Snow, snow and more snow

In case you didn't know... I hate the snow. After the past few weeks, I hate it even more. First it snowed in Vegas, and they canceled school for a day. Of course this was the day I had a field trip planned. Then I fly to Portland, which according to the pilot was experiencing a major weather event. This means that everybody is driving around 5 miles an hour with their chains on. Now, I'm in Spokane and there's like 500 feet of snow on the ground! Are you kidding me! I didn't ask for a white Christmas! Can't we send all this snow to someone who really wanted a white Christmas? Maybe next year...

Youth...

So, apparently I am feeling the need to act my age. I am only 30, not 80. I have spent much of my free time the last few years reading, watching tv and going to bed early. Well, this week that all changes. I bought myself an iPOD nano so I will want to go to the gym. I also got myself addicted to Guitar Hero. After some practice, I can now get above 90% on all songs on medium. I think that's pretty good for someone who just started last weekend! So, I'm getting ready to challenge Rick and Holly when I see them at New Year's. That's right, Holly, I am challenging you too!!

Go Dragons!

So, I'm not normally a sports fan, as you all know. However, my high school's football team has made it into the playoffs, so of course I went to the game. It was actually a pretty exciting game (we won 72-47), but the other team kept doing the stupidest play I've ever seen. When it was their turn to kick-off, they would all line up like ballet dancers and one at a time they would run toward the ball. I guess they were trying to throw people off, so they wouldn't know which guy was going to kick, but they would get all piled up and trip over each other! By the time their kicker got to the ball he totally fumbled it. Maybe it was all on purpose, but it looked really stupid, and of course they did it about 5 times so the element of surprise was gone. Anyway, the Dragons won and hopefully they can make it pretty far in the playoffs. Last I heard we were ranked 3rd in our division.

How I Spent My Halloween...

It all started here...Just kidding! I spent Halloween in Arizona with Bill and family, although Eliza had to spend the holiday in the hospital (see Bill's blog for details and pictures.) While Bill stayed with Eliza on Halloween, Tina and I took Billy around trick-or-treating on the base. We also dressed up to make him happy.In case you can't tell, I'm supposed to be a Japanese Anime school girl, similar to the ones found in fighting video games like Street Fighter. Tina did an awesome job with my hair, especially considering she had no clue what I was talking about!
This picture makes me laugh, because it reminds me of another Billy I used to know!

Birthday

This year was my 30th birthday. I went out to eat with the roommates at my favorite restaurant (Bahama Breeze, if you come to Vegas, I will take you!). We wandered around the Belaggio for a while. They have a garden atrium that changes every season. Then, my roommate Karen and I went to the Haunted Brooklyn Bridge in front of the New York, New York Hotel. Overall, it was a pretty good birthday.

I bet these pumpkins are even bigger than Rick's! I don't know if you can tell, but it's about 2-3 feet tall!They have a few of these animatronic tree people. The blink and move their eyes and mouths.
This was the first time I had seen them make sprites out of leaves and things. They all looked pretty cool.Part of the Atrium had been made into a tunnel that you could walk through, with all sorts of things hanging from it.
Karen, Summer and I inside the New York, New York. It's one of our favorites because inside looks like a street scene in NYC. The rest of these pictures were taken while standing in line for the haunted house.

Bite of Las Vegas

A few weeks ago, my friends Summer, Westin and I went to a local festival called Bite of Las Vegas. It's hosted by one of the local radio stations, with concerts going all day and many local restaurants selling "bites" of their food. I got to see one of my favorite bands, Lifehouse. The food was really good, too!

Greek Food Festival

Every year, Las Vegas has an amazing Greek food festival. This year, I finally decided to go with some friends. The food was delicious! They even had live bands and tons of people doing Greek dances. We took a tour of their church, which was gorgeous. We even got some baklava in various flavors to go! I have some more pictures, but I can't find them, so here are the ones I have...

