Just thought I would share - Hanna has posted her picture of me in the sombrero and Elaine has a wonderful shot of me showing off my birthday flan. I think everyone was amused, don’t you? Do I get a trophy for being Ms. Photogenic or something like that?

I had to go home to meet the cable guy, which is a good thing because the postwoman came by to give me a box. Meryl sent me a copy of A Day Late and a Dollar Short! It was too big to fit in the mailbox, so I’m glad I was here - I hate standing in the postoffice line!

Then I got an IM from Kymberlie that a box arrived for me at the office. I couldn’t stand the suspense - so she called me and opened it while I was on the phone with her! Ed K. sent me a copy of The Muppet Movie and A Walk in the Clouds!

What a wonderful day! Thank you Meryl & Ed!

Comment trolls pissing you off? People stealing your website designs without bothering to ask first? Can’t take another second of the boss at work? Simply had enough of Duhbya that you can’t think of anything creative anymore to describe your sentiments about him? Well, now you can use The Diabolical Curse Generator to come up with the perfect response! Never be left without a snappy come-back again!

As Rannie’s 100k Photo Contest comes to a close, here are my entries for the last 5 categories. All images open in a larger pop-up window.

   

 

Now the story behind the photos:
:: Human Form - A Picture Yourself style photo of Elaine, Mike and myself at Lupe’s last night.
:: From the Hip - The iced down beer cooler at Fuddruckers where Jason & I had lunch today. It amuses me that all the beer labels have Texas emblems on them - you don’t see that in any other state other than Texas.
:: Vintage - A black & white version of the photograph of old letters I took this summer. The one on top is the one that my Grandmother, who now has Alzheimer’s, wrote to me when I graduated from high school.
:: Caught Red-Handed - A restaurant window in Boston. I love flowerboxes, and the weather was so nice that day they had the windows open. Something you could never do in Houston in July!
:: My Favorite Things - Jason, of course. In Galveston this summer, at the end of a jetty along the Seawall.

Ironic that for months I’ve barely gone out at all, and now thanks to the H-Town bloggers there was coffee at Kaveh Kane’s on the 21st (photos are online now here), last night’s birthday celebration, and coming up I will be heading downtown on Thursday for after dinner drinks with Jish!

I got to meet Jish in March at SXSW, and let me just say … if you haven’t met Jish and a chance comes - do it! Maybe I’m just biased, but he really is a wonderful guy!

By the way - if you’re in the Houston area and you didn’t get an Evite to the get-together, let me know and I’ll make sure you get one! Thursday night, 7:30 in Downtown - be there!

The rest of the photos from Galveston are in the Pixelog. Now I’m really tempted to hop in the car and drive down there right now to take more!

Driving in Texas is a very different concept than driving in New England or most other parts of the country. Around here, we don’t think twice about an almost 2 hour drive to Galveston, staying there for most of the day, and then driving back home. To a lot of people, a drive like that would mean a weekend roadtrip where you would stay there overnight. I guess that’s what happens when everything is far away from where you are!

I could write this huge post about what a great time I had last night, but I’m still tired (I went to sleep at about 3:30 and got back up at 8:30) and I’ve discovered that Kathy has said it all very well. So I’ll try to recall some of the highlights:

