Although I should be getting ready for bed...

I'm playing online. Paul called a little while ago to let me know he is on the plane and headed home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) He's got a 16 hour flight to Los Angles and then to Dallas and finally RDU, but he'll be home 24 hours from now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the seat he's sitting in from MEL to LAX: Quantas skybed and more info here.

"The new Qantas International Business Class sleeper seat Skybed has again been recognized for its excellence, receiving one of Australia's top design accolades - an Australian Design Award. Skybed was also recently awarded one of the world's oldest and most prestigious international design honours - A Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture.

Features:

* A seat that transforms into the world's longest Business class bed at almost 2 metres.
* Extensive seat adjustment controls for maximum comfort in any position, regardless of your height.
* In the recline position the bed width measures a spacious 61cm (24 inches), allowing plenty of room for you to stretch out comfortably.
* More comfortable cushions developed with a leading Australian ergonomist to help you sleep and relax.
* More personal space thanks to a 'cocoon' design with a generous privacy screen.
* Relaxing back massage feature.
* A personal entertainment unit featuring a 26cm tilt screen and noise cancellation headphones.
* AC power plug for your laptop that doesn't require an adaptor cable.
* Clever storage solutions including a compartment for your shoes, a centre console unit for work items and even a water bottle holder."

Still at work...

Get this - I am on hour 12 of being at my office. I am calling it a day and seeking food on my way home (or maybe not.. I can't decide). The office is 1/2 way packed - just about everything that I can pack/do is done, a few prof's don't seem to have any interest in packing their stuff. The movers are coming Monday morning at 8am and I have a bad feeling that their stuff will still be sitting on their desks and bookcases and I'll have to scramble to get it ready to go. UGH. I refuse to come in this weekend to check on their "progress" in packing. I've only got a couple of days to be with Paul and then he's gone again, so the office will just have to deal!

By far, the most involved phishing email I've been sent

These people have way too much time (and it makes me wonder how many are falling for the scams if they just keep popping up so persistantly)

I get at least one of these a day on my work email (sometimes as many as 10-15) - I only use it for work, but it is published on the website. Most are just plain stupid and don't make much sense, this one has quite the story...

"Dear Respected One,

My name is Mrs Nenita Villaran. A complete citizen of the Philippines,widow to the late former minister of finance in Philippine who died on 15th of May 2002 My husband fell sick and he was flown to France for treatment but laterdied of ulcer and he has been buried.

I inherited a total sum of 12.3 million dollars from my late husband, this money which is concealed in a metallic trunk box is deposited with a security and finance company here in Philippine.

Due to the instruction I laid down before I deposited the box, that I needed maximum security/safety of my consignment and no body nor government organization can trace the where about of the box until I am ready and prepare to claim it. for this reason the security company used their diplomatic means to send the box out of Philippines to Abidjan- Cote d'Ivoire where they have their underground secrete vault.

This deposit was coded under a secret arrangement as a family treasure.This means that the security company does not know the content of this trunk box that was sent from the Philippine to Abidjan- Cote d'Ivoire under a diplomatic coverage for safe keeping.

My main purpose of sending you this mail is because of the way I found you and perhaps trustworthy to give you this priority of shipping the box of money to any address that you think is very secure and save in your country with your percentage of which we shall chat on soon.

In fact, since the death of my husband, his brothers has been seriously chasing me around with constant treats, trying to suppress me so that they might have the documents of his landed properties and confiscate them.

They have successfully collected all his properties, yet they never stopped there, they told me to surrender all bank account of my late husband,which I did, but I never disclose to them this deposit with the security company in Abidjan- Cote d'Ivoire, because this is where my future and destiny lies upon.

The family of my late husband never aware of the secret existence of this deposit which I made with the security company and they can never be aware of it Out of fear of my late husbands family, and when the situation becomes ncontrollable because of pressure on me from the Government of the Philippines,I decide to look for a trustworthy person who could assist me retrieve this box of money from the security company for onward lodgement into his account for the purpose of future investment.

Consider my situation as a widow and come to my rescue please i beg of you with all honesty.

I have discussed with the security company and they have agreed to dispatch this consignment to you in your country by diplomatic courier services mission as part of thier shippment services to clients worldwide.

Please contact me urgently upon your acceptance so that we can discuss how to go about this transaction speedily and accomplished it.

Thanking you in anticipation of your very kind and humane gesture and looking forward to hearing considerably from you,this wishing you all the best and God blessing.

Address your responds to my Private email:madamvillarann1@yahoo.com.ph

Thanks and kind regards,

Mrs Nenita Villaran"

Funny line from "Gilmore Girls"

It's a Monday. Blah. Blogger is being a pain, and I am tired of stupid people!

