back to normal

tiffany is gone. i actually have 11 days before i go away for another visit! i need to use this time to get my life back to normal. eat normal, take a break from drinking beer and wine, exercise and relax.

i had a blast with tiffany in town. we had a great night partying in ybor city so i finally got to see what that was like. and i also got my first tatoo. will post a picture of that later. it's a sunflower and i love it.

tiffany's coming

things are moving very quickly! ups and downs with paul, a weekend in san antonio, casey's surprise 16th birthday party, and regular hectic days.

today tiffany is coming. she's boarding her plane now. the plan is to hang out at international plaza tonight. tomorrow there is the old hyde park art fair and the ybor city fiesta day. sunday we will head over to st. pete to shop a bit at baywalk and then over to madiera beach for some beach time on the boardwalk. monday is a free day as well.

buddhist meditation classes

Meditation in Florida | Buddhist Meditation Classes

found this great site! hope i have the courage to go to one of the events. would like to see what it is about. maybe i'll ask sam to come with me since he may be into that stuff.

u2 lyrics word cloud

had to do it. created a word could from a site that has lyrics from all the u2 songs.

brokeback to the future

this is too funny! you'll only get it if you remember the back to the future movies and are familiar with the preview new movie out called Brokeback Mountain. right now it's up for all the academy awards about the gay cowboys. this spoof trailer takes scenes from the back to the future movies from the 80s and makes it look like marty and the doc are in love. so funny.

Brokeback to the Future

eight inches of rain

we got over eight inches of rain yesterday. 8.26 inches in one day. and it's the dry season down here. from august through february 2 we received a total of 8.12 inches. so we got several months worth of rain in one day. and still more today. it's still gray out - which i love, but for the most part has stopped raining. i sat in the front window last night listening loudly to my iPod and singing out loud as I watched the rain pour down. was up until about 2pm.

u2 concerts

i've been really into u2 lately. i have been watching all of their concerts over and over. even downloaded all the screensavers from various years. every time i watch one of their shows it is like a roller coaster ride. almost spiritual. i just love being a fan of theirs. the new song that really impressed me from the vertigo tour is Yahweh. It was amazing to see them perform and I've been listening to it over and over. one of the best things is when i "hear" one of their songs for the first time. it brings me back into all of their other music.

word cloud

one of the coolest things about blogging are all the little tools and fun things that one can find. i just read about this word cloud on another blog. Go to http://www.snapshirts.com, click on the create button and then you enter in the URL and name of your blog and it generates this word cloud. it is using a spider to pull words out. I think it is really cool. i bet if I do this once every few weeks I'll get a different cloud each time.

random you {blog challenge}

1. Where were you born?
oak park, il

2. Name something you've always wanted to do.
sea kayaking to get close to the whales or other wildlife

3. What do you want to be when you grow up?
a website developer as i am now. when i was little i used to want to be Quincy (coroner / investigator)

4. What's the number one problem we face in the world today?
POVERTY. Poverty leads to crime, AIDS, lack of education, etc.

5. If you could change the world, what would you do?
ensure free, non-prejudiced education for all people.

6. What's the most dangerous thing you've ever done?
drink to much and put myself in stupid situations.

7. Favorite word? peace. it's so simple and pure.

soundtrack of your life

on the two peas website they always have daily blog challenges. i usually miss them as i don't get on to the boards all the much. today's however is interesting. it is to remember throughout your life and come up with a soundtrack. what a neat idea. just brainstorming i have a few - L.A. Woman by the Doors, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, Rocky Racoon by the Beatles, Sympathy For the Devil by the Stones, tons of Grateful Dead and U2 songs. They also propose you think about tv show theme songs or commercial jingles. Maybe if I have time this weekend I can get together a play list on my iPod. That also reminds me over several musical numbers . . . Les Miserables, Caberet, etc.

biko

biko - peter gabriel

September '77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

When I try and sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

Stephen Bantu Biko (December 18, 1946 – September 12, 1977) was a noted nonviolent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s. He was a student at the University of Natal Medical School. He was initially involved with the multiracial National Union of South African Students, but after he became convinced that black, Indian and Colored students needed an organization of their own, he helped found the South African Students' Organization (SASO) in 1968 and was elected its first president. The SASO evolved into the influential Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). In 1972, Biko became honorary president of the Black People's Convention. He was banned during the height of apartheid in March 1973, meaning that he was not allowed to speak to more than one person at a time, was restricted to certain areas, and could not make speeches in public. It was also forbidden to quote anything he said, including speeches or simple conversations, or to otherwise mention him. In spite of the repression of the apartheid government, Biko and the BCM played a large role in organizing the protests which led to the Soweto riots on June 16, 1976.

