Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Erin is alive!

Just very busy these last two days (for me, at least) before the holidays. No time to expound even. I'll be gone the next few days visiting family all over Georgia. By the time we get back, we will have put almost 1000 miles on our car without leaving the state! And we'll do it all again in less than a month. ::sigh:: Proof how much I love my family.

So, expect more expounding sometime Tuesday. Until then, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Friday, November 21, 2003

Bah humbug

Last time I checked the calendar, it is still November, yes? Then please explain to me why the heck a radio station is playing Christmas music and Santa is already at the mall?!?!?! Really folks, it's only one more week until Thanksgiving. You couldn't wait just one more week? During December, I *love* the fact that 94.9FM plays holiday music constantly. Music is one of my favorite things about the season. But you really should wait for the season to arrive. I was completely stunned when I flipped it on yesterday and heard Michael Crawford's "O Holy Night" (which still gives me goosebumps). It is a glorious piece of music sung by an awesome voice, BUT it's just not time yet. I'm as anxious as the next person to pop in The London Brass Christmas or hear Straight No Chaser do their most hysterical version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." And I'll pack up those CDs and take them with me when we leave here on Tuesday to do "the south Georgia family tour." They will be at the ready to pop in the player on NOVEMBER 28, not before. Harumph!

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Geeking in public

This phrase was coined by my circle of friends one night at Starbucks. A group of us from Georgia Tech were having coffee (hot cocoa for me, the non-coffee drinker) after going to hear a friend's band, and several of them started playing with blocks in the kids area (we were the only ones there, since it was after 10 pm). Naturally, this lead to "building something," which naturally lead all the engineering and architecture majors to comment on the physics of what they were doing and why it wasn't working. When we realized that the clerk was staring at us like we were speaking a foreign language (which, in a way, we were), someone commented, "hey, no geeking in public." It's just kinda stuck since then. And I'm about to do it in one of the most public forums available: the web.

Last night on Star Trek Enterprise, the ship had come to rest, with no engines, inside a cloud full of magnetic particles. They had to get out (I won't go into why), but the engines would take weeks to fix. So, they used their two shuttle pods as tug boats. But it took the engines quite a while and way more power than the safety limits to get the ship to move (emperilling the lives of the shuttle pilots, etc). Now, here's my problem: it should *not* have taken that much power to overcome the inertia of the ship. It was out in space! No friction, no (or virtually no) gravity. According to the theory, if you shot a BB gun enough times out in open space, you could reach the speed of light. So these two shuttle pods should have been able to generate *more* than enough power to move Enterprise, without ever reaching the safety limits, much less exceeding them. Granted, they never gave the density of the particles or showed a diagram of how the magnetic field was affecting things. Maybe it was enough to provide sufficient inertia to make it difficult to move them, but I doubt it. Now I know why my mom (a nurse) doesn't ever watch medical shows! LOL

Feast or famine

Some days I have trouble coming up with something to expound on (yesterday was not one of those days, BTW; I was just very busy). Other days, I have so many different things on my mind that it's hard to decide where to start blogging. If they are fairly generic topics that don't relate to something going on in the current time frame, then I'll add it to a list of things to blog on later during one of my famine periods (I know, how pathetic is that). Today is one of those feast type days where I have so much on my mind, I don't even know where to start.

I have been told on numerous occasions that people "can see my wheels turning," that I'm always thinking about something. It's true; I am virtually always thinking about *multiple* somethings. But they aren't always important somethings. DH has learned after all these years that if he asks what I'm thinking and I say "nothing," that really means that I'm thinking a ton of small and not really discussion-worthy things. Occasionally, he'll ask me to tell him what nothings I am thinking, and he always seems surprised at the length of the list.

