Geese Police

Ever see something that piques your curiosity so much that you're tempted to stop what you're doing? Well, today that happened to me, with the sighting of a car heading into the local golf links claiming to be a dog-based goose control company.

After a bit of research, I found out that there's companies that uses border collies to manage geese. That's not a huge surprise, since I've seen my friend's border collies spontaneously herd my family's goats! But it's hilarious to watch these dogs herding these geese.

To help you imagine the hilarity, here's a visual... enjoy!

Ah, the things you can do in Vegas!

It's been a strange couple of months, not exactly busy... but I've been neglecting my little online journal here for a while. Last week, Mike and I went to ****Las Vegas**** with some friends and had some fun.

We were there for about a day longer than everyone else, so as we were wrapping up our trip and heading to the airport, we decided to make a quick pit stop. And what did we do you ask? Well, we shot an AK-47 of course!!

I think I can say with all honesty that shooting an automatic weapon was something that was on my list of things I thought I'd never do... actually, I don't have such a list. But if I did, this probably would have been on it. You see, a few years ago I was very gun-abhorrent. But love (and marriage) can make you confront things you never thought you would.

So here I am, a few years after my husband got his first gun, suiting up in the "eyes" and "ears" you need to enter the range, holding two clips in my hand. I am consoled by the fact that "The Gun Store" (real name) is moving people through like kids at a carnival ride. Apparently, there are others who enjoy this as a recreational activity.

My solace is diminished, however, by the crowd (solidly frat boy/giggly older men) and the fact that you can choose your target. Very racially diverse BTW, though the only woman on there is being held hostage (kind of like what's shown below). I do think it's interesting that out of the 15 or so target choices, there are no female terrorists/burglars/thugs. Perhaps no one is comfortable shooting at a woman, or perhaps women generally aren't perceived as a threat... but anyway, I digress.

So, in short, I did it. I shot it, a couple of short bursts only. It was scary to be honest. And surprisingly easy. I've shot handguns that kick a lot more. Afterwards, I thought about how soldiers must become desensitized to shooting with an automatic gun. Actually, I think it would be easier to get used to than I previously thought, which also scares me a little.

Anyway, to end this post on a positive note, I'll say it was fun... in the sense of here's something I can say I did in my life that is crazy, and I probably won't do again. And we got a couple of funny pictures out of it (see below). And apologies in advance for my face, I was going for "intimidating" and I think I missed the mark :) Hasta la vista, baby...

Sydney, Redux

So I'm off to Sydney again in a couple of weeks. I'm pretty excited, though I likely won't have any time to venture out of the city. I'm still hoping to log a few hours wandering throughout the CBD, which is where I'll be staying.

Just to torture myself a bit more, I thought I'd talk about some of the things that I want to do in Sydney/Australia.

First, the Sydney Bridge Climb. It's freakin' sweet. They basically harness you to each other (and presumably to the bridge) and let you climb over Darling Harbor. I need to get a friend or family member to go with me on one of these trips, and we'll definitely have to do this.



Next, I want to snorkel in the Whitsundays. The Whitsundays are a string of islands off of the North East coast of Australia. They are part of the larger Great Barrier Reef. The last time I went to Sydney, I strongly considered spending a few days here. You can get on these relatively small sail boats that go amongst all of the small islands, and snorkel to your hearts content. *Sigh*



Finally, I'd love to someday take part in the Great Australian Cattle Drive. Let's be honest, this one is easily the biggest stretch for me. I'm not great on horseback, nor do I have the stamina to be on horseback for days at a time. However, this is definitely on my list of things to do before I die.


I'm excited for my upcoming trip, but I'll definitely be more excited when I'm able to cross one of these off of my list :)

Loompa chic

So, I'll own it. In my old(er) age, I've become much more vain. I've started to wear more make-up, think about wearing nicer clothes, and figuring out finally how to use hairspray. I guess it's my newfound vanity that brought me to try to make my scary pale legs tan with a little faux tanner.

