Bed, at a decent hour

It was so hard to wake up this morning. My body was sore, my eyes were heavy, and my spirits, well, my spirits were just there. I think all of the classroom prep, the reality of my new career, and meeting these kids finally caught up with me on Monday, and my body and mind was bruised from the encounter. I felt like the bulls were released, and I was covered in red. Not to say I got my butt kicked, because then it seems all negative, But picture me bouncing off bull after bull after bull. After each bump and bounce, I was pushed forward, sore, but making progress. Today, it feels like I'm running with the bulls, but still trying to figure out when we're all going to be in the same direction, in unison. My sixth graders will have a big year adjusting to secondary education. They're expecting their hands to be held, and me to do everything for them, and I can't. I won't. I have my own race to run, a race to get further prepared, experienced, and to get my life back in the midst of it. Despite this, I have never been happier. I have kids greeting me in the halls, even the kids other teachers have problems with. I have students already telling me art is their favorite class..well, I guess I had an advantage, I'm not math! But I'm still waiting on the relationships and the hugs, I saw a fellow teacher bombarded by a group of students as she walked to her car. I want to be bombarded one day. After due time. I want the bulls to trample me, I want them to trample me with their hearts.

Has anyone seen my feet?

So it seems I wore the wrong shoes today! My feet are so numb I can't even feel them. To make matters worse, I have a husband who is as ooged out about feet as I am. Normally I would never even think of letting someone touch my feet but now all I want is a foot rub!

Otherwise it was a great day.

Here's a list:

1. Some kids thought I was 19

2. Some thought I was 44.

3. There's no longer averages sized kids, they're either 6'2" at 12, or 3'5"...

4. ...I'm totally not joking.

5. I have a favorite in every class already...I know that's bad.

6. I didn't eat lunch.

7. I remembered like 30 names today, no joke.

8. There's this one kid, totally looks and acts like my friend Hance...

9. That's the only kid that got in trouble with me today ironically.

10. When given the opportunity to ask their teacher anything, they asked how I met my husband (aaw) - and it wasn't just the girls!

11. I had a student warn me about how great of an artist she is..she "should already have works in galleries," says her,

12. I'm so glad I have 6th graders. I met some of the older kids..they were monsters.

13. I already got a few hugs.

14. I love being a teacher so far.

15. I need to buy more flats.

Uno momento

Okay, so I know I'm hispanic, Duh, And I know there's a good percentage of Hispanics in the DFW area that only speak Spanish. But the guy who took my money in the drive thru said "uno momento." Really? Really?!? After I ordered in clear English? Uno momento?

I guess I'm just tired. I typically have a hard time getting to sleep on Sunday nights, and I have a big day tomorrow so I took a Tylenol PM about an hour ago and starting to feel the effects. So, yeah, goodnight.

My 1st Classroom

So, I still have some things I need to get, but overall I'm happy with what I have so far. I don't want to be that teacher with tons of cheesy posters with motivational mutterings. You will never see a poster with Garfield on it in my classroom, no sir. So if you want to donate some art posters, a cool chair or some student-friendly art books let me know. I want to get a special corner in my room with a cool rug and chair and a book shelf full of art books and resources. Unfortunately my art books all tend to have R-rated images so I can't have them out. Thank God Van Gogh wasn't a perv.





I'm also including a few pics of some pieces from my school last year. These kids are really talented and I can't wait to work with them!

Oh Gavin

Here is the newest addition to my family, his name is Gavin and he is a cutie.





The baby shower was a hit. Gavin got tons of cute clothes, and my sister in laws and I played nice.

I've got an addiction sir

Wow.

I finally got dsl on our PC. To make things even more exciting, the hubby brought home a wireless router for my MacBook, um, score. I'm so excited. You have no idea. Do you know that feeling you got after you don't see someone you like in a really long time? Like, maybe you broke up for a while, or were just apart for a long time? When you see them you get excited and you get all gushy inside? That's how I feel right now, blogging on my MacMomma. We're about to watch a movie now, so I can't get into many details, but I will be uploading pics tomorrow, I have a lot to make up for! Kisses!

Wow. I miss blogging.

