Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Megan's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
8:59 am	Who said Shakespeare was dull? Who says rappers can't be literary? I bring you the brilliant (in a couple senses of the word) rap song, Hey There Ophelia by MC Lars. This song amazed me. Hamlet in 4.5 minutes: (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 17th, 2011
10:13 pm	All-Star Game These are some notes from the MLB All-Star Game in Phoenix that mom, Ryan, and I went to this July. The game itself was July 12, 2011, but we also attended the Home Run Derby on the 11th and the Futures Game and Celebrities & Legends Game on the 10th. Oh, and we met up with Carrie and her mom for FanFest on Monday the 11th as well. It was an awesome trip. Here are my notes for posterity: ASG July 12, 2011 Phoenix, Arizona – Chase Field -no Jeter, A-Rod, Ichiro, Mariano Rivera, CC Sabathia, to name a few. A disappointing showing by the AL in particular – I hope they learned their lesson by not showing up, and that they lose the World Series based on not having home field advantage. They should show up and play for the All-Star game. Especially in light of Jeter getting his 3000th hit on Saturday, he should have at least shown up for a national celebration of that milestone, whether or not he was going to play (I can understand wanting to nurse that calf back to full health, but he can still show up in Phoenix whether or not he plays in the game). For the first time, I am really disappointed in Jeter and feel let down – he should have shown up. For the good of the game. I think he lost a lot of support by deciding not to come to Phoenix for this All-Star game (mine included). -standing O for Kirk Gibson when the line-ups were announced. Great hometown hero (and hero in general) for all. A nice tribute and gesture with all the applause and cheering. :) -cheers for Hank Aaron, who was in attendance. Amazing reception! Home Run King!!! -amazing defensive highlight/catch by right fielder Jose Bautista (Blue Jays) in the bottom of the 2nd – sliding into the wall feet-first in foul territory for the out. That’s what we paid money to see! All-Star caliber plays! -solo HR by Adrian Gonzalez (Red Sox) in the top of the 4th. He hit it exactly like all of his Home Run Derby shots – just over the wall out in the short porch in right field, barely fair and not quite in the pool. He can hit home runs really well! First All-Star Game home run since 2008! -Beltre (Rangers) gets a single in the top of the 4th (yay!), and on the same play Jose Bautista is thrown out at the plate by left fielder Hunter Pence (Astros). Nice throw and play at the plate! -bottom of the 4th single by Matt Kemp! He advances Carlos Beltran (Mets) to second base on the hit. This follows Kemp’s first inning walk to make his OBP 100%! (until he flies out during his 3rd at bat) -Prince Fielder (Brewers) up to bat right after Matt Kemp in the 4th, hits a 3-run homer to left-center, cashing in Beltran and Kemp! So deep! Amazing! (and this feat gave him the MVP award for the night, too) -Clayton Kershaw pitches the top of the 5th inning – 3-up-3-down, 8 pitches total. He struck out Big Papi (Red Sox), and got Robinson Cano (Yankees) and Alex Avila (Tigers) to ground out. Couldn’t be more perfect for the inning! -bottom of the 5th -- runner Starlin Castro (Cubs) thrown out at the plate. The pitcher Walden of the Angels barehands a bouncer back to the mound and quickly throws out the runner from third trying to score – out at the plate! A poor choice to run by the runner, but a nice throw to the plate by the pitcher. -bottom of the 5th – Andre Ethier in to pinch-hit as the DH, with a runner (Rickie Weeks (Brewers)) on first (who then steals second). Ethier hits a well-hit single to right field to score Weeks (yay, RBI!), but then gets thrown out trying to go to second when the throw to home is cut off. I’m happy that Ethier did well and got a hit (since that’s the only playing time he saw) in his hometown, where I’m sure he has lots of family and friends at the game! Yay for an ASU alum! -cheers for the hometown hero Justin Upton. The Dbacks fans really love Justin Upton, and they showed it by cheering extra loud for him at every opportunity – during the announcement of the line up, when he came into the game, when he caught a fly ball, when he was at bat, etc. They were even chanting “Jus-tin Up-ton” over and over again when they wanted him to be put in the game. It was cool to hear the roar of the crowd and all those people be excited for him. He by far got the most cheers of anyone in the game, and it was cool to hear the support. -Wieters (Orioles) the catcher lets a pass ball go by in the bottom of the 7th, advancing the runner from first to third. Oops. If Russell Martin (Yankees) had been in, that surely wouldn’t have happened! Run scores on the very next batter on a ground rule double. We want Russell!!! -Heath Bell (Padres) comes in to get the last out of the 8th inning. He runs as fast as he can from the bull pen to the infield, and slides in to the grass right by the mound. Totally got cheers from the crowd for his speedy enthusiasm in getting to the mound, and for his slide that just made it look like he was having fun. Too great. :) -Closer Brian Wilson (Giants) pitching the final 2 outs of the game. So many cheers and much excitement when he came into the game, crazy black beard and all. The first batter he faced popped out, and the second one grounded out to short. Brian Wilson just looks like a fun/funny guy (even though he’s a Giant) and definitely marches to the beat of his own drum. So much fun to stand up and cheer for the last strike and out! -NL wins, 5-1!!! Woo hoo for home field advantage in the World Series! -meeting Russell Martin’s dad in the parking lot of our hotel. I can’t believe I didn’t go down and talk to him! When the shirtless African American man who was hanging out in the hotel parking lot with a few smokers called up to me and told me that “that’s my son’s number” when he saw my Martin/55 shirt, I thought he was just another crazy baseball guy who had a kid who played little league or something and was #55. Not until I went back into the room and thought about it did I put together that he actually meant that RUSSELL MARTIN WAS HIS SON, and I looked up his picture, and sure enough it was him. God knows why he was staying in our crappy little hotel, but hey. Totally awesome, and I’m bummed that I missed my chance to actually talk to him because I blew him off. Lame Megan. -apparently Russell Martin convinced the AL manager to let Wieters go in as catcher instead of Martin, since this was Wieters’s first All-Star game, and he probably wouldn’t have gotten to play otherwise. Martin wanted the kid’s first All-Star game to be more memorable, so he voluntarily stepped down and let Wieters play instead. What a classy move. How can you not love Russell Martin? -Robinson Cano won the Home Run Derby on 7/11/11. It came down to him and Adrian Gonzalez, and Cano hit more. He hit some pretty deep ones, too -- it was really impressive. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
8:38 pm	Beaver Fever! For the first time in 26 years, the Caltech men's basketball team finally won a conference game last night!!! They broke a 310-game losing streak in SCIAC, dating back to 1985, and were finally the team to "do it," as it's been so close for the past several years. It was the last game of the season, at home against Oxy, and they won by 1 point, 46-45. How awesome is that?! Watching the video of the end of the game, where everyone (full stands) just rushes the court at the buzzer, was so awesome. We all know what it was like to be in those stands, usually just cheering within the first few minutes if Caltech jumped out to an early lead, because we knew the tables would soon turn. But how awesome to hold on to that nail-biter of a game last night and actually get to come out on top! I felt like I was there, just from watching the video, because I've been there so many times myself, cheering and hoping desperately for our little underdog teams to pull out a victory. That was part of the fun -- always holding on to the hope that it COULD happen, even though no one else ever expected it to. :) I must say, as a Caltech athlete, balancing work and sports was difficult, to say the least. That's why pre-season was always so great -- a whole month of being at Tech with nothing to do but worry about VOLLEYBALL. It was a chance to focus on the game, purely for love of the game. I was always so hopeful that one of the 4 teams that I played on over my time at Tech would be the one to win a conference game, especially my senior year, but it never quite happened. We managed to win a single game from conference opponents about once a season, but never a full match. Somehow we could just never carry the momentum through. We did win a tournament during pre-season of my senior year, and we won something like 9 games total for the season, but none of them were against conference opponents. Could never quite eke that one out. As a Caltech athlete, you're used to losing, but that doesn't mean you give up hoping that you can prove everybody wrong and actually pull out a victory every time you step onto the court. And every Caltech athlete who has ever played knows what that is like -- having to come out as the underdog every single time. And finally, last night, those Caltech boys pulled out a victory -- not just for them, but for all of the Caltech underdogs who have ever stepped onto the court hoping against hope for their own victory. Because we've all been there and we've all wanted it. For the last 26 years, every men's basketball player has dreamed about that moment. This victory isn't just important for the current players who have been at Tech for 4 years or less -- this is huge for all of the ones who came before who wanted a taste of it for themselves. For the ones who kept on playing and hoping against hope that they would be the ones to do it, despite coming in to EVERY game knowing that they were expected to lose. That's tough. This one victory may not change it all, but it gives our little school a chance to celebrate and release some of the long pent-up tension that it's been longing to set free. Good job, boys. Good job, Tech. Thank you for the victory. And Beaver Fever! Snatch it up!!! :) LA Times article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/02/caltech-basketball-snaps-310-game-conference-losing-streak.html Caltech's article: http://www.gocaltech.com/sports/mbkb/2010-11/releases/20110223mscsko Nice ESPN article by another Caltech alum: http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/24058/former-caltech-player-still-glowing-after-win Bill Plaschke/LA Times article: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke-caltech-basketball-20110224,0,3190753,full.column (Comment on this)
