Pictures, Tangents, and Rants

As promised, here is a picture of my car (a week after the fact, I know). It is too cute! Every morning when I'm leaving for work I have to smile. It is a very happy car. All it needs is a few accessories and a surf board on top. Even if it turns out I suck at surfing.

Here is a picture of a gecko that got stuck under the dish rack in my kitchen sink. I couldn't catch him, so I laid a towel along the counter and into the sink and herded him over to it so he would have something to get traction on to make his way out.


And, I'm (almost) official at work! I have my own extension and I'm on everyone's little phone cards. Now all I need are my own keys and personalized company business cards.


Now, I know pretty much all I've talked about so far is how great things are here. A few of you have asked me if there's anything I don't like. The answer is yes. More specifically:

1. Sudden downpours with zero warning. I learned this the hard way on my very first day of work walking to my building. Without an umbrella. It made me very unhappy.

2. National commercials for chains we do not have here. Sonic, your banana split shake looks delicious. Your website informs me there is no sonic location within 1000 miles of me. So thank you for that.

3. Valid only at participating locations. This means NOT valid in Hawaii. We do not have $5 foot long subs at Subway or Quiznos. We do not have 79 cent tacos at TBell. It's pretty lame.

4. Not so much a complaint, but something that I've had to adjust to and is also fast food related: almost NO drive thrus. I've seen two: Arby's and McDonald's. Jack in th Box might be, I haven't really looked that closely. But most places, even if it is a big chain and it is free standing and there is room for one, do not have drive thrus. I realize now how much driving thru I did in Austin: food, banking, coffee, prescriptions, dry cleaning. None o that here.

5. Mainlanders calling me at 5-6 AM. Sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. Sucks.

Hm, seems like there was something else, but I can't think of it.

Oh, I was very proud of myself this morning: A Japanese tourist asked me for directions to Wal-Mart and I was actually able to tell her! I was happy not only that I now know the area well enough to direct her, but also that I give off the appearance of someone who looks like they know where they are.

Work is going well. It is pretty crazy because we have a big pitch for a big bank coming up, as well as a "secret" client that only like four people in the office know about. I am not one of those people. I do feel a little out of place sometimes, partly because I'm still new, also because the next youngest person there is thirty-one. But everyone in the office is really nice and--based on the fact that "F*** It Friday" is this week--fun.

k

Today has been awesome.

Really. I'm looking at my clock and thinking, wow, it's only 4:44, but today really cannot get much better. I should probably just go to bed. But in reality, I plan on grilling burgers later for dinner and maybe going to the beach for a bit. Life is rough.

But back to why today is so great:

1. I accepted the job at HMS advertising. They are paying me pretty darn well, giving me really good benefits, providing me with my own iMac to work on there, and best of all, in a few months, they are going to give me my own accounts to start working on. As in I will be in charge of them. That's ridiculous. I am a little nervous but also excited. It's a bit like the first day of school.

2. I am getting my Element tomorrow. I realize that doesn't have a lot to do with today, but it contributes to my excitement factor, so I am counting it.

3. I spent a good portion of the afternoon playing with Lani. The electricity was turned off in Kailua because they were doing some sort of construction work (apparently turning off the entire town's electricity for DOT maintenance is only odd to me. But after the initial WTF?, you kind of think, I'm in Hawaii, what do I need to be inside using electricity for anyway?) So Lani and I played in my little garden area. She entertained me more than I entertained her. She was getting tired of me harassing her after a while, I think.

She figured out she could lick the condensation off of my cup, and then seemed to think, wow, if the outside is this good, the inside must be great!

So she kept trying to knock my cup over. But it was cute. How can you get mad at something that looks like that?! She is really smart for being only seven weeks old.

4. I had a delicious Lanikai Juice this afternoon. I ate it before I remembered I was going to take a picture of it to post. They're just that good. Oh well, it will give me an excuse to go get another one sometime soon.

That's all for now. I start work on Wednesday, by the way. Love to everyone.

k