Pet Peeves, Part 2

2. When the culture of the town you live in condones people standing arbitrarily in the middle of the sidewalk such that you can't pass on either side without jumping in the road. Despite the relative emptiness of the sidewalk in question, said persons do not move over to let you pass, but stare lazily in your direction as you attempt to run around them without getting run over.

Pet Peeves, Part 1

1. When someone asks you a question, and you tell them you need to look up the answer, and (a) they continue to badger you as if you'd already given an answer and they disagree or (b) proceed to make up an answer and continue without you.

The Trouble With Jersey Drivers...

You'd think mom would give gas and brake 101 before standing in front of the moving vehicle...

Girl Kills Mom During Driving Lesson

No More Ranting

Caught Light Rail 7:59 am at Bergenline. Stalled train at 2nd street. Wait time: 10 minutes.

My New Favorite Book

Human beings are remarkable -- at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong?

So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone's older brother, and someone's older sister -- they become our heroes, too. We invent what we love, and what we fear. There is always a brave, lost brother -- and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.

--The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving

Cabo Pictures!

July 28-31 I was in the lovely Cabo with Trevor, MJ, Travis, Rico, Roger and Mel for TP BBE 2006, the Cabo San Lucas edition. Pics are here!

Empire Trials Videos!

Not exactly Olympic material, but this was the first time I've seen myself on video, and it's not scary enough to make me quit for good. :)

Uneven Bars:



Watch my beam routine here

Watch my first vault here

Ketchup

Just some points of interest:

1. In the spirit of maintaining my angry rant on NYC area transit, I just want to add that NJ transit is unimaginably worse (and no, not only because it's in Jersey). The light rail only works 30% of the time. When the light rail train is working, the elevator and/or power at my station most likely is not, prompting a shuttle bus or a fun walk down 35 flights of stairs, after the 11 block walk to get there. When it gets too hot out, the cables overheat and the trains don't run. In this case, I can take the Path train to Hoboken and catch a bus, which may or may not have A/C and takes about 40 minutes.

2. No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks... that's right folks, I have officially completed all of my credits towards my Masters degree with a very nerdy 4.0. Only one lousy $2500 prerequisite online course and $300 in graduation fees and a diploma I will have.

3. I just got back from Cabo San Lucas, and it was fabuloso. Pics soon, I swear.