Trivia of the day

If you were given $1000 to take a trip to a state you've never been to, which state would you choose?

If you've been to all 50 states (as if), list the state you'd most like to go back to.

Your comments are WELCOMED - no excuse not to comment - you can even do a one word answer (but if you put down "New" or "South" I hate you).

Customized for me?

I watched my DVRed CBS Sunday Morning show and this was the lineup of topics of stories:

Opus Dei (love DiVinci code)
Edvard Munch (he's from Norway)
James Blunt (I like him and he's real cool)
Sen. Ted Kennedy (go Mass!)
Cow chip slinging contests (I'm familiar with cow chips from SD cows)

I was quite interested in all, and really enjoyed the show. I'm a loser but I don't care.

Potpourri

I should be blogging about the red letter weekend that we had with Amy in town but instead, it's a mix of random findings I think you need to know about...

• I am OBSESSED with Rocket Boom - seriously, I can not believe I haven't heard of this earlier!!! This chick is so crazy (think John Troyer) but it's so fun to watch. If you're cool and you have a video iPod, you can subscribe and watch 'em on your fancy iPod.
• Blue Max Liquors in Burnsville sounds freaking awesome - they have a huge beer selection and you get to pick your own six pack. Um, does it get better than that? Well, if it were in Uptown that would be better but that's about it...
• You must go to look at the Webby Awards - voting goes on through the end of the week. I think it's fun to vote, but even more fun to visit the nominated sites and add them to my RSS feed.
  
• You'll have to login to read this NYT article, but it's about BEER SPAS. Check it.
  
• A brain teaser was proposed to a guy interviewing for a job at Google. The desc of his interview is a great read, but the birthday problem explaination is equally good.
  
• I learned I don't know who George Plimpton is - I dare say I've never heard of him? However, someone has a site about him. Is this someone I should know? Another Eddie Vedder?
• A revised/updated list of the Seven Wonders of the World is being published. What do you think?
• Here's a nice list of what museums are free on which days in NYC. Helpful.
  

Right choice, wrong criteria

With the weather forecast shaping up to be not-so-hot for the weekend, I'm working on a game plan for Amy's visit to town that does NOT involve sitting outside drinking beer (my original plan for her 48 hour visit).

Instead, I shall plan a mix of showing off Minneapolis appropriate to the weather (there goes walking around Lake Calhoun), socializing, and customizing all to Amy's interests.

It was with this in mind that I decided an option for our Sunday is going to church. Since she is a regular churchgoer, and the only Lutheran friend I have (aside from Missy's Tim and Rich I don't know any other Lutherans I've met post-Jackson) I decided to put in some church research since I've gone to church in Minneapolis exactly 0 times (aside from weddings). I began my research at the ELCA's surprisingly helpful website (if you're Missouri Synod Amy, lo siento) looking for a big church (anonymity) with a service after 10am on Sun AM (possibly hungover).

I should've know remembered the Central Lutheran Church - I've parked next door at their lot/ramp when going to the Conv Center but the place slipped my mind. I'm hoping to go there now because of the architecture - it's muy bueno. And free parking :)

However, another option is Gloria Dei in Highlight Park. I came across this church about 4 years ago when I started babysitting for the twins - it's in their neighborhood. I've never been inside, but from the outside, I think it's perfect. It reminds me of New England churches, which is ironic because there are virtually no Lutheran churches in New England, and virtually no New England looking churches in MN.

This validates that Alicia and I need to start a church tour - more for architecture to-do purposes than religious I suspect - and I'm not under the illusion that I'll meet my husband at church (Liz). 11am services and/or evening services at cool churches of various denominations joins our to-do list. And perhaps, maybe, possibly, I'll start that this Sunday. I'll update y'all.

Copperfield

Cheesy as it may be, I think magic shows are fun. Lyn and I saw a magician at the SafeHouse in January and it was frickin awesome. Magic shows not in person = no fun. Magic in person = two thumbs up.