:: Kenny, Elaine’s husband, was smoking like a chimney because it seems that Elaine has plans to “smack the patch on his ass” today to help him stop smoking.
:: Lupe’s margaritas are good, and the fajitas were back to being wonderful last night. Yum, yum! And the wait staff sings quite well. Yes, I wore the sombrero - they snuck up on me and I had no choice. It was all fun and I’ll have to scan the polaroid they took.
:: We took a ton of photos, they will be coming soon.
:: We had to split up across two tables at Lupe’s because there were 16 of us - and somehow all of the blog owners ended up at one table. With Kenny, the non-blogger.
:: Kenny really should have a blog, even though he doesn’t want one. The things he says are just priceless.
:: One should never say “Wow! Look at the moon!” while riding with Hanna. She will look - while driving on I-45 at a high rate of speed. This is not wise.
:: We were never lost while driving to Prive, we were just cruising the edges of downtown, checking out the construction on Main Street and so forth. There is a big difference.
:: A barrel of crude oil costs $34 for 55 gallons. A tube of K-Y costs $8. So what if you’re not supposed to use petroleum based products with condoms - it’s good to give a man a challenge. Just use vaseline and then race to use the condom within the 3 minutes before it disappears! (Yes, this was discussed. Seriously. EJ and Mike started it, but Kenny added the race concept.)
:: Never, EVER, drink a “Leatherneck”. 2 parts Bicardi 151, 1 part Tabasco - Kenny was in tears for the rest of the night. You know you’re in trouble when the waitress runs up right before the guys do shots and says, “I want to watch!!!” Oh yeah, that’s a sign to just say no.
:: Everyone that was there was absolutely wonderful, I had a GREAT time and it was a very Happy Birthday day all around! They took great care of me, treated me to drinks and dinner, and I simply had a blast. I can’t wait to get together with them again!

This morning I had more cards and greetings and well wishes waiting for me when I opened my e-mail, and even a big pink cookie made just for me by Michele!

Thank you again to *everyone* for making it such a wonderful day! The rest of the weekend is going to be dedicated to some high-quality time with Jason, enjoying this wonderful weather. I think we might head over to Mountasia later for some more go-cart racing. Tomorrow I think we will head down to the zoo - we haven’t been there in ages!

Reading MSN’s “Weblog central” article, what will you see? A link to Jennifer’s blog. Heck, I knew she was the best all along - but I’m glad MSN came to their senses and realized it too.

Let’s celebrate! Great, now I’ll have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the night! Tonight for the birthday celebrations I’ll be joining Hanna, Elaine, her husband Kenny, Mike, Kathy and others for pool, good Mexican food & margaritas, and maybe a trip in to town to hang out and enjoy the good weather. I’ve been looking forward to this all week and I can’t wait!

Adding to the celebration spirit today, Kymberlie gave me a copy of the “Schoolhouse Rock” Special Edition DVD, Robyn and Todd sent me delicious bath goodies, and Michelle sent me an Amazon Gift Certificate! What a wonderful day! Thank you to everyone!

Someone guard the women and the children! The Viking Kittens are heading our way! Aa-aaaaaaaah! [via Brian]

My photos are online now for the 300 exposures in 30 days project! Some you may have seen before - but some are brand new!

Well, looky there - how did Google know to add a cake to their logo for me? Oh, alright … that cake probably isn’t for me, but there is a birthday boy waiting to give me spankings at Robyn’s site and that should count for something!

Many thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes: Lisa, Jennifer, Gretchen, Marie, Statia, Mike, Robyn, Kymberlie, Mike, Courtney, Donna, Ciscley, Zuly, Catherine, Matt, Meryl, Hoopty, Kristin, Kristine (mush love!), Rannie

I really appreciate it. You guys have no idea how special you make my birthday! Thank you!

Meanwhile, I want to send out a HUGE Happy Birthday to my fellow Birthday-twins (ok, we were all born in different years, but we share the same day) - Andre, Courtney, Jason, and Dave! Hope you guys have a great birthday too!

Today was a really long day. I missed all the racket at Robyn’s blog and everywhere else thanks to having meetings from 9:30am - 3:15pm. Straight. Solid. No lunch. Well, I had lunch - at 4pm. It wasn’t a bad day for the most part, just a busy one. Then I had documents to work on as a result of the meetings. Documents I’m still working on now.

In the midst of all the chaos, it was a delightful treat to finally emerge from the conference room and find a box from Amazon waiting for me with a copy of Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places from Jennifer. I love it! It’s a book I’ve wanted to read since I first discovered it, and I can’t wait to find some quiet time to dig in!

Then … after seeing how busy my day was, Kymberlie decided I could use some cheering up and so she brought out the Birthday cookie cake she got for my birthday tomorrow! Yum, yum! And she got the big one too - so everyone at the office could dig in! Somedays it’s the little things that make the day worthwhile!

In honor of my upcoming gallery for Rannie’s 300 exposures in 30 days project (I’m up tomorrow for my birthday), I added more photos tonight to Pixelog.