Weekend Recap!

Back at work today and Yay. Here's a little recap from my weekend:

Saturday was the 9-Ball Billiard Tournament at the Turning Stone Casino which was a blast. My friend Joanne and I met for breakfast at 10:30am so we could catch up. It has been too long! I was so excited to see her! Her guy, Mike, puts together and promotes the tournaments for Joss Cues here in the Northeast. A lot of really great professional players were there and it was really fun to watch. Mom and Dad met me there in the afternoon which was great.

The next Tournament is August 16-19th so I have it on my calendar. It's really the only time I get to see Joanne during the year and thankfully this time the weather permitted good traveling! So, I look forward to going again in August and hopefully Joanne will keep me posted on if my cutie crush will attend again. Perhaps Master Po will finally make the trek out next August to visit with us as well!!!!

Dad repaired some of our cues a few weeks back, so this weekend when I go home to visit we are going to play. I am so excited because it's been a few months since I played last and I now am jonsing to see if I can "Break and Run it!" like Paprica! HA! The Cross Country Skiis are coming along as well because even tho they got 39 incehs of snow in the last storm, the snowmobile trails are traversable! Yippee!!!

Sunday was a veg day where I cooked and watched movies. I finally got to see my new copy of The Prestige! LOVE THAT MOVIE!! I also made the most beautiful Salmon with Rosemary cream sauce for dinner. I forgot how much I love to cook and try new things! I am definately a beginner, but the genetic talents are starting to show more and more!!!:)

So here I am at work, taking a break, listening to RHCP and blogging, because I can and the Chilis help keep me positive. My stomach is growling at me so I best eat some lunch quickly and get on with the drudgery that is my work day. Before I leave let me leave you with yet more RHCP lyrics:

On Mercury:

"Memories of everything
of lemon trees on mercury
Come to me with remedies
from 5 or 6 or 7 seas
you always turned me with a smile when I was down
memories of everything that blew thru."

Hey, We don't stop, rock around the clock! It's the Chili Peppers! Just go with it and have a great day!!!

~CC
"another stubborn scorpio"

Throw Away Your Television!

Throw Away Your Television
by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Throw away your television
Time to make this clean decision
Master waits for it's collision now
It's a repeat of a story told
It's a repeat and it's getting old

Throw away your television
Make a break big intermission
Recreate your super vision now
It's a repeat of a story told
It's a repeat and it's getting old

[Chorus:]
Renegades with fancy gauges
Slay the plague for it's contagious
Pull the plug and take the stages
Throw away your television now

Throw away your television
Take the noose off your ambition
Reinvent your intuition now
It's a repeat of a story told
It's a repeat and it's getting old

[Chorus]

Throw away your television
Salivate to repetition
Levitate this ill condition now
It's a repeat

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

Today is Fat Tuesday!

Thanks to coolquiz.com, here is a information for y'all!

"Fat Tuesday is Mardi Gras, the festival New Orleans, Louisiana, is famous for. "Gras" is French for fat and "Mardi" is French for Tuesday.
The annual festivities start on January 6, the Twelfth Night Feast of the Epiphany, when the three kings are supposed to have visited the Christ Child, and build to a climax on Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, which always occurs on the day before Ash Wednesday. The parties and parades will continue until Lent begins at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday.
Mardi Gras is a legal holiday in New Orleans. It is scheduled to occur 46 days before Easter. Since the actual date Easter occurs on changes yearly, Mardi Gras can happen on any Tuesday between February 3 and March 9.
For two centuries it has been an annual event in New Orleans, except during the two World Wars."



Ever wondered why Purple, Gold and Green are the colors of Mardi Gras? Holidays.net explains:

The official colors for Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold These colors were chosen in 1872 by the King of Carnival, Rex. He chose these colors to stand for the following:

Purple represents justice
Green stands for faith
Gold stands for power

Learn more about Mari Gras at Wikipedia.

"Let the Good Times Roll!!!!"

Snowed In!!!