I didn't mean to dissappear. I really miss blogging. I miss having a job that allows me to Myspace and blog. And I miss having free time to have a life when I get home. I can honestly say even though I work longer and harder preparing for school, I don't regret this career change. I can't wait to meet these kiddos. In a nutshell, here's what I've learned and experienced in the past couple of weeks or so:

1. New teacher orientation looks like a single convention for hot people. Really, out of the 200 new teachers in my district, 80% are young, charming and not bad to look at. Pretty people if you will. I don't remember my teachers being younger than 60 and not looking like gremlins.

2. I've rediscovered my inner cheesiness. There's nothing like seeing coaches dressed in drag dancing, playing musical chairs as an adult, or having fun with "get to know you" games.

3. I, in fact can get to work at 8:00 a.m. Who knew?

4. I think I am not only cut out for this, I think I will be pretty darn good at it.

5. My DSL and Cable will arrive tomorrow by 3:00 p.m. I can hardly contain myself.

6. Driving across town is totally worth it for a 10 count pack of Crayola markers for 25 cents.

7. I own 15 packs of 10 count Crayola markers.

8. ...and 20 boxes of Crayola crayons.

9. ...15 bottles of glue, and 15 tubes of glue sticks, to name a few.

10. I must be tired, no, exhausted because this makes no sense.

11. I don't care if it's a cult classic, the Last Dragon IS as bad as the dvd cover looks. Bruce Leroy? Pfft.

Sorry for the randomness. It will get better soon I promise.
Well, I have to go plan 5 more weeks of lesson plans.

Busy weekend

...and I still have Sunday left. Technically it is Sunday, but hey, I haven't slept yet. My morning started at 6 a.m. which is early for me on the weekend. Actually, it's early for me any day. It seems when I "visit" my hometown I end of feeling like I put in an additional 20 hours of work instead of resting or relaxing because I never have a moment to myself. Do this, do that, be here, be there, and this weekend has been no exception. My oldest neice by marriage, Bre, had a quincenera she was going to be in (another relatives actually). Basically a quincenera is a fancy sweet 16 but with more alcohol in coolers and well, Mexicans! Every quince is different — it's hard to compare, but either way, this 15 year old is considered a princess and in the process of publicly being acknowledged as a yoing woman. It's a bar mitvah for young, hispanic women. I never had one, never wanted one. The cheesy crowns and laced centerpieces never amused me. Not to knock a quince, hey, wait, I'm so off track. Let me resume, and I'll get back to this in a sec. SO, I had to fix Bre's hair. She has a ton of dark, thick locks so getting some tight ringlet curls wasn't the easiest task. I started at 7 a.m. and finished around 9:30. From there I headed for breakfast with my 7 year old neice as we were in the middle of a three day celebration of her birthday. From breakfast we went to get her nails manicured for the first time.


She was such a trooper considering she's not real social with strangers, moreless comfortable with one painting her nails and massaging her hands! From there I missed the quincenera service! I thought it was supposed to start at noon, but in fact it started at 11:00. I felt horrible, except I knew I would spend a couple of hours at the reception/dance/party. Instead I run some errands, and attend the birthday party. It was a bowling party, but the lanes stunk.


Oh well, we weren't even keeping score (which felt weird to me) but we had a blast nonetheless. I got a goody bag, bowled, played some ping pong and came to the conclusion that my parents love this first grandchild more than they love me or my sister. From them she got some $50 toy Bratz bus, a Nintendo DS, a bike, some shoes, and a cellphone. Not to mention the fact that her card from them said, and I quote, "we found our joy when you were born seven years ago," and they wonder why I think they should pay for my therapy. So after all that, we rest for about 45 minutes before we head to the quince dinner. I will report on that at a later date actually..I want to see how some of the pics came out.

Last Day

My last day of work at the paper was hard. I love the people, the products, and the potential for future growth, but alas, it came to an end. Of course when something like this occurs at the office, we, uh, eat. Out of sadness or celebration who knows, but we started early and had Mia's on Thursday. If you're ever in Dallas, hit this hole in the wall up. It's on Lemmon right off of Oaklawn and it's as authentic Tex-Mex you can find outside of my family's cocina. I plan on heading back soon to take pictures of all there is to look at. It's very bright, and festive, as most Mexican restaurants are, as well as super ecclectic — there's so many details to pay attention to.



On Friday Miss Lousianna herself, Adriane, made me a German chocolate cake only a mother could love. In other words, presentation wasn't her forte, but who cares? It was the best German choclate cake I'd ever eaten! It was a hit in the office, but unfortunately it kind of ruined lunch. We ventured out to Lucky's cafe, on Oaklawn, of course.




