Alright, I'm Getting To It...

*I give up... I've been trying for days to add photos to this post, but I can't seem to do it no matter how I try. So here's the story at least. Maybe I'll be able to add pics eventually.*

So I've been back from my trip for nearly a week (actually, over a week, but I stayed at my Mom and Dad's for an extra couple of days) and I haven't posted the pics yet. I took about 100 photos, so don't think that I will be putting them all up, but I will post some of the cooler ones. Now I will warn you that some photos contain a person who looks remarkably similar to a person who once had a blog, but had to delete it due to ridiculous pressure from her job. I swear that it isn't me.

First, let me tell you about the flights. The first flight was the quick jump from Grand Rapids to Detroit. This flight is a quick one where you are only actually in the air for something like 26 minutes. It seemed much longer. There was so much turbulence that the flight attendants weren't even allowed to get up.

We finally arrived at Detroit Metro. Anyone who has flown Northwest into Detroit knows that this is one of their hubs, so they have an entire 78 gate terminal to themselves. My first flight arrived at gate 12. The next one left from gate 75. Luckily, I had plenty of time, so I set out on my leisurely stroll. Only to find out that my flight was delayed a few minutes. Turns out that the plane I was supposed to travel to Hartford on was delayed in arriving. So I gave Heather a call to let her know I'd be a bit later than expected and ended up talking to her for nearly the entire time I before the next flight boarded. Of course, I had to tell her about the person I saw who looked exactly like our assistant principal at work... if he was trying to recapture his youth. He had on a preppy polo shirt, backwards baseball cap, and a backpack slung over one shoulder. I actually expected this guy to start talking to me because he looked so much like the AP, but luckily he did not because I don't really like the AP all that much (something to do with how he dug through months of entries on my previous blog in an attempt to find *gasp* my opinion).

Alright, so I'm finally on board my flight to Hartford. And this one is even worse. They attempted to serve beverages, but gave it up about 1/3 of the way through the plane. Probably for the best since the passengers were helping to hold down the carts to keep them from flying. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

Finally! Solid ground in Connecticut. It was about a 45 minute drive from Hartford to New Haven and Heather and I talked the entire time. After lunch, we turned a corner and I was faced with this gigantic cliff:
*East Rock Photo*
(It looked even bigger in person)

"Whoa!" I very cleverly exclaimed, so Heather thought we should go to the top of East Rock. Here is someone who looks a lot like me standing at the top of East Rock, with the city of New Haven in the background.
*Me on East Rock*
Remember that itty-bitty tower from the first picture? Here it is up close. It's a war memorial.
*Tower pic*
After going back to leave my stuff at Heather's apartment, we decided to drive through a bit of downtown New Haven and see Yale. This is my favorite shot...
*arch*
Potentially because my first attempt rendered a photo of a big blue bus. But it's a cool looking bus, at least.
*bus pic*
And then we went back to Heather's place to clean up a bit in preparation to go out for the evening. We planned to have some pizza at Bar (yes, that's the name of the place)...
*at Bar*
And meet some of Heather's new friends for drinks.
*group pic*
After spending some time at Bar, we started to feel a bit old for the young crowd, so we moved on to Temple Grill, which was a bit more our speed. We had a good time and ended up meeting the owner of the restaurant (turns out he's friends with one of Heather's new friends). This came in quite handy the next night.

To be continued...

Goin' Down to New York Town...

Well, just for a day actually, but it's the only song I could think of that fits.

Today I'm heading to my parents' house (2 hours) to drop off Copper and Coal, then I have to turn around and go back to Lansing (45 minutes) to go to class. Then back to my parents' to spend the night. Then I will be getting up about 5:30-6:00 a.m. because my flight is at 8:30. Man, that's awfully early for a summer morning!

Anyway, I'm actually going to New Haven, CT to visit Heather. I can't believe I haven't seen her in three weeks because we talk on the phone nearly every day! It will be a lot of fun to see her new "world" and spend a few days with her before work keeps us from visiting each other for a while.

I'm only able to go for four days because of my class schedule, but we are packing a ton into it. Heather's friend J. lives in NYC so we are going to visit her and do some touristy sight-seeing around the Big Apple, too. Hence the song title... anyone know what movie that's from, or who sings it?

Not only have I never been to the East Coast, I haven't even been on a plane since 2000. I've not yet had the joy of post-9/11 security. Since I'm not checking a bag, I have to keep asking myself if I have anything that can't go on board. I'm not taking my metal nail file. Heather assures me I can take a disposable razor. I hope she's right because that will be annoying if I have to dig through my bag and pitch it at security.

At any rate, I'll be gone for a few days, but hopefully I'll be full of pics and stories to share when I return. Happy Trails!

