lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Monday, November 22, 2004
What exactly is a "cocktail dress," anyway?
You'd think I would know as I'm a woman and I love clothes, but sometimes I don't know what exactly a term like that constitutes.  For the formal night on our cruise, appropriate ladies' attire is listed as "cocktail dresses."  I just want to know if I can wear a regular, shorter-but-eveningy kind of dress, or if that means a longer, more formal dress.  Anyone have a clue, or are you gonna make me look it up on the internet?

Here's our basic itinerary, sans specific dates, which will be given to certain people.  Where we're staying each night is in italics.

DAY 1 --> drive to Paducah, KY
DAY 2 --> drive to St. Augustine, FL
DAY 3 -- ST. AUGUSTINE
         --> St. Petersburg
DAY 4 -- TAMPA / ST. PETE / CLEARWATER area (SQ stuff)
DAY 5 --> LAKELAND (SQ stuff)
         --> ORLANDO (SQ stuff)
         --> BLUE SPRING STATE PARK
         --> Disc Golf at Rockledge, FL
         --> MIAMI BEACH
DAY 6 -- MIAMI
          -- Embark on cruise
DAY 7 -- NASSAU, BAHAMAS:
               - Exc:  Semi-submarine tour of underwater Sea Gardens Marine Park
               - Historic walking tour of downtown Nassau
               - Paradise Island: Atlantis Resort, Cabbage Beach
DAY 8 -- COCO CAY, BAHAMAS
                - Exc:  Sea kayaking around island
DAY 9 -- KEY WEST
                - Walk around and stuff :-P
DAY 10 -- Disembark cruise
           -- MIAMI
           --> EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK
           --> Naples
DAY 11 --> SANIBEL ISLAND (shelling)
           --> Disc Golf at Sarasota, FL
           --> Orlando
DAY 12 -- UNIVERSAL STUDIOS (Orlando)
DAY 13 -- Leu Gardens
           -- UNIVERSAL STUDIOS (Orlando)
DAY 14 -- UNIVERSAL STUDIOS, SQ stuff
           --> RAINBOW SPRING STATE PARK
           --> Jacksonville -- visit Patty
           --> drive to Lenox, GA
DAY 15 --> drive home
10:59 AM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Friday, November 19, 2004
To be GOB, or not to be GOB...
This is a serious question. And by that, I mean I would like a serious answer, not that the subject matter is serious. Would it be worth it to drop $50 per person on a 2-hour tour of St. Petersburg, FL on a Segway? Discuss.
11:53 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Wednesday, November 17, 2004
We did something on Sunday that we've never done before with our bell choir: we played a duet with bagpipes. It was weird and awesome. And loud. Do you know how loud the bagpipes are? Loud enough that we all had to turn our bells up to the loudest clapper position to try to match them, so then we had twice as much loud. I only wish I could have heard what it sounded like sitting out in the congregation instead of up in the midst of all the noise. Still, it made for a fairly unforgettable experience.
11:34 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Monday, November 15, 2004
SEE!  THIS IS WHAT!  THE EARPLUGS ARE FOR!!
Last year I wrote about a horrible Evanescence concert experience we had at a place called The Rave in Milwaukee.  I vowed I would never go there again:  the dark, the dingy, the creepy, the so-thick-it-gags-you smoke, the standing, standing, shoving, and standing... all just awful.  I hate the place.

So last night we're at The Rave to see Muse (yup, we're that stupid), and as I'm waiting during the FORTY-FIVE minutes between the opener's set and theirs, I look around at the sardines surrounding me on all sides, and four out of five are smoking (yeah, and the fifth is Josh, by the way).  I watch as people who used to be behind me are now somehow beside me, and... oh, wait... now their mysteriously in front of me.  How'd that happen?  It's dark.  It smells.  I've been standing for over two hours and my lower back is starting to hurt, like it usually does when I have to stand in one spot for that long, and the band I came to see hasn't even started yet.  Oh, riiiiiiight... NOW I remember why I vowed to never come to this hole again.  So what was I thinking?

