Did I mention I got elected President of my Toastmasters club? Nifty.

Man, am I pooped!

The team builder on Friday turned out to be quite pleasant. Much lower key than initially implied. And one of my co-workers is dating a professional cake maker, so we had home-made cheesecake. Oooohh.

Girls, girls, and more girls! Tameka, Faith, and Jen came in from their various locations and spent the weekend in my itty-bitty apartment. (Two bathrooms, thankfully.) After a steak dinner, we went dancing at Polly Esther's on Friday—they've got a light-up floor a la Saturday Night Fever. Tee hee. We sat out back and listened to the karaoke for a while, too. There is some real talent in Austin; I think those folks are looking more to get discovered than anything else. We didn't sing, but we really enjoyed a dynamic trio of girls singing "Baby Got Back." Plastic parts are made for toys, indeed.

Then on Saturday, we went to Petticoat Fair and got my girls a bunch of well fitting bras. They were suprised to find out what sizes they properly are, but boy, did they look hot afterwards. We also bought shoes and spa supplies. Then we went to my chef friend Dave's house for fresh, home-made margaritas, guacamole, fajitas, spanish rice, queso, and tres leches cake. Yow. Rolled home around 4 am.

On Sunday we ate through one green leaf-- er, wrong story. Instead, we continued the over indulgence with a barbecue picnic under the bat bridge. Beloved Jonathan also baked us fresh bread, and we went to Central Market for fresh fruits, cheese, and chocolate.

Then on Monday, I made a few treks to the airport, and we spent some enjoyable time in between them by visiting a nature and science center over at Zilker Park. We also stood on a pedestrian bridge over the Town Lake part of the Colorado and watched the canoers go by.

Then I fell fast asleep.

Verdict: Neither imperative nor objectionable.

On Friday, we're having a "team builder" at work. Usually, these are an excuse to have a party. But this one, under my new director, is serious. We are nearly required to participate, and we're being assigned to teams with people we don't work with on a regular basis. So I'm looking over the roster for the three-legged race, and I find myself wondering, "Now who is Kirk W., and is he someone I want to be tied to?"

I'm sucking on a piece of coconut candy from Malaysia. It's sweet, hard, and, um, coconutty. I feel so cosmopolitan.

Sorry about all the JavaScript errors. Blogvoices seems to be off-line. There's no ETA, since the whole site is off-line. If this is still broken tomorrow, I'll comment it out of my template.

Oh, and the girls are arriving in two days! My three best friends are coming down for the weekend for a wild bachelorette party. Eat your heart out, boys. Woo hoo.

Some wit decided to post on my poll comments section that this site has "NOTHING" to do with phlebotomy. I would like to offer the following reply:

Read the definition in the top left. My online persona is arachnoid, I'm sharing my thoughts and insights here, phlebotomy is the drawing of blood. It's a pun. You're stoopid.

Thank you.

I find this week's Bob The Angry Flower intensely satisfying.

Can we call you Dadoo?

o/^~ I'm in a Friday state of mind, I tell you whut. I'm not bored so much as distracted. I bought a pair of sunglasses last night ($5, Wal-Mart), and I'm just itching to go out and use them. Well, lookee that, it's lunch time. B-)

Bananas are fickle. They go from crunchy green to mushy brown in a minute and a half.

Anyway, this is cool: I got a crack in my windshield (no, that's not cool), and my insurance company contacted a glass repair place that will come fix or replace your windshield on site! They gave me a four hour time span for the day after I called, and then came out here in a van and replaced the glass. How cool.

Also, if the damage had been repairable instead of needing a replacement, my insurance company (Progressive) would have covered all expenses.

Insurance rep: Can the damage be covered up by a dollar bill?

Me: No.

Insurance rep: Would you like blue or green tint?

So I was responsible for a $500 deductible, but it even ended up costing less than half that. ^_^

Note to self: Customer satisfaction is all about managing expectations, especially when it comes to money.

From early on, I've been told I have poor aural retention—I don't remember what I hear—so of course I believe it. (Why can I retain that?) Never mind that I can recite movies and even conversations, that people constantly get the Princess Bride wrong; I obviously don't pay attention because the teacher would definitely have told me that detail.

So I take notes. Careful notes. Copious notes. I'm the only one in staff meetings taking notes. In college, I was a professional note taker.

But here I am, seven years old again, with proof in my notes that a vital piece of information most certainly was not conveyed, but I obviously didn't pay attention because the manager would definitely have told us that detail.

Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. And nobody will listen to you when you say, "Here. See? It isn't in my notes. I didn't know. I had no way of knowing. And I'm sorry that you looked bad in front of your manager when I got tripped up by not knowing, but IT ISN'T IN MY NOTES." Not in third grade; not now.

And I got a crack in my windshield that I'm sure wasn't there when I left the car this morning. Fucking Texas.