B/c it's funny...

LORELAI: Michel, the phone.
MICHEL: Mmhmm. It rings.
LORELAI: Can you answer it?
MICHEL: No. People are particularly stupid today. I can't talk to any more of them.
LORELAI: You know who's really nice to talk to? The people at the unemployment agency

Paul's views of Melbourne

Random sightings by Paul in Melbourne, Australia (the pictures should work now).

Cute westie waiting for its owner to finish eating... (or something like that)




Funny signs (notice the "Lord of the Fries")




Not sure about this one... Paul didn't eat there...


Sweet street name (Batman)


"Ex-Olympic Champion" - sounds kinda sad to me...


Street sign says "Right turn from left only" - this hurts my head ;)


Paul did eat here, I'm pretty sure there's a "Salty Dog" in NC, SC and California as well (although not related?!)


Beautiful coastline



Pretttty spring green - lots and lots of green


Riding along...


View of downtown Melbourne from his new hotel room at the Saville City Suites Hotel (see the train, bottom right?)


That's all for now - Paul has a TON more pictures that I can't wait to share when he returns.

My parents really like their new car :)

More pictures of the 'rents new car (2006 Honda Civic) - they really like it. They are now trying to sell the Sable... 2 weeks ago they sold the Taurus in less then 24 hours. Crazy!

Webcams are fun

I think Paul looks pretty happy in Australia. Too bad we can't actually communicate via webcam at the moment, but we can send a few pictures. :)

Thanksgiving in Asheville....

It looks like Paul and I are going to Asheville to meet my parents for Thanksgiving. It's just around the corner... We've been searching for hotels and a good place to eat our Thanksgiving Day dinner. We haven't been totally sucessful at this point. However, I did find a GREAT package at the Inn on Biltmore Estate - check this out:

Thanksgiving Package (November 23–26, 2005)
This year, leave the cooking to us and spend Thanksgiving at the inn counting your blessings with family and friends.

What’s included:

Three nights’ accommodations
Daytime estate admission for the length of your stay
Breakfast daily in The Dining Room
Thanksgiving eve Candlelight Christmas Evenings admission
Thanksgiving dinner
Valet parking
Most gratuities
Estate transportation


Three-night packages starting at $762.00 per person*

*Package pricing is subject to availability and depends upon length of stay, room type, and number of guests in your party. Package prices quoted are based on double occupancy in a double-bedded room. Taxes not included.


Needless to say, that's a little out of our budget for this trip. Nice to dream though!

This is what happens...

See, this is what happens when I am bored and without Paul on a Friday night. I play online and look for silly quiz thingies. Right. Good times? I guess.

♥Julie and ♥Paul

May one day have a handful of genius kids. Schedule times to skinnydip, except after meals, and after MacGyver. Live life on the edge near the coast.

Orchestrated by ianiceboy

Justin is now connected to the internet

Justin, my brother in Japan, has finally reconnected with the world! He's been in Japan since late July, had his new laptop computer for about a month and now has internet (after patiently waiting for weeks for the Japanese internet people to come)! It's really exciting - he'll be able to post his own blogs, send pictures and have general unrestrcited use of the internet! He's been one tough guy in dealing with his school's crazy computers. Welcome back to the world wide web Justin! You'd better be posting and/or sending pictures soon ;)

Ugh, insult to injury

Ok, so I have nothing to do this weekend. Every single person I know within a 250 miles radius is busy or out of town. I couldn't find a decent flight(i.e.under $400) to Atlanta and gas prices are still too high to make a nearly 1000 mile trip in 3 days. So. I am stuck at home, with absolutely nothing to do. Really. Nothing to do.

This morning a professor comes in and gives me 2 State Fair tickets. Just out of the blue. I now feel like total crap since I have no use for them and no one to give them to. I could go alone, but that would not any fun (considering I've already been with Paul and being there all by my lonesome would really make me miss him more). This totally sucks. He was just trying to be nice and generous, but instead I'm more heartbroken than I thought I could be.

I was doing ok yesterday and I have now hit the low. I think it stems from literally being ALONE all day, everyday. There's really no one in the office, no staff in the departmental office that have time to meet me for lunch and definately no one to visit. It's barely 11:30am and I am just beat. This is bad. I've still got 8+ days until he returns.

The candy's out of the bag....

The Halloween candy has been opened and has become irrestiable to me. I had to open it to make my "boo bags" for the neighbors ("boo!" is this neighborhood thing where you get "booed!" by a neighbor in the stealth of the night with candy and seasonal goodies and then you must "boo!" 2 more neighbors within 24 hours - and you then put the "boo!" sign on your front door to let everyone know you've been "booed!")

