Today has been such a strange day. It started off with a wake-up call from someone who wanted to come look at the apartment.

Oh yah, JP is moving out at the end of the month, so I'm looking for a roommate. I put out an ad on Craigslist, and I've had some good hits and some not-so-good hits. We'll see.

Anyway, so he came over (Scott), and he seemed to be a great fit, though he seemed rushed, as engineers often come across. I went to the bank and then met another person (Steve), who seems to not be a good fit at all, but I left him the option of calling to see if the apartment was still available, if he doesn't find something else.

Errand time, to try and get my bike back. I went down to the county police office. The people working the metal detector were nice and laughed at my shirt (the one about english stealing grammar), and the guy at the desk was polite and helpful, and the lady on the phone was very nice and checked to see if my bike was in the impound (which it wasn't), and then the officer at the desk was polite in telling me that...I was not under their jurisdiction, since not only do I live in sarasota proper, but my bike went missing from sarasota proper (my property). So a short jaunt across the street to the sarasota police office. And boy what a difference. There was one guy behind a glass window, sitting at a computer, and he didn't want to be there. After five minutes on the phone, he began to "help" me. I had to repeat things multiple times, like where I lived, and what kind of bike it was. "a Green Huffy. No, not valuable, it's like 15 years old. Yes I'm sure it was stolen and not lost." Yes, they have a bike impound as well. I couldn't even get him to answer the question of whether or not it might be in there. So I fill out a stolen bike report. He rolls his eyes when I say that it's probably not worth anything. After 20 minutes, he leans back and says, "How are we supposed to know that it's yours? You sure you don't have a reciept? ("It's like 15 years old!") No identifying marks, like your initials carved into it? ("I told you, the front wheel is cracked and the chain is rusty. If they fixed those things, they can keep it!") [shakes his head] Yeesh that guy was frustrating. Helpful my butt!

Anyway, my next errand was food. I cooked the cheddar and walnut balls with beshamel sauce, as I had intended the other night but didn't have time. I can now make an excellent beshamel sauce! woo hoo! However, because I don't have a flat pan, only a large glass casserole pan and two small bread pans, I used the bread pans and made two mini-casseroles. I turned the beshamel sauce into aurora sauce by adding tomato paste and red wine (a super awesome one that I just opened for the recipe...I need to cook something tomorrow so I can drink a glass!), and I poured it on top of the casseroles and baked them. I then took them over and met Lara outside of class and made friends with John in her writing class.

We hung out and went to the beach with Lahna and Alex her dog, then we went to the school computer labs and I met another friend Jon, and finished an acrostic poem for a contest (the first letter of each line, read downward, form a word). Then we went to dancing...which was canceled, arg!!, though we chatted with Ziv...and then went to Big E's (Ease? Ez? not sure) and had good italian sodas and I made friends with Beth from Lara's writing class. Then she dropped me off by my bike...and I ran into Dan and Tara and Doug, and we went upstairs to check stuff on the computer, and saw Becky and Sarah, and met some more cool photography people (Natalie? Mark?). And finally here I am at home, with names and faces spinning in my head. [laughs] It's been weird.

Blah blah. Life is always surreal. I've been wearing the necklace Granddad gave me, a jade circle with a golden chinese symbol. Everyone asks what it means. I laugh and say, "Serenity, or Prosperity. I don't know. It means my family loves me." Because that's what matters, right? The people in our lives, however briefly or distantly or strongly or permanently. They're what matter.

Mmm, it's three-thirty in the morning, and I just finished writing ad-copy for our tango event in Paradigm Art Gallery. That was following a day that included working late, hanging out with the owner of the bike shop, meeting Megan and hanging out with Ashley at Two Senoritas as we picked up paychecks, hanging out with Katie and drinking good red wine at Paradigm Art while waiting for Dan and Sarah and friends to come downtown, meeting Dan and Sarah and new photo major friends Tara, Becky and (brain fart) at Applebees, dancing at the band in the street with Sarah while everyone else watched with embarassment, hanging out at Mattison's and chatting, hanging out at my house and chatting, taking a long walk to steal fruit from trees (I have a bag full of fresh grapefruits and tangerines), and watching a taped episode of Family Guy. And I have to be at work in less than 5 hours. And I am now going to clean up the kitchen and take out the trash. Yay! I'm invited to more partying tomorrow night, but I'm not sure I'll be up for bar-hopping (even sober bar-hopping) after this long night and tomorrow's early day. Plus, it's bar-hopping, not dancing.... I like these new friends (and Megan likes them even more than me), but still. [laughs] I continue to be an instrument of fate. Tara is trying to go to grad school in NYC, and Megan, when she gets back from Tokyo, plans on going back to school in NYC, and they're talking about the possibility of being roommates. And yah, they just met. And I think I'm finally going to let my computer restart, to finalize some update or other. Goodnight blogger. Sweet dreams! Get more sleep than I! But have just as much fun!