Roommate's Birthday Party

So, early in October, my roommate, Savanah, decided to have her birthday at Lucky Strike, a club/bowling alley. It was pretty fun. She's the youngest in our house, so a lot of the people there were pretty young. Here's some pictures...

My Office

Since I spend most of my time there, I thought you might want to see what my office looks like.
My official title is Special Education Instructional Facilitator. SSS Facilitator stands for Student Support Services (the title for special education in Clark County.) I'm glad I finally found a place to hang my quilt. The rest of the pictures are mostly Asian, because I love all things Asian!

M.I.A.

So, for those of you who think I've gone MIA, I haven't. School has just started and I've been super busy. I'm hoping after a few weeks, things will calm down. Yesterday was the first day of school and I can't believe I survived. It was crazy busy and a million things went wrong, but today was much better. I also started more Masters classes at UNLV today. Well, I'm about ready to fall into bed, so until next time...

Cheri and me...

I love having visitors in town. I get to go do all sorts of fun stuff. Cheri and I went all over the strip, including going up in the Paris Hotel Eiffel Tower and watching the fountains at Belaggio. We also went to the Ethel M. Chocolate factory and toured the cactus gardens. To top it all off, Monday night we went to see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian and then ran across the street to see a Cirque du Soliel show, Mystere, at Treasure Island the same night. This was the second time I've seen Phantom since moving to Vegas, but I love it! Mystere was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, combining comedy, dance and acrobatics. Both performances were absolutely amazing and I can't wait to go to more shows!!
Cheri and I at the top of the Eiffel tower.
The Belaggio fountains, as viewed from the top of the Eiffel tower!
Cheri and I waiting to see Phantom.
For some reason, Cheri fell in love with the short, squat palm trees and just had to have a picture with one!
You can't come to Vegas without playing a slot or two. Cheri was really excited to play the Wheel of Fortune one, until she found out that you didn't actually compete against the other players!

Visitors

I have had a lot of visitors this past weekend. Cheri came into town and stayed for 4 days and Bill and family stopped by last Saturday for a little visit. Here's a few pictures. Even though Bill could only stay for a few minutes, it was nice to see them all.

Breaking Dawn

Like the devoted fan I am, I went to the midnight release party for Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the twilight series. I have already finished reading it, and it is awesome! My roommate, Savannah, and I went to check out a few of the bookstore parties before finally staying at Borders. Barnes and Noble here was hosting a twilight prom, so half the people were dressed in their prom best. It was really interesting. We had the most fun just people watching, especially reading all the crazy t-shirts! Some were very funny (Edward makes me sparkle!) while others were just grammatically incorrect (I run with vampire). I am already looking forward to rereading the series!
I know the picture is blurry, but I was trying to be sneaky and use my camera phone. This was at the Barnes and Noble twilight prom.

Batman

So, I finally went to see the new Batman, on an IMAX screen no less. I have to say that it was totally creepier than I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, I really liked it, but it was dark. I am a little sad that they killed two-face so fast, he was one of my favorite villains.

Jury Duty

I can't say that I've ever really been a fan of jury duty, and yesterday did not change my opinion. On the summons, they give directions to the only parking garage that they will validate and then the courthouse is about 5 blocks away. While walking these 5 blocks, in one of the worst areas of downtown Vegas, I had to walk by several people still asleep on the sidewalk, many ladies-of-the-night and several drug dealers. Of course it was also about 100 degrees outside, too. When I finally got to the courthouse, they scanned me in and then everybody just sat around waiting for about 2 hours. When they finally needed jurors, I was one of the lucky 40 chosen to be questioned in the courtroom on the 11th floor. Being up on the 11th floor we had a nice view of the surrounding area, or "cracktown" as the bailiff called it. After about 2 hours of questioning potential jurors, they finally sent the rejected back to wait for another trial. I, of course, was rejected because I am a teacher and the case was a criminal case involving children (Convicted felon in possession of a weapon). After another half hour in the waiting room, again, they finally sent some of us home. I feel bad for those who were never called and just stuck in the waiting room for 5 hours!

