the numbers

2- spurs playoff games i went to this past week.
2-playoff games the spurs have won.
8-months i've been in san antonio.
1-girl on my team at work
5-contestants left on american idol...here's hoping for katharine mcphee
24-best show on tv
7-times i've read the Bible thru
4-times i've left the country this century
4-of my upstream freshmen who are engaged
10-blogs i read
3-dvds i owned when i moved to san antonio
10-dvds i own
78-books on my shelf
17-books i've read in 2006
0-doctor visits in 2005
7-doctor visits in 2006
340-songs in my itunes
8-hours of sleep i'm gonna get tonite
1-more day of work til the weekend
9-times i tried to think of something better to post
9-times i failed to think of something better to post

better to have posted poorly than not to have posted at all. or is it?

truthfully, all i wanted to say is that i've gone to both the spurs home playoff games thus far. the first one was amazing in that they scored 73 points in the first half. insane. the second game was amazing because things weren't looking pretty and then barry hit a 3 that bounced insanely high off the rim and dropped in to send it to overtime, and then we crushed them. the only uncool part of that game was the playing poorly the whole game and that it didnt start till 9 and went into overtime and i had to be at work the next morning. i shall endeavor to consider more interesting blog topics to share with you shortly.

i hate daily writing

i'm not sure which is the most daunting, a blank piece of notebook paper, an empty Word document, or a blank create post page on blogger.

my sophomore year of high school i had the privilege of having mrs. woods as my honors english teacher. this was a privilege because one could see firsthand that the legends were true. you could indeed watch in a real time a perfectly good pencil disappear into her fro never to be seen again. you could also see the veins in her throat and wonder if you would be the lucky class in which they burst once for all as she emphatically encouraged us to discuss a separate peace, catcher & the rye, lord of the flies, and whatever else one reads during sophomore english class.

one of the aspects that separated mrs. wood's honors class from the regular class was the dreaded, the awful, "daily writing". this is where for the first 15minutes of class there was no talking and you were forced to write continuously, no stopping for thought or breathing, until time was up about whatever topic mrs. woods happened to pull out of her fro. generally it related to the chapter of the book that you didn't read the night before even though you were directed to do so. every fifth time or so, (or 2 days in a row to keep you on your toes) she would collect the daily writing and grade them. other times the efforts were just swallowed up into one's personal daily writing folder.

dreadful as this honors english class may or may not be sounding, it was actually one of my breaking out moments that defined my high school career. it was in this class that i fashioned my ever popular "I hate daily writing" sign that would become well known and admired throughout the rest of my tenure at mhs. it was a simple piece of notebook paper on which i'd scratched, rather carved the words, I hate daily writing, so largely that this one sentence took up the whole paper. i know the words were carved because if you turned the paper over you could see the paper pushed up where i'd applied so much pressure with the pen due to the intense emotions i had towards daily writing. each day i'd pull out the sign, gleefully really, and put it on my desk, next to my normal actual paper. if i could think of nothing to write, but still needing to appear as though i was writing something, i would trace over the letters "I hate daily writing" over and over again. when mrs. wood's came around monitoring i would slyly slide it under my essay. sometimes i would forget or mrs. woods would sneak up on me and everyone would begin to look at me wondering if this was going to be the last of my I hate daily writing sign. but she never saw it. and i became quite popular in my sophomore honors english class.

sometimes i wonder if she did see it and really didn't care. or maybe she too, secretly hated daily writing. or maybe she knew inside, and laughed secretly to herself, that i would one day engage in voluntary daily writing hoping somehow to entertain my friends in a more positive way than an I hate daily writing sign. or maybe, just maybe, she never noticed because of all those pencils in her hair weighed her head down so much that she was afraid to look down and try to read what i was writing. perhaps she'd be pleasantly surprised at all the things i've written since then.

xtreme water sport

yesterday ross and i ventured up to lake buchanan for a day of kayaking. if only we'd known what lay ahead, perhaps we'd have made other plans. at any rate, we made the 100mile trip up to a resort on lake buchanan only to find that it was kinda windy for kayaking. we went up to a place 5miles down the road to investigating renting a sea doo for the day. but it was not to be, as the available sea doo was not working. so we went back to the kayaking place and decided to brave the elements. we headed out and made our way (perceived effort level 4.5) to some cliffs that i spied in the distance. about 1.5hrs later we were delighted to discover the cliffs were quite cool and there were some waterfalls there too. we got out and walked around some for a break, then rode our kayaks gleefully under the waterfall, leaning over so as not to swamp the kayak. sorry i do not have pics of this beauty, but i didnt trust my camera in the kayak. at that point, though we wanted to keep on going, we decided we ought to head back. three excruciating hours later, we pulled wearily up to shore. at times i felt as if i was paddling so hard only to drift backwards because of the wind and the current. truly, i cant think of anything that i've done that was more difficult. when we made it back to the boathouse we discovered (to my horror) that we'd just made an 8mile round trip, in some pretty adverse weather conditions. i dont even like to think of walking 8miles really, and when biking, 8miles doesnt seem so long, but kayaking is pretty much like going 8miles using only your arms. i love kayaking so much, right up next to white water rafting, but i think thats the last time for me on lake buchanan. next time i think i'll hit up a river instead. more excitement for the pain, plus you can usually catch a bus back up the river. all in all, a great time, but i was pretty much awfully sick all day today, a little sunburned, a lot fatigued, and extremely dehydrated. but hey, i made it. and it felt good.

2 weekends ago i refilled my fish tank with life once again. i bought a very pretty betta (which are only aggressive towards other bettas, supposedly, fyi), 3 tetras, a pink kissing fish, and a crab. i ditched walmart and bought these from a bonafide pet store. early this week i arrived home to discover one of my tetras missing. i was trying to figure out if the crab or the betta was to blame, when to my horror i watched the kissing fish attack and eat the other two tetras like corn on the cob in a matter of 15minutes. i was quite annoyed at this agressiveness. so, i made a trip to walmart, and bought thaddeaus jr (named after my late frog). and so the battle begins. who will win? the frog or the kissing fish? currently there is rivalry between the betta and kissing fish for the coveted spot near the filter. they face off and glare at each other and then chase each other most of the day. the frog also chases them around, and the crab just kinda chills and climbs anywhere and everywhere. i've started feeding them 3x as often as i had been previously, hoping this could alleviate further aggressiveness. but really i think of it more as brinkmanship, like the u.s. and russia during the cold war. always near death, but no one willing to take the first bite. hopefully.

camping in the hill country

last saturday i took the day to go with some pals from work to go camping at a place near leaky/kerrville/etc called lost maples. we spent the day hiking a lot, and cooked over a stove (no campfire, sad day) and basically just had a good relaxing time.







this is the mountain we hiked up, and if you look closely, you can see our tents waaaay down there.














here's everybody, hiking to our campsite.































here's ross looking all hiking geared up. we stayed at the primitive camp site, which means we had to park and then hike to our site, carrying everything we would need.



















here's veronica sporting one of 2 uber cool green light sticks that i brought along. they last for 12hrs and we used them to light our card game, and they were overall quite useful, and merely needed to be hidden in a bag when it was time to sleep.
















also you can see a leaf with a spider web on it, and the dew made water droplets, kinda cool.
















pretty much had a great time, barring the scene where i went to the giant port-a-potty late at night and there was a mouse chillin in there. not too cool. but overall, fun times, fun times.

the ipod flea

haha this is funny. i post it here for your entertainment.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5783370061401851458&pl=true