Monday, October 25, 2010

I had a wonderful, relaxing, LAZY weekend

First of all, I changed the background of my blog when I posted last time. And it's been so long ago that I forget I'd done it. Awesome.


I figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be rich. So I can wake up this view every morning.




I normally like to think of myself as a city girl but that could change my mind. I spent the weekend in Onalaska (population  1,174 ) with some girlfriends. One of the girls parent's own a lake house on Lake Livingston. It was so pretty and peaceful. We drank and talked and danced and watched a little sports. Mostly we just sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings and weather.


I took my Nikon camera but never got it out of the suitcase. So, these pics are all from my blackberry.




They had these awesome hammock-like swings on the boat dock.  They didn't know I was aking the picture but you can only see outlines anyway.




And just in case you don't believe I was there, here's a self portrait from Saturday afternoon. It was crazy windy.



Friday, September 24, 2010

It's not often you get to use the phrase "overall jorts"

Not much going on in the world of lazy.

I'm working a lot more since my coworker retired on August 31. The position finally got posted this week so hopefully soon I'll have some help. Right now the workload is manageable but very quickly it's going to get out of control. After her retirement, I'm the person in my department with the most seniority. That's weird. Of course, the fact that I'm an adult is still weird to me!

I quit my second job (again). I do love working with Kasey and of course the money, but between the extra hours at work and all the fun stuff I want to do on the weekend, I decided it was time to quit.

Football season is upon us and so far my teams are 3-0 (Aggies) and 2-0 (Texans). It's kind of a nice change to have winning records even if it's so early in the season and both of last week's games almost gave me a heart attack.

My friend Eilene and I went to College Station for the Aggie game. We did some tailgating. Oh my god, that reminds me ...

Two guys, two pairs overall jorts, one rolling cooler

I love these two guys. They were both sporting cutoff overall jorts that had been painted with various Aggie-themed sayings like "gig 'em" and "redass" and they wore them with pride. They were shirtless, boot-wearing, overall jort loving guys. They waved as they walked by with their cooler.

Sunday I watched football all day. The Texans beat the Redskins in a crazy come from behind overtime game. I was yelling at my TV a lot that day.

but it certainly helps 

Monday, September 6, 2010

One more dead flower post

After weeks of obsessing over the corpse flower, it was time for it to be repotted and returned into the museum greenhouse. The museum had a lottery and chose 25 people to come to an event where they'd do the repotting. I got lucky and was selected.

When Erin at the museum sent the email informing me I'd been picked, she included instructions and a line about how they'd be filming a documentary.

If I'd written this three weeks ago when the repotting took place, it would be full of details and maybe some pictures. Right now I'm lazy and time made it seem less important. Plus, no one reads this blog anyway :)

But what is important is that Erin asked if I'd mind being interviewed for the documentary. Of course I said yes, even though I was sure I'd say something extremely stupid or do the dolphin laugh. I'm sure I did both.

When I told the girls I'd done the interview, Kristen said "you're going to be nerd famous" and I still laugh at it.

Zac, Lois' horticulturist buddy, is having a lecture on Wednesday and they'll be selling the documentary then. I'll be at the Outback with my family but I guess I should get my hands on a copy.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Nerdiest Thing I've Ever Done

I knew I choose the right title for this blog. It's been like three weeks since I told you about the corpse flower. Here's the rest of the story:

I've already admitted that I met most of my friends on the internet a few years ago, so this has to be pretty nerdy huh?

I followed the Lois saga on Twitter and on Houston Museum of Natural Science website. They had a webcam on Lois 24 hours a day. In the pane next to the webcam they showed the tweets about her. Tweets containing #corpseflower were automatically filtered onto the page. There were tons of people talking about Lois but several hundred people were around day after day (and night after night). The little picture icons next to people's names helped people become familiar faces.

While I was waiting in line to see Lois with my friend Kasey, I checked Twitter on my Blackberry and saw this:

I followed the link to Facebook and learned they were going to have a get together for 200 Tweeters to meet each other and the people at the museum who we'd been following online. They also would reveal who had been posting hilarious tweets as Lois (http://twitter.com/CorpzFlowrLois). I immediately sent in an email requesting an invite. I heard back from Erin at HMNS that I was on the list.

The Tweetup (that word still makes me giggle) started at midnight at the museum on Saturday. I haven't gone out at midnight since I was in college (and bars closed at one when I was at A&M so we usually were out way before that). I stayed up really late on Friday so I could sleep in and be ready for a midnight outing on Saturday.