Rentals...

I've been having car problems for the last few weeks, which is especially annoying considering I have a nice, new car. After needing 20 minutes to get it to start yesterday, I decided to take it in to the dealership today. I went to the dealership I bought it at, thinking that because it is a bigger dealership, they should have time to look at it today. The people were rude and not helpful at all. They wanted me to just leave it there for a few days until they might have time to look at it. I made an appointment for tomorrow and started to drive home. I then remembered that there is a Nissan dealership near my new house and thought I should give them a try. They were so nice!! They got my car in right away, and even offered to fix the hubcap for free (apparently hubcaps aren't covered in your warranty.) I waited for about half an hour and the guy told me he didn't have the part, but enterprise rent-a-car was on their way over to pick me up and get me into a rental, completely free of charge. My car would be ready tomorrow. It was kind of funny at the rent-a-car place because they were down to their last two vehicles, so I get to drive around town in a truck for now. It's been a while since I drove something this big!!
Today's Fortune: Your present plans are going to succeed.

Adventures in Dining

My friend Summer and I had some great dining experiences today. For lunch, we went to a little Japanese restaurant near our house. We ordered these cute little "Bento boxes." It was a great presentation! I got teriyaki beef, and it came with rice, salad, sushi and tempura veggies.
For dinner, we kept driving around until we found something that sounded interesting. We finally saw a place called Roy's Hawaiian Fusion. We didn't realize how fancy it was until we got inside, but this was the first restaurant I've been to where the hostess puts the napkin in your lap for you! I ordered Uncle Yomi's shrimp Caesar salad and it was one of the top 5 salads of my life!! What you see in the picture is actually a bundle of lettuce and chipotle Caesar dressing, wrapped with an onion ring and some shrimp on the side. So good...

I am a NERD!!

The last 2 weeks I have been involved in a summer science institute with this years topic being nanoscience. It has been a ton of fun to study the the tiniest particles around and how they work. I think the coolest part was studying self-assembly and how some particles that small are able to put themselves together without any human intervention. Here is a link to an animation put together by Harvard that gives a whole different look at a cell (just click the box to play it):
http://www.xvivo.net/press/harvard_university.htm

Also, with things putting themselves together, it sparks a lot of curiosity about evolution vs. intelligent design. There is a great video by NOVA involving a case in Dover, PA. It is really interesting. Here is the link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html

So, here's a couple pictures. We are making a carbon nanotube out of balloons, that's how cool we are! (This is actually a very cool thing. They are now making buckyballs that can trap nuclear and radioactive particles inside them - making them buckycages, containing dangerous particles!) I know - I AM A NERD... :-)

Housesitting

This is the first time I have ever house sat, and it has been an experience! My friend went out of town for a week, leaving me to watch her 3 dogs (pugs), 2 cats and 2 fish tanks. For those who don't know, I'm not really much of a pet person, so this was kind of a challenge. For the dogs, one was older and blind, one was big, young and hyper, and the other was kind of small and suspicious, always skittering away and barking. For the cats, one was pretty normal but always on the lookout for a way to escape, and the other was the most geriatric cat I have ever seen, it was painful to watch her climb the stairs! Fish tanks are fish tanks, so not much to say there. I have had quite a few restless nights due to dogs barking at nothing and it feels good to be back in my own bed. I will miss the cable tv in the bedroom, but I will be house sitting again in July!

New House

So, as promised, here are some pictures of my new house (just renting!). These are only pics of the outside.
This is the front of the house.

And this is our backyard. We have a porch swing, barbecue and even a bench. It's pretty nice.

I'll have to take some pictures of the inside once everything is all sorted out. With UNLV starting last week and me house-sitting for a coworker, I've had no time to even unpack. The best thing about this house is that it is near my new favorite restaurant, PEI WEI (A PF Changs bistro!) Today's fortune: You will find good fortune in love.