Chirp!

A couple of months ago, as I was leaving for work in the morning, I saw a small flock of Monk Parakeets in our front yard. The bright green birds caught my eye, and I tried to snap a couple of pictures, but they were fairly skittish and flew away when I approached.

I'd heard that the Cape had a flock of wild Parakeets (they're not native to the US, but there are several flocks in various parts Florida), but I'd never seen them. There supposedly was a nest somewhere by the Cape Coral Yacht Club Beach, which isn't far from our house.

We spotted them a few more times near our condo-- usually on the power lines, but never saw more than two of them at a time.

Today, after Cory and I went to the Farmer's Market, we stopped by the beach on our way back, and could hear the Monk Parakeets squaking from about 100 feet away. This time, I got a decent picture:

Cute, huh? They've built nests in about a half-dozen trees around the beach... and while they're not nearly as social, they're much less annoying than the stupid gulls that keep trying to steal your lunch at the beach.

Jolly Holidays!

I hope everyone had a merry Christmahaunnakwaanzakaa!

Cory and I had a nice, relaxing, stress-free Christmas with Zoe... we went to a movie (The Day the Earth Stood Still. Don't bother.), ate Chinese food (an O'Dizzle tradition), opened presents (Thanks for all the good stuff!), talked to family on the phone, and that pretty much covers it. Nice and uneventful. We both worked the next day, so we went to bed early.

On Friday after work, we headed to Orlando. Cory had a pair of Universal Studios passes that had to be used by the end of the year, so we spent my birthday at Universal and Islands of Adventure.

I had a very child-like birthday, really. We went to IKEA in the morning, and had breakfast while we were there. I had a gigantic slice of "Chocolate Overload" cake for breakfast. After I got all hopped-up on sugar and chocolate, we spent the day at the amusement park.

We've been to Universal a few other times, but never during peak season. Once was on a weekday in January, the other time was a weekend in July when it was about 95 degrees out. This time, the park was packed. Lines for most of the rides (or the good ones, at least) were in the 90-minute range.

So we found other ways to have fun...

We'd been in the park for about fifteen minutes and were trying to figure out when the next showing of the "Terminator" attraction was going to be. All of a sudden, the Simpsons rolled up in a big, yellow, cartoony RV. It took some arm-twisting to get Cory to get in a picture with them, but I think he secretly wanted to do it. It doesn't look like anyone's forcing him to smile. Plus, Homer gave him the thumbs-up.

I could not, however, get Cory to pose with the Cat in the Hat.
I tried.
When I walked up to the Cat in the Hat, he gently grabbed my face and planted a smooch on me. The person in the cat suit even made a little kissing sound when he did it. I got another kiss when Cory took the picture.

We took plenty of other photos with our cell phone cameras, but those are my two favorites.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day. The weather was beatiful, we managed to get onto a few rides, and best of all, we didn't have to pay park admission, so that made it even better (Thanks, Fox-4!).

For the Dogs

One of the weird things about living in Florida is that the Farmer's market runs from October until May. So, while yesterday was the last Farmer's market of the year in my hometown, it was also the first one of the season here.

My plan was to get there around 9:00 in the morning while there was some good stuff still there. But for some reason, I actually managed to sleep in (which I usually can't do on the weekends). I didn't get there until well after 11:00 and was a little bummed. I was hoping to get there before everyone bought all the good veggies.

However, my disappointment quickly turned to excitement, as I realized that the doggie costume contest was about to begin!

Since Cory was off at a work event, it was a little bit sad that I had to experience all the crazy cuteness by myself- so I took pictures to share with him, and now with you. The photos aren't great (I took them with my cell phone), and there were some dogs much cuter than these-- but these were the best photos:

The little guy on the left is a fisherman. His little hat had some lures attached to it, and I'm sure he probably had some bait stuffed in his little vest somewhere.







The tiny little dog on the right was a dinosaur. He was there with two other little guys dressed as cops, with uniforms that said "Dog Park Security."