Friday, August 27th, 2010
11:37 pm	By the pricking of my thumbs Well, here we are, my mom and I, in Cedar City, Utah for the weekend to check out the annual Shakespeare Festival. I've never been before, but have always wanted to come to one of these summer-long festival things. I left San Diego at 11am Pacific time, changed cars to be with my mom in LA, and then we arrived in Cedar City ~8pm Mountain time, with approximately 30 seconds to spare as we sat down in our seats for the first play of the weekend. Whew, talk about cutting it close! We thought we were going to miss the first act for awhile there, while we were frantically driving through seemingly endless red desert, but we made it. And boy, am I glad we did! Tonight we saw their production of Macbeth. It was SO good -- by far the best performance of Macbeth I've ever seen (granted, I've only seen a couple before). It was riveting, dramatic, even funny at times, and it had the coolest atmosphere ever. It was in their outdoor/open air theater that is a smaller version of the Globe, so it was really neat to be sitting up in the rafters of the place, with open sky above the middle of the theater (which is built in a hexagonal shape). The sun was on its way down as the play started, so it went from sunlight to pitch black, and then the stars came out, as the play was unfolding. And THEN act IV started with Macbeth revisiting the witches, and they started chanting the "double double toil and trouble" speech like crazy possessed women, and the wind picked up and really started blowing in across the theater. Ooooo, it was eerie and added so much to the scene! And then the clouds rolled in and there were flashes of lightning off in the distance, so that made the rest of the play even cooler. Such a great atmosphere with Weather included as part of the play, which added so much to it as both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth start to lose it and go crazy as time goes on. So nifty! (and it did make me think of Doctor Who as well....) There was also music and sound effects that were used quite effectively through the speaker system, always timed perfectly and helping to add to the dramatic effect. Granted, that's not quite authentic Shakespearean, but it did add such a cool effect to play evil/scary-sounding music as Macbeth went off the deep end as he resolved to fight MacDuff and defend his throne, etc. And of course in many other parts of the play, too. And add to the amazing outdoor atmosphere and sound effects/music the fact that there are so many famous lines and quotes and speeches in the Scottish play, that just hearing Shakespeare's words was totally amazing, too. It all came together in such a wonderful combination that it was a totally awesome experience to be there and see this play. The acting was great (only minor criticisms), and oh man was the ghost of Banquo the scariest thing ever! He was really really good and really really creepy. I'll probably have nightmares about it tonight. :-P I haven't been that creeped out by a Shakespeare play since the weird/crazy/dark version of Hamlet we saw in Cambridge back in 2003. I think that one still takes the cake on the creepy meter, but this play definitely had a dramatic mystical/supernatural feel to it, with the wind whipping by, and the witches chanting, and people going crazy and killing each other, etc. It was fantastic! And there was some good sword fighting, too. Macbeth's line of, "Lay on, MacDuff" was perfectly dramatized and timed right at the height of the action. So cool to hear that and then see the sword fight! At intermission we got hot tea and tarts that they make there especially for the theater. Oh man, they were SO good, too. I'm planning on going back for seconds tomorrow. :) You can't beat sitting there sipping tea and eating a tart while watching a totally awesome and fantastical Shakespeare play in the open air. We're SO glad we decided to come up early enough today to catch this play, and that we did in fact make it in time. So great!!! And tomorrow we have a backstage tour in the morning, then Much Ado About Nothing as a matinee performance, and then a stage version of Pride and Prejudice at night. Yes, not Shakespeare, but it should also be good. :) I hope the next two plays are as good as Macbeth was tonight! What's done is done. :) (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
12:43 pm	House! So, Daniel and I finally bought a house. It took over a year of searching, ~100 house tours, and ten or so offers, but we finally came out on top with a house we think we'll really enjoy. We closed on it last week, on Friday the 13th (our lucky day)! I'm sure Redfin (our realty company) is happy to finally be done with us. :-P We were fairly picky when it came to house-buying because it's a huge investment, and we don't plan on moving for several decades, so we wanted it to be something that we especially liked and would be happy with for years to come. It's easy enough to buy A house. But finding one that stands out and that you like a whole lot and yet is still in your price range is a whole different story. After all of our searching along a 15-mile stretch of the 15, we ended up in Scripps Ranch. The location is really ideal (7 miles to work for each of us, in opposite directions; close to shopping; close to restaurants; closer to the freeway; walking distance to a shopping center and our vet), the neighborhood is quite nice, and I think we'll be happy there. We're a little leery of the "Scripps Ranch" reputation that goes along with the place (a bit more upscale, kind of snooty like "Snottsdale" in Arizona), but we're taking solace in the fact that we pretty much bought the cheapest non-foreclosure house in the whole area. Our house is crappier than everyone else's, hooray! That just means we could afford it, though. :-P No, what we like about this house is the potential that it has. I mean, it's nice enough now and would be live-able if we just wanted to move in right away, but there are a few things we can do to it to make it totally awesome and exactly what we want. And being able to see that potential is what led us to buy the house. For example, we want to completely remodel the kitchen. We're going to start with that before we move in to save ourselves lots of hassle and inconvenience in the future (and our current apartment lease doesn't run out until October, so we can stay there until then). The current kitchen is pretty old, so we're going to redo the whole thing -- new cabinets, new countertops, new appliances, add an island, etc. So suddenly our lives are filled with questions of wood types and granite vs. quartz countertops, etc. I'm gonna get the kitchen of my dreams at age 28 -- I better make it good cuz god knows it won't be done again till I'm an old lady (if ever)! It'll be exciting to start out with something brand new and be able to use it from the very beginning. We also want to take out the wall that currently separates the living room from the family room. This will open up the floor plan immensely and create one big "great room," just the way we like it. Two different contractors have told us that it shouldn't be a problem to take out this wall, so that's a good sign. Then we'll have an awesome floor plan, too. :) And not even to mention my favorite part yet -- we're converting the current formal dining room into a library!!! It's just a smallish room, but I'm getting fancy built-in bookshelves for all of my books, and eventually I'll have a comfy reading chair in there where I can spend all of my free time. Oh man, I'm so excited about that part. The bedrooms and bathrooms (3 br / 2 ba) are all fairly small and nothing fancy, but we figure we'll spend most of our time in the great room, library, and kitchen anyway, so having those be super nice will be all that we really need. Daniel does get a man-cave out of one of the spare bedrooms, though. He's excited about that part, too. :) So yes, very exciting news all around, and the next couple of months will be extremely busy as we try to do all sorts of things to the house before we actually move in in October. We have a lot of work to do, but the final product will be fantastic. I think this is even better than just buying a more expensive, already-nice house. This way we get to design things how WE want them, and we can customize everything to our tastes rather than just living with someone else's. So much fun ahead!!! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
11:20 pm	Eyes! I'm getting laser eye surgery in the morning. I just thought I'd get one last post in here, in case I go blind and can't use a computer anymore after tomorrow. You know, gotta cover all my bases. :) Hopefully everything will go nice and smoothly and there will be no complications and my eyes will heal quickly. Yes, please? I can't get LASIK (I have steep corneas that are scarred, so they fear potential flap complications in the future), so instead I'm getting the more-painful-and-longer-recovery-time PRK procedure. That means that instead of just cutting a flap in my cornea, they remove the entire outer layer of it and just have it grow back on its own over months instead of healing again within a few days. Sigh. And it's way more painful than LASIK, but hey. At least I get vicodin. This way is supposed to be better in the long run because you don't have to worry about flap issues, so I'm trying to look at the big picture here. I'm really looking forward to not having to deal with contacts and glasses all the time anymore. I hate wearing my glasses, but I wear them frequently now because I wear them at work when I just sit in front of a computer all day. But if I ever go out and do anything active or want to wear sunglasses, I've gotta put contacts in. Soon, no more! My eyes will probably be SUPER photosensitive for awhile here, but hopefully that will get better soon too. I need to get me a pair of dark, dark sunglasses. On a completely unrelated note, we had a Cinco de Mayo Firefly party here tonight that was totally awesome. Derek, Michelle, and Tanya came over to start watching Firefly from the beginning. So I have some pretty good final images in my head, if I do happen to go blind tomorrow. Nothing like Captain Mal. ;) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 8th, 2010
