Armadillo Racing

I didn't really see any need to fancy up the title of this post. Here's how it happened: I crashed one of Jon's work events a few weeks ago, and what more Texan of an activity would be available to impress a bunch of out-of-towners? It turns out that armadillos are very smart. They scurry around their pen and try to find new and different ways to squeeze out. According to the gentleman who provides the armadillos, Ralph Fisher, they have even been known to stack on top of one another and jump over the side of their pen. I think the best way to give a proper play-by-play is with some photos:


First, you get in the pen with a bunch of armadillos running around. Note: if you are wearing leather shoes, be prepared. I was surprised a couple of times with cold noses on my ankles and little nibbles on the backs of my heels.


Then Ralph asks you which armadillo you want to race. I chose one named Phyllis Dillo.


You hold the armadillo's tail close up near it's butt (with gloves on of course) so that you don't hurt their tails.


Release the armadillos! Once you let them go, you have to shoo them along to one end of the pen where they are supposed to turn around and run back.



Here I am shooing my armadillo back to the start. She finished a disappointing 3rd - out of 3. Jon's armadillo won! He was rewarded with a lovely little statue of an armadillo sitting on a pair of cowboy boots painted like Texas flags. This wonderful trinket is now on permanent display in our living room if you would like to stop by and see it. I got a Texas-shaped cookie cutter as my parting gift. The kicker is - I already had one.


They really are cute critters. Here we are with my armadillo - Phyllis Dillo.


Last, but not least, this is our new friend Ryan, a self-described South African Rugby Fanatic. He took all these great photos for us.

Halloween 2007

This is admittedly going to be a very short post for two reasons. First, I only have three photos of our Halloween costumes on this computer to show everyone. And second, Halloween is so over. I'm dying for it to be Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Maybe it's because it's still so hot in Austin. Maybe it's because I feel like Halloween is kind of a gaudy, messy holiday with the mismatched decor and piles of leftover candy. Give me eight neat place settings and a fully coordinating Christmas tree and I'm happy.


For the third year in a row we attended Heath's famous Mojave Bend Halloween party. It never disappoints and every year we meet new people. Maybe if I get motivated this weekend, I'll put up some pictures of Noah's biker babe costume. Too funny.



This is the only full length shot I have of my costume. That's Derek on the left. He was a drunken, unruly airline passenger. His wife was a stewardess. I was Tippi Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels, from The Birds. It was a hit I think.



Hey, you would be scared too if you were being attacked by three fake crows and your face was covered in fake blood that wouldn't wash off for two days.



Jon revived his costume as a droog from the movie A Clockwork Orange. In case you didn't know, this is the costume Jon was wearing when he picked me up for our first date (a costume party of course). Can you see why I fell for him?

Austin City Limits...

...was a really long time ago.

But we really needed a new post and this one has been sitting in my to-do list forever. Last month we were fortunate enough to be invited by our friends, Linden and Collin, to the last day of the 2007 Austin City Limits Festival. Collin was showing her amazing artwork at the ACL art show, and we got to go a long as "helpers." We pretty much drank beer, listened to music, and then watched Linden pack up the booth at the end of the night. But we really felt helpful.

We got these cool "STAFF" wristbands. Other than the getting-in-for-free thing, the best part about these wristbands was that they got you into the behind-the-stage clean porta potties.

This is Collin at her booth. You should go to her website and them buy some art. Really.


We got pretty close to Ziggy Marley when he played the kids' stage.

Jon and Linden.

Heather and Scott were there too.

We couldn't get very close to Regina Spektor, but I really liked her music so I am including a picture of her head on a giant screen.

That's me (not bad, huh?). Jon felt it necessary to take several snapshots of his view as we fought our way through the crowds.

Mobs of people and the lovely Austin skyline in the background.

I had to put this one in even though it sucks. According to Linden, this is the actual moon tower where the beer bust scenes were filmed for Dazed and Confused.

Linden packing up the art booth at the end of the night.

A Girlie Post (sorry Jon)

Last weekend I traveled to the D.C. area to host a baby shower for my friend Anna. Anna and I met when we both worked for the EPA waaay back in 2000. We've stayed close, and I was thrilled to be able to throw her this great party with another friend from the area. She will be having a baby boy in either October or November (he's acting like he wants to make an early appearance). Some of my friends and family asked to see pictures from the party since it's all I talked about for a month, so here are a few.