These were some of yesterday's winners-- the Princess and the Pirate were hilarious-- I particularly loved the blonde wig on the princess. It stayed on the entire morning, which makes me wonder how they attached it to her.



The little weiner-dog on the right was wearing a little varsity jacket. He was there with two other dachshunds, who were dressed as cheerleaders. They won "best group costume."





And speaking of dachshunds, you can't have a doggie costume contest without a weinermobile, right? He won an award, too.







Another winner for group costume-- Tinkerbell and Captain Hook. Ol' Hook was a little camera-shy, but Tinkerbell spent the entire morning posing for the cameras. These were by far the tiniest dogs there.





The largest dog there, no contest, was this big fuzzy Great Pyreneese. Maybe not the fanciest costume, but definitely the most creative. I don't think I'd want to bite into an Oreo with that much fur, though!

Feeling like a "Jerk"

You know that scene in "The Jerk?" The one where Steve Martin is running around, flapping the phone directory over his head, shouting "The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"

Well, I kind of felt like Navin R. Johnson today.

I got the mail, and there was something bulky in the bundle. It was pouring out (thanks to Hurricane Ike), so I had to round the corner of the building before I was sheltered from the rain and could take a peek.

And there it was. In all its full-color, 374-page glory.

The new IKEA catalogs are here! The new IKEA catalogs are here!

So many things to write about...

...so little time.

I've been pretty busy at work lately, with the Grand Opening late last month, the trip to Colorado a week ago, and budget time rolling around. It feels like all the time I spend away from the office, I'm either napping or trying to catch up on the TiVo. And yet, I never get enough sleep... and the TiVo is still jam-packed.

I have a few quick thoughts, though.

First, I've taken upon myself to try to avoid Wal-Mart until after the presidential election. It's not going to be easy, I can assure you. I can readily steer clear of the Supercenter (and very happily do so), but avoiding the "neighborhood market" just down the street will be tough. It's open 24 hours. And the prices there are much lower than any of the other nearby grocery stores. But I really don't like the fact that they told their employees how to vote. Three months is a long time.... we'll see how long I last before I cave in to their "falling prices."

Second, my love affair with Brett Favre is officially over. Of course, he never knew it existed. This last month has made me realize that his ego is just as big... if not bigger... than the rest of the players in the NFL. Oh-- he's still adorable. But he's a bit of a weenie. I guess it's time for me to retire the Brett Favre jersey.

Third, since I've had numerous people mention it to me, I have to make an "only in Florida" post. I hesitated to post it because it was all over CNN for the last couple of days, but what the hell. Did you hear about the guy who called 911 about a Subway emergency? No-- not a terrorist atttack on an underground train. A Subway restaurant emergency. Apparently, his sub didn't have enough sauce. Even better... when police didn't arrive after his first call, he called again to complain that they were taking too long.

Somehow, this state still finds ways to surprise me.

My Hero

I got back into town late Thursday night-- and still managed to get to work on time on Friday. After work, Cory and I went to grab a bite to eat during his dinner break.

On the way back, we were zipping about 55 mph down Pine Island road, a divided highway with turning lanes on either side. I saw something large in the right turn lane, swerved to avoid it... and realized it was a turtle, attempting to cross six lanes of traffic.

I yelped something like "We have to rescue it!" So we pulled into the parking lot of the neighboring strip mall, leaped out of the car, and rushed to the road. The turtle was hauling ass-- or at least, she was moving pretty quickly for a turtle. She was in the middle of four lanes of rapidly moving traffic.

The poor thing would take two or three steps, hear another car coming, and hide inside her shell. Once the cars had passed, she'd poke her head out, shuffle a few more steps, then hide again when another car was coming. And it's a busy road, so her progress wasn't particularly quick.