11:33 am	Sprocket Daniel and I finally got a dog! We had been missing a little furry friend in our lives since Daphne left us back in October, and we finally could not bear it any longer. As a birthday present to Daniel, we started shopping around for a new pet. On Sunday, January 24, 2010, we brought "Joe" home from the Oceanside animal shelter / humane society. Within a couple days, we had renamed him to "Sprocket" because he's pretty much just like a springy rocket. :) He's a very pretty, adorable, and energetic 2-year old brown, medium-sized lab retriever/shepherd mix. He had been in the shelter for a long time (over 2 months), and while he had been adopted at least once before, he had been returned after only 1 week. His only problem is that he has severe separation anxiety and can't handle being left alone for any amount of time. We decided to take a chance on him and work with him a heck of a lot to make it work for us. Well, we've survived two weeks with him so far, and he really has grabbed our hearts and won't let us let go now. He absolutely LOVES people and will befriend anybody. He's great being at home when we're there with him -- he will just curl up on the couch or chew his bone happy as can be. He's quiet (never barks) and happy and very cute when he hops onto the foot of our bed to hang out with us. All that being said, he does indeed have severe separation anxiety, which our apartment kind of discovered the severity of when he was left alone in it for just a few hours. He broke out of his wire crate the first day we left him home alone in it; he chewed up the door frame of the front door, trying to get out to find people; he chewed a hole in the wall next to the front door to try to get out faster; and he broke and chewed up about 75% of the vertical blinds in the dining room. We hired a behaviorist dog trainer to come to our house and help us train him to deal with his separation anxiety, so we're working on that. We got him a new crate (a plastic one this time), but the first time we left him alone in it, he broke the door on it and got out (within 40 minutes of being alone), and managed to break off one of his big canine teeth on the bottom of his mouth in the process! Poor guy. So then there was an emergency run to the vet, and now he's looking at getting a root canal from a doggie dentist. Sigh. It's so black and white -- he is an absolute angel and totally lovable when people are around, but as soon as he's left by himself, even for just a few minutes, he will go completely nuts! But we're continuing to work with him to train him, and hopefully someday he'll realize that we are not leaving him alone forever, that we will indeed be back. He probably still needs to get used to the idea of "home." Poor guy. Until then, we put him up in doggie day care during the day while we're at work. But Sprocket is a great dog and we love him to pieces. It's hard to train him to be separated from us when we really just want to love him all the time! But part of the training is for us to separate him from us while we're at home (for a short while), and then it's sad to hear him whine on the other side of the door because he can't see us anymore. But it's all for the greater good so he can handle being alone at home someday! He started out being a real leash-puller when taking him for walks (and he's REALLY strong -- remember, TWO broken crates so far?), but now he heels perfectly and is quite good when walking. So he's definitely trainable, it will just take some time. In the meantime, we've taken to calling him "Bankruptcy Doggie" because we've spent more money on him in two weeks than we ever have on anything else before. Good thing he's so lovable!!! :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
2:35 pm	A Productive Decade Happy New Year! And Happy New Decade, as 2010 is just kicking off! Well, I'm pretty sure that the last decade (2000-2009) was the most productive one that I'll ever experience, with the most growth and life changes and accomplishments. Hopefully it's not all downhill from here, but I expect more of a plateau with a few spikes along the way from here on out. Here's to having had a great decade! How far have I come... in JOB: -I got my very first job (other than baby-sitting and lawn-mowing) in the summer of 2000, right after graduating high school. I worked at World Vision in Monrovia on an Africa Help Desk project. I became proficient with the copy machine and the scanner, as well as getting to surf the web in French. It was a good first experience for a job. :) -I did a SURF at JPL during the summer of 2001. I analyzed landing sites for the 2003 MER rover mission to Mars (they were down to 6 possibilities at that point). This is what made me want to continue in planetary science! -I started ushing at Beckman Auditorium at Caltech during the fall of 2001. It was the best job EVER and still one of my favorite ones to this day. They PAID ME to watch cool shows at Beckman that I would have happily paid my own money to go see anyway. And all I had to do was stand the whole time and wear black pants and a 'snazzy' red jacket. :) -I worked in South Mudd going through hundreds of DVD's of aster data from 2003-2004. Easy job, easy money, and I could work any time I wanted (which was usually in the wee hours of the morning). -The summer of 2004 found me back at JPL to track atmospheric storms on Saturn in Cassini images. Yes, I counted and followed little dots all day. But the work got my name on a paper eventually, so that was pretty cool. -2004-2005 I TA'ed GLG 103 lab at ASU. I discovered I don't like teaching, and college freshmen are very annoying. -in the fall of 2005 I picked up a job at Jamba Juice on campus at ASU. It was pretty awesome to get a free smoothie every day, but having to get up early and freezing my fingers off with the ice cream and frozen fruit didn't quite warrant a mere $6/hr. But it was all for the experience, and I worked there just long enough to memorize all of their smoothie recipes. :) -2005-2007 I made money through an RA with my advisor, although I really didn't do much work besides working on my thesis (which we all know I didn't work very hard on :-P ). -2007-present: I've been working at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego since 2007, and I absolutely love it. I get to target the CTX camera and take pictures of Mars every week, and we're currently working on analyzing landing sites for the 2011 MSL rover mission (funny how that harks back to my SURF of 2001...). Mars is fun to work on, an incredibly interesting place, and staring at images of it all day long is pretty much the best job ever. I've gotten my name on a Science paper and got to go to one conference, and I'm hoping they'll keep me around for another decade or so, too. :) How far have I come... TRAVELING: -I did all of my international traveling in the past decade, having never left the country before 2001 (okay, I'd been to Mexico and Canada, but nothing I needed a passport for). -From 2001-2009 I visited these countries: France, England, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, United Arab Emirates (Dubai), and Barbados. Not too shabby for traveling. :) How far have I come... in PLACES I'VE LIVED: -in 2000 I was still living in San Dimas, CA -2000-2004 I lived in Pasadena, CA -2004-2006 I lived in Tempe, AZ -2006-2007 I lived in Stanford, CA -2007-present San Diego, CA (yeah, I've kind of got a thing for California) And I'll just sum up the last decade in all other aspects real quick: In 2000 I was just graduating high school as valedictorian, not sure what on Earth I was going to do with myself besides head off to college. I survived Caltech in 4 years (no small task, mind you), played NCAA volleyball, and even got 2 BS degrees (planetary science & literature). Then I survived grad school at Arizona State and got a master's degree. I got a "real job" with a salary and benefits and everything. I ran my first half marathon. And I got MARRIED! :-D I'd say that's quite a journey for a mere 10 years. high school -> 2 college degrees -> 1 masters degree -> real job -> married I don't think I can top that progression rate in the next 10 years. Where else have I got to go?! I'm happy to plateau right here. :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