Hello, blogger! It's been a while, again. Lara and I just returned safely from Colorado. But first, a couple notes from before we left.

The show called Tango Pasión is a musical featuring stunning tango dancers, a phenomenal tango orchestra with soloist performances on piano, violin and bandoneon, and an amazing Argentinian singer. If you have any interest in tango dance and/or tango music, see this show if you have the opportunity. Lara and I now have the DVD, and we're going to be learning moves from this show, because it is the style we love and dance. They even have a performance using stage pool cues. This is the show I would love to perform in, when I become a professional tango dancer.

Island Times Grill has an amazing dance floor with live music friday and saturday nights. However, they aren't breaking even, because dancers don't buy too many drinks, and there isn't a door charge. For anyone in the area, support them, because it's an amazing venue. And those of you who can't support them, pray that they opt for a door charge over canceling the bands.

Ok, so the trip to Colorado was great. I love flying, so that part of the trip was awesome too. We arrived in Denver, had lunch with Lara's parents and aunt Paula, and then the 'rents headed off to their ski trip while we stayed with Paula. She works with dogs and horses, and she has a dog trained in mountain rescue. Fun! We took a hike in the snow (I'm going to miss the snow), and then watched The Secret, a documentary about the secret to happiness. The Secret (dun dun dun) is that whatever you think about, you attract to you through a particular form of magnetism. If you think about debt, you attract debt. If you think about bullies, you attract bullies. If you think about bad drivers, you attract bad drivers. The universe thinks that you want all that. And so, all you have to do is think about good things. And not just think about them, but feel the good feelings they bring you, as though you already have them, and believe you already have them, and the stronger you feel and believe, the faster the universe will deliver it to you. [laughs] I know, it sounds like some kind of oddball mysticism, but it has some value: if you're always thinking about what makes you happy, you'll be happy, and being happy, you'll be more likely to notice opportunity, grasp opportunity, and get what you want for yourself. Anyway, it was interesting.

We then hung out with Jenn (one of Lara's best friends) and her brother Chris. Between Paula's and Jenn's houses, we ate way too many sweets. [laughs] We went to their favorite (oh so ghetto) hot springs, and the pool was in this greenhouse-looking room. It was very relaxing, but all the minerals in the water were pretty intense on the skin and hair (especially since I had used a horse-shine conditioner at Paula's, which made the water run off my head like a duck). Afterward, we went out for sushi and had some delicious tempera-fried avacado and cucumber sushi rolls. Lastly, we went down to the Mercury Cafe (Lara just calls it "the Merc") where Lara and Jenn danced for years. It was a very slow night, but we all managed to get in some good dancing with each other and the few people who were there (almost entirely dance team and followers). However, the night was dampened by Jason, a friend of Lara's who just found out earlier that day that his first love and girlfriend had died in a car accident. He had planned on meeting us before he found out, and since we were rushing through, he didn't want to skip his only chance to see us. Lara was a good friend and talked with him downstairs for a good while, but it was frustrating that our only dance night was both slow and cut into by the needs of a friend.

The next day, we hung out with Adrian, whose real name is Zane, but who is called Audi by Lara and all her friends. We got a tour of his mom's house, which she is designing/rebuilding. They had this thing that was a cross between a hot tub and a duel-headed shower. It was amazing. The space they created by knocking out walls here and there was also fantastic. The prize of the house, however, is their movie theater with three couches on tiers in a room in the basement, using curtains for doors. We also played with the dogs. One is a german shepherd-coyote mix that loves to play fetch and tug-o-war. The other is an extremely playful bermese that loves to play chase and get petted roughly.