We bought 2 bags of candy at Sam's over the weekend - a chocolate mix (snickers, milky ways) and the Willie Wonka assortment. I had to try the RUNTS! Yummy! This year they have blueberries in them. Pretty tasty and colorful, but a they put a poor assortment of runts flavors in each bag. I had to riffle through the huge bag to find a little baggie with bananas and strawberries - MY FAVORITES. I was good, I only took one baggie. However, while I was at SuperTarget purchasing other goodies for the BOO! bags, I bought more candy - WHOOPERS. BIGGER YUM. I've had at least 3 little bags of those (which have 3 litle candies in them). I need to get the candy off the counter and way, way, way out of sight or else the poor trick-or-treaters just won't be getting treats!

Now on my mini sugar high, maybe I'll do something productive around the house. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I've still got last night's Gilmore Girls to watch. YAY! I am saving LOST to watch with Paul. That's a show where you need someone to watch it with. Or at least I do.

Crazy tall flowers

Ok, it's starting to seem very narcissistic of me to keep posting pictures of myself on here, but oh well, I have to share this picture.

I planted these odd looking seeds for "assorted zinnias" that I had bought at Wal-Mart. I had fairly low expectations and they did start VERY slow, but once they got going, I had flowers! They are all very unique and so colorful, these are going to be a garden staple for now on. Very easy to grow and they give so much! LOVE THEM.




Check out the CLEAR BLUE sky behind me. Oh, it was such a beautiful day (this was taken Sunday 10/16 just as I was headed to the airport to take Paul).

Bored, bored

I'm still putting off the review of the Fair. I want to write something really good and I am not feeling it right now.

So.

I'm playing with the new webcam. We gave in and bought 2 webcams, one for me, one for Paul. We're not real sure if it will work while he's in Australia, but we're going to try. Maybe one day we can talk to Justin in Japan and the 'rents down in GA. Who knows!?!?

In the meantime, I am entertained by looking at myself on screen. Wanna see what I see?

Here ya go... me sitting in front of the computer, avoiding figuring out what to eat for dinner, waiting to hear from Paul and listening to Jeopardy! in the background. Oh, the exciting life...

The Fair in a few pictures

I will write up a real review soon... but while I was downloading pictures off my camera, I figured I might as well post a few. Here's our Fair Day in a few pictures.

The HUGE pumpkins (i'm trying to find out the total weight, it was quite a winner)


Some cute sheep and lambs


Boy and cow with hunter's orange cap (the cow was making quite a game of shaking the cap off... and yes, it was quite entertaining to us 'city folk')


GEESE! Ducks and more GEESE!


Turkeys (they didn't seem to like each other and the small space they were sharing...)


Taking a break to people watch, drink some apple cider and well, people watch



And finally, get your fresh, homemade, IIE CREAM HERE..... LIE CREAM? ILE CREAM? I dunno

NC State Fair webcam

If you can't come to Raleigh to experience the State Fair, you can always look at it here: State Fair Webcam

We did go on Saturday morning and I hope to have a little more time to write about it later. Paul is on his plane set for Dallas/Ft. Worth right now, he just called me from his seat in 1st class. That lucky man :) Well, he is going to be traveling for more than 24 hours, being in first class is pretty necessary! He'll be in LA by late evening and on a 747 to Melbourne by 4am EST. I'm already missing him, but I can't wait to hear all about his adventures.

The State Fair has begun

It is officially fall! Well, at least it's fall fair time in the capital city of NC. The weather is cooperating as well, seeing that it was in the 50s this morning (chilly!), the air is dry & cool and the sky is the most beautiful blue (at least when the fog burns off). Yay for fall! The leaves are still fairly green, no real signs of the change (except the dogwoods and poplars who couldn't take the heat and drought of the last 2 months).

Paul and I are planning on going to the Fair early tomorrow morning for 1/2 the day. We're only interested in the animals, exhibits and maybe some food. Oh, and of course, the people watching! If we don't go tomorrow, we won't be going at seeing that he leaves for AUS on Sunday until the end of the month...

Apparently, a lot of the rides aren't ready anyway (good thing we haven't had any interest in riding the past few years...). The new show company hasn't operated in NC before and didn't realize that we actually care how safe the rides should be. Ok, well, I'm sure they care about safety, but not attention to detail. Each ride must be in 100% compliance -- if just one seat on a ride doesn't work, the whole ride is closed until everything passes inspection.

From the N&O: "As of 7:30 a.m., a little more than half of the rides -- 61 of 111 -- had met state labor safety standards, said Heather Crews, spokeswoman for the Department of Labor. Inspectors hoped to approve another half dozen by the time the midway opens at 10 a.m. today, Crews said.