9:21 pm	A Story of Unfortunate Coincidence I was going to say that this is a story of "terrible irony," but I don't think Richard Castle would approve my terminology there. So it's really just the story of an unfortunate coincidence. The story starts out as an extremely exciting, happy one -- Friday night, October 30th, was a screening of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in LA, and I was fortunate enough to get in on the action early enough to get 3 tickets before they sold out (they only sold 400 tickets for the small theater). I went with my mom and Leslie, and all three of us were stoked -- I dressed up in my groupie #1 costume that I wore to ComicCon, my mom dressed up as a laundromat lady (complete with laundry basket with Captain Hammer shirt as dirty laundry), and Leslie wore my Serenity shirt. The sing-along was fairly similar to what they did at ComicCon this year, although they also showed "The Guild" season 2 to make it a full night of Felicia Day. Once we finally got inside and they finally got going (these Browncoats never seem organized or efficient for these events), Felicia Day was there to introduce everything and to thank everyone for coming -- very cool! "The Guild" was funny, but extremely LONG, especially when we were anxiously awaiting Dr. Horrible. Apparently Nathan Fillion couldn't make it because he was filming Castle till midnight. Doh. But we got a goodie bag with all kinds of props for the Dr. Horrible sing-along (i.e. bubbles, a shrub, a penny, lacy gently wafting curtains, "his hair," a dry cleaning bill, a finger horse, etc.), so it was really fun to get to use all of our props as the whole audience sang along and participated. Fantastic! Another thing they had going on throughout the night was a raffle -- $1/ticket, and you could win cool things like a Dr. Horrible DVD, or a Buffy trade, or a Dr. Horrible poster signed by the cast, etc. Each of us bought 5 tickets, mostly assuming we didn't have a chance in the world to win anything, but it would be really cool if we did (since we never win anything). After the sing-along, they had this posterboard set up in the lobby with tiny ticket stubs taped to it next to the prize that each ticket had won. Once we jostled our way to the front of the crowd to inspect the board, we soon discovered that I HAD WON THE GRAND PRIZE!!!! Holy crap! I never win anything! "Grand prize worth $750 including the following..." wowza! So the grand prize THAT I WON includes: 2 gold-level passes to the Firefly/Serenity convention in LA, including reserved seating in the front row at each panel, autographs with ALL the cast members and front-of-the-line priority for autographs, tickets to a dessert party Saturday night where members of the cast will be there, tickets to a Sunday brunch where more members of the cast will be there, a "special gift," etc.! Isn't that like the awesomest prize package ever?! And all for Firefly and Serenity, too!!! And the best part of it all?! IT'S FINALLY MY CHANCE TO MEET NATHAN FILLION!!!!!!! The rest of my family has had a chance to meet him before (my brother in the street after the bars closed during ComicCon and my mom at a Richard Castle book signing at Border's), and they tease me endlessly about it! So I finally won my way to get a chance to meet him! And maybe even spend a decent amount of time with him! HAHA, family! Take that! So, you can tell I'm excited, right? Well, you wanna know what the "best" part of all this is? Guess when this Firefly/Serenity convention takes place. THE WEEKEND OF NOVEMBER 22nd. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Seriously?! You have GOT to be kidding me. That is an extreme "unfortunate coincidence" if I ever saw one. Perhaps one could even call it irony. I mean, COME ON! I NEVER win anything, and the one time I win something REALLY COOL, I can't even go because I'M GETTING MARRIED THAT WEEKEND. Gee, what a coincidence that the Firefly convention happens to be the same weekend as my wedding. Normally I wouldn't care (because I wouldn't really be planning on going to the Firefly convention), but given the chance to go for free and to get to meet castmembers and get priority everything while I'm there... it's just like a knife through the heart, man! Fate is so cruel. Now, okay. The convention is two days, both Saturday and Sunday. The wedding is on Sunday the 22nd. So theoretically I could ditch the out-of-town family for the day on Saturday and dash off to a Firefly convention the day before I get married. It could happen. The dessert party Saturday night might be extremely cool, you never know. BUT, now, get this. It appears that Nathan Fillion won't be making any appearances until SUNDAY. SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why?!?!?!?!?! Because fate is cruel, oh so very cruel. I definitely can't dash off to a Sunday brunch while I'm supposed to be getting my hair done and getting ready to get married, etc. Could someone just do my hair while I'm in the car?! It appears that I am destined to remain separated from Nathan Fillion while the rest of my family mocks me endlessly. SO unfair. Oh man, this is such a heartbreaker. I mean, it's so unreal that it's extremely laughable, but even that ends up with me crying at the cruel twist of fate. So sad. So very sad. So now I'm thinking I should start a bidding war among all of my browncoat friends to see who wants to go to this convention and meet the Firefly cast the most. Who can dash off to a Sunday brunch with the cast and race back to get to my wedding by 3? Or, I'm sure some of them would rather skip the wedding altogether and just stay at the convention all day Sunday. :-P And I can't really say I would blame them.... So, who wants to start the bidding? Any takers? ;) And no, Daniel won't let me postpone the wedding. Sigh.... (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 25th, 2009
3:46 pm	Science paper published! Yay, our paper finally got published in Science today! We've been waiting around for it to happen for awhile now, but the time has come. It's cool that JPL thought it worthy of a press conference, too, although I think they were just piggybacking on the Moon press conference and trying to get MRO some publicity. Meh, whatever, it was pretty cool still. Here are some links: NASA press release: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20090924r.html (hey, I'm quoted!) Science site (you can't get the full article unless you're a member or have access through school, though): http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5948/1674 Our own MSSS release about this story, from the CTX point of view: http://www.msss.com/msss_images/2009/09/24/index.html (I put this one together) Pretty nifty! :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 21st, 2009
5:18 pm	Girls' Weekend in Coronado This past weekend was what has become "annual girls' weekend in San Diego" -- where my mom, Aunt Lora, and my cousins Shirley and Marissa come down for the weekend and we do fun San Diego activities. Last year they came down and just stayed at my apartment, and we went to the Wild Animal Park and saw the tall ship festival downtown at the harbor. But this year we decided to branch out a bit and decided to spend our weekend on Coronado, nifty little peninsula town that it is. It was an awesome weekend, and I am all set to move to Coronado and live there permanently (if only I were a millionaire). I left work a bit early on Friday and met everyone at my place around 3pm. From there we went to the Zoo for a few hours to hit up the annual white elephant sale and to check out the new Elephant Odyssey exhibit that they hadn't seen yet. The Zoo's white elephant sale is the best thing ever -- always such good deals and neat stuff. Aunt Lora had hurt her back a couple days beforehand, so we got a wheelchair to push her around in so she wouldn't have to walk so much. That made for an interesting afternoon of getting around to the Elephant Odyssey exhibit and then back down the huge hill by the polar bears. We ended up catching a shuttle to take us back to the front when we were too daunted by the remaining hills between us and the exit to get out. :-P It was a nifty afternoon at the Zoo, though. From the Zoo, we drove over the bridge to Coronado, and got to see a lovely fog descending over downtown San Diego as we did. We checked into our hotel, the Glorietta Bay Inn, which is right across the street from the Del. It's the old mansion of Mr. Spreckels, a huge investor in San Diego from the late 1800's. The main mansion house is mostly for the lobby, breakfast area, and music room (has an awesome piano that plays itself, plus comfy chairs for lounging in while looking at the books on the bookshelves). There are something like 10 rooms that you can stay in actually in the mansion, but the rest of the hotel rooms have been built up around the mansion itself. We had a lovely room, #558, on the ground floor right next to the back entrance to the mansion itself. Perfect! Even with two queen beds, a rollaway bed, a little kitchen area, a desk area, and bathroom (including 2 sinks!), there was still plenty of room inside, and we didn't feel crowded at all. Perfecto. We even had a TV and DVD player, so we could easily watch our DVD selection for the night, "Some Like It Hot." This Marilyn Monroe/Tony Curtis/Jack Lemmon movie was partly filmed right across the street at the Del in 1959. That makes this the 50-year anniversary of the movie, and it just so happens that a big "Some Like It Hot" weekend celebration was going on at the Del all weekend long THIS very weekend that we were there. Perfect timing. :) We walked downtown to have dinner at the diner that's attached to Moo Time Creamery first, and then came back and watched the movie. I had never seen it before, but I thought it was hilarious, especially for an "old" black and white movie. Not dated at all. I guess there's something timeless about cross-dressing and running from the mob. :-P Everyone else kind of snored their way through the film, but I saw it all, heehee. :) Saturday morning we got to get up and start with our free continental breakfast, one of the nicest that I've had. I had a toasted bagel and cream cheese, a banana, and some pineapple. Plus some apple juice, and I could have chosen any other number of things to eat and drink, too. We ate out on the front patio of the mansion, looking out towards Glorietta Bay and seeing all the sailboats parked out there as the sun rose higher in the sky. It was a lovely morning. We played some Apples to Apples in our room, and stuffed all my wedding invitations for me! Then we got ready and headed out to the Del and the beach for the day! Walking around the Hotel Del Coronado is always so cool -- it makes you feel like a wannabe rich person, heehee. We strolled around the hotel a bit and then headed out toward the beach. We climbed on some rocks for awhile, strolled in the GOLD sand, and just generally enjoyed the view of the ocean and the Del. I even managed a bit of a nap while laying out. :) When we got tired of being sun-baked, we walked back to downtown and went to Moo Time Creamery for an ice cream break. I had