**PS-I will also accept donations for the doggy therapy I will have to put Copper in when I get back. She's never spent a night away from me since she was six weeks old and she's the poster child for seperation anxiety (apparently beagles are prone to it... who knew?)... Good luck Mom and Dad!

Yeah, He's THAT Friend

A few weeks ago, Pigs wrote about having a friend who is notorious for making plans and then breaking them. I commented that I, too, have that friend. Here is that friend's latest transgression.

Richard called me on Monday. Yeah, same guy. I don't know why I'm friends with him, I really don't. Anyway, he was calling me from South Carolina, where he just helped his brother move to from Colorado. We mainly discussed his trip, but he also mentioned that he intended to kick out his girlfriend as soon as he got home. Sure you are, I ridiculed. No, no, I mean it! he argued. I'll believe it when I see it, was my reply.

Before the conversation ended, Richard also invited me up to his family's cabin near Traverse City this weekend. Now, I may be the only native Michigander who has never been to Traverse City, so I told him I would like to go, but I would have to find a dog-sitter for Copper. He said he'd call me when he got back into town on Wednesday and we'd discuss the details.

I hung up the phone thinking... I'm not going to hear from him again this week.

And I was right. Good thing I didn't arrange to ship my baby off to a kennel for the weekend. She's going to be traumatized enough next week when I leave her with Mom and Dad for four days while I go to Connecticut. But I digress.

It's kind of gotten to the point where I wonder what goes through Richard's mind when he makes plans with me. Does he do it because it seems like a good idea at the time, but when he looks at it later he thinks, Nah, I don't want to do anything with her, so I'll just pretend it didn't happen and hope she'll forget? Because he has flaked out on plans so many time over the years that it's starting to look like it. And I actually expect it. It seems we only get together to do stuff by chance. Planning ahead would be too much work, I guess.

As for this weekend, I'm guessing that he didn't actually have the balls to kick his girlfriend out, so that kind of put the kibosh on his taking another woman somewhere for the weekend, even if we are just friends (not that he doesn't keep trying, but he will not be successful). It really doesn't matter. It's just annoying to have that friend that you know will never follow through.

So that's my story. It really doesn't matter because I know I'll stay friends with him. It's not a very high maintenance friendship, and it's one of the few local ones I have now that Heather has moved to the East Coast. Plus, I kind of feel sorry for him. He's brought it on himself, of course, but I think I'm the only person he actually talks to about a lot of stuff. I've often told him that I'm the only woman who knows him as well as I do and will still speak to him. I say it in jest, but it's really no joke. I guess I just keep hoping that one day he will grow up and not be an ass anymore, but I'm sure I'll be disappointed in that, too.

And, afterall, it's a good thing I didn't go away this weekend because I have far too much grad school work that needs to be done. And what am I doing? Blogging, of course. Oh, alright, I'll get back to work now.

Meet Dr. Z

Have you seen these commercials with Dr. Z? I'm not sure what the Z stands for, but he's this pseudo-German guy who's on the Daimler Chrysler commercials.

On my way to class and back, I drive by Daimler Chrysler's headquarters, which is a pretty cool looking building. However, they have currently adorned the side of the building facing I-75 with a huge decal of Dr. Z and the URL of AskDrZ.com (I'd throw in a link, but the site doesn't appear to work, at least not on my computer... ah, what the heck, maybe they'll fix it). Apparently, if the Web site worked, Dr. Z would answer all your burning questions about Daimler Chrysler on it.

At any rate, by the time I drove home tonight, it was nearing 9:30 and getting dark. I looked over to see that an unfortunate light had been left on in some executive's office. And apparently, Dr. Z is a cyclops.*

I bet that wouldn't do a whole lot for public opinion, though.

*The cyclops was a one-eyed, man-eating monster from Greek mythology... but you knew that.

The Word of the Day is... Irony

My union president called me today. She's been out of town for a couple weeks and wanted to see if there had been any new developments in my case during her absence. The only thing was a proposed settlement (which was a joke, by the way) that she already knew about because she had been cc.ed on the e-mail. She said she had laughed at it herself and was glad I didn't agree to it.

But then she shared with me what she knew about my schedule for next year. See, since they can't technically dismiss me until the tenure commission says they can (which takes about a year and isn't going to happen anyway), they still have to build the schedule assuming that I will be the one teaching those classes, then hire a sub for me until I am reinstated. Anyway, she said they have me teaching computers next year.

Got that? Computers.

Not only am I not certified or highly qualified to teach computers, I also have no training what-so-ever in how to teach computers.

But the best part is this... what is it that I am in such trouble with my employer for? Oh yeah... computer usage, particularly usage of the Internet.

She told me that my first lesson should be how to set up a MySpace page.