I got to the museum about 11:15 since I had no idea what kind of line or check-in process they were going to have. I lucked out at got a parking spot right in front of the museum. And then I got heckled.

IN FRONT OF A MUSEUM!

Some guys rolled down their window to inform me that it was "just a fucking flower!" It cracks me up now, but at the time,  I was very "WTF just happened?"

The event was held outside the museum next to the Butterfly Center. It was a very neat setup. They gave each of us a ticket to see Lois again and a drink ticket. SCORE! Outside they had some tables out and a bar set up.  And that's when I realized I had left my wallet on the kitchen counter. Boo. Luckily the bartender knows how to fill up a glass of wine:


They had three projectors set up showing stuff on the wall of the musem. One was showing all the #corpseflower tweets. People who were not in Houston or who were unable to go asked all of us attending to keep them updated.  No pressure to be entertaining or anything to them or the people attending! I did use it as a way to find someone I'd been tweeting with for weeks though. @stephsparkle was standing right behind me! Turns out she's an Aggie too!


The middle one showed some selected Lois tweets from the previous few days. And I totally geeked out when I saw one of mine. I didn't have my camera or phone out, so I had to wait for it to roll around again. Then I got a picture with my phone. )It's fuzzy because it's projected on the outside of the building and it's not a completely white, clean building.)

Here's a screen capture of it:
One of Stephanie's came up too so we had to wait for hers to come around again.

The third projector was showing info about Culture Map, a website I had started following on Twitter about the time I learned about Lois. It is a great source of info on all things Houston. And it turns out that @CorpzFlowrLois was a staffer at Culture Map so it all came together nicely.

Sprinkles was there with cupcakes. I am not much of a cake eater so I skipped those.

I got to meet Erin from HMNS that does all of their social media stuff. I'm sure she has a spiffy title, but I don't know what it is. However, what an awesome job! I would love to be on Twitter and Facebook and get paid for it. (Let's not mention that I'm at my desk typing this and I'm on and off FB/Twitter all day at work). I am sure she was extremely exhausted but she was super nice and talked with us for a while about the museum and how they would be having more tweetups and their Flickr group (which I joined since she said they have special events for people in the group to photograph things after hours).

And I met Mary Benton (she's on Channel 2 news in Houston). She had been reporting about Lois but was also a big fan and tweeted along with us.


Everyone involved in the whole Lois phenomenon was so nice and helpful. If someone tweeted a question, 10 people answered. It was a really neat thing to be a part of ...even if it was extremely nerdy to go meet a bunch of people that I'd met tweeting about a flower.

Monday, July 26, 2010

This is a really long blog post about a flower that smells like death

You know how you get swept up in something and you don't even know how it started? That's pretty much what happened with me and Lois, the corpse flower. I know a couple of weeks ago I saw or read a story about the Houston Museum of Natural Science having a corpse flower that was beginning to bloom. And the next thing I know, it's been two weeks and I've spent a couple hundred hours in front of my computer watching a webcam of a flower.
 
To be fair, it wasn't as much as the flower blooming in super-slow-mo that kept me watching. It was the tweets being broadcast to the side of the webcam. It combined people watching with tweeting. How awesome is that? And took me from about 100 tweets on July 1 to the 628 I have now. I'd say at least 450 of those were about the corpse flower.
 
Originally, the museum estimated it would take a couple days to bloom. They started staying open 24 hours a day so everyone that wanted to could see her. I absolutely love the museum and think it's awesome they were willing to work so hard to accommodate everyone in Houston (and the people that came from even further!). When the webcam went live, the name of the page was "Our Corpse Flower "Lois" is Blooming!" and it kept saying that and no bloom! So I jokingly tweeted that the museum should rename the page to "Our Corpse Flower 'Lois' Might Bloom in the Next Decade." And then did! At least for a few minutes until I could get a screen shot. Hilarious!



I also took the time out of my oh-so-busy schedule (I couldn't even type that with a straight face) to draw a picture. I have made similar pictures for some friends regarding events and stories going on with us, but that's another story.


The museum retweeted the picture and I'm not going to lie, it pretty much made my day!

I wanted to see the flower but not until it had released it's pungent corpse-like smell. (That's a phrase I don't think I'll ever use again.) Lucily for me and a couple thousand others, the museum put up a Stink-O-Meter so we could track her smell. Lois peaked in nastiness on Friday morning so we headed to HMNS on Friday evening to wait in line to smell a funky flower. It took a little more than an hour to get from the end of the line to the exhibit.





Sidebar: There are WAY too many roaches in the Cockrell Butterfly Center. Ick!

But back to Lois. Here are a couple of pictures I snapped.