Thus, it is my sincere pleasure to let the cat outta the bag - David Copperfield is coming to Mpls May 5-6-7 with several shows. Best seats avail at the Sat 9pm show are not crazy expensive - I'll pay but I'm not sure I'll find a date who wants to go enough to pay $52.

Although, for some strange reason I feel like Brandon likes magic shows. Maybe I'm wrong and he just likes Magic Hat?

BE JEALOUS - Brandon, Julie and I are going to the Sat night late show.

Poll of the day

The Daily Show just told me Bush's approval rating went down to 32% and it showed a clip of a news reporter pointing out this number of points is also how many teeth you have. Made no sense, but it was funny.

Also, there's a new reporter on the Daily Show that is British - I give two thumbs up. Your thoughts?

Anyone want to walk?

A couple of things about this year's Minnesota AIDS Walk appealed to me:

• It starts at noon (not 8am like most of these types of things).
• It only takes $40 in pledges to sign up (I don't want to spend loads of time collecting $).
• It's a 10K WALK not run (I don't run).

Anyone interested? It's Sunday May 21 at Minnehaha Park.

UPDATE: If I failed to personally solicit your sponsorship and you'd like to donate, bring it. I feel like it's a little tacky to ask for $ this impersonally, but it's for a good cause which I believe trumps the potential tackiness. Plus Bejota did it so it must not be in bad taste - right???

Good news or bad news first???

GOOD - I was able to change a NWA flight through the website for $0 change fee.

The dets: Granted, it was different flights the same day, I just bought the tix 2 days ago, and there was no change in ticket price from my original itinerary to my new itinerary. However, this still means there was NO change fee which is exciting!

BAD - I accidently sent an email to the ENTIRE COMPANY today.

The dets: Granted, it was only US-based employees in my division, but that's still hmmm, 2,000 people? A co-worker got an email sent to a large distribution list and I should've also gotten it. Since I didn't, he forwarded it to me and I emailed the sender to ask to be added to the DL.

HOWEVER, I actually emailed the whole DL asking to be on the DL - one of those jackass moves you sometimes see people do when they reply all. Today, sadly, it was me. So happy it wasn't an "I work with assholes email, my job sucks, and I play solitare all day" email. I counted my blessings, trust me.

Name that tune

I think this site could be fun and helpful - even if it isn't 100% accurate.

Songfacts gives you "song meanings, lyrics, and trivia" - what could be better? I initially found this site after googling "Ring of Fire" - if you look at the Ring of Fire song meaning and read the first comment by Linda in MI, you will think it's funny, too.

I immediately started looking at Counting Crows songs but Adam makes up a different meaning for his songs each time he performs them - is there really ONE song meeting for those songs? You be the judge if Songfacts is an accurate source.

EVERYBODY uses coupons

I SO wish I had my camera with me at the grocery store today. I saw a cute lil homo in gym clothes probably on his way home from the Y who was browsing at the Rainbow on Lagoon. Upon closer review, I realized he was using his COUPON ORGANIZER while shopping.

My best representation of the event is the following:











PS I found the picture on the left with a Google image search of "gay sleeveless", hehe.

Trivia of the day

What African-American has won the most money on a game show?

Happy at Hampton - Guaranteed

I was sure I'd talked about how much I like Hampton Inns but can't find a past posting so here goes. I really like Hampton Inns - never fancy, unfortunately sometimes only in suburbs not DT (but new ones just opened in Times Square and DT Denver), they are a great value for the money, always have free internet, have a surprisingly good breakfast, and a 100% satisfaction guarantee (and in fact the one time I wasn't satisfied, I got a full refund). For your next vaca, considering booking a room at a Hampton Inn.

Another reason to like them - they have this "Hidden Landmark" website - you pick a state, it shows you lots of cool, offbeat sights. 3 of the Mass sites I'd never heard of and I'm the guidebook queen so that's saying something. I'm going to bookmark it and check it out prior to going on my upcoming trips (read MKE, DC, Sea, StL) to see if there's anything worth seeing.