She was a good-sized turtle, too-- more than a foot long, so thankfully she was fairly noticeable. As traffic zipped by, we saw one car barely miss her-- her shell actually rocked a little when the car blew past. A few others braked or changed lanes when they saw her. When traffic finally cleared, we ran up and Cory grabbed her, ran across the median, across two more lanes of traffic, and set her down on the grass on the other side.

It was probably a good minute before she poked her head out of the shell, and she stared at us for a while, probably trying to decide if we were a threat or not. Cory snapped a quick picture of her, and I stood and wished I'd shot video of the rescue on my cell phone. After another 30 seconds or so of her staring at us, she started wading through the tall grass, quickly scooting away from us. Within about 10 seconds, she'd worked her way into some tall grass and we could barely see her at all.

I looked it up later and discovered that she was a Florida Red-Bellied Turtle. I told Cory that there's probably a society of turtles now who worship him as a god. I'm sure that they sing folk songs about him in turtle town.

Rocky Mountain High

The conference has been keeping me pretty busy, but I thought I could take a minute or two to post some photos from our resort. The first photo on the left is the view from the hotel room patio (where I'm currently sitting as I type this). That's Cheyenne Mountain-- The same mountain that holds NORAD's operations/command center. The entrance is on the other side of the mountain.

You also can't see it on either picture, but you can also see the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun from our resort. At night it looks like a tiny Christmas tree lit up about halfway up the mountain.
By the way, this second photo is the view from the aptly titled "mountain view" dining room.
Not too shabby, huh?

On The Road Again

It's been a long time since I've done any work-related travel. As a speech/debate coach, I used to travel nearly every weekend during the school year (mostly 5-6 hour drives), and flew a few times a year, either to tournaments or professional conferences. But once I started working in sports, those opportunities dwindled. Sure, I was driving around all the time to cover games, and occasionally, I'd have a long drive to a Super Bowl or to a college bowl game. But flying? TV stations are much too cheap to fly people anywhere. If you can't drive there in less than 16 hours, you're not going. They'll hire a freelancer to do it for you.

This afternoon, I leave for a conference in Colorado Springs. I'm kind of excited, because I've never been there before, but I'm also kind of anxious about it. I'll be spending a lot of time with some of my co-workers. They're people I like, but with whom I've never spent time with outside of work. I'm sure it'll be fine-- but I'll be spending about 10 hours in cars, airports, and airplanes with them today-- and that's a lot of facetime.

On the up-side, the resort where we're staying looks beautiful. Check it out here. Pretty fancy-schmancy, huh?

I just realized that I left my wireless card in my office-- so I don't know if I'll have much web access while I'm there (Do I want to pay outrageous resort fees just to be able to email?). Crap. I was about to promise pictures and random stories-- but now I'm not so sure. We'll see.

Swamp Creature

So, we went to Corkscrew Swamp on Sunday and made the long trek to see the Ghost Orchid. I have to say, it was a little disappointing. There was only one bloom (three buds) and it's so far away, you can't see it with the naked eye. I'm sure if we'd gotten to see it when it was in full bloom, it would have been more impressive.

The best I could do was take this uber-lame picture through the spotting scope. Pathetic, I know.

Still, it was pretty cool to see something so rare, kind of like the first time I saw the Giant Pandas when they were on loan to the Toledo Zoo. Except Pandas are much bigger. And cuter. And easier to see from a distance of 100 feet.
Corkscrew Swamp is one of the most popular birding spots in Florida-- but we only saw a handful of birds there on Sunday. We saw one alligator, which made Cory happy (though we saw two, if you count the dead one on the side of the highway that was being devoured by about 20 vultures. Come to think of it, that's where we saw the most birds of the day, too.

Really, the most interesting thing we saw at Corkscrew swamp was another form of flora, these beautiful wild hibiscus that were growing there.

Oh well. Hopefully, the orchid will bloom again next year-- and maybe we'll get a better look.

Rain, Rain... Go Away

For the last two weeks, a rare Ghost Orchid has been in bloom at a nature preserve near here. It's about an hour drive from our house. We didn't make it to see the orchid last year, and it's starting to look like we might not get to see it this year, either.