Many of you know that we got a bit hammered with snow around these parts last week. my area got a little over 2 1/2 feet when it was all said and done. Blowing and drifting snow made for bad travel conditions and frequent white outs. Other areas saw over 3 feet. I really felt bad for the areas who had already gotten 9 - 11 feet of snow with the storm the previous week! EEK!

Anywho, I was home Wednesday- Friday because of weather and therefore never posted!

There are 7 people in my department. Not only was I out for three days last week but K's wife had a baby so he was out last week, V has pneumonia ( I hear she also has asthma so I am hoping she is getting better!), Miss Part Time has children in school so with snow days she stayed home with them (and they have winter break this week so she is out for the duration) then Friday, M stayed out because of driving conditions! Friday only 2 of 7 emploees were in for the day!!! When I got in this am, not only did I have some catching up to do, but I am filling in for Miss Part Time as well as for V who is out and probably will be for a few weeks. Noone has mentioned overtime to me so I will do what I can in my alloted time here. I hate saying that but in my experience here if you step it up and get everyone else's work done including your own, they assume you will always do it and it's funny how it never figures into your raise at the end of the year. So I guess I will just take it down a notch, which is still more than most people get done here in a day, b/c I refuse to bust my ass for more of the same.

OK. I began ranting about work in this paragraph and deleted it. That last paragrah is plenty for today. I could go on and on but I am putting a cork in it, and focusing on the positives. This is just a job, a means to an end and I am not here forever. Keeping that in mind helps me to not feel so helpless and trapped.

1/2 the day is over already and in a little over 4 hours I can go home!!!

Oh and this cheers me up A LOT! Does everybody know what tomorrow is??????

Let me give you a little hint:

NOLA.com

Happy Valentine's Day

"I heard a little girl

and what she said was something beautiful:

'To give your love no matter what'

is what she said."

RHCP, My Friends

THE POLICE Reunite and Set Tour Dates!

YIPEEEEEEEE!!!!

The excitement can be heard for miles as The Police announce that they are reuniting for a World-Wide Tour!!!! Kicking off in Vancouver on May 28th, 2007 . Tickets for the North American leg will range from $50 to $225 and will probably be extremely difficult to get your hands on, but I would LOVE to go!!!

That will be my mission from now on. I will keep watch, choose a venue that is close and try to see if I can in some way get tickets. I am sure I need connections or a lot of patience, but...Would that not be the COOLEST thing ever!

I remember being so sad when The Police broke up b/c I would never have the chanceto see thm in concert. I would wear my brother's Police T-shirt around b/c he had been and I thought that must have been the best concert!

My next quandry: When I call and If I get thru, how many tickets do I get? Who wants to go to a Police Concert with me???

Grammy Recap: The Winners, the Heartbreakers & The Confusion

I usually don't care about awards shows in general, but I was so psyched to watch the Grammy's last night becasue not only was Sting reuniting with the Police, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers were performing as well! I DVR'd it but I watch the whole thing anyway.

WINNERS

• The Police started the show out with yet another rendition of Roxanne. Sting just amuses me in how he reinvents that song practically every time he performs it live. Bravo to them! It would be a MEGA money maker if they got together to do an reunion album of songs. We'll have to wait and see I guess!
• Prince, in all his coolness introduced none other than Beyonce for her performance. He just walked up on stage, gave that sly little smile, introduced her and turned back around. That just cracked me up because one of the only funny skits on SNL these days is "The Prince Show" and Beyonce cohosts with him... THEN Prince had placed an ad in the last 1/4 of the program thanking all the fans and everyone who watched the superbowl halftime show. He wrote that he and the band had so much fun and would remember that for a long time. How cool is that? Very nicely done Prince.
• Gnarles Barkley did an interesting rendition of his song "Crazy". Dressed like Airline pilots it was hysterical, especially if you had seen them previously perform tha song at the MTV Music Awards (I think) dressed as Star Wars characters.
• Lionel Ritchie still seems to have it. His abreviated "Hello" was beautiful. Christina Aguillera nailed her homage to James Brown. For a little girl, she has got a set of pipes!