orange sherbert and "silly vanilla," a bright blue/fake-colored vanilla ice cream. It was delicious. :) Afterwards mom, Shirley, and I continued walking around downtown and went in a few shops along the way. The best place that we visited was the Coronado Historical Society building, where they have a little museum and gift shop inside. The museum tells some of the history of Coronado, and they also had a big exhibit on L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz, who penned many of his stories while visiting Coronado. It was pretty nifty. Makes me want to actually read the books! We made it back to the hotel in time for afternoon snack time, so we got lemonade and cookies and sat on the mansion patio again to enjoy it. I had brought some strawberries, so we had strawberries with our lemonade, and we played some Yahtzee while sitting out there. No better way to spend an afternoon! We headed over to the Village Pizzeria for dinner, since we had seen a lot of people going there over the past couple of days and it sure looked promising. We got a nice table on the sidewalk and ordered a huge pizza for the 5 of us to share. It was good, but not quite as stellar as I had hoped. Mostly because it was quite spicy, I think. Still good to have pizza, though. :) After that we walked on down to the Coronado Playhouse (I LOVE how everything is within walking distance!) to see our 8pm showing of Hamlet. I do love free Shakespeare. Nevermind that it's quite the amateur performance; no matter how Hamlet is done, there are still all of the famous lines that are in there, and it's so neat to hear them all again. I do love me some Shakespeare. :) We made a detour through the Del on our way back to our own hotel, just in time to see the back of Tony Curtis's head as he was signing things for an art auction thing for part of "Some Like It Hot" weekend! We saw the back of his head in a white cowboy hat through a window as we walked up to the main lobby. Then we tried to sneak in to the art auction thing, but we were promptly asked to leave as apparently it was obvious that we didn't belong there. Ha! But at least I've been in the same room as Tony Curtis, heehee. :-P We walked through more of the hotel as well, and got to ogle at the ornate architecture and sheer size of the entire hotel, too. The Del is pretty cool. Then back to the hotel to turn in for the night! Sunday we once again started with delicious breakfast, but we ate in the music room this time. Mmmm, so good. I sat around on a couch in the music room after we were done eating just to read my book and enjoy being there for awhile. It was lovely. Back in the room, we played some Simpson's Pit for a bit before packing up to go. We checked out and went up to the north/east end of Coronado, by the ferry landing, for the morning. We stopped at an art show thing in the park that we were just driving by on Orange Street on our way up, too. Then up near the ferry landing there was a big arts and crafts show thing going on, so it was fun to walk around and look at all the stuff, including the Scottish store. :) There was a band playing live music, and the beach was lovely to walk along, especially with a view of downtown San Diego right across the water. For lunch we went to Clayton's Coffee Shop, back towards the south/west end of Coronado. It's another Coronado institution, a diner that has been there for over 60 years. It's a 50's diner with mostly an elliptical counter in the middle that you sit at the "bar" to eat from, but there are a few booths on the side. We managed to snag a booth, so we could put in quarters to the little jukebox machine on our table to have oldies music played on the loudspeakers throughout the restaurant. It was awesome. And they had the perfect lunch combo of a half grilled cheese sandwich plus a cup of soup (chicken tortilla, no less). Love the old school diner. Next time I'm getting a hand-crafted milkshake and some of their famous pie. Or perhaps breakfast, their other specialty.... :) And that was about it for our Girls' Weekend on Coronado! We headed back to my apartment briefly, but then everyone else headed on home up to LA. It was a lovely weekend, most excellent for all things Coronado. I'm ready to move there and just stay on the "island" all the time. As soon as I get my hands on some millions.... :) (Comment on this)
Monday, August 10th, 2009
10:45 pm	ComicCon wrap-up Okay, so I'm a couple weeks late with the ComicCon stuff. But I'm finally getting around to it. ComicCon 2009 was exceptionally good. Here's how it went and what I did: **WEDNESDAY** Preview night! My first one ever. It was cool to get in on the exhibition floor early and get to walk around and get some free stuff ahead of time. I bought a Serenity t-shirt from the Browncoats booth, an exclusive signed Star Trek Countdown comic, and got some free stuff. Not too shabby. **THURSDAY** -after a brief look at the line to get in to Hall H (never saw the end of it -- it wrapped around the convention center off towards Seaport Village), we decided there was no chance of getting in to see the Disney 3D panel (missed a surprise appearance by Johnny Depp because of this). This is because Twilight was in hall H in the afternoon, and all of the crazy Twilight fans had been lining up since Tuesday night to get in. So no chance for anyone else to get in the room. I heard later that 11,000 people were in line (room capacity is 6500). Yikes. Freaking Twilight fans. -So, first thing of the day on the floor, I got Ben Templesmith to sign my Doctor Who: The Whispering Gallery comic. Love that guy. My mom and brother were there at the same time, so he now knows the whole "Kennedy Clan," as he put it. Quite a funny guy. I should read Wormwood at some point. -Richard Hatch: Battlestar Galactica in review panel. A good panel, with Richard Hatch starting it out with chants of "so say we all!" He and the actress who played Kat were there, as well as Bear McCreary (music) and a few of the writer/producer/director-type people. Apparently Richard Hatch didn't quite envision his character ending by being thrown out the airlock, but hey. At least he made it that far. :-P -Female Power Icons, aka the "Kick-Ass Women" panel. Sigourney Weaver, Eliza Dushku, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Zoe Saldana were there talking about women in sci fi-type shows. A pretty good panel; Sigourney Weaver was the most engaging and best speaker by far. She's almost 60! -Top Shelf panel. Was hoping to hear new info about League III, but no such luck. Saw some cool upcoming covers for comics, though. -Saw part of the Science Behind Science Fiction panel, just to hear Jane Espenson talk for a bit. She's awesome. I hope Caprica takes off and does well. -Dr. Horrible sing-along! This was truly truly awesome. We were all given booklets of lyrics and callbacks to yell out during the sing-along. Felicia Day came out and introduced it, and then the Whedon brothers (minus Joss) and Maurissa came out at the end and talked a bit. Very cool. And it was VERY crowded as it was only in room 6A; Robin and Sal couldn't even get in until the Commentary sing-along part. You'd think they'd learn to put the Joss stuff in bigger rooms.... Oh, and I was dressed as Groupie #1 for the day, so that made the sing-along extra fun. :) **FRIDAY** -FAIL at getting an autograph ticket for Neil Gaiman later in the day. They really need a better system for ticket distribution -- it was horribly organized and I'm not lucky enough. -Coraline panel with Neil Gaiman and Teri Hatcher (and some other people). This is the first time I've ever seen Neil Gaiman in person, so it was lovely to hear him talk about the story in his lovely British accent. Oh yes. :) And Teri Hatcher resembles the Other Mother a bit too much, it's kind of creepy.... -Couldn't get in to the BSG/Caprica panel, so I decided to check out the FlashForward panel instead. It's a new show that starts in the fall and is supposed to be "the next Lost." I mostly went because it stars Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love guy!) and John Cho (Harold!), and I wanted to see them. To my pleasant surprise, it actually looks like a good show. Joseph Fiennes had some funny comments about how it's so nice to get to wear jeans instead of pantaloons, and how awesome it feels to have a gun strapped to his hip instead of a sword in his hand. Pretty funny. AND the best part was at the end. Someone asked during the Q&A if they could confirm the rumor that Dominic Monaghan was going to be on the show, and they said they had no comment. But then at the very end they showed a brand new trailer/commercial for the show, and the very end shows them bringing in a new guy to help out... and it's Dom!!! And THEN, they brought out one final special guest... and it was Dom!!! So cool to see him again and to see that he's still making good stuff. He didn't get a chance to say much because it was near the end of the panel, but it was just so cool to see a random guest appearance by him. What a way to announce that he's going to be on the show. :) -stood in line to meet and get Jane Espenson's autograph on a Buffy comic. She's awesome, but she showed up an hour late to her own (scheduled) signing. Kinda sucky, but at least we got to see her. -went to Ballroom 20 for the rest of the day to make sure we got in for Joss Whedon stuff. Had to work the bathroom pass system to get everyone in, but it worked. First up, the 24 panel. Having never watched 24 before, I was pleasantly surprised and entertained enough for this panel. David Fury was there! And Katee Sackhoff was on the panel, as she will be in the upcoming season of 24. So it was worth it just to see her (she was looking very feminine, too -- quite a change from Starbuck). She said her character is much girlier than Starbuck, so she kind of misses going around with a gun strapped to her hip and beating everyone up. But it still sounds good. Maybe I'll catch this season of 24 at some point. -Bones panel. The only part I was looking forward to was seeing David Boreanaz -- and he ended up not showing up because his wife was going to have a baby at any minute, so he stayed home to