Dallas for the day? Okay!

I got in early Monday morning from my trip to California (flew in on the red-eye) got home, unpacked, showered, and headed to work.

When I walked in to work, the first thing anyone said to me was "Could you fly to Dallas today?" I said "sure, why not!" So I was literally at work for 1 hour, hurried off to pick up some drives and hopped on a plane to Dallas.The background story is there is a shoot happening in Patagonia this week, and the wrong equipment was sent to the shooter, and the only way he would be able to get the equipment in time was by having someone from New York (the only realistic place to purchase the equipment) purchase the drives, and fly them to Dallas where the shooter had a layover before hopping a plane to South America where it would take at least 8 days for the items to be delivered via mail, which would be too late.
So I get to Dallas and meet up with the shooter, who isn't just any shooter, but a wildlife photographer whose passion is filming Great White Sharks, who just recently finished a shoot in the Serengeti filming cheetah's with a super high speed camera, and is now on his way to Patagonia to film Killer Whales. !!!
(this is an actual picture of the shooter, Andy, filming a shark, click here for a link to his website)

Now THIS is the dream job that most people who mention "National Geographic Dream Jobs" are probably referring to. Well, I ended up having dinner with him and picking his brain, and the most incredible thing about it all was that about 7 years ago he was working at a desk job and hating it. After two years of that, he sought out a group of Great White Shark researchers in South Africa, which led to him volunteering for them and photographing sharks, which led to him filming sharks and being hired by entities like Nat Geo and Discovery.
So there you have it. The moral of the story: give it everything you've got, and you'll eventually get everything you want. You just have to want it enough.

Create

American Idol 3.31.09

Tonight's line-up....from BEST to worse...

Kris- He killed it- best performance of the night.
Allison- she rocks. I want her CD. Today.
Danny- back in the running! totally emotional- I loved it.
Adam- good performance- I don't want him to win, though.....
Matt- kind of awkward? He is so good- just missed the mark.
Scott- genuine tonight- I thought I'd hate it- but I did not.
Megan- she's getting worse! opposite of Danny- so flat- where are her emotions? What kills me is she could be SO good.
Anoop- bleh. Is he still here?
Lil- ugg. not good. Also geting worse.

A far as I'm concerned, Scott Megan Anoop and Lil can go ANYTIME.

San Francisco!

Mom and Dad and I went to SF for the day, and we had a blast! Here are some highlights form the trip...
Golden Gate BridgeAlcatraz
We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge
Here is SF from the North Bay
Mom and Dad!
Me and the bridge
Mom and Dad sight seeing
We went to this delicious restaurant called Scoma's
That's about when I decided that I do not like fish at all, and probably don't ever need to try the following ever again: lobster, shrimp, crab. Luckily they had other foods that weren't from the sea for girls like me. :)
We also went to the singles ward and it was fun! Very similar to my ward in New York. And I met some VERY nice people. One of which who works for Industrial Light and Magic, the George Lucas special effects/animation company. Here is the ILM building, located in the Presidio of San Francisco (on the north part of SF near the GG Bridge).The ILM even has this cool fountain with Yoda! Love it! The End!

Sacramento for the Weekend!

I went home for the weekend and it was SO fun. Seriously, the best weekend! Here we are at lunch one day (I required everyone to take a picture with me)
The weather this weekend was BEAUTIFUL!!! One day I just sat outside and then walked around for awhile. Here is Chloe enjoying the weather too... not to mention my foot (I wore sandals the whole time!!)
Here I am in the backyard... I wish Spring would hurry up and get to New York!
The End!

American Idol....

This blog was in response to one of my sister's friend's AI blog- I thought I needed to share my thoughts with EVERYONE! Let me know if you agree, etc...

#1 ALLISON. Her voice is SICK. She is the best girl by far. Lil Rounds is becoming a huge dissappointment. She apparently can't sing anything except Mary J. covers. Well, we already have a Mary J. Blige, so Lil needs to GO. Megan was AWFUL this week. She has no rythm- the twisties are awkward. America made a HUGE mistake when they got rid of Alexis! She was girl #2 for me.

#2 Matt. He is the best guy. Loves him. I am DONE with Danny- he totally dissed Smokey! Did you see that? And Scott...ugggg....He is just not up to par, and his song choices are SO lame-o. Maybe if he spiced things up.

