March 3, 2004Birthday #6
Happy Birthday, Lauren!!
Posted by Olivia at 10:54 PM | Comments (1)
Find me in: Richmond Geeks
March 5, 2004Blood Drag
Ah, sunny Florida. Beautiful beaches, green grass, blue skies. Too bad we had to drive through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to get there! For those of you who don't know, we went to Florida last weekend for a car show called Blood Drag.
The plan:
Was to meet up with the NoVA guys Thursday night, drive to Fayetteville, spend the night with a buddy, get up early Friday morning and make it to West Palm Beach around dinner time.
What really happened:
About 9pm Thursday night Jeff and I met up with the guys coming from NoVA: Dan, Ricky, Jake, Lauren, Pip (NJ), Andy (MD), & Keith (NY). The first few hours on the road were incident free. It started to flurry shortly after we crossed into North Carolina. I'd heard there might be some bad weather, but wasn't sure what to expect.
Our caravan slowed down quite a bit as the flurries turned to sleet and the ice began to build up on the road. By the time we reached the first Dunn exit around mile marker 76ish, traffic had slowed to a crawl and we were being routed off the interstate. Luckily, immediately off the exit was a truck stop.
Turns out Jake had had some problems and was stopped on the side of the interstate 10 miles back. Dan & Ricky had stayed with him, but told the rest of us to keep going, they would catch up. Well, it was by chance we had to stop and it's a good thing we did.
The thing they thought was the problem, frozen air lines (it's a bagged truck), turned out not to be the problem at all. But that was discovered after trying to unfreeze them with hairdryers, curling irons & a trip to Wal Mart for a blow torch. And this was all still happening on the side of the interstate, in the sleet, with cars whizzing by at 70+ mph.
Around 4:30am, Jeff, Jake & Dan showed back up at the truck stop where the rest of us were waiting. No luck. Nothing they did was going to get that truck moving. Instead of sleeping in the truck and probably freezing our asses off, Jeff and I decided to drive down a few exits and get a hotel for oh, about 4 hours. Everyone else toughed it out in the truck stop or in their trucks.
When Jeff and I got up at 9 we called up Dan and he told us to keeping going, there wasn't much we could do. Keith & Andy had already left. So back on the road we went. The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. The weather continued to improve the further south we went. It was about 8:30 when we arrived in West Palm Beach. If someone hadn't made a mistake with the directions we would have found our hotel, and been hanging out with the guys by 9. Instead, we drove in circles for 2 hours, stopping for directions 3 times, looking for the hotel. But we did find it. Sheesh.
A quick dinner at Taco Bell filled our empty bellies so we could meet up with the rest of the gang without passing out. Since it was so late already and with everyone wanting to get up early to get their trucks ready for the show, we hit the sack as soon as possible.
Saturday morning Jeff and I slept in some to make up for the lack of sleep Thursday night. By the time we arrived at the showgrounds, Dan, Jake, Lauren & Pip had arrived. Turns out Jake's air compressor had died. Sometime Friday they had had a tractor trailer service truck come out and fill his compressor, thereby filling his bags, with enough air to make it off the interstate and to a Goodyear. The shop did a patch job of sorts that got it working long enough to go the 20 miles to Fayetteville to Marcus' house. The ended up leaving it there and carpooling for the rest of the trip, making it to West Palm Beach about 10:30 Saturday morning.
With that drama now (mostly) over we were able to relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. The weather turned out to be a little cooler than expected. Long sleeves and pants were needed on Saturday. Sunday was a little better in the morning, but got too windy for shorts later on. But somehow we went all weekend without having to deal with much rain.
The show was a slight disappointment for most of us. We had originally thought it was one of the biggest on the east coast. Not so much. I guess it's just one of the most widely known and highly advertised. But it was cool seeing vehicles we'd never seen before. There was a pretty good turnout of CustomTacos members so it was nice to finally put faces to the screen names. I won't post a bunch of pics, but if you want, you can see them here.
Jeff and I, along with Pip, headed out around 8:30am Monday morning. With no major incidents, good weather, and a steady speed, we were in Richmond by 11:30pm. And, surprisingly, not exhausted. It was definitely a nice weekend get away, despite the long drive. I'd do it again. :)
Posted by Olivia at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
Find me in: The Garage
March 9, 2004Birthday #7
Happy Birthday Branda!
Posted by Olivia at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
Find me in: Richmond Geeks
March 10, 2004Movin' on up!