Well, I was thinking that $12 to see Muse was a bargain, and despite the crapulosity that is The Rave, it actually was.  The place still creeps me out, and I'm probably going to have to wash my hair about twelve times to get the stink out of it, and the slogan "ROCK FOR CLEVER PEOPLE" on one Muse fansite was unfortunately proved false by the crowd, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and deal with the pain to get the pleasure.  Their performance didn't disappoint (save for the fact that there was no encore -- despite several minutes of cheering and chanting from the crowd -- which was quite odd):  loads of energy (read: loud, loud, and then loud some more), and they did more songs that I knew than I thought they would, including my two favorites.  You all know by now how important that is to me.

For most of the concert we were near the front off to the side a little, which fortunately was almost right in front of the lead singer, but unfortunately was also right in front of the speakers.  And did I mention they were loud?  Even still today I have this white noise inside my head and my ears (especially the left one) still feel like they need to pop, making everything sound a bit muffled.  We were muchly kicking ourselves for not bringing earplugs -- we have reusable ones we use for leaf blowing, lawn mowing, etc., but we never remember to bring them to concerts.  After this experience, that will change, starting with the Starflyer 59/Pedro the Lion concert on Thursday.  (Sidenote: on Saturday we picked up seven of SF59's albums for $1 each at a used CD store.  Crazy.  That makes up for their most recent album --  and the only one we've bought new -- clocking in at under 30 minutes.  Also crazy.)

Oh, and I'm sick of going to concerts with the intent of buying the albums I don't have only to find they're not selling them.  Unless it's out of print, there's just no excuse for that.  It's YOUR album, for crying out loud, why on earth are you not selling it???
2:00 PM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Thursday, November 11, 2004
"Mmmmmm... forbidden donut..."
A few choice yummies I can recommend to any and all:
Stella D'Oro Sesame Breadsticks.  I'm addicted.  Seriously.  It's scary.
Keebler Fudge Shoppe Fudge Lovers Fudge Sticks.
Fazoli's Four-Cheese and Tomato Panini.
Chipotle Burrito -- any kind.
Holiday Spice Pepsi.  Yes, it actually exists.

And two unconventional-but-interesting floats we've concocted recently:
1.  Vanilla ice cream with Bacardi Raz.
2.  Blue Bunny Cinnamon ice cream with Seagrams Wild Winter Berry.  Speecy-spicy!
2:51 PM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Dorky much?
After either not getting the message in time or then forgetting about it, Josh and I managed to miss the first two nights of the Aurora Borealis (northern lights), which is a shame because they were supposed to have been quite good.  So we went out last night at about 11:30, but of course because we live just south of the big fat Milwaukee metro area, we had to drive quite a ways west before we got even reasonably past the glow to the north, and would have had to drive much farther than we did to get completely past it.  The fact that it was somewhat cloudy didn't help the issue, and after driving for about an hour, we determined we couldn't really see anything but orangely glowing clouds, plus we were both getting awfully tired.

So we're heading back, and after not too long I look out the window to the northwest and see a decidedly not-orange bit of glow.  Oh, sure, NOW they come.  Josh turns off of the main highway we're on and tries to find a dark, facing-the-correct-direction place to pull off the road.  We finally find one, except it's not really facing the right direction and the slope of the "shoulder" is too intense and we can't both see very well from inside the car.  There are still patchy clouds in front of much of it, so we decide we have time to find a better spot.  So we drive, and drive, and then drive some more, turning on this random road or that random road, but always seem to either be facing the wrong direction, not having a place to pull off, having trees or hills in our line of sight, or being in a semi-residential area.  We find ourselves longing for the flat land, actual RURAL ruralness, and grid roads of Iowa.  We give up.  The lights don't seem to be that good tonight anyway, and it's late.  We manage to find our way out of the mangle of named rural roads (at least in Wisconsin they're all paved -- not a gravel road anywhere in the state, I swear) to state and county roads that will take us back home.

At about 1:15 Josh glances out the window and says something to the effect of, "Whoa."  He pulls the car over and we actually get out this time, freezing weather and all, because all of a sudden the glow is this massive thing... not really any vibrant color to it, sort of a blue-white, reaching up past the zenith with moving and changing rays of light -- all of which I've seen in the past (though Josh hadn't quite) -- but one thing I've never observed.