My back is getting much better-- but seeing the orchid requires a two-mile hike. And let's face it... walking has never really been my strong suit. Last weekend, my back was still way too sore to try to handle a hike like that. "Next weekend," we kept saying. The orchid is expected to bloom for about 21 days total.

This weekend, my back feels pretty good. So, Cory and I said we'd go today. See, yesterday, one of his co-workers had a party and he wanted to drop by. Of course, it was one of those middle-of-the-day parties that just kind of messes with your whole schedule for the day.

As it turns out, I ended up doing a TV interview for work. And Cory ended up going to the party by himself. At 6:00 pm. So, we'd scheduled our entire day around an event that we didn't even both go to-- and we could have gone down to see the orchid that morning after all. Assuming we'd woken up early enough.

See, one thing we learned quickly about living here. If you want to do anything outdoors in the summer, you'd better plan to be over and done with it by about 3:15 in the afternoon, because that's when the thunderstorms start rolling in. It can be sunny and beautiful one minute, and rain cats and dogs the next. By the same token, it can be pouring at our house, but dry as a bone at the grocery store half a mile away. It's a crapshoot. But usually, it's raining wherever you want to be.

SO today, we got up early. It was overcast out-- but not miserable. By the time we got ready, found our binoculars and bugspray, and were out the door, it was about 10:30. Plenty of time.

Except it was sprinkling. And as we drove, the rain fell harder, and harder, and harder. We forged on, knowing that rain in our neck of the woods doesn't mean that there'd be a cloud in the sky at Corkscrew Swamp. But as we got closer, the clouds were thick and angry looking, and a steady rain continued to fall.

So, we turned around and went home.

As it turns out, had we waited until the afternoon, we'd have been fine. By about 2:30, the skies were still a dull gray, but no rain. Doesn't it just figure?

Hello?

Is there anybody out there? Probably not. I don't blame you. It's been more than a month since my last post. I blame a number of things.

1) Sciatica. About a month ago, I seriously messed up my back and tweaked my sciatic nerve. It hurt to sit upright. Thus, it hurt to sit at the computer.
2) Our computer. Slow, slow, slow. It literally took ten minutes to boot up. And the last thing I want to do after getting home from work is sit here for ten minutes just looking at the desktop.
3) My job. Part of the founding principle of this blog was that I always had a reason to bitch about something. And for the most part, I don't have much to bitch about anymore. Oh, sure... I can always find something to complain about. But for the most part, my job is pretty boring. A good kind of boring.

So, why blog now? Well, for starters, My back feels much better. I've started going to a chiropractor (big bucks... but I'd rather spend the money trying this than have some money-hungry orthopedic surgeon tell me I have to go under the knife). Yeah, it still hurts. But I've stopped carrying a pillow into the movie theater with me, which is nice.

As for the computer, we've made some improvements on that front, as well. About two weeks ago, our old computer crashed. It was trying to install updates when the power went out. And windows ceased to work. After borrowing a windows boot disk from work-- and several hours with my own personal I.T. staff (my dad), the computer worked again. But we considered it a wake-up call and started computer shopping. Two weeks later, we have a quad-core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and (if you count our external hard drive), more than a terabyte of memory. I could damn near run a TV station off of this thing. Oh, and it boots up in about ten seconds. Oh, and we're now using Firefox for our internet browser. Bye-bye pop-ups!

Oh... and I have plenty to bitch about lately. After shelling out a hefty payment to my chiropractor... and buying our snazzy new computer... our air conditioner decided to crap out. Okay... it's not as bad as it sounds. We still have air conditioning (good, since it's been in the mid-90s every day), but the air handler in the attic is pumping out so much condensation that it fills the drain pan every other day. So, every other day, I have to climb up into our attic (did I mention my back?) with a freakin' turkey baster and empty the drain pan. Last night, I emptied 600 ounces of water. And it was still about half an inch deep.