In the aftermath of the Soweto riots, police began to target Biko further. On August 18, 1977, he was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967. He suffered a major head injury while in police custody and was chained to a window grille for a full day. On September 11, police loaded him into the back of a car and began the 740-mile drive to Pretoria. He died shortly after the arrival in the Pretoria prison. Police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, despite the fact that he was found to have massive injuries to the head which could not be explained by such a cause of death.

Due to his fame, news of his death quickly spread across the world, and it provided a great wake-up call internationally to the extent of the brutality of the apartheid regime. Journalist Donald Woods, a personal friend of Biko, photographed his injuries in the morgue and was later forced to flee South Africa for England, where he campaigned against apartheid and further publicised Biko's life and death.

The following year on the 2 February 1978, the Attorney-General of the Eastern Cape stated that he will not prosecute any police involved in the arrest and detention of Biko and on 7 October, 2003, the South African Justice Ministry officials announced that the five policemen who were accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted because of insufficient evidence. They said a murder charge could not be supported partly because there were no witnesses to the killing. Charges of culpable homicide and assault were also considered, but because the killing occurred in 1977, the time frame for prosecution had expired.

a melancholy day

today is a wonderful day. one of those good, old soul, fulfilling days. it's raining outside. not that hot steamy florida rain but good old fashion hard rain while it's 60 degrees outside.

when i woke up this morning i was listening to reports about the superbowl this coming weekend. i had the air conditioning on last night because it was so humid out with the coming rain. so i was bundled up under two down comforters and sleepy when i got up to let the dogs out this morning. i actually laughed because it was warm and humid. i braced myself for a chill when i opened the door but nope, it was warm. it stared raining on my way to work and by the time i got out of the car to go into the office it was a good 10 or 15 degrees cooler.

now the rain is really coming down. i am listening to my "melancholy" mix on my ipod. it's PERFECT! i so want to be home, putzing around, scrapbooking, listening to this jazzy music, being warm and hanging with my animals. but i have at least four more hours of work. at least i have the music and some work to sink my teeth into.

the world

the world is crazy these days. i've been trying to watch the bbc news to find out more about what is going on outside of florida and the united states. one of the top stories on the new was that a dannish newspaper printed some charictures of muhummad which portrayed him as a terrorist. the muslim countries are really freaked out, burning the dannish flag and issueing death threats. other countries then published the cartoons reporting on the outrage and also citing freedom of press. i have not seen them here in the u.s. an editor i think from a french newspaper even got fired for allowing them to be published.

i checked out bbc.com this morning and discussed the situation with rajiv who is from india. he explained a few things about muslim's to me and the extremist scets. while i was on the website i saw another extremely disturbing article. drug lords in columbia were surgically implanting packages of liquid heroin in pedigree puppies to get it across the border. can you believe it??? how disguisting. three of the six puppies died due to infection. how depressing. what is wrong with these people?

lipizzaner layout

in january . . .

i'm not happy at all with this layout. it looked good on paper and then the images came out so dark and it didn't work with the paper i wanted to use . . . yada, yada.

journaling reads:
I had a great month to start off a great year. It took me a while to get all the Christmas decorations put away, but I had a few other things that kept me busy. I welcomed Tristen, and adorable corgi, into my home. Things didn’t start out so well. He and Taylor were both jealous of each other. He was not house-broken and had tons of accidents. By the end of the second week he was learning and he and Taylor seem to becoming buddies.

There were quite a bit of home improvement things going on as well. I purchased new bedroom furniture for myself from my favorite store (pier 1) and had the rest of the house painted all sorts of fun colors. I added eggplant purple, dusky rose, teal and a few shades of brown into the mix.

Personally, I started Jenny Craig and am down 8 pounds so far. I completed my first Italian Charm Bracelet which mom got me started on as part of my Christmas presents. I attended two big events as well. The Lipizzaner Stallions performance I attended with Marcia Perri and two of her daughters. They were really great and it was wonderful I got to see them since I missed them when I was in Vienna several years ago. I went to my first Gasparilla Parade with Linda Hill and LaDonna Williams from work and Linda’s sister Sharon. I drank way too much and had tons of fun.

The only bad thing that really happened this month was that I erased all my songs off my iPod. I had to spend an entire weekend burning all my CDs to get the songs in digital format and on my computer. It did end up to be a good thing though because now I have many more songs than I did before.