There were these pulses of light, especially up towards overhead, that almost looked like very very faint, pulsating, regular flashes of lightning.  Definitely the freakiest thing I've ever seen in the sky.  It felt like we were in a science fiction movie, it was so weird.  The whole brilliance of the thing lasted only about 5-10 minutes, but it was 5-10 minutes of standing on the side of the road, looking at the sky in awe.  And it made the whole, long, late, aimless drive around the countryside worth it... as Josh said, if we hadn't spent so much time driving and not getting anywhere except frustrated, we might not have even still been out when the magic happened, or at least not away from city lights.

God rocks.
3:36 PM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Tuesday, November 09, 2004
By the way, Matthew, you should probably be expecting another mix CD or two next time we see you.
Since no one knows who Viva Voce is, I'll keep my concert review short:  it was at this little coffeehouse in Dekalb (where, incidentally, I had a magnificent strong mocha that actually tasted more of coffee than of chocolate, thank you very much, and Josh had a raspberry smoothie that was probably, as the smoothie maker himself claimed, the "best raspberry smoothie on earth," which near as I could tell was made almost exclusively of pure raspberries with probably not even any sugar added), and there were only about 40 people there.  Maybe.

It was this entirely informal thing, the kind where you go to the dinky merch table in the back before the show to buy CDs and end up just chatting with the guy selling them for several minutes, who it turns out is half of the band.  And the kind where the first "opening act" is just this guy, who at first sits at a piano and plays nothing in particular while an old projector shows a silent film of a pope's coronation, and then switches to making electronic music on his iBook while different artsy-photography slides show behind him.  And the kind where the second "opening act" just kind of saunters on stage and casually plays a few tunes, and you realize the drummer is the guy who was sitting behind you during the first guy's thing.  Huh.  This is not exactly an experience one could have in Racine.  Chicago, maybe.  Any decent-sized college town, yes.  But not most places.

Cool (ish) as the first two acts were, Viva Voce kicked their butts.  The "band" is just a husband-wife duo who play all their instruments themselves and record their albums at their house... sort of in the vein of Over the Rhine or Fleming & John, except grittier.  Maybe "grittier" isn't quite the right word, but they're something-er.  And they do EVERYTHING themsleves, even on tour.  I don't even think they had roadies.  She mostly played guitar, lap steel, and sang, and he was the epitome of multitasking, singing, playing drums, guitar, kazoo, and working this I can only assume massively complex keyboard thing, doing everything from playing regular notes or chords to running prerecorded bass tracks and electronic sounds to fullen out the performance (okay, so that should be "fill," but I like my word better).  My only complaints would be with the mix (as usual) and that the set was too short (as usual) -- oh, and that they didn't do my favorite song (as usual).  Everything else was top-notch, and I would go so far as to say that they would be worth the likely very cheap ticket price/cover charge if they come near you, even if you've never before heard a single song of theirs.
11:47 AM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Monday, November 08, 2004
Oh, we'll just call this "stuff."
Yup, still not getting any better at those titles.  Anyhoo, onto business.

---

Kaly IM'ed us something about northern lights last night.  Which of course we didn't read until this morning.  So what was that all about, anyway?  Care to expound?

---

I've all but given up on "Joey."  It just seems to be getting worse and worse.  What a shame.  Let us have a moment of silence for what could have been, shall we?  But perhaps my favorite exchange of the series:

Joey:  Do you have any hobbies?
Roger (aka Mike on "Ed"): I like jeans.

---

Now for TV happiness:  "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," and, yes, even "Veronica Mars" have all been picked up for a full season.  And, "Arrested Development" is as good as ever.  Whew.
1:36 PM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Thursday, November 04, 2004
"Wisconsin???  Yeah, what are they gonna do, Jon, pasteurize the ballot?"*
Two more quotes so I don't have to actually write an entry myself:

"Catherine, you're a cultural anthropologist; John, you're a nuclear physicist... explain to me your hair part theory."  --Mo Rocca on the History Channel special "How They Won, with Mo Rocca," interviewing a couple theorists who believe the side on which a presidential candidate parts his hair determines whether or not he wins.  No joke.