Luck be a lady

Do you think J. Edgar Hoover was a homo and liked to dress up like a lady? Wikipedia, a somewhat unreliable source in my mind, has statements both pro and con - what do you think?

Is this just gossip or is it pretty much a given that this is indeed true?

At right: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate FBI Director Clyde Tolson, constant companions for more than 40 years, the pair often vacationing together.

You get what you pay for

This article reports on the average cost/day/person for food/lodging for a vacationing family of four. Clearly, you get what you pay for in looking at the top and bottom lists.

Overall, though, I feel like these rates are high - in the Black Hills you could get a hotel room for under $200, which means you'd have $600 left to feed your family of four for a day. In reality, you'd probably only spend $200-300 to feed your family of four - dropping the average to $125 at most I'd say.

UPDATE: I stand corrected - it's $/day for food/lodging FOR 4 PEOPLE not per person - I read it wrong. Thanks to Alicia for auditing. Either way, you still get what you pay for.

10 Least Expensive States
North Dakota, $191
Nebraska, $191
Kansas, $193
Iowa, $196
Oklahoma, $199
South Dakota, $203
Arkansas, $206
Kentucky, $210
Alabama, $211
Tennessee, $214

10 Most Expensive States
Hawaii, $559
District of Columbia, $518
Nevada, $348
Rhode Island, $329
New York, $329
California, $320
New Jersey, $311
Massachusetts, $310
Florida, $303
Delaware, $294

36 Hours

The NYT does a nice job of summing up a "to do" list for many US cities for weekend visits in their City by City: 36 Hours series. Thanks to Google Maps for laying it all out. Their article about visiting the cold but fun Mpls from a few months ago wasn't mentioned though b/c it wasn't part of this series...

I also like their Affordable Europe article.

A to Z

I just realized how much Renee Zellweger and Joey Lauren Adams look alike. Does everyone already know this?

Joey Lauren Adams

Renee Zellweger

Word of the day

Bucolic. Used to describe the land Donald Trump donated to NYS for a park.

Word of the day

Patina. As in the store.

Jealous

I read this girl's blog, and today she blogged about visiting the movie room at the gym. I want a movie room!

I get to the gym, get changed and head off to the movie room. For those of you that do not remember, my gym has a theatre room that is dark that shows a different movie everyday, continuously throughout the day. A new movie is shown each day. There are rows of treadmills, elliptical, stair steppers, and bikes (tiered just like in the movie theatre). It is great; it makes the time fly by.

Adam + Trishelle = ?

Seriously, Adam is not lookin' so good. More dets of the encounter here.

As good as it gets

Central Library = Good architecture + decent parking rates + DUNN BROS.

Just tell me you have decent hours and I will promise to love you forever, Central Library.

Happy birthday to me!

Thank you Planet Dan for turning me on to Statemaster.com - seriously, I could spend H-O-U-R-S browsing this. In addition to many many categories, they also have per capita rankings and pie charts which adds even more fun!

This factoid sheet highlights some of the fun that can be found on Statemaster - it's nice that MN has minimal embarassing stats, and both MA and MN do quite well in most things. My favs:

Best States to Live (and the correlations page!)

Iraqi War Casualities per capita

% of People w/ an Advanced Degree (SoDak is lower than Mississippi?????)

% of Homes older than 1939 (and part of why I like DC and Boston)

% of Housing Units w/ >1 people/room

DiVinci meets Google

Google on Monday began a marketing promotion with Sony's Columbia Pictures designed to build excitement for next month's release of The Da Vinci Code while introducing users to less popular Google products.

The Da Vinci Code promotion lets fans of the Dan Brown book download a puzzle program to their Google personalized home page. For three-plus weeks, they are given clues to solve daily puzzles, designed by Google's product team. In addition to the personalized home page, the puzzle will involve users in other Google products, such as Google SMS, Google Maps and Google Video.