How long are these lists? Well, here is what I am currently pondering: I need to be doing work right now :-p, I'm really really tired, I had two dreams last night that are still troubling me and I am pondering their meaning (if any), there was (IMO) a scientific error on Star Trek Enterprise last night that is bugging me (which I will probably blog on later, geek that I am), I wonder if I will really be able to come off of my blood pressure medicine in two weeks like the doctor said I might (fingers crossed), I haven't mused on Master and Commander yet, we have tons of things we need to do with the house before conceiving, we still haven't conceived (yes, this is only month two, but I'm used to being an overachiever), I still need to mail my ornaments for the exchange, I haven't even started thinking about Christmas presents yet when I'm usually 1/2 to 3/4 of the way finished by now, we haven't solidified Thanksgiving plans yet, I can't even settle on a Christmas card to send out and I need to mail them soon so the overseas ones make it, West Wing was much better last night than it has been so far this season, there will be a headcount reduction announced around the first of the year when we just went through one, I miss my brother (in Miami) and my best friend (in Texas) badly, and I have a ton of weddings coming up in the next year. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Whew! I fell better getting all of that off my brain. Now I can get back to pondering it all. Might even expound on it later. Aren't you excited? LOL

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Goodbye, Michael Kamen

How very very sad. Composer Michael Kamen has died at age 55 from MS. He is one of my most favorite composers. I am a film score junkie, and I have several by him. He did Mr. Holland's Opus, the Lethal Weapons, the Die Hards, and many others. What a tremendous loss to the musical community, as well as to Hollywood. :-(

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

An obscure family tradition

Well, not yet, but I hope it will be in the not too distant future. I was thinking about how anxious I am to get home for Thanksgiving. Please allow me a small aside to discuss my use of the word home: Generally, when I say (or type) "home," I mean my house here in Atlanta. But I definitely think of Brunswick (where my parents live) as "home" as well, as in my hometown. Strange, since I only actually *lived* there for 4 years, but that's a discussion for another time.

Anyway, we used to drive from wherever we were living at the time (lots of moving growing up) to visit family, and as soon as we got close to Brunswick, my father's home town, he would turn to my brother and me and say, "Smell that marsh! Can you smell it?" I'd close my eyes, take a deep breath.... and no, I couldn't smell anything, except the Pulp Mill on occasion. Bleck! All those trips, he'd make the same comment, and I never could smell a thing. I've always had a pretty good sense of smell, so this surprised me. I seriously thought he was imagining it. We moved there when I was 14, and I "moved away" to start college four years later, but I was close enough (only 2 hours away) that I visited every couple of weeks. I still didn't smell it.

Two years later, I "really moved away" to complete my degree in Atlanta. I had been here for almost two straight months, it was Thanksgiving break, and I was so desperate to go home. I headed down the interstates; it was dark, I was tired, and I just wanted to be there! And all of the sudden, it hit me. The marsh. That smell! It smells like home!! I couldn't breathe deep enough, couldn't get enough of that wonderful scent into my body. Tears stung my eyes as it dawned on me: that was what Dad had been talking about all those years. In living there, it had become a part of me, but I had to move away in order to recognize it.

Now, every time I make that trip, a minimum of 4 times a year, the warm earthy scent hits me, and I hear my father's voice and I can't help but smile. Home. ::deep breath:: It smells like home. I can't wait to make that drive with my own children. Even if they roll their eyes and don't understand, like I did for so many years, I will still turn to them, every time, and say, "Smell that marsh! Can you smell it?"

ROTFL!

Oh, oh, owie, owie! My sides are killing me from laughing so hard. Everyone at work wants to know what the heck is so funny over in my cube! Well, I'll tell ya. It's my brother's latest blog entry. Very short, precise, heartfelt, and the most hysterical thing I have read in ages. So please, put down the drinks, make sure anything in your mouth is swallowed or spit out (as appropriate), then go over and read Jacob's Snot Haiku. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Might take a while to load, as blogspot seems to be running quite slow today, but I assure it is worth the wait. As always, Little Brother, you never fail to make me smile! Now, grab a handful of tissue, and go find that life you claim to have. ;-) Love, S

Monday, November 17, 2003

Master and Commander

I know a couple of you are waiting (with bated breath? or not....) to hear what I thought of Master and Commander. I found it very blah. Not bad, not good, overly violent, and rather boring in many places. DH didn't care for it either, but I know the critics seem to love it. The acting was very good, but I found the story just..... lacking. A more in-depth "official" musing later.

Title change

Just thought I would point out that the "title" of my blog has changed to "Erin Expounds." Alliterative and short. I never liked the other one (Erin's Musings on Life and Such); it was really just a place holder until I found something better. I now have the movie "Maverick" to thank for the new one, and I like it much better. May change again (I'm wishy-washy about things like this), but it'll do for now.