"Eariler today I spoke to President Bush, and I offered him $680 for the presidency."  --John Kerry in his concession speech.  Or, maybe it was one of those John Kerry moments on Letterman where he pieces together bits of things Kerry said in a speech to form something funny.  Either way, it made me laugh so hard my Bacardi came out my nose.

Speaking of Letterman, last night on TRIO we caught the first half of the absotively very first episode of "Late Night With David Letterman" on NBC.  That was kind of surreal.

*I don't usually explain my quotes, but I think in this case... --Ed Helms and Stephen Colbert on "The Daily Show" after Jon Stewart suggested that some states other than just Ohio and Florida (each of which where one of them was "reporting from" and trying to stake a claim that their state would most mess up the next day's election) could have possible legal challenges, such as Wisconsin.  Followed by the signoffs: "Thanks, Jon.  Florida, major embarrassment."  "Ohio, shame of the nation."  Okay, I'm guessing that wasn't as funny just written here as it was on the show, but just trust me.
12:19 PM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Also.  (Yeah, Beth.  That's better.)
1.  I have voted.  No, I am not telling you who for.
2.  I feel sorry for everyone who can't watch Jon Stewart and Co.'s live election night coverage tonight.
3.  Hey, they didn't give me one of those "I VOTED" stickers.  Foul!
4.  Fearless prediction:  Kerry will win.  That will make me sad.  That does not, however, mean that I voted for Bush.  Nor that I voted for Kerry.  Because I'm not telling.
5.  Oh, okay, I'll tell.  I voted for Nader.
10:09 AM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!

Um, this post is about my hair.
I got my hair cut very short on Friday. Probably shorter than it's ever been since I hadn't been alive long enough for it to be any longer. Does that make sense? Didn't think so. It's not like it's boyshort, but it's just about right below my earlobes (before the cut it had been about the length it is in the pic at the top of this page). Maybe I'll take a photo so y'all can see. Or maybe I'll be lazy and not. We'll have to see (I'd place your bets on lazy).

My entry headings are really going downhill...
9:51 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Monday, November 01, 2004
It's concert season again.
I don't know why, but around this time of year we seem to get a rash of good concerts in the area.  Last fall I saw my first Guster and Howie Day concerts, as well as not seeing my first Turin Brakes concert because I forgot my ID at home (grrrr... still not quite over that one).  We went to our first of this fall's concert smorgasboard on Friday in Dekalb, IL, seeing Howie Day (no band this time, a.k.a. just Howie, his guitar, and his roughly eighty-two pedals for looping -- if you don't know what I'm talking about you're missing out), with Nickel Creek co-headlining.

I'll make this mercifully short:  Nickel Creek, who I had heard a teensy bit of before (enough to know their general sound, but nothing more) kinda sorta knocked my socks off.  There were maybe a couple songs that were a bit too slow/boring for me, but for the most part I was extremely entertained by their set, even though I didn't know any of the songs.  That's rare, so good job, NC.  I don't know if I would enjoy their music as much on a studio CD as I did live, but I'm curious enough to look into them now.  Howie was... Howie.  This was my two-and-a-halfth HD concert, and the first time I'd seen him do a full solo set.  He did a few too many "hits"/fan favorites for my taste (most of the fan favorites not meshing with my own personal favorites, which goes along with Josh's and my joke of a lot of Howie fans liking Howie for the wrong reasons -- likely those same people being the ones who've been complaining on the messageboards about this tour with Nickel Creek because they don't like their music... if you can't appreciate Nickel Creek's live show at all, you obviously don't appreciate good music for its own sake and you probably like someone like Howie for his spiky hair and cuteness factor and your over-romanticized perception of his songs rather than for the fact that he makes good music), but he redeemed himself with "Slow Down" and a surprisingly loud and energetic "Madrigals" in the encore.

I guess that could have been a little bit mercifully shorter, but close enough.

Our upcoming fall tour:  Tonight, Viva Voce in Dekalb again (hooray for liking bands so out of the limelight we can see them at a coffehouse for a $4 cover).  November 14, Muse in Milwaukee (how psyched am I for THIS one?).  November 18, Starflyer 59/Pedro the Lion in Madison.  November 19, Sufjan Stevens in Madison (unless we leave that night for Florida, which is a possibility).
10:40 AM    ||    I want to be a comment. Post me!