Car Hunt Story

True story. I just test drove a car. The owners of the car were with me. The car died during the drive. We couldn't get it to start again so we pushed it into a parking lot. Chris came and picked me up. True story.

Car hunting is fun :)

My favorite quotes and stuff.

I'm going to use this blog post to collect my favorite quotes and stuff.

"Don't tease me about my hobbies. I don't tease you about being an asshole."

Said by Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) in Garden State, which was written and directed by Scrubs star Zach Braff.

Have I mentioned I don't like scary movies?

Well, I don't like scary movies.
But I do love my man. And I can handle a Vampire movie a lot better than I can a zombie movie. I was going to link a picture of the poster for the movie... but I can't make myself do it. Just know that I sat through the entire movie!! I didn't 'technically' 'watch' most of the movie... but I heard it all. And it was disgusting! The only thing I can say though was I loved the ending, and left feeling pretty good about making it through a full scary movie without walking out. yeah me. Chris was proud.

Puffy face

I have a puffy face. I got my wisdom teeth taken out this morning. It hurts, but not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The whole experience was kind of weird. They gave me an iv with drugs to put me to sleep... but I wasn't asleep the whole time. I remember them giving me shots near each tooth. The dentist told me afterwards that I was talking sometimes through it. At least I didn't feel any pain at all.

Anyway, I got home and went straight to sleep. I've been keeping ice packs on my face to keep the swelling down.

So exciting. 4 less teeth in my mouth now. Now when I bite you it will be that much less than before :)

Fast forward to the beginning of a Novel

Since my birthday...

Elle and Trouble at Elle's BDay party!

I saw Rat City beat TXRG, then Kansas City beat Rat City in Austin at the WFTDA Roller Derby Nationals. It was amazing.

Texacutioners Flag at Nationals.

Crispix & Elle at Nationals.

The next weekend was my best friend, Jurate's birthday party. She got drunk and made us each say something nice about her into a video camera. And as if that wasn't hard enough, half an hour later she made us say something we didn't like about her into the video camera!!

The next weekend was Crispix's birthday. We had a great time. Brought a dj to a sports bar and pretty much took over. It was also Trouble's going away party. She's moved to Cali now. We miss her already!

And finally, the piece de resistance... the Championship Bout. It was amazing. My team played great. It's like we all were clicking and understanding the directions we were sending each other with our minds. Unfortunately for us the Sirens were also in synch with each other, and knew what to do to take us down. It was a tight game, and we fought it as hard as we could. We lost, but we held our heads high because it was a good defeat. They outplayed us, and hit us a little bit harder than we could hit back. It really was an amazing game. I am so lucky to have had the chance to play with such an awesome team against such an awesome team.

Timber!!

Run, Elle, Run!!

Bosses 2007

And the Brawlers and Betties bout... wow. The Brawlers have been beat by over 60 points every game this season. But they were in training. This rookie team needed one season to catch up to the level of the rest of the league, and on Sunday they proved that they've done just that. In a nail biting hour of derby, which was neck and neck the whole time, we saw some impressive derby by both teams. It really was a close game, and honestly could have gone either way... but the Brawlers wanted it more. They would not settle for less. Catazon came into the second half with a fire, pulling out two 9 point jams to seal the win for her team.

The Betties fought hard, and played well. Beverly Kills was amazing as always, and her team was blocking as hard as they have all season. Their loss is not a sign of the team weakening... not at all... it's a sign that the entire league is improving. I can't wait to see the opening bout in March. It's going to be hot!

Now I'm retired from derby. I've hung up my skates and am trying to find my normal routine. I still want to be involved with HRD, and help where I can, but I will not be skating again. I'm not sad about it, yet. My body is still too thankful... no more getting beat up three times a week!

We went to a halloween Pirate party at the GRAB bar on Saturday... it was fun. I went shopping and overhauled my waredrobe for work... that was a lot of fun :)

Now it's Halloween day. I don't have a costume... well I can be Peg Bundy again (that's what I dressed up as on Saturday), but I do have plans. Tonight at Midnight I'm going to meet a group of people I barely know, and we are going to start writing our novels. It's http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and if you don't know, go check it out. I have successfully removed one obsession for my life, and immediately replaced it for another. Ha. I've signed up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. That's a lot of writing. A lot. I don't know what I've gotten myself into, but I'm excited. Shit, if I can do derby I can do anything. For realz. January I'll start taking night classes (paid for by the day job, yeah!). I'll probably start taking Viola lessons in December too (Just did some research and found that it's affordable and convinient).