The first estimate? $1950 for a new air handler. Oh, and our condenser is also 21 years old... so we'll have to get a new one of those eventually, too. And that's another $1600. Good times.

So I may not have reason to regularly bitch about my job (though today I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown), I've got plenty to whine about. Stay tuned!

Sciatica Sucks

Thats about all I have to say, really. Mostly because it kinda hurts to sit at the computer.

Oh.... Okay. I guess I have one more thing to say.

GO WINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Buggin'

It seems way too early for the "love bugs" to be out... but last week, I saw one, and today, I saw my first small swarm of the amourous little buggers.

If you've never had the joy of experiencing "love bugs," (and if you've never lived in the Southeastern US, you probably haven't), let me explain.

First of all, they're completely harmless. No, they're not the result of some bizarre scientific experiement gone bad, though that rumor runs rampant through the Sunshine State.

A "love bug" is a flying insect, bigger than a mosquito, but smaller than a housefly. And in the spring, they mate-- which, for most insects, is none of my business. "Love bugs" make it your business.

See, once they mate, they're stuck together. Not metaphorically, like "I got knocked up, so I guess I'm stuck with this loser." Literally stuck at their little buggy genitals.

Now, once again, none of my business, right? Wrong. Imagine, if you will, attempting to walk around and go about your daily business while stuck to your partner at the groin. Not a pretty picture, right? Kind of like a perverted three-legged race? You'd be bumping into things, tripping over one another, stumbling around like a drunken ox. Now, imagine trying to fly whilst stuck together in a similar fashion.

That's the problem with the "love bug." They fly. And because of their unusual situation, they don't fly particularly well. They seem to hover at right about car level. And their bug juices can strip the paint right off of your bumper. The picture to the right is not an exaggeration.

Even worse, by mid-May, the air is thick with aerial orgies of the little buggers, in clumsy flight. They get stuck in your hair, stuck to your clothes, and stuck in your food if you eat outside.

So, forgive my love-bug complaints. I don't mind their lewd and lascivious behavior-- really. I'd just prefer that they don't do it on my car, or in my hair, or on my hot dog. That's not too much to ask, right?

Blogger's Block

It's funny-- during the week, I always think of things to blog about: Our first anniversary, Darren McCarty's return to the Red Wings, the absolute pain-in-the-arse that writing an annual report has become, seeing "Run, Fat Boy, Run," bad drivers, my trip to the world's largest trailer park... the list goes on and on.

Then, I have a little free time-- and I've lost my inspiration.

I did take a trip to the World's largest trailer park last week... it's actually just a mile from where I work. And while there are some "nice" manufactured homes in our area-- you won't find any of the nice ones there.

And here's what makes it particularly lovely. Because it's not close to any schools-- 1 in 10 residents of this happy little hamlet is a sex offender (I've actually heard that it's more than that... but I'm being generous).

Anyway, I had to take a trip out there for work this week. And my boss acted as if I was going into a war zone. "If you're not back in half an hour, you'd better call me."

Here's the funny thing. Nobody there was going to mess with me. For one thing... I only saw two cars crappier than mine... and neither of them were up on blocks.

Flying Fish, Part II

(By the way, I'm not sure what's wrong with my blog at the moment. I'm assuming it looks as peculiar to you as it does to me. Sigh.)

So, we get to Matlacha, and the fish-flinging has already begun. The kids competition was underway, which was pretty funny. A lot of really little kids picking up dead fish and trying to chuck them... then wiping their hands on the emcee's pants.

Once the adult competition began, I kept trying to convince Cory to give it a whirl. After all, it's just five bucks a pop. It goes to a good cause. And I get to laugh at him.

He won't do it. At first, it's because he says he doesn't know the right technique. We got a good kick out of watching this guy and his friend debate whether to throw the mullet overhand or underhand (photo courtesy of the News-Press). One guy even threw his discus-style.

