My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay, "First Fig" (1920)

My computer was delivered today, and setup and connecting to the internet is made so easy these days. These days, there are 2 handy setup brochures with photos and I think I was all set up and connected to the Internet within about 15-20 minutes! I'm trying to get used to typing on smaller keys and using this crazy flat 2" square space that acts as the laptop "mouse." But in all, the process of trying to figure out what was wrong with my old computer and ordering a new one was made so easy with Brandon's help this week. He's a computer GENIUS!

Not only does he spend 2 hours patiently trying 4 different lengthy procedures trying to fix my old broken computer, but he also helps me pick out the perfect new computer answering all my questions with just enough but not too much techno-detail, and is patient when I ask him for help with problems in designing my webpage then decide 24 hours later that I know some HTML and want to work independently and figure it out on my own, then go back to him 3 days later begging for his assistance. It's a never-ending cycle with my webpage, and bless him for being so kind as to remain patient or "lay off the techno-speak" based on my current need du jour. He ran across the street and got large lemonades this evening, in gym shorts, in the snow. That's love.

(he's the non-pale one in the baseball cap. sometimes i steal his bandwith but it's only because i love him.)

My poor computer died this week. If you can believe it, the 350 MH Gateway was still chugging along, and humored me as I opened 7 windows and had Photoshop open all at once. I'll be checking my email from Brandon's house, but only once per day as opposed to 16 times per day. Ahem.

Brandon's friend helped as he tried everything to fix my computer, to no avail. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get the info off the hard drive, as it contains 3 year's worth of digital photos that I don't have backed up anywhere!

I ordered a new computer through Dell (sorry Gateway!) which should arrive sometime in the middle of next week.

Ligers really do exist!

And these charms are so lovely. I want them all.

I have been sleepy all day today. I guess that's what I get for going out for an after work drink with work friends. This was followed by a Friday night beverage with my sister Becki, which was followed by cheese fries and a beer with my honey Brandon. The after work "drink" turned into an all-night, out-till-midnight event.

Zzzz.

It's fun when Becki and I hang out. Seems like now more than ever in our life, people who are around us 2 seconds immediately point out that we must be sisters. It's not so much that we look alike- although our smiles and eyes are probably really alike- but they proclaim that our voices and mannerisms are exactly the same. When Sarah, Katie, and Tracie visited Colorado a year ago, we all went out for sushi and we played the "close your eyes and try to guess if it's Nicki or Becki" game. Everyone would close their eyes, and either me or Becki would say a phrase, and everyone would guess. We managed to trick them quite a few times.

Did anyone catch the Superbowl Shuffle skit on SNL last weekend, or am I the only person who still watches Saturday Night Live on a regular basis? It was so funny, but mostly because I was big on taking VHS tapes and recording my favorite videos and shows when I was little. I had recorded the Superbowl Shuffle video, and must have watched it hundreds of times. To this day, I know all the words, and am able to anticipate what the Chicago Bears player is going to do next (aaaaaand William "Refrigerator" Perry now puts his hands up in the air and pumps them up and down to the music-- NOW!). I still have the original VHS tape, and since there was nothing on any of my 3 1/2 channels tonight, I decided that it would be fun to watch the Superbowl Shuffle recording tonight. I discovered that the tape also has the Walk Like an Egyptian video, and 1/2 of the original Karate Kid movie. Ahh, flashbacks to the 80's. I love it.

Happy Birthday, dear Mom!
Happy birthday to you.
e

(If you have a moment today, please visit Scrinney's blog to leave her some happy birthday wishes!!!)

A big group of women just marched past my apartment on their way to Old Town Fort Collins for a Take Back the Night rally. They were walking right down the middle of College Ave, one of the busiest streets in the entire city!

What a very powerful thing to observe. I have tears in my eyes. I think it's partly for all the women who have experienced the types of things you don't even wish to happen in your worst nightmares, and somewhat for the part of me who is horribly afraid of opening my first-floor apartment windows even on the hottest of sweltering summer nights, in spite of the fact that I don't have air conditioning and for the part of me that is always watching my back and subconsiously in fear for my general safety walking through a public grocery store parking lot after dusk.

