the getty

last saturday, i went on a little outing with some of my "mid-single" friends to the j. paul getty museum in l.a.

if you ever get a chance to go, DO IT! it was amazing! and the best part is, it's free! (except parking) it reminded me of some of the museums i was able to go to in france. maybe it's because a lot of the paintings and furniture were french... anyway, i need to go back and spend some more time there, since our time was limited. here are a few pics for your viewing pleasure. (i wasn't allowed to use a flash indoors, so some of them are a little blurry.)

kathy jo and me, at the getty museum

a beautiful haze over the city and ocean (actually not too bad for l.a.)

the central garden

kathy jo and natalie, on the bridge

a view from the stairs

i'm not sure exactly what this was, but i thought it was cool.

monet, the bridge over the water lily pond

another monet, cathedral at rouen

these last two are at 3rd street promenade, where we had lunch and watched the street performers. quite the afternoon outing...

post #100

yeah! i've reached 100 posts on this blog. and to celebrate, i wikied myself. (aka looked my name up on wikipedia, much more interesting results than google.) this is what it gave me...

Kera or KERA may refer to:-Kera language, a language spoken in Southwest Chad and North Cameroon
-kera, a word for monkey in the Malay language
-kera, a cloth belt which is used to tie the gho, the national dress for men in Bhutan-Kera railway station in Espoo, Finland-Kera (Bondokuy, Burkina Faso), a village in the Bondokuy department of Burkina Faso-Kera (Yaba, Burkina Faso), a village in the Yaba department of Burkina Faso-KERA (FM), a radio station (90.1 FM) licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States-KERA-TV, a television station (channel 13 analog/14 digital) licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States-Kentucky Education Reform Act

who knew? you should try it sometime.

loves and hates

for some reason i was thinking about this today. simple little things that bother me, when i should buck up and get over it. anyway, since it's what i was thinking about, you get to read about it...

it bugs me when i'm already going over the speed limit and someone comes up behind me a follows way too close for comfort. and when they get the chance to pass (the freeway has 3 lanes on my side) they don't. they just stick right behind me, like i'm going to move over for them. warning! i brake for tailgaters.

smokers. i don't have anything against the actual person, but more the act of smoking. if you do smoke, please be a bit more considerate and don't light up right in front of me! i have enough allergy and sinus problems with dust and pollution in the air, i don't need to add cigarette smoke to the mix.

ok, that's really all i've got at the moment. you can tell what my day has consisted of. although here's something i love, just to end on a positive note.

i love driving with my window open on my way home from work, because the air smells like strawberries and celery. not a combo i would've ever thought of, but i like it. i've discovered it only smells like that at night. i don't know why, maybe it has something to do with the air coming in from the ocean...

music & lyrics

my friend amanda wrote a post about remembering song lyrics. this got me thinking, (a dangerous past time, i know) especially since my family played this game at christmas. its called encore, where you get a word and you try to think up as many songs as you can that use that word. its really quite entertaining, especially when you have a group that includes people from different generations and different genres of music. but it also made me wonder why i can remember something like song lyrics, and movie quotes for that matter, but not things that actually matter, such as phone numbers or addresses. i blame it on the numbers, but seriously. i was making a hair appointment when i was in farmington, and when the lady asked for a phone number, i was going to give her my parents number, but totally drew a blank. they've had that number for years... she probably thought i was the biggest blonde in the world. little did she know, i was making the appointment to dye my hair darker... random story for you.

anyway, i've been on this 90's music kick since my ipod broke before christmas, which forced me to listen to my cds on my drive to and from farmington. (hence the backstreet boys comment in the previous post. i also rediscovered my newsies soundtrack, hence the christian bale comment) as you can guess, the majority of my cd collection is from around 10 years ago, before i became a poor college student, then a poor missionary, and then got an ipod... plus, we also played sing star 90's on the playstation when i was home. so here i was listening to backstreet boys, matchbox 20, and mixes that included songs like "i don't want no scrub" or "i like girls that wear abercrombie and fitch" (kate, my now 1 cd is missing, did you take it? :) all the while realizing that the radio stations don't really play very much 90's music. why is that? i remember in high school, the stations would always play 80's music. don't get me wrong, the 80's songs are great fun and i love them greatly, but so are the 90's. some were extremely lame, yes, but still... anyway, here's my toast to 90's music and all the memories that were made to those tunes.


i guess another reason i have been thinking about this is that 2009 means that it's been 10 years since i graduated high school. now i don't have time to reminisce much right now, but i think i'll dedicate my next post to the year 1999. it was a good one...

(i also wanted to play around with the fonts... just indulge me)

10 things i remembered/realized on my drive back to california

1. i've had a crush on christian bale since the first time i heard him sing about santa fe.

2. you don't realize how fun rez roads can be until they are covered in dirty slushy snow.

3. semi truck drivers are the bane of my existence.

4. backstreet boys songs have some of the lamest lyrics on earth.

5. 800 miles across an empty desert is a lot longer than you realize at first glance. a lot.

6. i'm grateful for alco in holbrook, and their cheap sunglasses.

7. dr pepper does a body good. well, at least by keeping you awake so you don't run off the road...

8. dropping a few thousand feet in elevation has quite an ear popping effect on you.

9. cruise control is my best friend.

10. california drivers are really quite speedy. and don't know how to drive in snow. thank goodness i'm not one of them, despite what my lisence plate says...