It was your typical cafe you'd see on televison. It reminded me of Monk's on Seinfeld. But instead of busty waitresses in tight yellow dresses (Seinfeld fans follow me), the staff seemed to all be middle-aged gay men. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The food was delicious, reasonable and the portions were huge! I had the special and proud of the greasy goodness. Can you say chicken fried chicken, with get this, onion rings and fries as my side, and a jumbo Dr. Pepper. I'm not ashamed. It didn't help that we devoured the biscuits they brought out first, all we had leftover was some honey and cornbread.

Moving Woes

I've been in this new townhouse for a little over two weeks and here are the issues we've had to deal with:

1. An oven that wouldn't turn on.

2. An oven that would turn on, but then it beeped every three minutes and wouldn't stop.

3. An oven that would not stop beeping (after you punched every number about 20 times each it would shut up) but then the door locks.

4. Dirty filters that wouldn't cool the place down.

5. A kitchen faucet that only runs hot water.

Those are the things we've called the property owners about. Everything is now resolved, minus the oven door not opening. (I had to heat garlic bread in the microwave tonight, yuck!)

In addition to these problems, we still have another week until the dsl connections are made so we're running on dial up. We have a ton more we need to buy to fill up some of the new space we have but are on a tight budget until my teaching salary comes in. We have some really nice, friendly quiet neighbors that we never hear a peep out of, but when they cook, our whole apartment smells like curry. That would be great if we liked Indian food, but it's not so pleasant in a hot apartment. (AAH! Seinfeld moment, "Is this wrong, should we be talking about this?") Anyway, the only remedy is lighting about 6 candles which makes the apartment even hotter. Amazingly this is not the worst of it as we still do not have cable. The Dish people came out only to inform us since our patio faces the wrong direction, we're unable to get any signal. Our next options lie with Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. We've heard bad things about TWC, and had no problems with Verizon while in San Angelo so we decided to give it a try. It has been 2 weeks that we've been working with Verizon and NOTHING has developed. Our apartment has a FIOS box, they know it, we know it. They cannot place a work order unless the computer says we have the box. Let me explain again, they know we have it, we know we have it, yet, we can't get service until they get it situated in their system. I call BS. Is this the first time ever in history that there is NOT a work around? C'mon. There's ALWAYS a work around. I decided to be tougher with this lady. She's not calling when she says she will, she's not getting results, the ball isn't even rolling. Once they get me in the system it will take at least another week for a guy to come out and connect! She knows she has until tomorrow to contact me with good news. I've decided if I don't get cable by Monday, they have until Wednesday to get it hooked up and have one of two options: give us two months free cable, or get us two extra boxes for the extra televisions in the house with no charge (I prefer that as I want the guest bedroom to have cable and I want cable in my kitchen!) Think it'll work? It's a long shot since this was her offer to me today: a $50 gift card to Target that will arrive 6-8 weeks AFTER cable has been installed, and $25 off my first bill.

(Crickets chirping)

Is she serious? Does she know what it's like to always have 200+ cables one day and then have to rely on rabbit ears, to get a fuzzy, chopped up showing Big Brother?

If BB wasn't on a local station there would be hell to pay. I can't miss my Big Brother 8. Don't get me started on the potential risk of missing the season premiere of The Hills! So let's see what she says. I may be asking for a lot but everyday I've come home from work since we've moved here there's always a Time Warner guy in a van in the next building over..I'm getting tempted to just throw in the towel and hit him up.

In love with a man named Ari

So there's this guy, my husband has no idea. I had an encounter with him about two months ago. We were in the alley behind the Granada when he walked by. I was too busy taking a picture with some friends to notice him behind me...but there he was. My friend Amy saw him walking by and said, "Isn't that him?" I quickly turned around, and saw him dissappear into the dark. I yelled "You were great tonight!" He turned around, smiled, waved, and said thanks. Who would've thought Jewish men were so dreamy? But what drew me to him was not his ruggish good looks or his captivating stage presence, it was his music, his lyrics, his voice. I'm kind of a music Nazi, and I'm not easily pleased. We didn't go with the intention to see him actually, he was one of the two great opening acts, but after his set, we left. My friend Amy wanted to walk down a few blocks to get a piercing, and I didn't want to ruin my evening of music by listening to a group that may or may not measure up to Ari Hest or Mozella (who was also exceptional)! He's not very well known in the states right now, but I hope to see his success grow. His style is similar to John Mayer but with his wide and rich vocals he has a sound uncomparable than anything out in mainstream radio. He also has a rugged resemblance to another fave of mine, Micah P. Hinson . His lyrics are meaningful, with out the fluffy, filler words; he keeps it simple. He has two tracks he has produced soley with Apple's GarageBand. I love a Mac man. What can else can I say about him? Oh, and he's easy on the eyes. I've had the chance to listen to his most recent songs, and his earlier workings and he has become a regular on my playlist since. He will be touring oversees for the remainder of the Summer but will make his way back into the states soon. Check him out here and/or sample his music at his Myspace.