Thursday 21 April
Take Back the Night
Colorado State University 7pm begin march to Old Town Fort Collins
Rally 8pm Old Town
A night of support and empowerment for women and survivors. We begin with aspeak-out for survivors to talk about their experiences, then march from campusto Old Town to reclaim the right to be safe and live without fear, and concludewith another rally and music in Old Town Square.

Sometimes when my sweetie and I are feeling like we're not as cool as we were 5 years ago, we'll head on over to Old Country Buffet where it's great being the only hipsters around under the age of 61. Worried that we'd be the youngsters again this evening in a sea of glimmering silver hair, Bran assured me as we were walking in, "See! There's a teenager with her mom walking out. And there's a young family with a few little kids just exiting!" Needless to say, the younger crowd must have all cleared out around 7:30 p.m., because we were clearly the only people in there tonight under the age of 55.

Every time I smell the combo cinnamon roll + hard boiled eggs + deep fat fried chicken, I am reminded of all the family trips to all-you-can-eat buffets when I was little. My family was to Bonanza and The Royal Fork as Norm was to Cheers. In retrospect, it was probably awesome for a family of 7 to visit an establishment that served just a little bit of everything. Dad could get his mashed potatoes and gravy fix, the growing boys could go back for 7ths if they pleased, and the girls could have whatever was not on their "disliked-dish-du-jour" list.

I, for example, went through various stages where I didn't like the following:
a) hamburgers
b) hot dogs
c) eggs
d) steak
(all of which could be considered the unofficial 4 basic food groups of the great plains, by the way)

It seems like buffets were okay with me until I hit age 9 or so, then buffets were suddenly "uncool" for some reason. I think a good punishment for rebellious teens would be, "You'd better make curfew on Saturday night, or it's The Royal Fork for Sunday brunch, missy!" Even though I opted for Apple Brown Betty for dessert this evening at Old Country Buffet, I was reminiscing about how mixing the chocolate and vanilla straight out of the ice cream dispenser (look at me! i'm pretending that I'm a cool teenager who works at Dairy Queen!) seemed to make me forget the lady who cut in front of me in line and washed away that dirty feeling from that dirty look I got from the teenage busperson as I left half of my cold french fries on my plate. Somehow that mini dish 'o ice cream seemed to wash away all my worries.

If Old Country Buffet is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

what the schmeck?

I love the title of this article What the Schmeck is Schmeckfest?

P.S. Who loves the Citibank commercials? The one with the music and two little boys dressed up as superheroes, and the one with the old couple playing funny instruments and singing a song together? Kelli- you've gotta know what I'm talking about.

It is snowing like crazy this morning! Big, wet mid-April snowflakes. I thought I had experienced the best of the best snowstorms having grown up in South Dakota, but the springtime storms here are wild. A few years ago, the roof of the Old Navy (and several other big buildings) caved in from the weight of the very wet, very heavy snow. I was outside scraping my car windows this morning, and there's not really a big wind, but the big snowflakes hitting my face HURT! Amazingly, they actually have the snow plows out right now. In South Dakota, they're on standby at all times, but in Colorado, since we only get a few major snowstorms a year (which all seem to happen in March & April), they generally wait 2-3 days before sending out the snow plows.

In other news, I really really really want to buy this Precious Metal Clay kit. Here's a book on Amazon that shows the kind of things you can make. Basically, you take the PMC, and can mold it like clay, but when fired, it ends up solid .999% sterling silver, which is more pure than most sterling silver. I am very seriously thinking about cutting off my left pinky toe and selling it so I can afford this kit, then spending the rest of 2005 experimenting so I can have all new jewelry designs for events in 2006, selling enough things to buy my toe back. No harm done, right?

I was doing some searching online last night, and Denver's Urban Flea Market looks interesting- I'm thinking of possibly trying it out. I've never been there, so maybe I'll go visit first, then if there's a good crowd I'll give it a whirl. I've done too many events in the past few years that I've gone into with blind faith without ever having been to the art fair or festival. Some (many) have been complete busts, and just a few have turned out well, so a trip down to Denver may be in order. Maybe Becki will come with me...

Now I'm off to make some more solder heart charms. I am going to try to put some things on eBay this week in hopes of saving my little toe.

I'll take a blog on the rocks, please.

Okay, so after my mom and two sisters all blogged aboard the blog wagon recently, I decided to blog another blog. Blog darn it.