Later, when push came to shove, Cory admitted that he doesn't want to get embarrassed. It's not the fish-flinging that he's worried about. It's that he's a big dude-- and he feels that people would have expectations when they saw a 6'5" guy walk up there. If he wasn't good at mullet-tossing, the crowd would be dissappointed-- and he'd be embarrassed.

So, we settle for drinking beer and watching instead. It was a hot, sunny day, and we'd brought some folding lawn chairs with us. We found a spot under a tent (one of those tall tents like they have at art fairs-- you know-- with the pointy roof and no sides), ended up sitting next to some people from Clarkston and Troy, Michigan (very close to where I grew up), and watched the fish-flinging commence.


By the way, the Matlacha Mariners aren't wasteful. I guess a mullet isn't a one-toss fish. The same several fish would get tossed over and over again, so on occasion, a fish would hit the ground and spatter from one too many uses. Sometimes, you could actually see fish guts spray while the mullet was in midair. Gross, huh? Once a fish gets "retired" from circulation, the Mariners give it to crabbers, who use it as bait in their traps.

Gutty fish made for good entertainment. One of the most amusing parts of the mullet toss was watching people dodge those flying fish. See, not everyone there had the ability to throw fish with accuracy, and a lot of out-of-bounds tosses went into the crowd. We sat and laughed, relatively secure in the knowledge that we were under a tent, with more tents in front of and behind ours. A fish could hit the roof of the tent, but the odds of one sliding into the gap between the tents, hitting the ground, and bouncing five feet into one of our laps was pretty slim.

But lets face it-- I'm the type of girl that likes to defy the odds.

So, we'd been there for a couple hours-- enjoyed a few beers, had a few laughs, and were trying to decide when to leave. We agreed to stay until the next "intermission" and then go off to our next adventure. Shortly after we make the decision, I see a fish flying towards us, and even say, "Wow. That one's coming straight at us." But the loft of the throw goes over the tent, and out of our view. We hear a plop. And then the fish slips between the tent roofs, hits the ground, and bounces 4 1/2 feet in my direction until it slaps against my shin.

Yuck.

Cory, not paying attention, looks down, sees a gutty dead fish at my feet, and thinks I dodged a bullet. I, on the other hand, know better. I can feel cold fish blood trickling down my leg. I looked down, and my shin was red and streaked with silver scales. The spatter got on my pants and even on my shirt.

A very nice man brought me some napkins to wipe off the fish guts, and I did the rest I could, but I stunk for the rest of the day. I had some "moist towelettes" in my purse courtesy of a chicken-wing dinner a few nights earlier, and that helped,too, but even after we got home and I took a shower, I could still smell it.

So I guess it's a good thing that Cory didn't want to be embarrassed. I took care of that for him.

That said, I'll go back next year. And knowing my luck, I'll probably get hit by a stray fish again.

Notes from a crappy blogger

Wow. I've been a really crappy blogger lately. Sorry about that. This 8-4:30 schedule is quite seriously kicking my a$$. I don't know how you "normal" people do it. I get home from work, eat dinner with Cory before he has to get back to work for the night shift, and all I want to do after that is take a nap.

Work, so far, has been fun. Most of my coworkers are pretty cool-- I go out to lunch with a group of them at least twice a week. It's fun to be part of a "group" for once. Working in sports always made me a bit of a loner. Sports departments are often crammed into a little office, far away from the rest of the newsroom. I actually know people who worked on a different floor than the rest of the news department. When everyone else was going to dinner together or ordering pizza in the newsroom, that's when I always had to go rushing out to shoot a game.

One of these days, I'll take a picture of my office. It's larger (and much nicer) than the one I had when I was teaching... though back then, I had a window. I guess technically, I have a window now, too... but it faces another office, so I'm not sure it counts. Oh well.

So, what was my point here? I'm not sure. I think I originally planned to write about what I've been doing at work, but I don't think you'd find the annual report to be very interesting.

You want interesting? How about this... I promise, the next time I log on, I'll write about our adventure at the "mullet toss." How's that for a tease???