Ode to HP

So after a request by a new blogger, this is a summary of what I will and won't miss about my adventures in high society. In Dallas, this area is called Highland Park. This is where some of them spend too much for Thai food, or a buzzcut.



I won't miss anything less than a Jag, Beamer or Escalade being considered a hooptie.

I won't miss the fact there is only one black homeowner in Highland Park.

I won't miss being the only minority in my office, or even at Walgreens on Oaklawn and Cedar Springs.


I will miss seeing the very pretty drag queens at that Walgreens, but won't miss the ugly ones with a bulge in their skirt.

I will miss Whole Foods.

I will not miss $5 cups of soup or $3 waters.

I will not miss the girl in the Benz that cuts me off, or how she refuses to look at me or respond to my honking horn because out of the corner of her eye she saw that I'm Mexican (GASP!)

I won't miss the ILLEGAL Mexicans that are running around taking care of lawns that act like they haven't seen a woman before! Or how they hit my car and take off because, well, they're illegal.

I won't miss the spoiled kids at Gore Park.

I will miss the drunk moms at Gore Park.

I will not miss seeing those annoying yellow HP stickers.


I will miss some of the parties and afterhours.

I will not miss not being able to afford to go to these places otherwise.

I will not miss people acting like you don't measure up.

I will not miss the awkward elevator moments.

I will not miss seeing children and pets being raised by a nanny and maid, instead of their own parents.


I will miss hearing of the few moms that do take care of business at work and home, with maybe a strong martini here or there to balance it out.

I will not miss seeing all the fake breasts, cheek bones, and flat tummies.

I will miss making fun of these desperate housewives and cougars when they've had a ridiculous amount of work done.

I will miss feeling safe in this area.

And lastly, I will not miss not fitting in.

Here's to title one schools and neighoborhoods, kids that need and appreciate an opportunity to learn, and the parents and communites that work so hard to make ends meet.

Officially on vacation.

I don't want to hear your problems. I have enough of mine right now. I've spent the past month listening to endless amounts of worries, frustrations and denials and for two days I will be at St. Tropez mentally. I will continue to finish out my three days at work, I will continue to read the Harry Wong book, I will even work on my modules for my certification and help my boss find my replacement, but I won't listen to your lamentations. No one here really vents to me, I'm just saying this in order to convince myself I can do this. I can say "not now, this is my day to rest," or I can refuse to answer the phone. About 6 months ago we had this unusual (crazy) girl work with us. She hated me. She thought I was out to get her and confronted me twice about it. I wasn't out to get her. She posed no threat to me personally or career wise. She was a walking time bomb. We all knew it. But one day she called in a "mental health" day. She didn't call in ill, or busy, she called in crazy. I found it weird until recently. I'm calling in crazy for three days. This doens't effect you as the reader or friend, but just thought you should know.

Writers! My last complaint at the paper

A Message to a few co-workers.

I find it interesting how intelligent writers are but lack social skills. That's great that you can articulate a scenario or a story well, with long, fancy words and clever references, but don't let it get to your head. There are some things you are not good at. There are some skills you lack. I don't care if you designed for 5 minutes, you're not a designer. If you're in sales you DO have people skills, but you make a sale and you're done. You make a ton of sales, but you also make a ton of commission. I know, I was in sales. I know who does the work, and I know who reaps the benefits. So, in closing, I will respect what you do and let you do your job, if you do the same for me. Although I feel this problem will be short lived as teachers have the authority to send a difficult students away, but it had to be said.

No conversation is safe with me

I had to post this earlier ichat conversation. I love to hear stories about people completely humiliating themselves. Nice gal I am huh?

L: hello!

D: hi there!

L: busy?

