Footprints on the Moon

This morning I’ve been working on a bit of a blog clean up. Alot of my early posts are uncategorized, so I’ve been adding some categories to some of those. (And come to find out, I *still* have entries that I don’t know where to put!) Also, somewhere along the way, some entries have been picking up some extra characters, either during an update or theme change or something. I suspect that these stem from the fact that I wrote a lot of these entries before I disabled the Rich Text Editor. Either way, they annoy me, so I’m fixing them as I find them.
I did notice though, that as I re-saved a couple of these entries, I was receiving pings on some old entries of my own. I had originally set my blog NOT to notify of links, so apparently now that I’m saving these entries again, it’s going to go ahead and send out those pings. So if you’re getting trackbacks on old posts of yours, from old posts of mine, don’t be too concerned– it’s just me mucking around in old posts!!

I’m also discovering that I really do not like this theme. It’s pretty, but I don’t like the way it works. I really like the theme I put up on my other blogs though, so I might try to customize it for over here. I was trying to do that a few weeks back and I wasn’t having much luck.

If you’re like me, the word decathlon makes you think of running. If you’re really like me, it also probably makes you tired just thinking about it! The one I’m talking about however, is the BP Solar Decathlon, and it’s something different entirely. In this decathlon, teams from 20 colleges and universities around the world are competing to create the most energy-efficient house, built solely using solar power. And, in testament to how far reaching this blogging thing has become, there is even a Solar Decathlon Blog where you can read updates from BP, and each of the teams.

Their construction deadline is actually tomorrow, so I imagine they are all working very hard to get the final touches in place. The winner will be announced on Friday, October 19th, but in the meantime, the houses will be open to the public. If you’re in the Washington DC area, be sure to head out and check that out! I would love to be able to go walk through the houses– that sounds like something interesting to see! I like the idea of solar power… I’m not one who tries overly hard to live a green lifestyle, far from it actually, but I do think we should be doing what we can to use renewable energy sources when possible. Anyways, go check it out. I’m going to go back to the blog and read a little more about the experience– apparently the truck carrying in one of the houses took out two telephone poles en route!

I’m a big fan of the site I Can Has Cheezburger? It is, in my opinion, the best LOLCat site that’s out there. Certainly the best one I’ve found. The one up there cracked me up this morning. I’m sick of that cell phone commercial, but the grandma whose texting her “BFF Jill” is funny.
Although, LOLSecretz is now a close second. I read them at work all the time, and bust up laughing. Sitting in the lobby all by myself. People around here must think I’m crazy. I read “secrets” all the time at PostSecret, and LJsecret, so the LOLcat secretz are pretty dang funny! Must have a sense of humor there, though. You know if you’re easily offended or not. If you are, don’t come back and complain about something you read– you’ve been warned!

I’m currently looking for my costume for this year. You may be asking yourself, but Jennifer, where are you going that requires halloween costumes? The answer is, very likely, nowhere, but that’s entirely beside the point! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I fully intend to dress up! I’ll be at my grandma’s playing games, and passing out candy to her trick-or-treaters.
I’m kind of in a money crunch right now, so I’ll probably end up wearing something I can find at home. The costume I wore to the masquerade ball back in 2003, perhaps?? It would be fun to pick out something new though. Like this Raggedy Ann costume. I was Raggedy Ann once when I was little… like 3? I don’t know how old I was, but I was darn cute! I’ll have to see if I can find a picture. Trust me when I say that the 24-year-old me as Raggedy Ann would probably not do the little me any justice.
Oooh!! Sally from Nightmare! Nightmare before Christmas, that is! How awesome would that be??

I find myself back to the cell phone shopping thing, again. I thought I’d need to purchase my new cell phone when I got onto my own cell phone plan in August. It wasn’t necessary then, however, and I’ve been putting it off as I don’t really have the extra money for that. We’re sneaking up on the Vegas trip, though, and I had hoped to get a phone that was a little more reliable by then. Add onto that that the phone seems to be dying… It suddenly doesn’t want to hang onto phone calls inside my apartment, and something tells me the problem isn’t that I need a cell phone booster. I’ve never had problems with reception in my apartment building before. Plus the fact that the battery likes to move around and shut my phone off whenever the heck it wants? Yeah… it’s time.

Tuesday marked the beginning of the Monopoly game at McDonalds. This does not bode well for my waistline! Although I’ve never won more than a small fry, I am a sucker for the game! Especially now that they’ve added the online aspect. I’m definitely in trouble this time around too- they’ve added the pieces to the Big Mac, which just so happens to be my favorite sandwich. Oh no!

If you’re headed to McDonalds but not planning on playing the game, do my hips a favor and share your code with me, will you?

I was a little disappointed this morning to have to close the comments on one of my favorite posts here. Okay, you can argue that I didn’t have to, but that’s the decision I came to. Apparently there are many people on the internet that can’t recognize a joke when they see one. Now, I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with me. What I do have a problem with is people giving their dissenting opinion so rudely. ((Don’t bother checking for their comments, they were not approved.)) By the time I woke up this morning, some of the comments were bordering on abusive, but certainly were childish.

Note to potential responders: Calling me offensive names is probably the number one way to make sure your comment never makes it past my inbox.

I’ve been stressing out over money this week. (Noone will be getting 2008 Honda Motorcycles from me for Christmas this year… do you like scarves? lol) Okay… forget that last bit… I don’t even want to THINK about Christmas yet. I’m stressed enough about paying the bills between now and then.
I owe the hospital almost three hundred dollars, the dentist about eighty, and my license plate is due for renewal in another week or so. Not to mention the rent, the phone bill, the cell phone bill, keeping the lights on, and food in the fridge. The money is just not stretching far enough these days. I logged on to look at my credit cards online this afternoon… yeah, that would be what has induced today’s financial panic. I had been doing sooo well with them. I’m not doing HORRIBLY now, but I’m definitely not where I want to be. Especially knowing how tight money is going to be over the next couple of months.

Okay. I’m done panicking now. Deep breaths… I’ll be alright.

One thing I don’t miss about college is looking for one!! My friend’s sister-in-law is a senior in high school this year, and she’s looking at what college she might like to attend, from Gibbs Melville to my Alma Mater. Obviously, that’s where I’m encouraging her to look.
I don’t miss looking though… trying to choose a college was seriously stressful. I had been planning on going to the local Christian college, but I just wasn’t sure. They weren’t offering what I originally planned to study. I was already in, and planning on attending when I decided to apply to another school just to “see if I could get in.” Well, they accepted me too, and then I had to make a very difficult decision. In the end, I decided to go two and a half hours away, where I would know noone. Had I stayed local, I would have been in school with many people I went to church and to high school with. I can’t say I didn’t second guess my decision a few times, and sometimes I still wonder if I made the right choice. I went to an excellent school though, and it was ultimately very, very good for me to be away from home, out of my comfort zone for awhile. Good life experiences.

I don’t know what changed, but my comments over here seem to be broken. I think I may know what the problem is, but I can’t access FTP from where I’m at. As soon as I get home, I’ll be trying to make that change. Hopefully it works because I’ll be clueless if it doesn’t! So hang in there, I’ll hopefully be up and running by tonight, please come back and make your comments!