HEARTBREAKERS
Yeah so I stayed up until 11:30am last night b/c I was jonesin' to see the Chili Peppers perform. They kept hyping it as "a very special performance" "a performance you won't forget" and when it came time to ROCK OUT, 1/2 the Chilis were asleep on their feet. Firstly, they played the subdued, although good song "Snow (Hey Oh)" which I was hoping for the more upbeat "Dani California" or "Tell Me Baby". Next, John couldn't keep up with his own harmonies and backup vocals and Anthony looked like he had no clue where he was, seemed confused and I think he screwed up a few lyrics. Flea was amazing as usual. He was his normal "crazy jump around play the shit out of that bass Flea" and Chad was in great form keepin' the dream alive on the drums.

I was so disappointed in Anthony and John I was actually shouting at the tv (Ok I was whispering b/c my roommate had already gone to bed) "What is WRONG with you guys?" It was such a lack luster boring performance and Anthony didn't dance much or seem to have the heart to belt out the song at all. All in all, they SUCKED! Come on guys!!! You won some awards b/c you ROCK, and this performance definately didn't add up to your usual spunk!

CONFUSION

• Firstly, Why did we have to listen to 3 Eagles songs...especially when Rascal Flatts massacred them? One song would have been plenty. Noone played a Doors tune and the Doors were honored with lifetime achievement awards as well! I love the Eagles, but it was a bit much.
• What is the big hype with Mary J Blige? Does anyone not realize that she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket? She should be asking herself "What's my pitch?". Maybe she should stick with writing and composing and not sing. It was like everyone was kissing her ass last night, and I was a little confounded as to why exactly someone refered to her as "Musical Royalty".
• What is the deal with him Justin Timberlake? He puts out a CD with a provacative title that only has 3 decent songs on it and everyone is catering to him? It was like the Justin Timberlake show with his lame attempt at reality TV.
• A little spooky was the drapping of the "Godfather of Soul" cape over the microphone. The look on the guy's face who did it, was a little unsettling I thought. I understood the reason but it was just kinda creepy.

WRAP -UP
In my opinion I think they should scrap the awards show for the Grammy's. I think they should just have the major winners perform and have a big concert night pretty much like last night since there were more performances than awards, and call it the Grammy Award Winning Performances 2007 or something. Overall it was a lopsided show allowing the undertalented to dominate the performances but with a few shining moments stuck in between.
to that effect.

Home Sweet Home

This weekend I am traveling home to see my parents. I am very excited to go home and see them since I haven't since New Year's. My car is all packed and weather permitting, I will be jetting out of work early to make the drive home. My sister Anne is coming on Saturday and I hope to see my Godson and my sister Lamby as well! I brought along my skiis for some good cross country workouts and I can't wait! I think a night ski is in order tonight. :)

I have always been grateful for the family and supportive and loving upbringing I have had. That solid family foundation has made the good times great and any difficulties that arose so much easier to overcome. I am so happy with the great relationships I have with my parents and 6 siblings. That has also trickled down to my 9 neices and nephews. My favorite holiday has now become 4th of July mainly for the reason that it is the one time of year that everyone gets together. It's so exciting to have my ENTIRE family together playing games, swimming, eating, joking around and escaping bodily harm when the fireworks are brought out! There is definately no place else I would rather be and the time seems to go too fast. My hope is that it continues to be a yearly tradition in our family!

It seems that with large families it can go either way, and in our case we all get along pretty well. Sure, we have some personalities that tend to clash regularly, but it's not that bad compared to other families I know. The company I work for is a good example. It is a family owned company. The father left it to the children and 3 of the 4 boys and 2 of the 3 girls work here. Their family doesn't seem to mesh as well as mine. There are estrangments and they don't interact as if there is a family connenction between them on some level. I find that weird tho I know a business environment is different. However, I can imagine my family running my Dad's business on a similar scale and the interaction would be completely different. We may have our differences but when we are all together we seem to work well as a team.