Showing my Age

It started quietly enough. I couldn't tell one boy-band from another. MTV started to suck. Then I had co-workers who had never heard the term "latchkey kid." Let's face it. I'm old.

Saturday, the final nail dropped. Wait... that's the wrong metaphor. The shoe dropped. whatever.

I found a gray hair. (Or is it a grey hair? What's the difference, anyway?)

In the past, I've thought I've found gray hairs, but after plucking them out and holding them up to the light, I've realized that they were just blonder than others.

This one was gray. It was coarse, much thicker than my blond hair, and about an inch and a half long, which means it probably sprouted right around the time I lost my job. And if it truly is stress-induced, I'm guessing it probably has friends that I haven't found yet.

My frustration must have been palpable. I got carded twice this weekend. And to that clueless bouncer and way-too-nice waitress, Thank You. At this point, I'll take what I can get.

T-Minus Four Days

Is it wrong that I'm most looking forward to dressing like a girl?

I'm sure that the appeal of wearing a skirt and heels at 8am will wear off pretty quickly-- but for now, I'm kind of excited about it. In fact, I think I'm going to check the weather forecast for Monday right now... so that I can plan an outfit.

I'm a little too excited about this, aren't I?

It's official!

As of Monday, I will once again be gainfully employed.

Of course, I'm not going to tell you exactly where... Mainly because I try to keep this blog "under the radar." I will tell you that I'll be working for one of our area's most well-known Non-Profit Organizations. I'll also reveal that I've got a pretty sweet job title: "Director of Public Relations and Marketing."

I'm pretty excited. My new boss was PR Director before she got promoted, so I know she'll be a great resource while I get my feet wet. And hell, I've already read "Public Relations for Dummies," so I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Pour myself a cup of ambition

In the next week, my life is really going to change. For the first time since college, I'm about to become a 9-to-5er.

To be honest, I'm not sure I can do it.

Here's the thing. For the last nine years, I've worked nights-- usually a 2:30 to 11:30 shift. Before that, I worked mostly nights as a college teacher for seven years, and though I'd have to teach the occasional 7:30 a.m. class, those were usually only two days a week. I did everything in my power to only teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays-- and to only teach late morning, afternoon, or evening classes.

Sure, I had to get up early to drive the kids to speech tournaments on the weekends, but I was in my 20s, and being up for 24 hours straight really wasn't that difficult at the time. Plus, I had my summers off to sleep until noon every day if I wanted to.

So really, for the better part of the last decade and a half, I've usually waken up around 11 am, gone in to work around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, got off work around midnight.

When I tell people that, they act as if I'm either crazy-- or lazy. Usually the latter. It doesn't matter when I tell them that I work longer hours than they do. Or that I did more physical labor than they did. They hear "get up at 11:00 am" and tune the rest out. And yet, I don't see any of them getting up three hours before they have to be at work.

Then, typically, they'd have the nerve to tell me that I needed to go to bed earlier. Tell me this, honestly. Could you go to bed right after getting off of work? Of course not. You need to spend time with your family, watch tv, read, or do whatever it is you do to unwind after a long day.

Well... now I'm going to have to become a "normal" person. I'm going to be at work at 8:00 a.m. HOnestly, I'm not quite sure how this is going to work. Since Cory works nights, I'll be leaving for work hours before he gets up. He doesn't get home from work until close to 11:00 at night-- so I'll probably be going to bed just as he gets home. Either that, or I'll have to take a two hour nap after work if I want to spend any time with him during the week.

Oh... and that whole waking-up-before-the-sun thing won't be easy, either. Honestly, I don't know how you people do it.

The trade-off, of course, is getting to take weekends off. The only good part about being unemployed for the last month and a half is that, for the first time in about 15 years, I've actually enjoyed weekends. No traveling. No working. It's been pretty nice. And now that I'm going to have a "normal" job, I'll get to have "normal" weekends again.

I guess I can live with that.