be with her "just in case." Wah wah. He sent a 5-minute video clip thingy apologizing for not being there, but that was it. The rest of the panel was really boring because I don't actually watch the show. Oh well. -Dollhouse + Joss Whedon panels. TWO HOURS of Joss goodness. :) First, we got to watch the unaired 13th episode of Dollhouse, Epitaph One. It was quite different from the rest of the show and looks to take the show in an entirely new direction for season 2. I sure hope they show this on tv before they start season 2, otherwise people will wonder what happened. Then Joss and Eliza talked for awhile, and they brought out special guests of Topher and Sierra (I don't know their real names) as well! Pretty cool. I'm glad that Dollhouse got renewed, and I hope they keep up the good writing and interesting story. I was disappointed that Alan Tudyk wasn't a surprise guest, but oh well. I can't have everything, I guess. :-P -James Cameron & Peter Jackson panel. These two movie giants were discussing the future of film in hall H. It's Peter Jackson's first ComicCon ever (it's about time!), so it was just cool to see him in person. He's still awfully skinny compared to his LotR days. **SATURDAY** -First up, the Angel comic panel. The upcoming issues of Angel sound awesome. Namely, Angel and Spike go to ComicCon! And the same thing that happens in the Halloween episode happens there -- people become their costumes and what they're dressed up as. AND, the best part is, at the time Spike is dressed up as Angel! Haha! And Juliet Landau (Drusilla) was at this panel because she's just written a 2-issue story for Angel. So it was cool to see her there, too (especially in a small room that wasn't that crowded). -I got to meet Russell T. Davies and get his autograph at the BBC booth! Totally awesome! He's a very nice, personable guy. And he signed an awesome David Tennant postcard for me, so that was really really cool. -Wandering around the floor with mom, we saw lots of famous people (and took their pictures from a distance) -- Leonard Nimoy, Brent Spiner, John Barrowman, Edward James Olmos, Saul Tigh (don't know his real name), Camden Toy (the Prince of Lies and the head gentleman from the Buffy episode "Hush" (we actually talked to him, he was really nice -- and creepy)), and a few others. I got my picture taken with Snoopy at the Peanuts booth, too. :) -Extract panel. New movie starring Jason Bateman that's coming out soon. I knew nothing about the movie, I just wanted to see Jason Bateman (his first ComicCon, too!). He's pretty funny in person, too. The movie looks all right. -caught the end of the Gerard Way panel to make sure to get in to room 6DE for... -Boondock Saints II panel!!! I think this was my favorite panel of the whole con. It was so awesome. First of all, the room was packed and a lot of people didn't even get in (yeah cult following! and yeah mom for working the bathroom pass system to get me in!). The entire cast was there, and Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus were having a ball with it all. They came out on stage with video cameras rolling to capture the crowd, and Sean Patrick Flanery couldn't get past the fact that he was "on a *bleeping* jumbotron!", meaning the big screen right next to him that he was projected on. The boys were filming everything for their mothers, who apparently were never going to believe this. Troy Duffy has awesome Veritas Aequitas tattoos on his arms and got lots of love from the crowd for his creation. Julie Benz (Darla) is also going to be in the second movie, so she was there too. Can't help but hear Darla in her voice when she talks. AND we saw the world premiere of the trailer for the second movie, which looks AWESOME. We even got to see it twice because even the actors thought it was so cool. Okay, and Billy Connolly is insane. Hilarious, but insane. He has a great Irish accent, and he kept going on and on about how he has the best job in the world because he gets to go to work and kill people, and how he just loves killing people and getting to shoot everybody and having 6 guns strapped to his chest, etc. He's a scary man (but so funny). :-P They opened it up for questions, and the very first question was this angry sounding man being like, "So, are you gonna bring Rocco back for the next movie?!" And the guy asking the question turned out to be ROCCO! Surprise guest audience plant, I love it! So Rocco was there! And then Ron Jeremy also popped out from the audience somewhere. Oh man, this panel was so great. Everyone was there, and they were all having a blast, and the next movie looks awesome, so it was all fantastic. The movie should come out in November of this year! -Joss Whedon autograph signing. None of my tickets won in the drawing for a chance to get Joss (and other Dr. Horrible creators) autographs, but mom got one! So I stuck around to take her picture and watch from behind the rope as she got to get autographs and meet Joss. So cool. And so jealous! She did take up my Buffy trade of Wolves at the Gate to get signed by him, though, so I did at least get an autograph. :) And he waved at me cuz mom pointed over to me so I could take their picture. Woooo, a Joss wave! -The other best part of the con was Saturday night at the screening of the last episode of Torchwood: Children of Earth and Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead (one of the final 4 David Tennant episodes). I barely got in to the packed room, and I was just excited to see the new Doctor Who episode. Then to my surprise, Russell T. Davies was there to introduce the shows! Awesome! And then, he brought out John Barrowman! The man is so gay and yet so hilarious. Quite a character indeed. And THEN, they brought out -- you'll never guess -- DAVID TENNANT!!!!!!! NO WAY!!! Best surprise guest ever! The room went wild with screams and everyone leapt to their feet to applaud and cheer and yell some more. It was so amazing. And they all talked and chatted for about 10 minutes (David Tennant sounds so Scottish in real life), and John Barrowman ended up kissing both David Tennant and Russell T. Davies, and they were all hilarious and awesome, and it was just amazing. Seeing David Tennant that close up in a small room (6DE again, and so many people got turned away -- they really gotta put these things in bigger rooms) as a surprise was so great. Perhaps the best single moment of the con. :) Then mom showed up just as the guests had just left and Torchwood was starting (she was out getting dinner with the boys and didn't get back till too late!). Oh, so many tears for Ianto. The Doctor Who episode was okay -- not spectacular, but it's definitely setting it up for a big death scene. I'm going to miss David Tennant. This was an awesome way to end Saturday night, though. :) :) :) **SUNDAY** -up and out the door way early to get in line for Ballroom 20 and the Doctor Who panel, which was the first thing of the day. We eventually got in and got decent seats. The panel was awesome -- with Russell T. Davies, David Tennant (sporting a shirt with a sequined/shiny Darth Vader helmet on it), and Euros Lyn, a director. We saw a trailer/ad for the final 4 Tennant episodes, and it looks awesome! Apparently the Master is back! Wha??? Something ominous about 4 knocks. And there will be a whole episode on Mars. Can't wait for it all, and yet I don't want David Tennant's run to be over! I also can't wait to see the film version of David Tennant's Hamlet performance. That should be out late this year or early next year. Again, should be awesome. -failed at getting in to the last half of the Smallville panel, so I walked the floor one last time with mom for a bit. Awfully tired out by the last day of the con. -went back to Ballroom 20 to sit through a few mini-panels before the Torchwood panel started! Russell T. Davies, Euros Lyn, and John Barrowman were there! It was so great. John Barrowman is a showman through and through, and he kept going on and on about how hot everyone was. A bit over-the-top, but he is hilarious. He makes some funny faces. And how can you not love Captain Jack?! -And right after the Torchwood panel was the last panel of the con: the Buffy sing-along! It's always great to get to do a Once More, With Feeling! sing-along. This year was way nicer than last year (apparently they got a sponsor), so they passed out big buttons, grrr argh monsters, and nicely-made parking tickets (rather than the crappy photocopied ones that we got last year). What better way to close out the con than with a Buffy sing-along?! It was so great, just like usual. :) And that was it for ComicCon in 2009! What a whirlwind 4.5 days. I swear, I needed another day or two off afterwards to recover (but I didn't have days off, so I had to suffer through work while being sleepy and exhausted). The best parts by far were the Boondock Saints II panel and the surprise appearance of David Tennant at the Doctor Who screening. So amazing. I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting Jane Espenson, Russell T. Davies, and Ben Templesmith. That's the best part about the con -- the opportunity to meet some of your heroes! :) And I already bought my 4-day pass for next year, so I'm set. They jacked up the price to $100 (it was only $65 last year -- ouch), but it will still be worth it. Can't wait already! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