Fans that choose to receive the puzzle have it appear in an ad unit on their personalized Google home page. A different puzzle will be introduced for 24 days leading up to The Da Vinci Code's release on May 19. Those solving all 24 days of puzzles will be eligible for a final round of puzzle challenges that will award the winner a variety of prizes.

Anywhere in Mexico?

I got Air Canada's weekly airfare specials today and thought it was funny that they listed a "Boston - Mexico" special for $362. Turns out it's Mexico City which makes it slightly less funny because it's more of a typo than a "choose your own Mexican adventure airfare game" but it looked odd anyway.

DeAngelo @ the Brixton Academy

The challenge was issued. I began looking for said ticket at 6:21. It was retrieved from my memory box at 6:23. Take that to the bank.

THE John Troyer?

I have a feeling that this play, "On the Untimely Death of John Erik Troyer, PhD", at the Bryant Lake Bowl is indeed performed by THE John Troyer (aka the one I've met). Can anyone confirm/deny?

Good to know

I'm excited about the library opening downtown and got even MORE excited when I saw their parking rates. They are as follows:

1/2 hour	$ 0.75
1 hour	$2.00
2 hours	$3.00
3 hours	$4.00
4 hours	$10.00
5 hours	$11.00
6 hours	$12.00
7 hours	$12.00
8 hours	$12.00
12 hours	$15.00
24 hours	$15.00
After 6pm	$5.00 max.
Weekend	$5.00 max.
Monthly	$200.00
Monthly Tandem Stalls	$140.00
Introductory Rates
Early Bird (In by 9 a.m. out by 6 p.m.)	$6.50
Monthly	$175 with 3 month commitment

These seem quite reasonable for DT - and in 1/2 hour I can go, return books, get more, etc. without paying a bazillion dollars for parking. I likey.

Next news I'm looking forward to - their hours. Hopefully they are open till 9pm??? I can only hope.

Aeroflot Russian Airlines

Never before have the great mysteries of the Russian Empire been so accessible. Northwest Airlines^® welcomes Russia's national airline, Aeroflot, to the SkyTeam^® Global Alliance.

Tour the medieval fortress of the Kremlin. Discover the lost masterpieces of the Pushkin. Relive bygone grandeur in the czars' Winter Palace. Our new partnership opens up access to the largest country in the world -- giving you the power to earn and redeem WorldPerks^® miles on more than 300 Aeroflot flights throughout Russia, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Thanks, NWA, for making such a good decision on adding another airline to your alliance. Yeah.... Russian!!!

WiFi on the farm

My parents got a Linksys router and have full on high speed wi-fi now. It's frickin fabulous. As of right now, there are 5 computers capable of being online, and only 4 people in the house. Love it.

PS In case you were wondering, it's not necessary to secure the wifi here. Believe it or not.

Hodgepodge

• A list of the Top 10 Ballparks in the US - strange, the Twins' Dome isn't listed... I've been to 3.
• Herberger's is having Clinique Bonus days 4-16 through 4-30. Clinique's new liquid face soap (the bar soap made into a liquid) rocks.
  
• Is it just me, or is having the ability to Ticketmaster your way to the "Official R. Kelly Afterparty" sort of not the point of an afterparty? Plus it's 18+?

Dear Dunn Bros,

I couldn't have been more disappointed when I drove by your Lyndale/Franklin location last week and saw that it had been abruptly closed. When I called you to ask about it, I appreciated Skip's reaction, but wished more of an explaination than "the franchise decided to shut down". I dismissed your suggestion to try the Lake/Bryant location, complaining that it wasn't 3 blocks from my house.

However, yesterday I spent 4 hours in the Lake/Bryant location and am VERY impressed. It has a parking lot, seating at tables for 35, armchair seating for another 8 a fireplace, and... (drumroll please) is open until 11pm. Yipee! A coffee shop actually open past 9pm in Uptown that's not dirty and gross.