I of course did my research and found a brand that I thought would be great. I exfoliated my legs, put on rubber gloves and rubbed the stuff in like crazy. I made sure to let my legs dry, and then went to bed.

The next morning, while not terrible, I was definitely rocking slightly orange legs. On top of that, I guess I'm not too careful because I had missed a few spots as well.


So, in short, I would liken my appearance to a stripey Oompa Loompa. But I'm not giving up... I will try another brand this week and hope for the best :)

Tomato Adventure!

So last night I talked for over an hour with my mother in law. She's super cool, and we haven't talked for a long time, so it was fun to catch up. I told her I wanted to have tomatoes, but waited too long. She told me that I should just buy bigger plants that are further along. All of a sudden I was like, "Oh, duh Gina!"

So today I went to the local nursery and bought two plants and containers to plant them in. I got two varieties, both of which I've heard are good. Ace variety, which is described as an old favorite. It looks like it will produce a very large, traditional tomato. I also got Early Girls, which is supposed to be great as well.

So tonight I planted them, watered profusely, and gave them some tomato food. I'm sure I'll obsess about them as much as I have with my lemons and limes :) I also got two kinds of basil and one kind of mint. My new summer goal: home-made mojitos and bruschetta!!!

From Ireland to Ol' Grandad

Last weekend we had a whiskey-tasting party with some of the peeps from Mike's work. Despite it being a ton of work to get our house in order (it had gotten extremely bad, well, because I hate cleaning!), the party was a ton of fun.

We kicked off the afternoon with whiskey tasting. I think in the end we had 11 or 12 whiskeys to taste, so we were taking really small shots. Check out the pre-party picture below:


We started with some really "peet-y" (aka nice) Irish scotch that one of Mike's colleagues brought. As it turns out, almost no one had a sophisticated enough palatte to enjoy that one ;) Too bad for us I guess. We worked down the line in terms of quality, ending up with a $7 bottle of Ol' Grandad.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for me, I had stepped away from the table by the time we tasted that one. Though after talking to his colleagues about how "interesting" the taste was, Mike has promised me a special tasting so I don't miss out on the magic. Great, I can't wait.....

Why I <3 California

Found this picture on our camera. It's from a couple of months ago, when we were driving down to visit my BFF in San Diego. Driving through Los Angeles, we accidentally prompted the navigation to display Mexican restaurants.


This is why I could never move to Wisconsin :)

Finished: Project Headboard

As I mentioned several posts ago, I was on a mission to make a DIY headboard for our new bed. After a few weekends of failure, Mike and I managed to finally get it done. First, we went to Home Depot to buy a piece of plywood to form the structure of the headboard.

When we got back to the house, he got to use his new Skil Saw (with lasers!!!) to cut the plywood down to size. From there, we just layered on the foam and batting and covered it with the beautiful fabric I had found. Here is an image of our layering progress in the garage:


After we finished with the layering, we had to wrap everything around and staple it with a staple gun. Unfortunately, as is often the case in these kinds of projects, we had to make our 2nd Home Depot trip of the day since Mike couldn't find his staple gun (of course we found it a couple of days later). So after a couple more fails at getting the staple gun to work, we wrapped everything around and stapled it securely.

After a bit of trimming of the excess fabric, we brought it upstairs. Our original intention was to mount it to the wall with flush mounts. However, after positioning it behind the bed to see how high up on the wall we wanted to mount it, I decided it looked fine resting on the ground, and we decided to forego mounting.


All in all, I think it's a good height without being mounted at all. I think it's a great addition to the bedroom, and am proud of myself for being somewhat Bob Vila-esque. Go DIY!!

Faces obscured to protect the innocent

Mike and I had an impromptu BBQ the other night. I don't know if it was the excitement of summer, the fact that we all hadn't seen each other in a while, or perhaps the mass consumption of alcohol, but people seemed to have a really good time.

In addition to lots of giggles, dancing and informal karaoke, I snapped the picture below, which inspired the title of this post.


If this BBQ is any indication of the celebrations to come, I think I'm gonna have a fun summer :) Bring on the 80's dance party!!

Cute, and patriotic!

So, I totally have a Martha streak. There are probably lots of women out there like me. 95% of the time, totally normal. But something can flip a switch in your brain (holidays, major events, weddings, etc.) that make you "Go Martha". Usually, I end up running around, covered in sweat and pissed off because I didn't leave enough time to be Martha, but this time I think I've uncovered something truly simple and nice.

On Sunday, I'm heading to my Mom's house for a Memorial Day BBQ. My mom loves the two patriotic holidays we have, and tends to go all out. So I thought I'd make her these cute pinwheely things. If you go to her website, it's as easy as printing out the templates and folding them into the shape.


We'll see if it ends up being as easy as it looks, or another Martha project that leaves me exhausted aftewards... LOL

Saying goodbye...

As I mentioned, I've just started a new job. My old team put together a great send off for me, and it was even more awesome than I could have imagined. A lot of the larger team showed up, and so it was great to be able to see everyone and chat with them about my new role.

Also, my team put together some great gifts to send me off. One of them is this amazing collage of photos of me and other people at work going back at least two years. It was a total blast from the past to see all of these pictures and a lot of people that have come and gone over time.


I never expected such a great send off... I'm really touched that my team spent so much time putting together something so amazing. I'm just feeling loved right now, and that's nice :)

Going to see my BFF + learn some stuff!

Can I just say, I love my new job? I've only just started this week and I've already got plans to go to the ASTD conference in San Diego in a couple of weeks. This is a really great step for me as I'm sure I'll learn a lot of great things from experts in the field of training and development. I'll get to go with a group of my colleagues so that we can really leverage what we learn there.

And, the icing on the cake is that my best friend of all time lives just outside of San Diego!! So I'm going to get to see her, which is a very unexpected treat! I can't wait to see her!

I'm Retiring

That's what I said after spending two days working on building a shed at our property in Burson. It was actually an okay weekend, at least at first. I spent Saturday priming the shed, and ended up with primer all over myself (see below).


However, Sunday went quickly downhill for me, as I managed to spill almost an entire gallon of paint and get a gash on my hand trying to hammer some plywood to the roof.



By the end of the day, I was really ready to go home and take a long shower and a nap, but we managed to get the shed done enough to leave stuff in. I said I was retiring from shed building, but we'll have to see how I feel the next time we go up there. All in all though, I just don't think I'm cut out for this kind of stuff...

Home Improvement project: DIY Headboard

So, I'm super excited because I've decided to make a headboard for our new king size bed. I'm working off of instructions from bejane.com, which is a great site about DIY projects for women. The first step was choosing a fabric. I went to Calico Corners in Mountain View/Palo Alto, and found an awesome fabric that I think will work nicely.


This is really more of a green. It looks kind of brown in the picture I took with my phone. Next, I needed to figure out how to get my hands on foam. What I learned is that in the world of foam, there's lots of long scientific words that distiguish one type from the other. After being thoroughly confused, I found a place in Palo Alto called House of Foam. I went there today and the guy helped me (it's actually a totally simple decision, thankfully).

So, the last thing I need to do is get the plywood, which I plan to do this weekend. I'll definitely post some pictures of the process. It will hopefully be pretty painless :)

Go DIY Gina!!

First post

So.... I'm starting a blog. It's one of those things that occurs to you when you can't sleep (which happens to me frequently, especially lately). I have a latent desire to write, and since I can't really get that out at work I think being able to write about things in my life, etc. will be good for me. I also think it will be a cool way to share information with friends and family. So, stay tuned for more posts about the ordinary things that make up my life and things that just stick on my mind!

Cheers,
Gina