12:55 pm	San Diego Zoo Outing Yesterday evening I had a lovely visit to the San Diego Zoo. I'm keeping myself entertained while Daniel's off in Dubai for work, so I'm doing things that he doesn't really enjoy, like going to the zoo and watching Torchwood. :) It was such a nice evening -- I went down after work, got to the zoo around 5pm, found a close parking spot (since people who had been there all day were leaving), and got in for free with my membership card. The zoo just extended their hours to 9pm for the summer as of last Friday, so I can actually come in the evenings now! I had a coupon for a free bus tour ride that expired at the end of June, so I figured I better use it (I'll take almost anything for free, heehee). I took the ~40-minute bus tour around the park, which is not something I would normally do (since it costs like $10 or $15). But it was an interesting way to see the park, and kinda cool to hear some of the commentary stuff that they tell you. I didn't get to sit on the top level because it was already full, but I don't think it mattered much. When we drove by the polar bear exhibit, there was actually a polar bear in the water! I swear, for an exhibit deemed "Polar Bear Plunge," I only ever see the bears lying around on the land. So it was neat to see one swimming around, even if it was from a distance. After the bus tour, I went over to see the naked mole rats, and a couple of them were actually active this time! So freaky, and yet strangely fascinating creatures. One was especially active in scurrying around and moving bedding from tube to tube, going backwards and forwards. Crazy to watch. Then I took the Skyfari skybuckets thing up to the top by the polar bears. The polar bear was no longer swimming by then, but it was eating carrots, per usual. Then I walked over the newly-re-opened hill to go to the Elephant Odyssey exhibit/area that just opened a month ago! It's a huge new area for elephants and other "prehistoric"-type animals. It was cool to see everything looking so new and nice. It looks like the elephants have a nice big home -- they were happily drinking water from a little lake, eating hay from a thing hanging from a tree, and taking dirt baths by tossing dirt onto themselves with their trunks. There were also CUTE capybaras, a little spotted leopard, and some tapirs and whatnot. I also had a 20% off coupon for food, so I figured I might as well try out the new food place in Elephant Odyssey as well while I was there. So I got a burger and fries for dinner and ate my dinner out on the patio area while I watched the elephants some more in the sunset light. It was a pretty cool view. :) After Elephant Odyssey, I walked back towards the front and stopped in to see the koalas. There was a cute little baby koala hanging onto its mom's back, and they climbed from one branch to another and were eating a bunch of eucalyptus leaves. Baby koalas are adorable! From there I visited my favorites, the visayan warty pigs (the little babies are so cute!), as well as the new baby red river hogs (although they were all sleeping rolled up against one another -- like pigs in a blanket, heehee!). I saw how a hippo sleeps, with its body in the water and the top of its head out of the water, against a rock. Yeah, it turns out that when the sun starts to go down, a lot of animals turn in for the night. Imagine that! :-P As the last thing I got to do, I went to a bird show at 8:30 and saw some cool birds fly around. They're still working on training the birds (apparently the show doesn't ACTUALLY open until next weekend because they're behind schedule), so we got to see more of the training part than the actual show, but it was still interesting. And the show went long because it took them awhile to get some of the birds to do what they wanted. So I got out at 9:15 instead of 9 when the zoo actually closed! Woo hoo! :-P So all in all, it was a pretty cool day. It wasn't too crowded on a Monday evening (yay for being a member and living right here!), the bus tour was a cool way to mix it up, Elephant Odyssey was neat to see, and all the animals (especially the babies) were awesome! I quite enjoyed my evening out. :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
12:13 pm	HUZZAH!!! The news was released last night that DAVID TENNANT is going to be at ComicCon this year!!! Holy crap, I can't believe it! He was on my list of "people I really hope will be at ComicCon but will never actually show up" -- but now he's showing up! For a Doctor Who panel!!! Oh man, I can't wait until the end of July! The panel is going to be on Sunday, so it turns out that Sunday may just be the best day of the con this year. CANNOT wait, I'm SOOOOO excited!!!!!! :) :) :) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 15th, 2009
4:53 pm	Awesomeness So, it's been awhile since I've updated. Here's a basic rundown of what's been going on lately, and what is soon to come: Awesomeness #1: I sprained my left ankle a week and a half ago. Daniel and I went for a run at night (note to self: never go jogging in the dark), and despite my attempts to be "safer" by wearing a headlamp (my mom cracked up at the mental image of this), I still stepped right on and rolled right over a pine cone while running. I got a nice loud pop out of my ankle as it turned on itself, it was great. Except, not so great in that I couldn't walk all the way home and had to make Daniel run back home and get the car to come pick me up. A week and a half later, most of the purple has turned to yellow and it's only slightly swollen still. I don't even limp when I walk anymore! I can run on it with a brace on, and I've stepped up my "rehab" regimen at the gym. Stupid ankle. Stupid pine cone.... Awesomeness #2: Trying to run more in preparation for an attempt to run a half marathon in October. HAHAHA. Half marathon. That's like 13 miles. At once. I mean, give me 3 days and I could probably do it, but finish in a few hours? Right, that's going to take some training this summer. Daniel and Grace convinced me to do it. I mean, I'd like to lose a little weight and trim/tone up a bit before I fit myself into a wedding dress, and running is the best way for me to do that. So I guess to make sure I actually do it, training for this half marathon thingy is the way to go. Or something like that. We're gonna run the Detroit Half Marathon in October. It's a cool race cuz you get to run to Canada and back -- international! Hopefully I can finish in under 2 hours 30 minutes. We shall see, we shall see. Hopefully there are no pine cones on the course. Awesomeness #3: I get to go to Dubai next month! Daniel's going for work for a couple weeks, and I get to fly out and meet him at the end of his duty to hang out and tour around a bit. Granted, I will be there for a grand total of 3.5 days (I hate having such little vacation time), but I think it's worth it to just take the opportunity and go with it. I'll probably never go to Dubai or the United Arab Emirates again, so I might as well take my chance now and just do it, even for a short time. Daniel already gets to go on the company dime, so it's at least not as expensive as it would be if we just wanted to go as a random vacation and had to pay for both of us! On the plus side, I get to take a direct flight there from LAX on the fancy Emirates airline -- award-winning with multi-course meals and brand-new airplanes, etc. Should be pretty nice! At least I hope so, as it's a 16-hour flight.... Awesomeness #4: UCSD commencement was last weekend and Chad got his PhD. Pretty crazy. Makes me wonder if I would ever want to go back and get a PhD... and then I slap myself and say, "what, are you crazy?!" I don't think it's going to happen. Once you leave school, you don't go back. I have no desire to spend another 5-6 years back in mind-numbing school. I enjoy my working life, thank you very much (I have free weekends AND money to spend! now if I just had more vacation time...). Awesomeness #5: my weekends are booked from June 27 - July 25. A busy summer is shaping up quickly. I'm already getting all kinds of ComicCon hype from various people for the end of July. Can't wait!!! I wish the schedule would come out earlier. Main goal of the Con: see Alan Tudyk. Heehee! Awesomeness #6: wedding-planning update -- bridesmaid dresses acquired, and cake tasting completed. I am already looking forward to some yummy wedding cake. Okay, I think I'm done now. I need to stop buying candy to keep in my desk at work. Too tempting. But oh so tasty.... I do love "just a little" piece of chocolate. Mmmm, chocolate.... (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
11:58 pm	May entry Just squeezing in one entry for the month of May. Ha! Two minutes to go. Things have been busy and fun lately. Maybe I'll write more in June. :-P (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
11:49 pm	Wedding Checklist to Date date - check (Nov. 22, 2009) location - check (http://www.lindleyscotthouse.com/) wedding party - check wedding dress - check minister - check save the date cards mailed - check guest book - check website - check photographer - check basic guest list - check Need to do: flowers/florist cake tasting find bridesmaid dresses DJ/MC? invitations favors etc.... Seems okay for still having ~7 months to go, right? I think we're ahead of schedule. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
11:51 am	Dodgers Spring Training in AZ This past weekend my mom and I went out to Arizona to catch some spring training action in the Dodgers' inaugural year in the Cactus League. It was a long 48 hours, but very fun and awesome to see baseball again! I left San Diego at 8pm Friday night and got home ~10pm. We went to bed around 11:30pm and then got up at 3:30am and hit the road by 4am. Ahhh, the early morning road trip through the desert. We arrived in Glendale at Camelback Ranch by 10am (and that was with losing an hour due to the time difference -- so it really only took us 5 hours to drive there!) to hang out and try to get some autographs before the 1:05pm game. The first indication that things were going to be different here than at Vero Beach was that we had to stand in line to GET IN to the gift shop. At 10am. We just wanted to buy a baseball to be able to have people sign it, but we had to wait in line to even get in the store, and then wait in a longer line inside to check out. Sheesh! Vero Beach was never that crowded. We eventually bought baseballs and headed over to the practice fields where they were doing some pitchers drills and a little batting practice. Manny walked off of one field to the clubhouse, and people took off running across the complex to try to get close to him to get a picture or an autograph, it was crazy. Camelback Ranch is a nice, brand-new facility (Opening Day was just on March 1st, and we were there on March 7th! BRAND-new!), so I'm sure all the amenities for the players are superb. But as a fan, I think it's definitely missing a lot of the character