So New Hampshire is the healthiest state to live in this year. Maybe that’s because of its New England location, since 4 other northeastern states are in the top 10 … but who knows. The only thing I care about is my home of Virginia, which came in at #22 out of 50 — same as last year. Is that good or bad?

I’ve just been introduced to the concept of namelistings — cool, more stuff to join! Aww, there’s no listing for Claire, Brian, Lynn, or Lorelei. Maybe I should make one for me. There are listings, however, for Isaac, Taylor, and Zac. Yay! Remind me to go crazy once I’m back home with my FTP

LOL, almost forgot to write about last night. Even though I got there at 6 (and missed 2 of the bands I wanted to see), I still was able to rock out to Avenged Sevenfold, some band I didn’t know, New Found Glory, Yellowcard, Taking Back Sunday, and Sugarcult (as well as buy a tour t-shirt and both Rock Against Bush CDs)! NFG and Yellowcard had to stop playing for a few minutes due to people getting hurt (one even got taken away by helicopter), but other than that and a short, cold rain shower, it was fun! I even ran into Al and Christina. Funny how I never saw my friends who said they were coming After it all ended around 9, I sat in Nissan’s parking lot for a half hour trying to get out (and another 15 minutes or so on Wellington), but once I was past the first light, it was smooth sailing. Watched Friends and had ice cream at Brian’s ’til I could barely stay awake, somehow managed to drive home, and passed out as soon as I saw my bed. Good times!

Edit: Score, Titan wants to keep me ’til I go back to school! Awesome. Every day I get more comfortable with the system and the employees, so why give up a good thing?

This whole job thing isn’t too bad. I get to do whatever I want online (aka site stuff), there’s pretty much no stress, it’s good pay, and I’m actually starting to enjoy it (except for the boredom part). Everyone’s nice, and the technical guy said I might be able to stay if I talk to Jackie. Which is likely, because the receptionist before me was one of the bosses’ daughters … and who actually likes working with family?

I was all set to drive to Nissan after work today, but now I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Brian told me some site said the show wraps up around 6 or 7, and I get off at 5. I wouldn’t be able to get there ’til 5:30 or 6 at the absolute earliest, and who wants to sit in traffic for an hour, deal with parking, and find their party only to listen to the last band wrap up their set (when you don’t even know who’s playing when)? I did a Google search on the issue and I got everything from 7:30 - 9 … so I dunno if it’s even worth trying *sigh* I wish the Warped people would get their act together and post that information before you arrive — it’d make everyone’s lives a little bit easier.

Okay, scratch that … Brian just called and said that even though I’ll miss Coheed & Cambria and Story of the Year (grr), the show goes ’til 9, and Sugarcult and Yellowcard are playing around 8. Simple Plan aren’t even on the lineup, which is weird ’cause they should be there. But oh well, why not brave rush hour … half of Warped is better than none.

Okay, it’s official, 1280 x 1024 resolutions suck. They’re too frickin’ big — I have to squint to read anything (and resizing the text doesn’t help). 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 suit me just fine. Also, why won’t this thing let me into my site account and email?

Now this is cool. Just remind me about it again in 6 1/2 years. And don’t forget the solar satellite pictures.

Man, it’s 9 am and I’m bored. I’ve already done everything important online, I forgot to bring a magazine (which I’ll get on my lunch break), and I talked to this 20 or 30-something computer guy for a few minutes. Everyone else just says “hi” or “morning” and retreats to their cave. The phone even seems busier.

My laptop’s finally back! Now if only my overdue Hanson DVD would come (ahem Amazon smile:, life would temporarily NOT be something to complain about — Warped Tour tomorrow (for Jessica) and Wednesday (for me)!

Welcome to the big vacation post … sit back, relax, and enjoy my tale of 2 cities (or amusement parks):

I spent Tuesday night at Brian’s so we could get an early start in the morning and not have to drive to Fairfax during rush hour. We left around 9 and had a pretty uneventful drive to our first stop, Kings Dominion. After getting in, we headed to the front seat of Volcano (feuer frei!), Flight of Fear (too jerky), Anaconda (cool), Shockwave (so-so), Hypersonic XLC (crazy), Skyflyer (frickin’ awesome, especially during a downpour), Rebel Yell (got a headache), and finally, Skee Ball, DDR, and Cruisin’ World at the arcade. I even won an Elmo!

