice. That way he doesn't act like he's going to attack me. At first, he seemed to have mixed feelings about the treats. He was trying to bark and snarl at me, but I had a treat in my hand. He took the treat. Then he thought he'd bark at me again, but thought I might have another treat, so it was a stifled bark. Today he hasn't barked at me at all, but will probably do so when I leave my room to get some dinner and/or watch TV. The breed info I have found says that giant schnauzers are easy to train with plentiful rewards. So I think the treat bribes are a good idea.

I am still looking for a job in Temple. I've posted my resume online in several different places: Texas Workforce, Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder, UMHB Career Services. On the job criteria, I put the area I wanted the job as "within 30 miles of Temple" or something like that. But I had left my address in Fort Worth, so I kept getting offers for interviews from DFW (note for non-Texans: that means Dallas-Fort Worth area) places looking for sales staff. So I went through and changed my address to an arbitrary one in Temple. But then, today I had a request for my resume for a design position in Richardson (that's in DFW)...They must have my address permanantly stored as Fort Worth.

I'm excited about getting my own place soon, and being done with being a gypsy for awhile, and having a whole place all to myself.

I was thinking of going out of town this weekend, but it looks like I'll be better off staying put, what with Hurricane Ike coming in this weekend. I had a second option of something to do this weekend here in Arlington, but that has also been canceled due to likely inclement weather. Speaking of the hurricane...In cities, along the interstate highways, there are traffic signs. They're made of lights and alert drivers to wrecks, construction, delays, and other important information. As I was driving home from work today, on I-20, the traffic sign between here and there said "HERRICAN EVACUEES...EXIT WICHITA." Herrican? Are you kidding me?

graphic design humor...

I love watching these guys on Adobe TV. Tim and Rufus, they have a show called "Caffe Fibonacci." It's both entertaining and informative. Here's their PSA: