My travels to Carbondale.
Last weekend I got to travel out to Carbondale, IL, to visit my sis Daryl who is a student at SIU, Southern Illinois University. Whatta weekend!!!! We had a BLAST, but it was not without drama, including……
**5 hours of waiting for a delayed American Airlines flight in Orange County, on one of 3 days that AA decided to cancel 1,000+ flights for safety checks….O…M…G….NOT FUN!
**One hour spent cleaning an overflowed toilet in the good ol’ college house…….
**15 total hours of travel from Carbondale back to Loma Linda, including a 4 hour layover with a delayed flight out of Chicago, my luggage getting stuck in Chicago in spite of the delay thanks to a “broken baggage system”, said luggage being delivered to home at approximately 3 am later that night, this weary traveller forgetting to give them the code to the gate for the complex, and the delivery people calling 3+ times to be let in before I actually answered…..DRAAAAA-MAAAAA!
All this not to be outdone by my OFFICIAL most embarrassing moment on the plane from OC to St. Louis: Utilizing a borrowed Portable DVD player, approximately 1 hour spent listening to the Sound of Music (you can’t make this up people), audio emanating from headphones AND speakers….Yes, that’s right, everyone around me could hear that the hills are in fact alive with the sound of music, but apparently everyone is not as excited about that as me and Fraulein Maria, because the flight attendant had to come by and tell me they had had complaints. I have never been so mortified in my LIFE! And it took me about 20 minutes after the complaints to realize that the audio was coming out of the speakers in addition to my headphones, and fix the problem!
But, in spite of many hours of waiting, several hours of misery and one hour of embarrasing obliviousness, there was enough sister fun time to make up for it! Next time I will read the DVD player directions first….oh my word……
Google Maps & Googly Eyes….
Two cool things happened this week so far. The best part is that both of these cool things reminded me of how awesome the simple things in life are……
First, Bjorn & I watched our Tivo’ed Saturday Night Live from last weekend, and I thought I might die of laughter. Good ol’ Christopher Walken —- HOW did he become funny? Who IS he even? Can anybody name one movie he is in? Yet over the years, he has become like the funniest person ever to grace the SNL stage….It is so confusing, but don’t question it - just tivo SNL whenever he’s hosting! My stomach still hurts from laughing at this:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=237389
The second cool thing is that Google updated their Google maps for Blackberry, and oh. my.gosh. has it revolutionized my world. My phone went from being a basic (yet unbelieveably cool) blackberry pearl, to GPS, in just one quick download - THANKS GOOGLE!!!! Now when I am sitting in wretched Los Angeles area traffic, and I want to pull up google maps to find out how long the wretchedness will last, I no longer have to turn on the map, figure out what city I am in, wait for the map to find it, turn on the traffic feature……now, all I have to do is turn on the map — Google shows me my location! To within 1700 feet! YES! I love google maps……..And if you ever have to drive in wretched Los Angeles traffic, you will love google maps too!!
This goes out to the Gmail peeps….
Why do I ALWAYS forget that it’s April Fools Day???
I woke up and logged onto email, much the same as every other day, and was FLOORED to read about Gmail’s new feature: “Custom Time”. (For the 3 non-Gmail users out there…A) Why? and B) FYI, Gmail constantly adds new features - which is why we all love it so much.) Anyways, I read the little blurb about Custom Time, and my jaw dropped — NO WAY! It was so crazy - I couldn’t help but be a little offended! Apparently they updated the system to allow you to backdate your emails - Just in Case. You know, you entered a contest, emailed a paper for school or a report for work, happy anniversary email, whatever - just a little too late…..so, backdate it! I figured that could be useful in some situations but all I could think is — “Wow. Hasn’t technology gone a little too far??! This is just promoting DISHONESTY!” (Truly - these thoughts went through my head!!!!)
Fast forward to 5 pm, when I am bored & procrastinating random things that should be done, and perusing my new fave site, digg.com…….and behold, an article to Digg — “Gmail’s April Fool’s Joke sparks Wikipedia war”. Wait — WHAT? Gmail’s What?!
So, ha ha - joke’s on me, right?! It gets even worse… Bjorn and I went out for coffee tonight, and I come home to a little chat message from my sister: “I was SO MAD when I found out Gmail’s Custom Time is fake! I could really USE that!” And I laugh and laugh at her…until I remember….they faked me out too. How quickly I forget!!!!!!!
Next year, I am marking my calendar on March 31st!!!!!!! Next year, I won’t be fooled!!!