When you walked into the room where Lois was temporarily living, you could barely smell anything. Once you got to her "good" side though, you got a big whiff of funkiness. It wasn't a very strong smell since she was already on the decline, but it definitely smelled bad!


And of course I had to draw an updated picture of Lois once she bloomed (complete with Stink-O-Meter).

I have some more thoughts and experiences to share but I'll save that for another blog post likely to be titled "The Nerdiest Thing I've Ever Done."

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Speaking of Dexter ...

So last week I was illegally watching them on the internet. I decided to go ahead and pay for the last 6 episodes since it's the right thing to do and I could watch them as fast as I wanted. But of course, after I waited 30 minutes for them to all download, each one was skipping! Dammit, computer, I paid $1.99 per episode for that.

I think it's just another sign I need to buy a new laptop. I spent 15 minutes reading Apple's website and random Mac forums trying to figure out what was wrong but after disabling a bunch of stuff, it was still being stupid.

Today my laptop went all nuts while I was trying to play Family Feud on Facebook.  It's almost four years old so I am not all that surprised but I'm still annoyed. I want a new laptop. I want one that's lighter and I don't have to position the AC adapter cord in a certain way to use it. But I don't really want to spend the money on it.

Back to Dexter, I won't spoil anything if you haven't watched it, but what.the.fuck was up with that ending? Ugh! Hurry up September.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Random ramblings

I'm trying to illegally watch Dexter Season 4 on the internet and I found it on some website that limits how much you can watch per day. So, I'm currently waiting 41 minutes to finish episode 4. Purchasing the rest of the episodes on iTunes is starting to sound like a good plan.

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and I'm totally jealous how awesome they are. But you know what, the bloggers actually update their shit. I know, crazy, huh? So, here I am. With nothing to offer.

Not much else going on in the world of lazy. Except I might have to burn my upstairs neighbors apartment down (yes, I know what will happen if I do. It's a figure of speech. Maybe). A woman that weighs about 110 pounds and a little girl that can't be more than 2 live above me. And they are some noisy motherfuckers. I don't even know how they can be so loud. Before I saw who moved in above me, I as convinced a really fat guy moved in. Nope! They stomp until after midnight. I'm usually awake but it's still really annoying. Don't little kids need sleep?

Monday, May 3, 2010

Well, that was odd

"It's a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams."

  Check out that hairdo!


 That's a quote from the 1986 move Labyrinth with David Bowie, in case you haven't seen it 45 times like "some" people. It goes perfectly here since this posting is about a dream featuring David Bowie.

Let me preface this by saying that I very rarely remember my dreams. Usually I wake up and they are instantly gone. I had a hard time sleeping last night so I was kind of in-and-out this morning. I kept repeating it to myself so I'd remember this one. It was so odd, I needed to share it.

In this dream, I was walking down a street with a friend. I can't remember who it was though. Unnamed Friend and I were wearing jeans and tank tops but the dressy sort of jeans and tank tops, not the running-to-Target at 9:50 p.m kind. 

Anyway, we're walking and we notice David Bowie is walking in front of us. So we go say hello. He was nice and chatty and then all of a sudden he looks at me and says "you're too fat to wear tank tops."

Uh, WTF?

First of all, I am not under any delusions regarding my choice in tops. Between the vampire-like paleness, the flabby fatness and the thick padded bra straps, I am well aware that tank tops are on the "no ma'am" list.

Secondly, why in the hell is David Bowie appearing in my dreams just to tell me that? Very, very strange.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Welcome to the new blog

I've spent more time on blogging in the last hour than I have since January. Maybe the new page name will inspire me to stop being so lazy.

Or maybe not.

Well, hello, my old blog

I have been spending my time reading books and watching Criminal Minds reruns. Oh, the life of a single gal...

I think I'm going to change my blog name. Of course, that will depend on me actually blogging! I've neglected it so long, I couldn't remember the exact URL. So sad!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Ahhh, it's a new year

And so far, the same old me.

I've spent the last three weeks with my family. My older sister, her husband and their three kids are here on vacation from Japan. Sadly they must fly back on Wednesday.

We've had a great time though and I've pretty much neglected any routine I had prior to their visit. I'm even going days without checking my email. Which is WEIRD for me. Normally the phone or computer is always in my hand.

I went back to work today but as you can see, I'm not really that motivated to do much work. I'm hoping before tomorrow the motivation fairy shows up.

Here are some pictures from the last three weeks since words are hard right now and pictures are easy.

New Year's Eve in the limo


Check out my sweet hat


At Baker St in The Woodlands