I can picture it now:

Lamby would be the President.
Anne would be the Vice President.
Mike would be the Facitlities/Logistics Manager.
Mark would be the Sales Director.
Kathy would be PR/Marketing.
Jim would be R&D and Sales Team Manager.
CC (that's me:) would be HR Director so I could hire Master Po (Facilities/Logistics Coordinator), JoJo (HR Associate), Chris D (Sales), Big Geek (R&D/Design), Mary G. (Accounting), Jerry (HR Assistant), and Chantal (Marketing Assistant).


From left to right: Mike, CC, Mark, Lamby, a family friend, Kathy, Jim and Anne.

Gee, now that I worked that all out, I feel like we should have done that! That would ROCK! A fun environment filled with talented people who get their work done and make tons of money from their efforts!!! Oh, and our company would host Guitar Hero parties on Friday nights on the big screen Plasma in the conference room too! Who could ask for a better work environment? :)

Daydreaming aside, I know I couldn't ask for a better family!

Rebel Day!

Today is Rebel Day! According to who? I am not sure, but even if you aren't a James Dean fan (which I am not) you can incorporate a little rebellion into your ho-hum day.

Here are some of my favorite Rebels.

Weekend of Cool Stuff

For someone who was feeling a bit under the weather most of the week last week, my weekend was really good.

Saturday I went to Verizon to upgrade and got myself a silver Razr...FREE. It rocks and is not overboard with all the bells and whistles. Just enough to be technologically updated, but not top of the line either. I have some ideas for my old phone which still looks practically new b/c I take such good care of my phone. Unless the Razr is completely outdated in the next two years (which I doubt), that will be my phone and I will not upgrade again. Sweet right?

After my phone I stopped at the local drug store and bought myself Hair color to get rid of those pesky greys. My hair no longer has that nice sunkissed faded brassy look to it and now is a nice medium to dark brown with slight hints of reddish. My (former) hairdreser told me she could not darken my hair (for whatever reason) and I decided not to go to her anymore. Based on that and the fact that she always charged me a different amount even tho I was getting the same thing done every 6 weeks and her attitude was one of self-centered obnoxiousness, even tho she did give a great cut. So I decided to save $50 and color my hair myself. Maybe Lamby will trim it for me this weekend when I come home to visit? Possibly?

On Sunday I didn't actually watch much of the Super Bowl. I watched Puppy Bowl III and Kitty Halftime for a while on Animal Planet which was a RIOT. Then I tuned in to watch the Super Bowl halftime show b/c Prince was on. He rocked. I love him. People have always busted my chops when they realize I own 4 of his albums. I am sorry, the man may be strange (but what music celeb isn't), he may wear heels (come on give him a break he's only like 5 ft tall!) but he's very talented and I love his music. His performance last night makes me want to see him in concert now more than ever!














You know, it's hard enough getting up on a Monday morning as it is...but especially when your alarm interrupts a great dream. I was walking around this large lawn surrounded by woods picking up dibris and cleaning up with Sting and we were discussing his career and music. We continued walking thru this lawn area and I said to him at one point "You know, when you are gone, I will be sad because that means you won't be creating anymore music. I always look forward to your next album because your music means so much to me." He turned and smiled at me and just as he looked like he was going to say something back to me MY ALARM WENT OFF!!!!


Arg.

Memory Lane

Remember when those photo booths were the cool thing to do with your "Best Friend"? Notice my hair was in Jess's face for the first one so we switched, then went into our "flirty winking pose" (which looks more like we are two mentally challenged American Idol wannabes haha!) and then the final "we are so cool" pose. Good times.:)



My friend Big Geek was nice enough to scan this little trip down memory lane for me a while back. I am finally getting a chance to post it here. I hope Jess doesn't mind! I think this was our Jr. Honor Society trip in 8th grade to Gettysburg and Hershy Park. Circa 1989? How cute are we?