D: naw, was just telling my friend a story here at work, I just ate it SO BAD walking up the stairs with 500 pieces of paper in my hand, it was a hurricane of white papers

L: LOL

D: hahah no joke, i completely fell, i can't even exaggerate on how bad it was

L: did you hurt youself?

D: hahaha naw im fine, but i swore really loudly, and people were laughing, it was really bad

L: you swore???

D: haha i went "aaah shietttt" like a cartoon because i knew it was going to be bad, it was an explosion of papers

L: that is sooo funny, I'm really laughing out load at my desk, I would pay good money to have seen that!

D: hahahaah, people said "you ok dude??!!" and I mustered up the lowest voice i could and said "yea I'm fine," inside...i was crying

L: So there was an audience?

D: oh yes, about 4 people

L: did you know them?

D: no...they were trying not to laugh at me

L: haha, you know that made their day right? And now their whole office knows? I bet some even re-enacted it!

D: with sound effects, it was pretty bad leeny

L: I might have to blog this conversation. Like, copy and paste, it speaks for itself.

D: hahaha that's fine w/me, im usually pretty graceful, pretty athletic guy, with my former gymnastics self but i legitimately had all four of my extremities on the stairs and papers airborne

Thoughts at midnight

I had another Seinfeld moment last night. I woke up, and as I was half awake half asleep thoughts started streaming into my head. I know I should of either written it down, or blogged right away, but didn't. I got up, walked downstairs and drank a whole bottle of water in less than a few minutes. Made my way back to bed insisting I would remember exactly what I was thinking in the morning. The first thing I thought of when I finally woke up for work was this mental journal entry, and I've been beating myself up over it ever since. In the Seinfeld episode I'm referring to, Jerry wakes after watching an obscure movie and jots down a funny joke or bit. The next day at the coffee shop he tries to decipher what he wrote and couldn't. He has everyone look, and later on he watches a clip of the obscure movie while visiting George at the hospital (he thought he had a heart attack, remember?) and Jerry remembers what he wrote only to discover it wasn't funny at all. That's how I feel. I have an idea what the thought was about, but it doesn't seem blog worthy. Gah!

Today in Dallas

Heidi and Spencer from The Hills were on Kidd Kraddick this morning discussing their relationship, the upcoming season of The Hills, and of course, Lauren Conrad. They talked about how selfish and boring she was, but I refused to listen anymore out of respect for a certain friend who happens to be in love (obsessed) with L.C. Either way, I didn't realize Heidi and Spencer were that important or interesting to feature on a largly syndicated radio show.

On my way to work I noticed cars parked at Texas Stadium where there is usually no cars, especially with the Cowboys being in San Antonio for pre-season practice. That's right. It's time for American Idol auditions and people were lined up by the thousands. Maybe someone will come out and shine for the DFW area.

After passing the dome of "America's Team" I hit absolutely no traffic. Do you know how rare it is to see the roads of I35 so bare? It was quite nice.

I made my way to my office (below) and later discovered this may be my last Monday here as new teacher orientation is next Monday! That is crazy to think but this could possibly be my last week.