Maniacal laughter.....

BWAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA! I laugh in my best Vincent Price voice. I got my brother hooked on blogging!

Friday, November 14, 2003

Puddles and oceans

As I was listening to one of my favorite songs on the way home yesterday, it occurred to me that people reading my blog probably think I'm fairly shallow. I haven't talked about anything heavy or deep so far, and I've kept my religious views to myself. But I do think about things a lot, both frivolous and deep. I contemplate God and the universe frequently, most often in my car by myself. So to anyone who may have thought that the extent of my interests were movies and cats, there is more. When I feel moved to discuss it here, I will. Just haven't felt moved in that direction lately.

However, I would like to post the chorus to that song I spoke of, as it pretty much sums up my views on the world at the moment. With my future children (no, not yet) on my mind a lot recently, these words echo louder and louder. BTW, this is in no way a political statement, so please don't take it as such. (I keep my views on politics even more private than my religious views.)

Pray for good and pray for love
Pray for peace and pray it's enough
Pray for salvation
Pray that we're right
Pray one day we open our eyes and
Pray for them and pray for us
Pray one day we can live as one
Pray for the children whose time is to come
Just pray they forgive us for the stupid things we've done

~from "Pray," by Tina Cousins

Thursday, November 13, 2003

People actually read my musings!

LOL! I just had to laugh. Stacey has quoted one of my Movie Musings in her blog. Nice to know I'm not wasting my time archiving those things. It really is quite a thrill to find out that people are reading anything I have online, be it any of my websites or my blog. ::blush:: And in case you are wondering, yes I intend to catch Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World this weekend.

Stitching news: I haven't been stitching lately, so there is no news. Sorry!

Reading news: I have finished the first book in Anne Bishop's Dark Jewels Trilogy titled Daughter of the Blood. On to book 2, Heir to the Shadows. Quite enjoying the series so far.

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

The dark ages

You know, back before everyone was electronically connected to everyone else? My entire building's connection to the server went down at work around Noon on Monday. The server itself was fine, we just couldn't reach it. No problem, right? Wrong! No email, no way to pull data (a major function of my job, especially the first 10 days or so of each month), no access to any of our shared drives, no internet (shock, gasp!) or intranet, no faxing, no printing. We were dead in the water with no way to communicate with anyone else except via phone! ARGH! After about an hour or so, I just sat here playing solitaire. There was literally nothing else I could do. Boss sent us all home around 4 pm. The connection was not restored for most of yesterday. I went home at 10:30, since I could reach the server via dail-up from my house. At least *something* was accomplished. Things seem to be back to normal today (thus I can blog!). How on earth did the business world function 25 years ago?!

Forgot to mention that the musings on The Matrix Revolutions are up now.

Friday, November 07, 2003

it's a small world after all.....

Now that you'll be humming that the rest of the day, if not the entire weekend, my work here is finished! ::evil cackle::

No, really, I do have a point. I was noticing on my drive in this morning that I often see the same cars while commuting. Now this may not seem strange to you, but considering that I drive from an Atlanta suburb all the way into midtown Atlanta, I find this quite surprising. There are literally thousands of other people on the roads with me. How likely is it that I will see the same vehicle again and again? I'm not taking just once or twice. I see a particular blue van (recognizable by its proliferation of bumper stickers) 2-3 times a week. But I never see, or at least notice, being with the same cars on the way home. They always seem to be different. Just my random observation for today.

Have a great weekend everyone! "See" you on Monday.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Bronze or marble?

I had an idea of something to blog on as I drove in to work this morning. I got sidetracked by events at work, then it was time to eat (and I was starving). I get back to my desk with my food, only to talk to my brother and find out he was in a car accident. He's fine, his truck is fixable, they guy who hit him had insurance (albeit not good insurance), and it happened right in front of a cop, who not only cited the other guy at fault for the wreck, but also issued him a ticket for running the red light that caused the accident in the first place. So yes, it could have been much worse. But my mother was in two accidents in two weeks back in August, and now this.