Adrian, Lara and I then set off for the "main event", skiing at Breckenridge ski resort, where Lara's dad had a business associates vacation group. We had expected a group, but Sumani, Adrian's girlfriend, was an hour in the opposite direction from us and wouldn't be free until too late in the evening. Nathan (whose skis and boots I ended up borrowing) was working lights and sound for a show all weekend and couldn't get free. And Marieka said she would meet us saturday morning, but she was a no-call-no-show. Even Adrian had to be talked into it, because the last few times he went skiing (over 7 years ago), he'd had terrible experiences that involved losing toenails. Friday night, however, was a large progressive dinner. Drinks and appetizers were in one condo (and I found out that I really like port), dinner was in ours, and dessert in a third. It was very fun, and we stuffed our faces at all three stops. We left dessert early to go hot tubbing, and we walked from the condo to the hot tub wearing only swimsuits (I had flip-flops, and Lara had a cute fuzzy hat with cute fuzzy boots, and Adrian had boring shoes...and yes, it was snowy and in the 30s). I had to prop my feet on the side until my toes thawed enough to stand the hot water [laughs]. There's nothing more relaxing than lying around in a hot tub, getting out and having a snow fight, then getting back in. [grins] We ended the evening with a game of Hearts with Lara's mom Lahna. Adrian managed to slip through the cracks and win, with Lahna losing.

Saturday morning, we got really lucky. We got super discounted ski passes because a couple of family friends had season passes and could purchase ski passes for us at a discount rate. Lara was worried about our abilities, since Adrian hadn't skied in seven years, and I had only skied for about 4 hours in my life, but we both demonstrated we were competant, so we went all over the green/blue mountains, with lunch at a lodge on the top of one. It was lots of fun, and very very different than skiing in Ohio. I didn't fall down until the second half of the day, when I started attempting to get my skis parallel while turning, rather than in the simple wedge (which was a very wide turn). Sometimes I dug in too deeply and had to flail to save myself, and sometimes the edge just slipped a different direction than I expected. I only fell fivc times, twice on purpose, so I consider it a very successful day. My shoulders, arms and thighs are all sore from the exercise [laughs]. I can't wait to do it again. We ended the day with leftovers (which was good, because the sushi Lara's parents went out for was really expensive) and shopping. We only hit three places, but they were all super-cool. At the hat store, we got a pirate hat, a black-furred kitty hat, and a black centurian hat (sort of like a spartan helmet, but with a crest like a mohawk). It was fun taking pictures of all the stuff we tried on. We then looked at all the rocks in the rock store, and I got a couple of small things, while Lara got me something large for Valentine's Day. We'll see what surprise I get! Then we went in an art gallery, and may I just say that I have never been in an art gallery before in which I liked more than half the art on the walls! It was freaky, museum quality art, but for sale. Seriously! The owner knows the Pissarro family and has original art by Pissarro and his fourth and fifth sons. We're seriously considering buying a ballerina in blue, but we have to think about it. You don't buy something for a couple thousand dollars without giving yourself time to think on it. [laughs] We ended the evening with another game of hearts, and this time Lara won and Adrian lost in a 25 point coup de graçe, while they were neck and neck at the finish line (Lahna and I agreed that our goal was for one of them and not one of us to lose; we succeeded admirably, because I had all but three of the spades, with no clubs or diamonds, and therefore controlled the entire round. I gave Lahna the king of spades, and it was her only spade, and she was freaking out. I told her not to worry, but she wouldn't until she realized halfway through the round just exactly why she didn't need to worry...I wasn't going to give her the queen). We then went to bed and left the men-folk (Lara's dad Jim and three of his friends) to play their own game of hearts.

Sunday morning, we got up early and made the two-hour drive back to the airport, and we got home safe and sound. The flight wasn't the best...it was too bright outside, the cloudscapes were boring, the movie was the same we'd seen on the way over, and the landing a bit turbulent (Lara hates flying, so it was hard on her). But we had dinner, came home and took reference photos for Lara's illustration of total knee replacement surgery, and got some sleep. And here I am, ready to adventure some more, and get work done, etc. etc. So, blogger, I'll let you go finally. Have a good one. I know I will!