New Blog

For those interested, I started a new blog, more public in nature and directed to a specific topic and purpose. I'll still have this one as my personal blog. The URL for my new blog is http://privacyforintimates.blogspot.com

I want to know what other women think about this, so be sure to leave comments on that blog and answer the poll questions.

I've been married for more than a month now. The apartment is furnished and most of our gifts have finally made the trek from CA. I came back to a schedule of mostly closing the store, which doesn't make it easy to be a wife and make supper. I like making supper so this has been frustrating. I took it up with my manager and now my schedule promises to give me time to make meals and have relaxing evenings.

Working at this particular Starbucks is like participating in a new urban experiment. Really, that's what the Town Center where I work is as far as I can tell. Most everything you might need is within walking distance if you live in the condos and townhouses nearby, and farther away there are houses which seem to house an active set of walkers and runners since they show up in my store winded and sweaty, but they arrive on foot nonetheless. You can buy groceries, get your haircut, buy a beautiful flower arrangement, go out for ice cream, get your car insured, send a package, get your nails done, go to the bank, buy comic books, furniture, and picture frames, and go out to dinner at a number of nice restaurants. Soon you will be able to gas up your car. And yes, of course, you can get your morning latte. There is really a lot to do. There is a fountain that the little kids play in in their swimming suits and occasional concerts on the lawn. Another aspect that will soon come into play is the offices built directly above some of the shops. This means that we'll not only have local residents milling about, but the people who work there as well. The goal, it would seem, is to have local residents be the ones working in those offices and eating at the restaurants. I think a lot of people, whether they achieve this community centered life, would at least like to. The personal interaction is fascinating. I'm going to try to blog about it in the future.

Announcement

Can I just take this moment to say that I'M GETTING MARRIED IN 100 DAYS! I'm excited, yes, and not exactly sure how to get everything done in time.

Babble

Right now I am procrastinating on what I really should be doing which is working on the save-the-date cards for the wedding and probably writing down ideas for an article to write. I'm planning to take up writing articles for the organization Zac works for in order to make a little extra cash so we can survive getting married. It is more expensive than I had anticipated. I know I was told this, and I don't change my mind, but is it necessary for the start-up costs to be this steep?

"Time is a Piece of Wax...

falling on a termite, who was choking on the splinters."
I don't really understand why Verizon can't change the time on my phone to be up to speed with Daylight Savings Time at the time it actually changes. So yes, I woke up late this morning. What is worse, there is no way for me to change the time myself. They have this cruel little feature called "World Clock" in which you can see what time it is in major cities around the world, even change them for Daylight Savings Time, but you can't change the time on your own phone. I thought maybe they forgot that it was earlier this year, but then randomly, right before I wrote this post, at 1pm, they changed it. As if anyone cared anymore. This was probably an even bigger problem for the people who had started figuring on their phones being an hour off. Now they are running around showing up early to their lunch dates.

Recommendations

Sipping tea is a great way to write a blog I think. While I'm drinking tea I don't like to do very much and it gives me a chance to sit and quitely contemplate without feeling idle.

I went last night to see 300, and last weekend I saw The Queen. I liked them both a lot. I would recommend The Queen to just about anyone, I can't remember anything content-wise that would prohibit anyone but small children from seeing it, but I don't really think it is a movie that would be appreciated by anyone younger than their teens. What was remarkable about it was that it did not really try to make a villian of any person. The movie felt matter-of-fact, showing decent people trying to make their best personal and political decisions. This is not to say that the story lacked conflicts, there were many, but it was presented in such a way as to display the various difficult positions people were put in in the fact of those conflicts. I do highly recommend this movie, it is the sort of movie you could see if you were in just about any mood - except maybe if you were in the mood for an action or sci-fi thriller.

300 cannot be as broadly recommended. There are three "scenes" which could be easily fast forwarded at home to allow for any teenager to see it, but the violence would prohibit most younger children from seeing this movie - it is, after all, rated R. All that aside, this was an amazing movie. It was done in a graphic novel/comic book style, so the colors and the cinematography had a different feel than your typical movie. The other thing that made this movie so enjoyable was that, unlike a modern day war movie, it did not leave you feeling depressed. Rather, the movie created this welling sense of western civilization rising up and lifting high all things great and noble. I suppose this would be an exaggeration of the reality, but it definitely reminded me of the first day of philosophy class with Dr. Mitchell in which he described this battle and the rise of western civilization I really do think that day was one of the best days in my educational career. I don't know if you could love the movie as much if you are not particularly fond of western civilization. It is unashamedly biased that direction. However there are different ways to appreciate things and so I am sure the welling in my soul for western civilization is not the only way to appreciate this movie.

Glorious Revolution

As you can see, my little blog now has a new look and please note the new welcome message and sidebar quotes. Please do not ask where I got those from. And speaking of asking things...I did have to do something I was lothe to do - I got rid of my old comment system. I hold out hope that somewhere in the internet world I can still access all the comments throughout the years, but ultimately if I was ever going to make formatting and updating the blog any easier I would have to loose the old comment system. Blogger now has one, has had one for quite some time, so we can all work together on making good use of it from now on. Check back again this week for new posts and more changes.