She said the labor department didn't know how long it would take to certify all the rides. "We're going to be out there working all day," she said. "We'll be working as long as it takes." Inspectors had found rides with cracks, electrical problems and missing hardware."



Local BLOGS on the NC State Fair:
WRAL and The News and Observer

Paul is going 'down under!

Paul has been at his new job for a full week and is already scheduled to travel internationally! He is leaving for Melbourne, AUS on Sunday! THIS SUNDAY. As in 5 days from now. He's going to be there for 12 days... for me, 12 loooong days (including a full weekend, ack!). I'm really excited for him, but I'll admit that there are so many loose ends that make me feel hesitant about it (he doesn't have a company cell phone or credit card...). I'll just have to put my trust in the company and hopefully they know what they're doing. The cool part is that he'll be flying business class for the 16 hour flight from the US to Australia. Business class is very cool - more room, better service and whatnot, but still 16 hours is a LONG time on a plane (and for me to not be in touch with him!)

Info on Melbourne here

Parent's new car

My parents finally gave in and have bought a new car for tooling around Atlanta. Presenting the new 2006 Honda Civic - from what I've seen on the 'net and from them, it is quite futuristic! We owned a 1987 Civic (my first car...) and there was nothing futuristic about it. They were tempted by the Ford Focus (no one had 2005s), the Toyota Corolla (sorry Lu, I just couldn't sell them on it - Paul and I really liked the Corolla we drove out in Arizona) and possibly the Mazda 3 (they still have a few bugs none of us were keen on). So, in sticking with what they knew, the Honda won!

But get this, they bought it WITHOUT EVER DRIVING A 2006! They did see this particular car come off the truck, peeked in the windows, BUT NEVER DROVE IT! They had it delivered to their house and completed all the paperwork in the comfort of their home. And since it is a small world, the couple that drove it knew my grandmother growing up (in Monroe, GA) and the man had worked at Conyers Honda in 1987 when we bought the first Civic. Small world...

Here's some pictures (I love the color!):
I think Dad looks pretty happy about the new car.






Compare to the 1987 Civic... (thanks for google image search... it's amazing what you can pictures of! the civic we owned was a pretty light blue with much nicer hubcaps)

Another Friday morning

I know that I shouldn't find this funny at all, but I'm slap happy this morning and I do:

Sinkhole reported in Wake Forest


I am glad that is isn't on my commute to work. The rain was enough to make it yucky - although my commute time is down in the morning from 45+ minutes to around 25. Leaving by 6:30am does make quite the difference. If I leave after 6:40am, it tacks on a good 10-15 minutes more. It is really dark though, makes me feel like I'm back in high school, commuting to school in the dark. Ugh.

Is it the weekend? So close, yet so very far away... trying to stay busy to make the time fly at work. I did find this to do - word seach to win free power. That took like 12 minutes of my time ;) Only 5 hours and 40 minutes left in the work day...

2 thoughts for the day

To succeed, it is necessary to accept the world as it is- and rise above it.
-

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens; not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life.

A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst....a spark that creates extraordinary results.
-source unknown

*---*---*---*---*
Whew! What a week. And it is only Wednesday!

Forecaster Predicts Above-Average Hurricane Activity In October

Colorado State University hurricane researcher William Gray predicted there will be two more hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean this month, one of them a major storm. The long-term average for October is one hurricane.Gray and fellow researcher Philip Klotzbach say the likelihood of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coastline is 49 percent, compared with an average of 29 percent from 1950 to 2000.The probability of a hurricane making landfall in the U.S. is 21 percent, compared with the long-term average of 15 percent.Through the end of September, this season has had nine hurricanes, five of them major, and 17 named storms.Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita were this year's major hurricanes that made landfall. Ophelia hit the North Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane, though its eye remained just offshore.

2005 HURRICANE SEASON

2005 Storm Names
2004 Storms
River Levels | Lake Levels
All About Flooding
Tornado Guide
Southeast Web Cams
WRAL Hurricane Section
Doppler 5000
Latest Satellite Images
Sign Up For Severe Weather Alerts By E-Mail

HURRICANES

Hurricanes 101
Atlantic Hurricane Tracker
National Hurricane Center

PHOTOS

Ivan Damage: Western N.C | Central N.C. | Fla., Alabama (Sept. 17)
Frances: Asheville Flooding (Sept. 8)
Charley: Florida Damage
Charley/Bonnie: Pender Tornado Damage (Aug. 13)
Harnett Storm Damage (Aug. 12)
Hurricane Alex Photos: Aug. 4 | Aug. 3