A Hairy Situation

Not much has been going on here in SoCal. It never rains-- yet last night there was thunder and lightning over the ocean, which in turn caused much noise from around here in college town. But still no rain. I'm trying to figure out how plants even survive.

The bank has been pretty busy lately. Work goes by pretty fast when there is a steady stream of customers, but the onslaught of long lines makes my job endlessly tedious, and the customers can get pretty irritated by the time they even get to the front of the line. And then they stare down the one older gentlemen who counts his selection of coins three times in front of me before finally deciding that he will deposit the whole $2.50 in his account.

Charles is doing well. His last hair cut was, well, before the wedding, so he decided it was high time to get it cut. He also decided to trust me with this task. So we went to the beauty store and bought a fancy pair of clippers (they will be paid four after... 4 haircuts!) and then took them home to tempt fate. Needless to say, we got hair everywhere-- which is surprisingly easy to clean up since it came off in big clumps. So now Charles is sporting a much shorter 'do and I'm fairly proud of my handy work.

I bought DDR (Dance Dance Revolution-- a video game) a few weeks ago. We got the last dance pad they had at the store, and it's a pretty sturdy one. It's got a thick foam core which can handle both of us jumping up and down on it for hours on end. I'm hoping that playing lots of the dancing game will be enough exercise-- I've been fairly sedentary lately. Although, I do have to stand all day while working, but it's not much like a work out.

I got the LG chocolate phone for my birthday and have had endless fun with it. I bought a 2GB memory card for it so that I can store and play all my music on my phone. And I hacked it so that I could upload any ring tone and wallpaper that I want. So my phone will be the only one with a Techno ring tone with a kitten on the screen.

And tonight I'm going bowling with a bunch of my coworkers. We're playing with/against the Santa Barbara branch (I work at the Goleta branch-- much closer to home). I look forward to introducing Charles to everyone.

A Firey Tale

On the fourth of July, a forest fire started Northeast of Santa Barbara. And it's been burning ever since. This is the dry season, but I hadn't quite connected no rain with the potential of never ending fire. Over 100,000 acres of forest have been burned down. You can read more about the fire here. And on any day when the wind blows in the right direction, it wend loads of smoke and ash over the mountains, causing the sky to turn a yellowish gray and white ash to fall from the sky very much like snow. So on some mornings I go out to get the car and it's covered in a white dusting of ash. And it isn't believed that the fire will be out until September. They're actually burning more forest to prevent the original fire from moving beyond those areas. Talk about fighting fire with fire.

Charles and I went to our first party in California. We didn't stay very long since we (meaning me) only knew one other person there-- but I think it's good that we're making efforts to be social. One of my coworkers was hosting the party and she invited us all to come. I'm always flattered to be included.

Work is going well. I've gotten the hang of just about everything. I like pretty much everyone I'm working with. And now we have a full staff-- meaning I won't be working very many Saturdays. Although I'm enjoying work for now, I've decided that I really want to go back to school. I really don't think I'm a good match with the business realm and would be much better suited with academia. My dream job would be and instructor at a college, so I'm going to see if I can make that possible, hopefully sooner rather then later.

It's My Brithday!

I had a good brithday weekend-- partly becasue I had Saturday off. We were able to go shopping downtown and watched a few DVDs and play video games all day long. A pretty good birthday if you ask me. And-- I got a call from my brother, Aaron. He's back in Seattle after a very long tour on their sub. So we got to catch up.

I got cards from my parents and Charles parents and my grandmother :-) so I feel that my birthday's been totally celebrated. Charles gave me a stuffed Polar Bear and cooked Chicken Parmasian. It was really good and easier to make then we thought. So, hats off to the chef.

Frames are Not Cheap

As I am writing this I am munching on the guacamole that we made for dinner. I'm amazed at how easy it is to make-- mash some avocados with a little oil and lime, add whatever else you like, and presto! delicious dip. I suggest everyone try and make it. It helps that avocados are grown in mass here-- and happen to be delicious.

On Saturday we had a staff meeting at the bank. It was pretty much a 2 hour reminder that we should be selling more credit cards (probably because that's how we make lots of money) and then we read nine million papers that rated our performance. I'm doing OK so far.

This past week was Fiesta, which my coworkers had made out to sound like a big drinking fest. I had to work all week, so I missed all the festivities. We did go downtown on Sunday-- the last day of the fest-- but all that was going on was the closing ceremony which was a tickets required black tie event. In all we missed it. Next year I'll be sure to take time off for it.

I desperately want a new phone and cell service for my birthday, so Charles took me to the verizon store today since it's my day off. Before we got there he got a call from his dad, Don't tell Beth, but were planning on getting her a cell phone for her birthday. Well since we were already on the way to get one, there was no real surprise. He's planning on transferring me one of the existing phones from his business then he has an extra one. But first he need to switch it to a California area code, and only then can we get a phone for me and some how have it set up on his account. In all-- we couldn't do it today. Hopefully I'll get a phone by my birthday.

Our next stop was an art store that does custom framing. We had Charles 2 diplomas and my one, and wanted to get all three of them framed. We picked out some blue and gold matting and a classic wood frame and the nice glare free glass that lets maximum light through. All in all and awesome package. So how much will that cost us? $450. For one of them.

Ouch

I wasn't planing on dropping 14 hundred on frames. We tooled with a few of the options-- double matting instead of triple, simple glass instead of 'museum' quality, an inexpensive frame. No matter how many changes we made, it didn't go much less then $400 apiece, so we left saying we'd think about it. Honestly, I was thinking that is wouldn't look so bad if we just stapled them on the wall. They are nice paper-- they wouldn't look so bad on there own.

So we went to Michael's in hopes of getting a better deal there. After doing some more option manipulations, we were able to settle on the triple matting we wanted and a classic dark wood frame with non-glare glass for a much more reasonable price-- and 50% discount, I think the sales associate sympathized with the whole poor college student situation we're in. So in 2 weeks we'll have gorgeously framed proof that we did indeed graduate college. Times 3.