Let me explain

I realize there are some people that had no idea about this career change. I've always known I wanted to eventually teach art, but saw myself pursuing that after a long, and successful career in design. Over the years my desire for design has decreased as I feel my skill level has as well. Explaining to people that I didn't feel moved or motivated by this form of art was not always easy. I didn't want to come off or feel like a quitter, it's just some elements of my personality and dreams began to come out. Every since I was a young child I wanted to teach. It wasn't until the second half of my high school experience that I realized there would be more money to be made in design, so I majored in design. By the time I graduated, I lost my passion for design, and the design, market was over saturated. I attribute my lack of motivation from losing an excellent design professor, with whom I am still in close contact with. So for the past 5 years I made a career in design, specifically in the newspaper business. It's not exactly high design, but I've come to enjoy the atmosphere of a paper. My first two papers were crap shots. They had their good days, but for the most part I was unhappy. I was always good, if not one of the best in my teams of those papers, but it wasn't enough compensation when dealing with ad reps and difficult clients. Once I made my way to the DFW area I found a great paper. For the past 11 months I've been surrounded by a group of positive, fun, and eclectic people. I've been challenged, and surprisingly, tamed. My previous two papers made me into something I hated. I was uncontrollably impatient, stressed, frustrated and demanding. Although some may say I'm still those things, for the most part, my work personality has made a complete turnaround in comparison. There wasn't a day I wanted to quit..but there were some days I wish one or two people in particular would! But that's normal. After our each of our past two moves I mentioned teaching, but I never really pursued it. I was still giving the design field one last shake. Last month I decided I should try pursuing a career in teaching..knowing it would be a long, and possibly unproductive project that wouldn't see results for at least another year. Which was fine, that was in fact the plan at first. So I find a program online that will help get me certified. I graduated with a B.F.A. in design, no education courses, no certificate. In order to apply for this program I needed to re-take the math portion for a standardized test. I'm really bad at math, I know I wouldn't pass with 2 weeks to study...but I studied nonetheless. Convinced I failed, I found out a week later I passed. That was totally unexpected. So I apply for the program. I wasn't expected to receive results for week. I received acceptance two days later. I received acceptance in a program to work towards my certificate in art, not what I expected. I wanted art, but figured it would be more likely to get a job with a general EC-5 certificate. So there's no way I would find a job this late into the summer in art. I find a few, most are in not so safe areas so I hesitated in applying. Then last week my friend Shauna told me about a position in her district that just opened. She was at a convention with her principal and the fine arts director of her district out of town when she was informed of the last minute opening. Shauna mentioned me and was instructed to have me send my resume and apply online. I did that last Wednesday. I spoke with the fine arts director on Monday, received an interview with the principal Wednesday, and was offered the job today. Crazy. It took almost no effort at all which leads me to believe this is what I needed to do. This was the first and only district I've applied to. I wasn't even expecting to pass the math test more less have a job for the Fall! I can't really fight it I guess which is good because I no longer want to. I'm surrendering myself to the teaching Gods and cannot wait to meet my students, and make a long-term career out of this. Once I have taught art for a few years I plan on getting my Advanced Placement certification and utilizing that when an opportunity arises. Until then, wish me luck. This has been so easy and simple and I feel really blessed and encouraged to make the best of it and appreciate the opportunity to teach kids about art. This means a lot to me since I was always the kid good at art. I wasn't a musician, or athlete..I didn't feel like I had much to offer other than my drawings. Now I get to instill a working knowledge and passion into young artists and let them know the arts are just as important and special than anything else their peers may be doing.

I miss the internet!

During this move somehow we went from have super fast dsl to dial-up. And I'm not picking up any free wi-fi either! Yuck. It wasn't too much of a problem because I'm at the office everyday where I can check my email, Blogger, Myspace etc. Well, today the office is closed, and the week is closing in and the weekend will be long with out the internet. Of course I can use the dial-up, but it's so slow that is not even worth the time. So I'm in the clubhouse of our new property where theyhave wi-fi for their residents. This is what I have to look at while I'm here.




Not too bad, but it's not home (home is more comfortable, and doesn't close in 30 minutes!)

On the bright side, I have a new adventure to look forward to this year as I was just informed I was hired to be an art teacher at a great middle school in Grand Prairie! I'm so excited, but upset at the same time as my co-workers and boss are absolutely wonderful, but it will be a great change and I look forward to it!

Animals Gone Wild

I love random news, especially if they include animals! Here you can find a story about this poor little lamb not only born as a hermaphrodite, but with seven legs! Poor little guy is going to be put to sleep, but for humane reasons.



On the same page you can scroll down and read more funny animal news about a kleptomatic monkey, a brave Chihuahua, and larvaes growing in a man's head!

Et tu Obama?

While many democrats have issues with G.W's tendency to act first, and think later tactic when it comes to bombing other countries and such, the dem's Golden Boy Obama Barck states if Pakistan doesn't rid their country of Al Qaeda, we must. Is he serious? Pakistan is not only a Muslim country (and we're not exactly on their friend list), and have nuclear weapons. Clinton claims she would take the same measures. Is this the dems way of proving they aren't the soft spined party they are accused of being? Does he just want attention? Or is this a smart move? Should we invade part of Pakistan in order to find Osama and his henchmen? They have numerous training camps for Al Qaeda and as precautionary measure it may be the safest way to ensure Al Qaeda is weakened. When we attack, they do fall, but then grow increasingly stronger, and now we open the doors for a new, more powerful enemy in Pakistani Muslims turn terrorists. Pakistan is one of our closest allies, but can they be considered so by harboring these groups? Some say the dems just handed the presidential ticket back to the Republicans. Others say this was a smart move on Obama's platform. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is in talks with Pakistan, yeah that's right, talking, not bombing. What's wrong with this picture? Who knows? But we don't have the military manpower for another attack, or the morale. Forget global warming and being green. We're all going to die in war.