I also noticed you have a "book store" - same concept as the penny bowl by cash registers - if you need a book, take one. If you have one you don't need, just drop it off to share with someone else. LOVE IT.

On top of all of this are the obvious strengths of Dunn Bros, namely, free wi-fi, yummy coffee, and a punchcard that gives you 1/2 off your drink after you buy 5. Now if you just get some outdoor seating ala 34th/Hennepin location you'll be the bomb diggity.

Yeeeaaaahhhhh - Architecture!

I seriously couldn't have been more excited when I found the Chicago Architecture Foundation website through Gridskipper. Beyond having muy interesting exhibits, they also offer reasonably priced boat, bus, biking, walking, and HAPPY HOUR tours of many different sites - and have several tours/day 7 days a week for your convenience!

Next time I'm in Chi, don't think I'm not hitting this up. I think a Chi trip is looming in my future, esp. since my last one got cancelled. Perhaps the first weekend in June? Otherwise mid-July is my next "opening".

*FREE* American Airlines miles

Earn 2500 American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles by test driving a new Lincoln Zephyr, or 25,000 if you buy one!

Word on the street (aka FrequentFlier.com) is that if you bring the form in, they'll sign it without actually having to do the test drive, though the test drive doesn't sound that bad - it looks fancy-ish...

Thank you NPR

for informing me of several fun events that you sponsor. I think the following from the calendar look especially interesting:

Policy and a Pint: The Future of Minnesota's Environment is next Thur 4/20 at the Varsity Theatre in Dinkytown. Could be interesting plus I like the idea of a forum combined w/ beer.

Nomad Jazz Series is every Wed at 9pm starting on May 3 and is FREE with your NPR card (or $3 for the rest of y'all).

Minnesota Rollergirls Bout #7 is this Saturday and I can't go 'cause I'm home for Easter. But who knew MN had a rollergirls league just like the reality TV show?

How to marry a Bulgarian

Thanks, Rick Steves, for this factoid:

Peace Corps workers sent to Bulgaria are more likely to marry a local than Peace Corps workers dispatched to any other country.

Who knew.

Balls

I now work with a grocery store chain account named Balls based in KC. It makes me giggle.

Word of the day

Purportedly.

Used by a co-worker in an email and I had to look it up even though context clues helped me understand the sentence.

A little bit of why I love Scrubs

JD: "blah blah blah ... when you die."
Turk: "You think I'm going to die first due to my diabetes."
JD: "Right and where do we up meet in heaven?"
Turk: "At the milkshake pool on the lesbian cloud."
JD: "I'll see you there. I love religion."

JD: "If someone is bad, where do they end up?"
Turk: "In hell, watching The View."
JD: "No, next to the super high unreachable cupcake table."

Contest of the day

Goodyear's Name the Blimp contest starts today at noon - if you win, you get the blimp for a day!

UPDATE: Within the first five hours of its ‘Name the Blimp’ contest, The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company received almost 4,000 unique suggestions for the name of its newest airship.

“We anticipated a very strong response, but this is beyond all expectations," said Chuck Sinclair, Goodyear's svp-global communications.

"I thought we'd probably get between 1,500 and 2,000 different names, so this is already far beyond what we had hoped for. It shows the special place the Goodyear blimp has in the hearts and minds of many Americans ... especially when the winner gets the blimp."

Good deals in Mpls

On Tuesdays at Emma's Cafe, 2817 Lyndale Av. S., when you order one entree per diner, a bottle of the featured red or white costs only $5. (I gave Emma's bar/lounge 2 thumbs up so I bet the cafe is good, too.)

Mondays and Tuesdays are date night at Crema Cafe, 3403 Lyndale Av. S. If you buy two entrees (pizza or pasta, $9 to $13), you get two free scoops of their terrific ice cream, and you can choose any bottle of wine for half-price. (Never heard of this place.)