I am just irrationally angry about it at the moment. Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful he's not hurt! But I'm angry about it, too. It's just so stupid! If people would just follow the freakin' rules, we wouldn't be having these kinds of problems. Is that really so much to ask? And three wrecks in the family in three months is a little much for anyone to take, I think, especially since my parents live 6 hours away, and my brother is all the way down in Miami. I feel so useless, unable to help or comfort, except by phone. As my dad says, "When do I get to be the pigeon? 'Cause I'm sure tired of being the statue!"

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

I've seen The Matrix Revolutions

And I'm sure you're all wondering what The Muse has to say. Quite frankly, she has no clue. Let me chew on it a while and I'll get back to you. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Was it more or less? I'm undecided. Just different. That's all for now. May not even muse on it for a couple of days. I need to think about it. And I'm not ready to talk about it, not even with DH. Stay tuned.....

Another promise

Two rainbows in a week. What is this world coming to? This one I can see out my cube window, arching all the way across Piedmont Park. Just beautiful! Not nearly as bright nor as wide as the one I saw a few days ago, but much bigger and more "classic." Can't help but smile. :-)

I'm sure many of you are wondering what my recent fascination is with nature. Well, as a city girl, I just don't get to see much of it. This is primarily by choice; I'd rather be inside than outside any day! LOL So when nature does manage to creep in through the concrete walls of downtown, it is all the more amazing to me.

Shall I move on to a vent about leaves? They don't call it "fall" for nothin'. DH spent hours this past weekend bagging leaves out of our yard. Yesterday when I got home, there were twice as many leaves down. Why bother picking them up every weekend? Seems like we should just wait until they all come down, *then* bag them. Would probably annoy our neighbors, though. And now, with the rain today, they're all wet and everything. Bleck! Glad I'm not the yard person.

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Gold and flame

Wow. I love the view from my cube. How many people can say that? As I've mentioned here before, my cube looks out across Piedmont Park in midtown Atlanta from the height of 9 stories. It is full of all kinds of trees (sorry, I have no idea what kind, I'm not a flora person). It's been fairly green up to now, with a few slightly turned patches here and there. But this afternoon, I'm suddenly seeing lots of changes. Plenty of reds coming out, with brilliant patches of yellow here and there. Hopefully the wind and rain will hold off long enough for me to enjoy it for a few days. It's always a shame to come in and see bare sticks. You can even see the houses sprinkled throughout sections of the park with all of the leaves down. Then spring comes and covers them, and we start all over. Such simple pleasures.

To completely change gears, it is also a simple pleasure to have things delivered directly to your door. For instance, Finding Nemo arrived on our doorstep yesterday. I love getting these things early! Haven't watched it yet, but soon. And the best part? Only 4 weeks until Pirates! YIPEE!!! *Ahem* Oh, and in stitching news (see, I do have some occasionally), my Just Nan Christmas order arrived. Charts and Embellishment Packs for: Snowfire Christmas, Christmas Elegance, Christmas Memories, and Tinsel Tapestry. I have also signed up for Chatelaine's Christmas Mystery (don't know what it looks like until you get the chart, in 12 pieces, one a month). Should be great fun! It better be, or I'll have to take it up with the person who talked me into it, LOL!

Erin's Musings now interactive

Check me out with the comments box! I'm just sorry it took me this long to get it put on there. So, as scary as it may be for me, you can now "talk back" if you would like.

Monday, November 03, 2003

It just looks wrong.

Before I forget, the latest Movie Musings are up. This time, Runaway Jury, Love Actually (sneak preview), and Brother Bear. Enjoy!

You have probably noticed from reading this blog that I am a terrible speller. No, really, I am. It's just not a gene I was blessed with (unlike my parents and brother). So I tend to doubt my abilities in this arena. Today, I had to look up the words "system" and "size." Granted, these seem to be fairly simple words, and they are. In fact, I have been spelling them (correctly) for many many years. Why, then, did I suddenly feel the need to look them up today? Because they just looked wrong! No matter how many times I typed them or spell-checked them, they still didn't look right. I don't know if it was the font they were typed in (on someone else's spreadsheet), or what; they just looked "off" somehow. Now, they look fine, but for a few minutes there, I was really stressing. I have this problem on occasion, usually with very common words (last week sometime, it was chair). Guess I'm just weird, but then, you already knew that. ;-)