So... I'll be busy being a total nerd and writing my very first novel. Yes it will have derby in it. No it's not about me. It's completely make believe, but some characters will be loosely based on people I know. So be nice to me, or I'll put you in my novel, and you'll be twice as ugly as you really are. Buwahahahahahahahahaha!

Beautiful Maps

I'm a mapper. Technically I'm a GIS Analylst. I create maps, maintain the GIS system we have in place. All of our pipelines accross the nation are geographically stored in a database. I help make sure they are in the correct location, and have the correct data associated to them. Everyone else in the company uses different software to query off of our data and run reports and other boring stuff. My job is the fun stuff.


This is an aerial photo of an oasis in the Australian Desert.



This is an area just outside of Paris. The farming patterns look crazy!



This is an area in Southwest Kansas. It's intricate pattern is beautiful.




This is Hawaii. It's amazing how you can see the land under the water.

I have a few art projects in mind that involve these images, and others like them. I can't wait until I actually have time to work on them!

Ten Year Reunion

My 10 year high school reunion was last weekend. Chris and I drove the 4 hours north to Kilgore, Texas and headed straight to the shin dig planned at the local burger joint, The Back Porch. Lots of people showed up, and I had not seen any of them in practically ten years (with the exception of my cousin, Renee, who happened to marry one of my classmates, Wayne.)
I sang a little karaoke, said hi to everyone, googled at everyone, and couldn't stop grinning the whole time. It was a blast from the past.
We stayed out until after 2am, going with the pack to a pool hall where Chris impressed and intimidated everyone near the pool table.
The next day we went to the reunion picnic where most of the classmates with kids brought them to play. There were a gazillion kids. From preteens to 10 weeks old. They were all adorable. Chris and I played horse shoes until they pulled out hundreds of water balloons for the kids to play with… then Chris introduced himself to the kids and they let him throw balloons at them. Somehow we both made it out dry.
We went to dinner with my cousin and her husband, and her two nieces and one nephew. Scotlyn, Brai (I actually have no idea how to spell her name… it’s pronounced ‘br-Ay’, like Pray, but with a B), and AJ. The kids were a lot of fun to hang around. So much personality in the 4 and 2 year old girls. AJ just hangs out and watches to see what the girls are going to do next mostly.
Then we went and took a nap. Because we’re getting old and could not hang. We woke up just in time to get ready and go to the big reunion party down by the lake. It was beautiful, and even more people showed up for this event than the previous two events.


(Cindy, Wendy, Jena, Amy, Cindy, Reann, and Melissa)

I got lots of pictures, which I will post on flickr, with notes, as soon as I have a free hour at the house.
Who I saw that I have really really missed since moving to Houston, and got to catch up with at the party: Terra, Jena, Cindy, Wendy, Wakie, David Hastie, Lee, Lauren, Kelly, Cindy, Amy, Reann, and April Hearn.
People who I feel like I have even more in common with now and will try to stay in contact with: Katrina and her boyfriend, Canan and his wife, Olivia and her boyfriend, Jena (I know I already mentioned her, but she falls into both categories very nicely!), and Meagan.
Who didn’t make it that I would have loved to see: Scott Miles, Emily Harrison, Johnathon Hastie, Clay Copeland, Nicole Francis, Millie Minor, Melissa Cassidy, Adam King, BenJamin Monk, Scotty McFarland, Clay, MiJoi, Caryn Crutcher, Bethany Chisler, Clay, Gina and even more that I can’t think of off the top of my head right now. Thank goodness for myspace and email. I know I can contact at least half of these people and harass them for not making it to the reunion. The other half I will have to hunt down, but I think I can find them. And probably some of these people listed didn’t come because they weren’t in my graduating class… but I still wanted to see them!! And yes, there were 3 Clays in this list. I miss them each.
My birthday is tomorrow, and I’ll probably celebrate it this weekend. The next weekend is my nephew’s birthday plus WFTDA Roller Derby Nationals in Austin. Then the busy month of September will be over, and I’ll be able to focus all my energy on training for the last and final bout. 2007 Championships. The game is on.