And Monday through Thursday at Babalu, 800 Washington Av. N., order two entrees from the dinner menu and a bottle of wine (your choice of any of the wines featured by the glass) is on the house. (Alicia likes this place?)

These are all from the Trib - I also drove by La Bodega and there was a sign saying that on Tues Thur and Sun, if you order two entrees, you get a free bottle of wine. Also, from 5pm-1am on Mon and Tues, if you get 1/2 price bottles of wine.

Jackson in the News!!!

Last time I posted about Jackson news it was bad news and I got bad reviews. This time, it's bad-ish news again in the Trib - apparently Jackson doesn't get press for good things (because good things don't happen in Jackson?).

At least I'll visit in the next year...

You Belong in London

You belong in London, but you belong in many cities... Hong Kong, San Francisco, Sidney. You fit in almost anywhere. And London is diverse and international enough to satisfy many of your tastes. From curry to Shakespeare, London (almost) has it all!

What European City Do You Belong In?

How much does Rick ROCK?

I'm not sure if I've blogged about my adoration for Rick Steves before, but I'll do it now. I started DVRing Rick Steves' Europe so I get to watch several a week on fun places (it was 'The Highlands of Scotland' and 'Surprising Budapest' today) and while he is dorky-nerdy-geeky, I still like him and his books have done me well.

Now, he's releasing FREE audio tours of Paris, as described on his website:

Rick Steves' Audio Tours are informative, lighthearted, and a third less dry than the audioguides you can rent in Europe. They're illustrated with color images to help you find the item that's being described. And best of all, you can download them free from iTunes and play them whenever you want.

The idea of downloading audio tours of cities, museums, walking tours, etc. prior to leaving home and then having them free to listen to on vacation is seriously--- GREATEST IDEA EVER.

iPod + tour guide = LOVE

Better than SeatGuru?

There's a new kid on the block - and his name is SeatScorecard.com. I've been using SeatGuru.com for probably the last 4 years and haven't had any major problems with it - my biggest complaint is when it's a lot of work to dig through the airline website to figure out what plane your next flight will be using. According to the Travel Blog at SmarterTravel.com:

The "Airplane Seat Comfort Scorecard" at SeatScorecard seems determined to give Seat Guru a run for its money as the top seat-selection resource. The site claims to be the product of more than "4,200 hours of analysis and research" and more than 20 independent research firms. It covers 10,000 seat reviews on 300 different airplane types on 70 airlines, including JetBlue, United, Southwest, and British Airways. According to a site representative, seatscorecard.com is "updated continually."

I'm going to try using both for the next few flights I take and see if I develop a preference.

In other travel news, AirportGroundDirectory.com is a slightly-too-simple website that will tell you, for a given city, what you need to do to take public transportation from the airport. I checked cities where I'm familiar with the bus/train and it looks accurate enough, I just wish the website was a little fancier and gave the price of a cab or shuttle so you could compare right there as you're looking at the time/money of the public transport option.

Conviction

I've started watching Conviction on NBC and really like the show. It's not like I'd drop everything to race home and catch the newest episode, but I've been DVRing it and just caught up on a few episodes. I like the mix of district attorney characters, and the storylines are out there but not too out there. And the guy that played the creepy boyfriend on Six Feet Under (whose little brother shot himself) is in the show and I like him more than I thought I would after he was such a creep on SFU.

There's a "special" episode this Tuesday at 9, otherwise it's usually on Friday nights at 9.

News, in the least literal sense of the word

• Tom Cruise is even less popular than Saddam Hussein. The Mission Impossible star was voted the person people would least like to go camping overnight with in a recent poll. Granted, this is from Stuff Magazine, but I still think it's funny.
  
• Jesus may not have actually walked on water: he may have skated on an isolated, hard to see piece of ice, according to a study on the weather and water conditions in northern Israel in Jesus' time.
• Have you seen the Library of Congress' Film Registry list? It's films the LoC is striving to preserve. It's fun.

Mark your calendars!