Sometime, in the not to distant future, I'm going to be switching offices. There's been a little corporate rearranging, if you will, lately. One of our people is moving to the Budget Office (versus Accounting, which I'm in). When she leaves, I get to take her office.
Reason being, my office is physically the closest to the Business Office folk, who are going to need another office for the Collections person they may hire at some point. Make sense?
So I get to move back to the office I was in when I was temping (for the second time) here. It's bigger than what I have now, and next to my favorite coworker, so it could be a move for the better.
Wonder if I can get new furniture out of this?? Hmm...what I have now (a corner desk) isn't going to work very well in there. ::plotting::
Posted by Olivia at 1:42 PM | Comments (1)
Find me in: Working Girl Blues
March 16, 2004Birthday #8
Happy Birthday Brian!
Posted by Olivia at 9:19 AM | Comments (2)
Find me in: Richmond Geeks
March 22, 2004Moving Day
Moving offices today, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to blog or be online. Just depends on how soon everyone gets things going. But I'll be back!
Posted by Olivia at 9:31 AM | Comments (3)
Find me in: Working Girl Blues
March 28, 2004Some catching up to do
Wow...it's been a long time since I've felt like writing any of substance. Not that I do now, I just know if I don't, I will forget things soon. And a lot has happened in the last week. I guess I'll start from the beginning.
March 16, Brian's birthday, we all dined at Kabuto's Japanese Steakhouse. Delicious meal, as always. Afterwards we gathered at Brian's for some gift opening and cake eating. (Hence the picture of Brian and Lauren, in the famous caking eating pose) :) I wonder if we have one of those for each time there's been cake...hmmm.
March 19 was Legitimate Beef's second 'official' concert. [Pictures are here] The Hurd's opened their home to the up and coming band for our listening pleasure. Head over to LegitimateBeef.com to listen to the tunes played that evening.
The guys did an awesome job!! Check out Layla, $1,000,00, and Ordinary World in particular.
March 20 felt like a short day, but I guess that's what happens when you sleep til noon. Jeff and I went our separate ways pretty much all day; we each had our own errands to run that afternoon. That night he hung out with the guys while I headed down to the southside for a girls night out. Kelly B hosted a Mary Kay party for all the girls partially to celebrate the March birthdays.
After the party, which was a lot of fun, we met up with the guys at Richbrau for a little late night (earlu morning dancing). Well, until the kicked everyone out at 1:30. Then the parting continued at Brian's! Eventually though Jeff and I made our exit as we had to get up at a decent hour on Sunday.
March 21 we made the 2 hour drive to Bridegwater to visit with the Pollards. Unfortunately Mrs. P wasn't feeling well and had to stay in bed. Hope you're feeling better!! The rest of us watched some home movies (Jeff was soo cute as a kid!), worked out some Tivo bugs, and did a little napping (well, some of us did). Oh, we also ate Chocolate Eclair cake!! Mmmmm.....
March 22 was back to work. And, as previously stated, moving day for me at work. That of course, took most of the day, so I really didn't do much work. But all that moving left me plenty hungry for some California PIzza Kitchen that night! Thanks to all those who came out with me!
The rest of the week was fairly normal. I think I'm used to my new office location now. I haven't tried to sit down in my old office yet, so that's a good sign!
That pretty muchs bring me up to the past weekend, so I'll leave that for a new entry!
Posted by Olivia at 11:51 PM | Comments (1)
Find me in: Richmond Geeks , Working Girl Blues
March 29, 2004Pacific Pine
Oh so sore...Jeff and I spent the weekend painting the living room. There's a lot of wall space in there!
We started out by spending 2 hours in Lowes Saturday morning gathering supplies and picking out a paint color. After having paint chips on our wall for months (which I did eventually take down), we still hadn't picked a color. And I had changed my mind already and wanted blue! But we finally decided on a nice shade of green called Pacific Pine. In certain light it looks more Pacific than Pine, but I think it works. [Pictures here]
The prep work took a long time since we had to move what we could out, and cover what stayed. And then there's the taping. That awful, awful part that's sooo critical. But we did a decent job and didn't have too many spots to touch up.
The whole room was painted Saturday so Sunday were the touch ups and putting everything back together. A big thanks to Brian for coming out to help move the tv (both days)!
I think I've had my painting fix for a while now. It was tiring work, but I'm happy with the results.
I think the birds like it too because this morning, there was one that kept trying to get in. It was the weirdest thing; he kept fluttering around the window like he really wanted in. Gave Gizmo something to watch today!
Posted by Olivia at 12:38 PM | Comments (4)
Find me in: Home Life