#3 ADAM. C'Mon- he is GOOD. He is #1 on many people's lists I know. He is an awesome performer. When he gets too 'screamy' I want to die (annoying) but he is still really good.

#4 Kris. He has the look and style. Anoop is SO BORING to look at- his hair is AWFUL! And his clothes? His singing style is NOT RELEVANT- whether it sounds good or not. Bleh. I hope he's next to go. And thank you that big country boy is gone. NOT cute.

Allison rocks- She's been singing for 400 years!!!

Murder at 45 Wall

For our ward variety show, Heidi, Brenda and I made a little movie! We even scored some awards! One New Yorkie for "Best Ahhh!" and another for "Best Horror Flick".
Here it is... Murder at 45 Wall

Funniest New York Moment...

On our way home last night from the ward variety show, we happened to take a very loooong subway ride with a group of verrrrrrry intoxicated hockey fans. To make a long story short, this dude sat ON Brenda (and scared her), then tried to convince my friend Sami why NOT to marry the guy sitting across the aisle, slurring his speech and all, THEN he KISSED Sami, along with my friend Sara (she turned though, he just got her on the head) before bustin a move with his other drunk friends outa the train. HI-LARIOUS. Glad I snapped this pic (right before boyfriend Kissed Sami almost on the mouth).

Swimsuit season is almost here!

Courtney, Ash..... This is the swimsuit I want this year. I still love last years suit from Layers but it is too big now. I found this new site called Modbeclothing.com. Check it out- there are some cute ones.....

Ooh! I found another cute one at Hapari.com......

My new earrings!

I was chatting with Shelby the other day and told her that I e-shopped and ordered a new pair of earrings. The first thing she says to me... do they have peacocks on them?
!!! Yes, they do! How did she know?! Either "Twin" sense... or we both have the same taste!
(sorry my pic is a little blurry)They are so pretty! I love them! I got them at Urban Outfitters and they come in both Gold and Silver. :)

Stella has allergies!

We came back from Sacramento last weekend and when we walked in the door and looked at Stella- Aaaggghhh! She was SO SWOLEN- her little face was all puffy and she was covered in hives/welts! We think maybe she got stung by a bug or bitten- it was kind of scary. We gave her TONS of benedryl, and finally by the next night she was looking pretty normal. Take a look at these pics of my poor little puffy and not to mention ITCHY baby.

She was all red, too. :(


This pic is so sad! She was looking at us like "I don't feel good!"


You can see how puffed up her lips were- they were like rock hard too!


This is what Stella usually looks like....

Much less puffy!

Sick?! AGAIN?!?! On St. Patrick's Day?!?!?!?!?!?!

But, I've already been sick!!!!! 4 times! True, not one of those had a sore throat, but c'mon! I need to buy new tennis shoes TODAY! (that's what I get for putting it off til "tomorrow")... well at least I'm wearing my green shamrock earrings that my Mom gave me.
AND at least I'll be going on vacation next weekend!
AND AND AND that's all. I'm going home. :P

Bouquets

Today, someone sent my co-worker a fruit bouquet. She was kind enough to share, and it got me thinking... what a fabulous idea! It's like the joy of receiving flowers, AND you get to EAT IT!
This got me thinking about other kinds of bouquets that I like, or would like to receive. Actually, my friends and I were talking about flowers last night, and what the appropriate kinds of flowers would be to give a girl. The boys liked roses and tulips, classic and symmetrical... Heidi liked the idea of Gerber daises or lilies... but for some reason I associate lilies with funerals, and this line from "The Hours":

Florist: "So what would you like? The Lilies are perfect!"
Clarissa: "No, too morbid......Oh , oh! Lets just have buckets of roses!"Roses are romantic (some would say TOO romantic, you know who you are) but I say they're nice. My favorite kinds of flowers are yellow ones. I don't particularly care for the color yellow, I would never say it was my favorite, but I love yellow flowers. Especially yellow roses.

Blew a Fuse

This morning I woke up naturally, rolled over and looked at my clock. It said 2:17am. But how strange, the sun was shining. I thought, oh no! jumped out of bed and grabbed my cell phone... it was really 10:35am!! The power must have gone out! I called my Producer immediately and told him my power went out, this has never happened to me before! Then I ran into the kitchen, but all the kitchen clocks said 10:35am. What the..?! I hustled, and got to work (luckily my producer didn't mind I was so late). I later learned that a fuse blew this morning when my roommates were getting ready, but nobody told me!