that Vero Beach had. There are no 'Dodgertown' signs anywhere, no streets named for famous Dodgers within the complex, you don't just see Tommy Lasorda driving a golf cart around all the time (we didn't see him at all -- I don't know where he is), although Manny Mota was still getting around on his bike. In Vero Beach you can wander on paths through the complex, get right up to the practice fields to lean into the dugout to get an autograph from someone, etc. You can sit around by the batting cages to watch people come in and out and to watch the kids get on the bus to head out for an away game, while Rick Honeycutt is standing right out there as well. In Arizona, they have people penned-in much more, and you can't walk on all the paths or get close to many practice fields. It makes it seem much more crowded that way, and the players seem much less accessible. Pretty much, you can stand at the rope and watch them walk by as they go to and from the clubhouse to the fields. In Vero Beach, this is where everyone would stop to sign autographs; in Glendale, NO ONE stopped to sign anything. They must have told them not to for some reason because no one did it. It was so sad. So where the heck else are you supposed to get autographs if you can't get close to the players anywhere else?! Kind of sad. I guess we got some good pictures of players walking by, but that was about it. Manny Ramirez walked by and was talking Spanish to someone in the crowd, so it was cool to see him up close, but it was only for a few seconds. Sigh. We saw two games while we were there. Saturday they played the Mariners, and while we were hoping to see Ken Griffey, Jr., apparently he didn't make the trip for this one. Adrian Beltre was there, though, so it was good to see him again, too. The Dodgers had a one-run lead with 2 outs in the 9th inning, and 2 strikes on Bryan LaHair. LaHair!!! (remember him from the AAA game we saw in Vegas last June?). Apparently he got tired of us heckling him, because he launched a 2-run home run to put the Mariners up by one and to give them the game. Sigh. Stupid LaHair. So the Dodgers lost that one in a close game. On the plus side, Maury Wills ended up sitting in front of us for a little while, so we got his autograph at least. Hey, if you can't get the current players, at least the old guys are still wandering the stands. He was MVP in 1962 or something like that -- he made base-stealing a real statistic because he was so good at it, pretty impressive. On Sunday they played the White Sox (with whom they share Camelback Ranch as their "home" facility). We had good seats right behind the dugout for this game, so it was nice to be pretty close there. We had 3 foul balls come right near us, but we didn't manage to get any of them. In Vero Beach, the dugout is uncovered and you can just reach over and get autographs from the players while they sit there before the game starts. Here, the dugout is covered with a big block of concrete and the players are pretty much invisible. Sigh. We did manage to get James McDonald's autograph from there before the game, but that was it! Two lousy autographs for the whole weekend. In Vero Beach I filled up 2 baseballs with ~20 signatures. Yeah, WAY more accessible there. The Dodgers lost this one pretty handily, without really giving much competition. Promising things of the weekend: Billingsley pitched a good 3 innings on Saturday, and Kershaw pitched a good 3 innings on Sunday, so the starters are looking good at least. Raffy played both games and didn't look like his back was hurting or anything. Orlando Hudson made some amazing defensive plays at 2nd base, plays that Jeff Kent never would have made, so it's good to see that he's quick and has large range. It could be exciting to watch him play. Jason Repko looks good, too. Outfield prospect #75 Xavier Paul also played amazingly for both games -- good batting, good fielding, etc. Too bad they have so many outfielders already, because he could be good as well. Also as a plus for Sunday, Carrie and Jimmy came to the game. It's always fun to see them. They're getting a dog, too! Mal, a browncoat puppy. :) How exciting! I want a dog someday, too. We left AZ about 4:45pm, soon after the game was over, and we got to San Dimas around 10pm (no time change this time, as Daylight Savings happened over the weekend). I left around 11pm and got back to San Diego at 12:30am! Lots of driving and very little sleep, but it was a fun weekend. So, my final opinion: Vero Beach was better. It will be nice to be able to go to see the Dodgers in spring training every year now because they're so close, but I would trade that for the accessibility and character that Vero Beach offers, even if I could only go there once every 5 years or so. Oh well, there's no going back now. I'm just glad I got the chance to go to Vero Beach in 2007, before it was too late! (Comment on this)
Friday, February 20th, 2009
10:20 pm	Engaged! Well, it's old news to most of the world now, but I just wanted to document it here as well, since my livejournal is a little more easy-to-follow than my facebook profile. As of Valentine's Day, Daniel and I are officially engaged! He surprised me with a ring and a proposal while we were just staying in on Valentine's night. He had promised to cook me dinner, but before he did that, he got me flowers, a sweet card, and got down on one knee and proposed to me. Awwwww, it was very romantic. :) We're looking at getting married in October or November, in the LA area somewhere. I guess those are the first things to figure out -- when and where. The rest of the crazy wedding planning shite can hit the fan after that's decided. So my question goes out to you, if you're married -- how big was your wedding? How many people? We're looking at maybe 200-ish people, but we may want to pare that down a bit and go for a slightly smaller wedding, we'll see. Daniel's ready to splurge on a big, long, fun honeymoon, though, that's exciting. Where should we go? :) So for now I'm just enjoying the "being engaged" part of everything before actually diving in to planning mode. It's fun to tell people you're getting married and to watch their faces look shocked, surprised, and happy all at once. Or to hear it in their voice over the phone. Heehee. And my last question: can you picture me as Mrs. Wu? I mean, my friends have always said I was "whasian", but maybe they didn't think I'd go so far as to become Megan Wu, hmmmmm.... :-P (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 9th, 2009
3:50 pm	I do love Weather Finally, some real Weather has arrived this past weekend in San Diego! It's been rainy, windy, gray, and stormy since last Thursday, and it still continues today! I am mostly excited because I actually got to stay home this weekend, and I didn't have to go OUT in the rain/storm. :) That meant I could just curl up and stay cozy inside while listening to the rain outside. Ahhhh, I do love getting to do that during the winter. It's so peaceful. :) My mom came down to visit me for the weekend this time -- hooray for visitors! Daniel went skiing in Big Bear on Friday and then went to Claremont for the weekend (and to Irvine for work stuff through Tuesday this week), so we had a lazy girls' weekend. Thursday night we went to Coronado to see a play of The Wizard of Oz, and it was surprisingly good for a small community theater! The Dorothy was amazing -- she's a high school freshman who could do it all. And real dogs for Toto were extra cute as well, especially since we were sitting in the front row! Friday I worked a short day at work and then hung out with my mom -- we went to the grand opening of my new local BevMo! (yay free chips, caramel corn, and good coupons), saw Coraline in 3D, and had Pat & Oscar's for dinner. Coraline was really good, despite the addition of a boy as a character (Coraline figures everything out for herself in the book!). I still like the book better (how can you not? It's Neil Gaiman!), but the movie was good as well. Afterwards we took dinner home and hung out, played games, listened to the rain, etc. On Saturday, it was more of the same! Sweet sweet indoor activities included booking our hotel for our upcoming stay in Washington, D.C. in March (good deal on the Hilton, yeah!), watching hummingbirds eat from my hummingbird feeder on the patio (apparently they do go out in the rain), watching Radioland Murders (it's been too long -- best movie EVER, I swear), playing more games, reading comic books (I'm all caught up on both Buffy and Angel comics now! quite some amazing stories going on there...), reading novels (working on Ender in Exile right now -- it's awesome to be wrapped back up in the Enderverse again :) ), etc. We tried to take Penny for a walk once (she came to visit, too!), but it started raining hard on us after about 5 minutes and we had to pick up the dog and carry her home quickly while the downpour continued. We ordered a pizza for dinner and hung out some more before mom went back up to San Dimas. A most excellent visit. Sunday I had an indoor day to myself while it rained on and off outside. I read some more, as well as went on a little Firefly-watching spree. I hadn't watched that show in awhile either, and the episodes are just so good. I made it so far that I only have one disc left of the entire series, which I plan on finishing tonight. :) I did go to the gym for a little while as well, but apparently it closes at 4pm on Sunday (so early!) so I didn't stay as long as I would have liked. Oh well. I spent some quality time with the rat on the couch all day instead. :) And this morning I woke up to the sound of rain outside my window still, which made it oh-so hard to get out of bed and get going. It stopped raining long enough for me to drive to work, but then late this morning it opened up and really started storming! It's super windy now and it has poured rain off and on all day long. Oh, so great. I plan on going home and cuddling back up on the couch with the rat, a cup of tea, and my book, and staying cozy while it continues to rain outside. Heehee! I love rain and Weather when I can stay inside and enjoy it from under a blanket. :) (Comment on this)