July 7, 2007 - Rumored release date of HP7 book

July 13, 2007 - Rumored release date of HP5 movie

I also found a list of name meanings for characters from the books and you can see each name was chosen to tell more about the character - ex. Cho = beautiful, Ron = King's advisor. I likey.

Look how little the HP stars used to be - it's like looking back at Muppet Babies.

Bumper sticker of the day

"Is it 2008 yet?"

I saw this in the Safeway parking lot in South Lake Tahoe and laughed aloud. Good one.

Christian Meteorologists Declare War on Rainbows

At a press conference following a White House luncheon with President Bush, lead scientist Bret Banger told reporters that his organization, Climatologists For Christ, had declared open season on the multi-colored spectrums of light as part of their commitment to eradicating “the homosexual lifestyle and all weather patterns that reflect it.”

Find other fake gay news "because the real gay news is too damn depressing" at FakeGayNews.com.

Tee of the day

From Busted Tees. I think it's funny.

Worldmapper

I could spend quite a bit of time reviewing and enjoying these bubble maps - they reflect countries ballooned up to the scale based on whatever criteria the map is focused. The map below shows the number of tourists visiting that country - you can see Europe dominates.

Word of the day

Hobbledehoy.

I feel like this word should be used in Harry Potter books.

Gay rights

This lesbian from SF blogged an interesting rant re: gay marriage. I agree with most if not all.

Pictures from the West Side (best side?)

I'm going to take Bejota's advice and attempt to not post all my fav pix on my blog. I'll instead send you to my San Francisco pix in my Flickr account. I already blogged about lunch w/ the AKPsi kids at Gap on the alum blog.

I got in a good night out w/ the boys in the Castro, skiing at Sierra, fancy dinner at Harrah's, and then Monday taking loads of pix in the city and at the MoMA.

Missy, Matt, Marc, Josh, Laura at The Bar on Castro

Tim and Laura taking a break in our snow chairs

Steak with the FIVE of us - Missy, Tim, Ryan, Chinar, Laura
(Tim and Ryan look especially comfy I might note)

Maiden Lane - downtown SF

The fancy SFMoMA building - muy bueno

If I lived in Boston, I'd like to go but wouldn't have a friend

I was pleased with the refresh of the JFK Library's website. I'm still on their newsletter list, and saw the forum featuring Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes, a book MISSY has read but I haven't!) and thought it'd be fun to go to.

Then I looked at the list of the rest of their forums and all but one looked v. interesting to me - and they're FREE! Any guess which one I wouldn't go to?

Thanks Sabatkes!

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

What American City Are You?

I love you

Chris O'Donnell. Thank you for being the new Dr. Finn the veterinarian on Grey's Anatomy. I've loved you since Circle of Friends and I still do. Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday night again.

WANTED: Roadtrip Partner

I'm looking to go to Madison/Chicago leaving Friday afternoon/early evening returning on Sunday. If interested, comment.

Weekend update

I'm having a fabulous long weekend in SF/Tahoe. I'll have to post pix when I get home but I'll give a "quick" recap:

• Have gotten to see Missy/Tim (obviously), Robyn, Ryan/Chinar (sp?), Natalie/Michael, Marc/Matt, Josh, Milo.
• Had a 1 1/2 hour "layover" in Pollock Pines, CA when they closed Hwy 50 at midnight in order to plow the road. Everyone else was super annoyed - I was excited at the adventure :) We left the city at 8, got to our room at 3:30. Awesome.
• Was called a beginner/intermediate skier by Missy - I had self-proclaimed a beginner status so this was muy exciting. I barely held up Missy/Tim while we skiied Sierra-at-Tahoe.
• Lost $ at Harrah's. Let's leave it at that.
• Got to lunch at Gap corporate again - I'll have to give my FULL review of corporate headquarter dining later.
• Am hoping to do some touristy things today but the damn rain won't stop - it's 26 days of rain in a row in SF - I've only been here 5 and I'm even super annoyed.

Pix to follow - promise.