By then it was about 7, and we were tired, so we left and drove the remaining hour to Williamsburg to check in at the Sleep Inn. And thanks to Brian, our room was equipped with a whirlpool jacuzzi — I was like score. Dinner was at Chownings Tavern, where Brian had some really good beer, I tried ribs for the first time, and we sat at long tables and listened to live 18th-century music. We were there for about 2 hours, which was on the long side for me, but the people at our table were interesting, so it wasn’t too bad. Afterwards we took a bath, then passed out.

Thursday morning we slept in, got ready, and headed to Busch Gardens. First was lunch at Festhaus (a “beer hall”) … but right as we were ready to go on the rides, it started raining, and continued to do so for an hour and a half. It sucked, so we went back inside the freezing cold Festhaus to watch a short show. People sang and did the chicken dance, but they were way too enthusiastic … it would’ve been better if it were the real thing. But oh well. When the evil lightning finally went away, our first stop was the Big Bad Wolf. Then came the Loch Ness Monster (loop-de-loops are fun), Apollo’s Chariot (my favorite), ice cream ’cause it was like 95 degrees and humid, Alpengeist (my old favorite), and Corkscrew Hill (a new experience for me). It was this 4-D, 5-minute virtual reality ride that took you back in time to Ireland when there were dragons, witches, and flying horses, and the cool part was that it felt amazingly real. I’m definitely doing that again.

By then it was 5:30ish and time to go back to the hotel and get ready for our dinner reservations at The King’s Arms at 7:30. We made it just in time, despite having to figure out a small tailoring issue. The food was great: we started off with Sally Lunn bread and relishes (not the pickle kind), and ended with a big meat pie of duck, rabbit, and venison that neither of us could finish. We spent the rest of the night watching TV.

Friday, our last day, was filled to the brim with Williamsburg. And it was hot. Again. I wanted to kiss whoever invented shade. We had lunch at the bake shop since Brian had been drooling over Chownings rolls for the past week, so we got some of those, cheddar cheese, ginger cake, an apple pasty, and root beer. That was yummy too. Everything in Williamsburg is, it seems. And I forgot to bring home ginger beer, which is like the best stuff on Earth (sorry Snapple) … maybe I can order it online.

Anyway, after lunch we wandered around Duke of Gloucester Street, visiting various air conditioned trade shops and the Governor’s Palace, which has an awesome garden. I should have pictures of it soon (ahem Brian ). Then we wandered around various gift shops in Market Square before taking the bus back to the Visitor’s Center to chill before dinner at the Lee’s at 6.

I’d been stressing about the Lees not liking me since Brian had drilled me on how to act and dress because they were old-fashioned (which I’m not), but when I got there, I didn’t know why he’d been freaking out. Mrs. Lee is the nicest person ever, and I could tell from the second I heard her voice that I didn’t have anything to worry about. She has the cutest dog, which Brian thinks looks like a mop. Dinner was really fancy, complete with doilies on the plates, presents for Brian and I, place cards, and pretty little silver napkin holders. And that’s just the table setting. We had a 5-course meal that consisted of tomato-basil soup (1), mandarin orange salad (2), pork, orange cous-cous, broccoli, bread, red wine (3), chocolate pudding with whipped cream, chocolate chips, and a cherry (4), and coffee (5). It was good.

The last leg of our trip was the 3-hour drive home. Brian drove for the 1st half while I took a short nap, then we stopped for gas, Red Bull, and a driver change. We crawled into bed around 1:30, ready to relax after 3 energy-charged days. And that was our vacation.

Well I’m at my week-long job at Titan. 8 - 5 for $10/hour. Not too bad … it’s just really slow. I’ve been here for 2 1/2 hours so far, and all I’ve done is answer the phone twice (one was a hangup) and sign three people in (two were repairmen). Exciting. Plus, almost everyone I’ve been introduced to has warned me how boring this job is. But oh well, at least I’m not earning minimum wage anymore, and I get free coffee.

I’m also debating whether or not to stick with Blogger. I have 874 posts here that I’d hate to lose … but I also hate the 300-post renaming limit, random downtime, slow publishing, and WYSIWYG editor.

Then there’s Nucleus (in PHP), which is much faster. But I screwed that up when I tried to move it to a different folder, and it’s editing format was confusing and redundant. However, it did feel good to temporarily rely on something other than orange and navy … a.k.a. Blogger

Finally, there’s Greymatter (in Perl). It seems to be a lot like Blogger, but Perl isn’t exactly the latest and greatest, and Brian says PHP is faster. But who knows … I might just install Greymatter for the hell of it and see where it takes me.

Now I’m off to find something else to occupy myself with ’til 5.