My Fiasco

Fabulous Prop-8 Musical

Erica — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:51:03 +0000

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

The word has spread

Erica — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:43:03 +0000

And now big puppy must share

His new favorite spot

Erica — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:00:21 +0000

Sunshine, a breeze & a fluffy bed .. This dog is in heaven

Kennedy Space Center via iPhone

Erica — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:45:06 +0000

Today we took a trip to the Kennedy Space Center .. since its so close and dad’s never been .. we figured it was time to go visit. It was interesting, not the center that we remembered at all though. I didn’t bring a camera, so I challenged myself to take interesting pictures using just my iPhone

Here’s the main fuel tank of the shuttle

And a shot of the main engines for the shuttle

Then we wandered over to the astronaut memorial

Next stop was the Rocket Garden, which was one of the main things I remember from visiting in Elementary School.

They also have a bunch of parts of rockets and capsules and such

Of course Liz and I had to climb into a few

Last stop at the KSC Visitor was the education center, which is what I expected to be the KSC I remember as a kid, but the only interactive thing there was this rover.

If you look closely to that last image, you can see the boot on mom’s right foot, and the wheelchair we pushed her around the park in Turns out when she joined me in New Orleans in October, she gave herself a stress fracture with all the walking she did!

The last stop was at the Astronaut Hall of Fame, which is not at the KSC Visitor Complex, but 6 miles west.

I actually think this was everything I expected at the visitor complex. It has the full history of the space program, and more of the interactive simulation things I remember as a kid. Including this GForce simulator that I didn’t do when I went with the school, so I had to do it this time

We got home just after sunset to see Venus and Jupiter aligned. Nov 30th and Dec 1st they will line up with the crescent moon, which wont happen again until 2052!

Happy Thanksgiving 2008!

Erica — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:18:01 +0000

The family came up here this year .. but for some reason it never clicked in my head that I’d be making my first turkey this year. I guess I just always expected to have everything on hand, and then my mom and dad would take over the cooking. Anyways I picked up the turkey on Tuesday after Liz got up here. Wednesday morning I was up at 7am putting together a brine for the turkey. The recipe we decided to use was from Martha Stewart’s Cooking School book that I picked up a few weeks ago. It was really easy with beautiful photographs of every step. But waiting for the brine to cool down took much longer then we had expected. After about 2 hours I unwrapped our turkey, cleaned it all up, put it in a brine bag from Bed Bath and Beyond and dumped in all the brine. Then the turkey and the brine all went back into the bottom drawer in the fridge. Did I mention our turkey was 19 lbs .. YES 19 LBS for 5 of us!! OMG! I also cooked a cake for Dad’s birthday before we headed to Orlando to drop Ella off with her dad for the holiday. Wednesday night Liz made shepherds pie while we waited for mom and dad to finally arrive

Thursday morning I was up before 7am again, making a pumpkin pie from scratch, and taking the turkey out of the brine to let it warm up before roasting. I had planned on having dinner around 3pm, knowing that every year we plan for 3pm and end up eating at 5ish. So I had the turkey in the oven at 10am, again with Martha Stewart’s instructions, having a butter and wine soaked cheese cloth on top 3.5 hours later the turkey was done, and beautiful! Turned out that I pretty much did all the work on the turkey myself, with some cheerleading from mom and Liz. I was so proud of myself, considering it was my first bird I’ve ever roasted successfully. I actually had that listed on my 101 things to do in 1001 days, and even though its expired I can now cross it off my list! Liz and Mom took over for the side dishes and we had a very delicious meal

We finished the night off playing Rock Band and watching the hilarious Tropic Thunder .. awesome

Smells Like Burning

Erica — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:29:12 +0000

And its a little stronger then the recent smell of evening fires in fireplaces.

Spectacular sunset tonight though

5 Jobs

Erica — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:53:43 +0000

Currently I’m working 5 jobs .. No, seriously ..

Photographer - Its busy season, 4 sessions waiting to be proofed
Substitute Teacher - Slow week, teachers are hanging on before Thanksgiving
Programmer - Was just about to finish phase 1, and google messed things up with an update I’m afraid this means starting at the beginning.
Bookkeeper - Luckily this is only demanding at the end of the month and beginning of new quarters.
Maid - HA!

4 of those are paying positions, they might be all part time .. but they still demand more time then I have. Which brings me to #5 .. Saturday I washed my floors, intending to steam clean my livingroom on Sunday. Well a project I volunteer for called me up, and I had a scheduled photography job .. needless to say, my weekend of cleaning didn’t happen as planned. This morning I got up, and one of the dogs had peed on my nice clean floor while I was gone yesterday Am I ever going to get caught up??

Night Photography Fun

Erica — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:06:46 +0000

While setting up for the launch last Friday night I had a little fun with a flashlight.

I tried to write my name backwards to get this to look right, but I ended up using the first image where I wrote my name as I normally would, and just flipped the picture horizontally :)

Night Launch

Erica — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:19:02 +0000

As seen from our backyard.

The break in the trail is when I actually stopped the exposure to see if I could catch more. I thought the shuttle was already out of the frame So I put the 2 exposures together. [see it large] [see it huge!]

Must See TV

Erica — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:00:56 +0000

Since I’ve been working .. and going to bed earlier .. and not having as much free time during my day, I’ve really cut back on the TV show that I watch. And I’m really happy about that. I got to a point this fall where I realized I filled up my DVR on crap, just so I could keep up with characters who I really didn’t care much about. Anyways .. I probably still watch more TV then I should ..

Sunday - Entourage & Brothers and Sisters
Monday - Big Bang Theory, So I Met Your Mother & Heroes
Tuesday - Eli Stone
Wednesday - Dirty Sexy Money
Thursday - The Office, 30 Rock & Grey’s Anatomy
Friday - The Ghost Whisperer
Saturday - SNL

On most days thats less then an hour a night! Go me! Considering at one point I had like 3 or 4 hours a night DVRd .. this is a great improvement

Also .. if you haven’t watched Eli Stone .. I highly recommend giving it a shot. Oh .. and happy not a father day (awe sock!)