best surprise birthday ever

one reason its a big surprise is that my birthday isn't until next month. But since i won't be up in WA in January, my wonderful wife, got all my friends together for the best birthday party ever.



Go Karts!!!!



and not just one race, but 4. and we are still hurting from it days later, but it was the most fun ever.

We went really really fast. (will have a video to come soon)


Oh yeah, i won 3 out of 4 races. good stuff.

help

..i've been kidnapped and forced to watch the disney channel all day..
someone send some wine - stat

rock on

today ben, jeanne, and i got on the train super early - and headed up to seattle for some christmas shopping.. we walked around downtown, shopped, ate, and had a great time..
in order to spend so much time away from the girls (the nieces) we had to promise that tonight we'd have '80's dance party'.. originally i didn't take this too seriously - until today when we came home - the girls had posters made for our party and their hair crimped in side ponytails.. i realized that i had to 'bring it' - and so i did..
while the girls went out - i got my 80's on - body glitter, gym shorts and all..
we danced all night, i drank some wine, and eventually we had a dance off.. the competition was tough - but by the judges unanimous decision - i was victorious..
we had a great time - but i've got to go take a shower, wash off my very pink eye shadow - and try to convince my hair to forgive me for all the crimping.. so damaging - but absolutely necessary..


let's get physical with princess sophie
 

zanadoo and army spice
 

girls just wanna have fun..
 

Off to WA (and the Long Beach airport rocks)

the Charo and i are in the Long Beach airport which is just about as small and cute as it could be. but its not crowded and i have free wi-fi so i'm very happy.

we are off to WA for Christmas to visit the family and friends.

Have a good Christmas everyone!

Ben...


oh and that last post has a wonderful hint of irony to it now. What a difference a day makes.

working like a dog

i'm not always sure that when my husband goes to work he ever actually does any real work.. he has complained that his work is harder than my school.. but i don't think so..
this is where ben works
 
doesn't look that hard to me..

celebrate good times

i feel like we have been going non stop since thursday..
thursday was my last final for the semester.. i now have 5 semesters done, one more to go.. so to celebrate the girls came over thursday, and we danced until about 3am..
friday we celebrated the holidays with ben's company, stage six.
we started saturday afternoon by celebrating my pal melody's bday with a pub crawl down in pb,
quickly followed by another holiday celebration with ben's company divx..
we had tickets that were going to expire so sunday ben and i went to sea world..
quite the weekend.. good times, and lots of fun

cheers to melody
 

chara and the charlie brown christams tree
 

ben - please buy me a puppy for christmas..
 

Ben's new project

Not sure if you saw the new link off to the left there. No not the Ron Paul one. Vote Ron Paul 2008! Seriously people check out that link as well. He's got some good stuff to say.

the other new link is for my new project. I am restoring a 1960 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite.

Check out the new project blog for my new project car. i'll be updating it regularly with photos of the progress. of course with the holidays and work i won't be starting it until early Feb, but check back and hopefully a new car will appear where the old one once was.

straw that broke the camels back

i took a horrible final today - and it finally broke me..

after answering multiple questions during the test the teacher finally admitted that in trying to trick us she wrote a bad test..

does that mean she'll curve the test? throw out all bad questions? no one knows..

... all i know is that i am broken.. and as of thursday at 4pm i am done for the semester.. i need a break..

Some good music for a rainy Friday

If your looking for some good music to get you through this blustery day check out this farewell for now concert from Nickel Creek.

its so good. I'm sad they are not together anymore

Hopefully they will get together for the Telluride Bluegrass festival. I'm looking to go out there in June. Anyone want to come along and make it a big fun friends camping trip with some good music?

Break the rules

I am Legend

So i got into work this morning a little after nine and i'm the only one here.

its weird.

i've called several people and no one is answering their phones

its weird.

i'm not sure if there has been an outbreak of some zombie virus that killed everyone else or if there is some holiday i'm not aware of

i guess i'll just get some work done in the peace and quiet

the stress has finally gotten to Chara

all the stress of school and finals has finally gotten to Chara.

She has snapped and she thinks she is getting a puppy for Christmas.

and the best part is she wants to name it John Patrick Francis Mulcahy

she is a cute one that Chara

mark your calandars..

just found out today that -

i am graduating thursday may 22nd 2008.. i can't wait..

what did i eat last night..

i had a strange dream last night..
i was at someone's house - and there was a get together - and we were talking about nana's memorial - which apparently is the upcoming monday (it's really not - we already had it, but in my dream it was on monday) - any how - someone thought they were doing a favor for me and was going to let me take their kid up to WA with me - so that the kid (who is like 3 years old) could play some song on the piano - and i was like - 'oh no thanks, look - i'm going to be stressed out enough - i don't really think it's a good idea to take a kid with me ' - and they (slightly offended that i didn't think it was the best idea ever) were like, 'fine, dustin will do it' - and sure enough dustin hoffman was sitting in the group - and i was like - 'no - dustin is not going to my nanas funeral - he never met her - and it's in washington - and that just doesn't make sense' - (no so much surprised dustin hoffman was hanging with us - more surprised that he'd want to fly to WA) - and then dustin was like, 'sure - of course i'll go - it's the right thing to do' - then i realized that i was busy all sunday with some test prep for some random test - and i had to get to wa for nana's memorial on monday - and then had my final on tuesday - that's when i started freaking out - cuz - when was i going to study?
oh yes - the nightmares before finals week have begun..

things that go beep in the night

around 2am the power went out last night -
which in our house is really noisy..

ben has 3 different back up power supplies meant to protect his computers and such in the event of a power failure..

all this means to me is that when the power goes out - three diffrent things beep loudly, and consistently in order to warn me that the power is out.. these three things beep until they eventually run out of power..

ben of course doesn't wake to hear any of this until i (accidentally of course) knock him in the head looking for a flash light..

all this said to say - that i didn't get much sleep last night.. i might be a little grumpy.

Holy Cow Craiglist works... a little too well

i had some stuff to get rid of

a dresser and a bunch of computer crap

i posted two posts online

within 30 seconds i had 3 calls, and this continued every 5 minutes for the next two hours

i pulled both ads down and all the stuff is gone now

the last guy was a nut! he just spent 40 minutes sitting in my garage talking about computers and the cool things he modified on his truck

good times

be warned. the crazies come out of the woodwork for stuff on Craiglist, especially free stuff, especially free computer stuff. geesh

Chara was not so happy as she was going to take a nap when our house turned into telethon with the phone ringing off the hook