Read the Tribune's story here

Bad Drivers Beware

I'm calling you out! I;m also driving while I shot this soooo that doesn't make me much of a good driver either does it? I had been trying to get the interstate for awhile when I got bored.




I need to fix my mirror, dangit.

Beckham or not, Dallas and L.A. deliver!

Now I know I there was no way I wouldn't blog about last nights game today after yesterday's frustrated and annoyed blog over Beckhams inability to fulfill the end of his contract by not attending yet another game. It started in a panic. I didn't get off of work as early as I thought I would, so alas, I was running late. While stuck on I-35 I noticed many other stressed out fans awaiting a let up in traffic so they could also make it time, but I also saw a horrible, horrible billboard. There, in all it's false glory stood a "Come See Beckham" type billboard promoting our FC Dallas team? No. Promoting him. Perfect. This situation stressed me out even more. Now I HAD to be there, not to lament over his absence, but to rally for Dallas and show everyone how fun attending a professional soccer game can be, without the over paid, underworking, superstar. We eventually made it there, but oh so very late. We made it to our seats just in time to make the second half. I immediately looked towards the field, forget the score (which happend to be 4-1 in L.A.'s favor, yikes), I looked for that receding hairline I could recognize anywhere. Aah. I see number 10, Landon Donovan, the man I'm naming my first born son after. It's going to be a good game. And if fact it was. We saw 6, count them, 6 goals in the second half! I was able to catch one of the goals, below, but I was so busy jumping up and down and screaming that the image is quite blurry.



The goals, and seeing Landon were great, but a rather humorous situation stole the scene. In the middle of the second half, a ball made it's way to the stands, about 4 rows below us. A young women caught the ball, and quickly nestled it under her seat, behind her purse. No big deal right? Then I noticed people yelling "Run! Run! They're gonna get you!" and there I see the Event Staff wannabe security guys looking for the ball. So what do a bunch a rowdy fans do? They support their fellow seat dweller by booing, and telling the Event Staff "The ball is in that section!" "No, over there!" "Behind you!" "No, two rows up!" Of course these guys are at a loss, at first, but eventually find the ball, and the lady harboring it. They escort her out of the game while fans boo, throw trash and half-eaten brats at the mean ol' Event Staff guy. Then, in unison, the fans cheer for the brave young woman who almost got away with it.





What irritates me about the whole situation is: don't they budget for lost balls? I realize these balls average about $120 per ball, they are similar if not identical to the balls my husband's team uses. I understand they are not cheap. But they are balls! Isn't that one if the little incentives for attending a game? Catching a home run ball? A possible pass from an excited football player who just scored to his adoring fans? What's the difference. They're top of the line balls, they cost a lot of money, we're all impressed, but please. My tickets cost $120 alone..I think they can afford it. Maybe they should fine the player who kicked it out, no?

Overall, the fans were spectacular. The stands were packed and it didn't seem that anyone was less than excited to be there, which made me proud of to be a Dallas fan.



Of course there was also Galaxy fans, there always will be considering it is probably the most recognized professional soccer team in the U.S. and I would be lying if I said I didn't ask if I could wear my Landon Donovan shirt that fits like a rather long night gown myself. (The answer was no, in case you were wondering!)

There was this one fan who opted to not wear a funny shirt with a message, but with a rather interesting sign.


On the other side it said: "David, welcome to America, where people like you get paid to do nothing!" Funny guy.

Back to the game, it was a fast action, super exciting game that ended 5 - 6 in Galaxy's favor.



But that's okay, it was the most exciting game I've ever seen. It's a rare instance to witness so many goals, and so many fans at a U.S, soccer game outside of the World Cup. It blew any national game or MLS Cup game I have ever seen and I can't wait to see more of FC Dallas. They gave their fans a great showing last night, if anyone was disappointed they should be banned from Pizza Hut Park forever. At the end of the game they offered to take down your name and give a a discount on the next game against Galaxy. I opted to not make that request. It would have been great to see such a recognized player as D.B., but my money was well spent with out him there. Many compliments to the FC Dallas and L.A. Galaxy players for a wonderful experience.