Best Quote of the Day

"I thought Canadian Geese were the new terrorists."
pause

"DIE GOOSE! Chik-chik... BOOOM!"

Click here to see a funny blog post I found about Terrorist Geese.

Happy Birthday Brenda!

For Brenda's birthday, Heidi, Lyndee and I took her out to lunch to a place called 40 Carrots! It's located on the 7th floor of Bloomingdale's. Here is Lyndee and Heidi enjoying their water through cool orange straws!
Here's me and Brenda!
I was a little skeptical of the restaurant's name at first... 40 Carrots?? I don't even like 1 carrot, but I assured myself in my head that just because a place is named after a carrot does NOT mean they only serve carrots. This is what I got for lunch, a delicious chicken salad sandwich!It was SO good!! Minus the carrot salad... don't worry, the carrots only lasted on my plate for approximately 13 seconds before I scooped them up and gave 'em to Brenda... she's a good sport, even on her birthday! :)

Best Friday Night...

So on Friday night I was on my way to my co-worker/friend Mark's place for his house party, and I was walking across 47th street and passed a Psychic's shop with a bright yellow sign. I thought to myself, "how interesting, I wonder what kind of people go to psychic's?" and walked by the big window where I saw an older woman sitting in a chair with her feet kicked up in the chair next to her, leaning back, counting a wad of Twenty dollar bills. Brilliant. I walked up the stairs to Mark's place and told him the story. He totally went to that Psychic before.

I knew it.

No one gets to work by 8:15 in the morning. I had to come in early Friday morning so I could meet our shooter (she had to pick up gear). I typically roll into work around 10:30, big difference!

There are perks to coming in so early. First dibs on fruit and bagels!
All in all, waking up early is not so bad. I think I shocked my roommates that I was even capable of being out of bed before 9am.

A Powerful Noise

I did something so unlike myself tonight, which is funny actually... I went and saw a documentary! The only docs I ever see are the ones I have a part in making, so this was fun! (not that watching my own aren't fun, but you catch my drift...)This inspiring documentary follows three extraordinary women -- in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mali and Vietnam -- as they overcome barriers to lead day-to-day battles against ignorance, poverty and ethnic strife.

After the show, there was a live panel discussion by Madeleine Albright, Natalie Portman, Nicholas D. Kristof from the NY Times (we liked him), Christy Turlington Burns, and Dr. Helene Gayle, all of which are involved in women's rights and welfare around the globe. The discussion took place at Hunter college in NYC, but we watched it close circuited in Union Square.

I really enjoyed the show, there were some very touching moments. It was amazing to see how much impact one person could have on their community. Especially since what these people went through in their lives was so difficult to begin with. The panel discussion was pretty good, although neither me nor Heidi liked the moderator NBC news anchor Ann Curry (agenda!) but the rest of the peeps had something good to say, as they are actually involved in causes that help women struggling in countries around the world.

See this show! It's a good one! :)

Name the new space station module you say? I think I just might!

How cool is this! NASA wants people to vote on a name for a new section of the International Space Station. This is Node 3 – a connecting module and its cupola – the two segments will soon travel to space and be installed on the orbiting laboratory.

Voting will be open until March 20th, 2009. NASA will announce the winning name in April 2009. Click here to vote! The name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony.

This is a view of part of the ISS (International Space Station) with Earth in the background.

NASA and its station partners traditionally have named each habitable part of the station, including its three laboratories (the U.S lab- Destiny, the European lab- Columbus, and the Japanese lab- Kibo or Hope), two airlocks (Quest and Pirs or Pier), and two Russian-built modules (Zvezda or Star, and Zarya or Dawn).

This Weekend's Adventures!!...

We hit the Wild Animal Park...My sweety with San Pasqual Valley as a backdrop!
Look close, it's a little one week old CHEETAH BABY! It was so precious- a little kitten baby.
LIONS! RARR!
We love the lions! They were babies the last time we saw them!
The lions were fighting over this huge bone- it was really cool. We are zoo-dorks.
We had a Taco Bell Incident on the way home!!!Dave- the culprit. Squeezin his little hot sauce pack like a little angel.....
...And the sauce seriously sprayed ALL OVER ME! Thank GOD it did not get in my eyes. I would not have been able to pose for the SWEET picture!.......