No AC

No air conditioning in our office today.

Luckily, the high today is only 85. But if it rains, we might be in big trouble.

The Small Wonder

Thanks to the many long, long drives to Dewey Beach this summer, I have spent a little time this morning researching my home state.

(Disclaimer: I live in Northern Delaware, which is very different from the Rte. 404 - Rte. 16 drive to Dewey. Northern Delaware is the home of MBNA, University of Delaware, Wilmington, my parents and a 20 minute commute to Philly. Obviously, this makes my house much cooler.)

What I learned about Delaware today:

• State Bug: Lady Bug- Adopted April 25, 1974, the Lady Bug was chosen by the Legislature after an intensive effort on the insect's behalf by Mrs. Mollie Brown-Rust and her 2nd grade students of the Lulu M. Ross Elementary School in Milford, Delaware. Wow, what would we have done without Mrs. Brown Rust (?what the heck???) and her "intensive efforts!"

• We have a State Song. Which is not: "I'm Delaware-born and Delaware-bred, and when I die, I'll be Delaware-dead. So it's Del, Del, Del, De-la-ware .... Del, Del, Del, De-la-ware ..... Del, Del, Del, De-la-ware .... the greatest state!" My mom totally lied to me.

• State Nickname: "The First State": On December 7, 1787, it became the first of the 13 original states to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Became the official State nickname on May 23, 2002 following a request by Mrs. Anabelle O'Malley's First Grade Class at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School. (What is it with these crazy school teachers? Shouldn't they maybe focus on, I don't know, TEACHING?)

• State Soil: Greenwich Loam. Enough said.

• And yes, my state is very, very, very small. Delaware is 96 miles long and varies from 9 to 35 miles in width. Isn't that just so cute? Don't you just want to eat it up with a spoon, it's just so cute!

So there's a little lesson about Delaware. For more information and to learn the State Fish, check out this very informational site :-)

More pictures from California

Here are some more pictures from vacation, minus Trooper :-)
And yes, those buckets are filled with a lovely alcoholic beverage called a Shark Attack. We spent the day in Hermosa Beach with one of my favorite people, Ben. We laid out on the beach and then drank from buckets and people watched.

The flower is my one artistic shot from the Getty Museum. Creative, I know. Ooooh, a flower, and it's purple! I'll throw up some of Dan's later; they're kinda awesome.

And the cheesy shot of Dan is from dinner one night. We ate at this great Italian restaurant in Venice Beach, where they just drop off a carafe of chianti (honor system), amazing garlic rolls and tons of food. Then, they come by with song sheets and the whole restaurant sings along with That's Amore with much clinking of glasses. It was fun and romantic all at the same time. I mean, it was practically karaoke :-) with candlelight.

Pictures from California

By popular request, here are some more pictures from my vacation.

Kirsten and Dan at the Gerry Museum.

(And the only picture of the two of us from the entire vacation.)

Dan and Trooper

The Pacific Ocean :-)

Trooper on the beach

Me and Trooper on the beach.

Sleepy Trooper on the way home.

And so ends the Trooper at the beach series. Stay tuned for another day of photos!

I finally managed to upload a photo to my blog. And yes, it is a picture of Trooper from vacation. Isn't he the cutest dog in a convertible? This picture was after his day at the beach, when we were getting ready to head back to Santa Monica.

I think I just have issues with the uploading on my work computer, so I'm going to have to figure that out. But yay- pictures!!

Okay, back to training. The "not-so-bright" participant has finally caught up to the rest of the class.

Training Update 3

I cannot wait until Thursday. That's when we're going to learn how to mail letters.

I don't know if I can handle that excitement. I just don't know.

Training Update 2

Unfortunately, learned this morning how to access work email from this computer.

Now am balancing work and training ... and making major To Do list for when I go into the office tonight.

Maybe I should have done the training in Charleston?!!

And yes, this training is all week long. Fun times.

Training Update

Just so everyone knows, I just learned how to log in and where the help button is.

I'm good to go.

Blogging from Training

Did you know the best way to spend a Monday after a weekend in Dewey?

Sitting in a software training.

Definitely.

You seriously can't have more fun than that!!

But at least they have free coffee and the Internet :-)

I'll try to keep you updated on the excitement, but I don't know if that's possible. I might just be having too much fun to blog. Actually, I think I'm going to go refill my coffee.

It's Finally Friday ....

So I know we only had a 4-day work week, and yes, I was off all last week on vacation, but darn if it seemed like a long week!

And now I'm looking out the window watching the scary dark cloud of death overtake the pretty blue sky in Old Town. Natasha is keeping an eye out for Tom Cruise, because we might be facing the War of the Worlds here. And guess who has to venture out for a meeting at 1pm.

But I can look at the pretty, pretty flowers that Dan sent me today. Even though he's crazy busy at work, he sent flowers to my office to thank me for an awesome vacation. Who does that??!! *big cheesy grin*

Kir discovers Flickr

So I've really enjoyed FlickrBadges on other blogs, so I actually ventured into the world of html today. See my pretty pictures!

And isn't it just a little strange that I had to teach Blogger's spell check that blog and Blogger are words?

Fun from the Fourth

To supplement my very weak, weak first post about the Fourth of July, look at the cuteness of the official "Fourth of July outfits" and the boy putting together the grill.

(Also known as K playing with posting photos. It does not seem to be working, and I might need to give up and go back to doing actual work for a little while.)

*****

Okay, back at the blog and I will now play with linking, since instead of working, I just read the blogs of my friends.

Pictures of cuteness here!

Too Hungover to Post

Thanks Jenny for the pretty, pretty blog! I'm so excited to get started, but thanks to the Fourth of July and a red-eye flight from California, I'm not so much functioning yet today.

Rolled over this morning and glanced at the alarm clock .... hmmm, it's 8:10. That seemed early. Except for the fact that I, you know, had to go to work this morning? What the heck.

Who schedules work for the day after the Fourth? When my group of mid-twenties friends decided to celebrate the Fourth old school style. Although, is it really old school if we just never stopped partying like this?

Well, off to the bakery in a thunderstorm.

Will write more later :-)

still testing