Homemade pecan favor bags.


Close-up of the favor tags I made.

Baby's ultrasound photo - he's already adorable.

The centerpiece was a cake made out of newborn diapers. For anyone who is concerned, we had a real dessert. We didn't eat this one.

Paper lanterns on the ceiling.

Any more streamers and it would have been a bad prom.

A blurry picture of the plates and napkins. When I plan your party, you get stripes and paisleys.

Finally, me and momma-to-be.

The Rest

(p.s. I did this post and the one below on the same day, so if you haven't checked out "The Tattoo" you definitely don't want to miss that.)

Are you Hawaii'ed out yet? I promise, after this post we'll go back to real life. I finally got all the pictures uploaded even though we've been back for a couple of weeks! Here are some of our favorites. If you really want to see all million of them, the rest of the photos are here.

The Big Island


Mokuaikaua Church (pron. moe-kooay-kow-a) - the first Christian church in the Hawaiian islands built in 1820.


The Kilauea crater from a helicopter. An earthquake on Father's Day 2007 caused the crater to become more active which resulted in a complete reversal in the direction the lava flows from the volcanic vents. When Jon and I were here for our honeymoon in 2005, lava was flowing toward and into the ocean. This time, the area leading up to the ocean shelf was completely cooled and lava was flowing away from the ocean.


Flowing lava from Kilauea.


Torch Ginger flower in a rainforest near Hilo.


Suppose you want to see a picture of us?


Our private lanai (patio).


Coconut creme brulee anyone?

Oahu

Check back in a day or so and I'll have a photo from our trip to the USS Arizona Memorial up here.

Awesome view of Waikiki Beach from our hotel room on the 31st floor. Can you tell Jon is not that excited about chilling on this lanai?

The jumping rock at Waimea Bay on the North Shore.

Us at the bronze statue commemorating Duke Kahanamoku on Waikiki Beach.

Surfboards for rent on Waikiki Beach.

The Tattoo

After waiting two long years for us to return to Oahu, Jon finally got the tattoo he's been wanting. I documented the process while Jon stuck it out for four hours in the chair.

The tattoo artist was Sherri at the Hawaiian Tattoo Company in Honolulu, HI.



The first step is to make a stencil of the design. Jon knew he wanted the center to be the image of Maohi, the Tahitian god of paddling, but wasn't sure what he wanted around it. Sherri took the center image and designed the outer band around it.


The first couple of needle jabs.




As the outline was getting done, it became clear that Jon is what tattoo artists refer to as "a bleeder." This means that his skin would bleed after just one pass of the needle. Most people apparently don't bleed until the second or third pass.


Halfway filled in...


...and the finished product!


And just so you can get the full sound effect, here's a short video:


See, it's like you were right there with Jon - for four hours - getting a really painful tattoo. Only you weren't there, and I think if you ask Jon, he will agree that you were having a lot better time right at this moment.

The Sharks

We're back from Hawaii! We're tan but tired. It was fun to be there again, but it's great to be home too. So far the only pictures I've had a chance to upload are from the shark cage dive (ok, really a snorkel) that we did on the north shore of Oahu.

We did this same dive on our honeymoon two years ago, and it was so much fun we decided to do it again. It's a good thing we did, because it was a completely different experience this time around. Two years ago, we were surrounded by about 30 galapagos sharks. These are medium-sized, generally non-aggressive open water sharks. This time, we had an opportunity to see three large-sized, generally very aggressive tiger sharks. Tiger sharks are notorious for causing most of the shark attacks in Hawaiian waters when they do happen (it's actually pretty rare out there). It just so happened that we timed the shark dive with the beginning of the tiger shark migration season.

Here are a few of the shark pictures. If you want to see all of them, click here.

This is the largest shark we saw - about 14 feet long. All three sharks were females.


They get pretty close, and they will often bump or bite on the cage to test it out and see if it tastes good. This is also a good photo of the tiger sharks' identifiable stripes.


I never want to see this view OUTSIDE of a cage.


This one is a little hazy, but it shows how large the shark is (14 ft) compared to the boat we took to get out there (32 ft).

Aloha from Hawaii

I've been in Hawaii for about 10 days, so I figured I should probably do a little update post. Unfortunately, my digital camera crapped out, so there won't be a lot of pictures to share at the moment. Luckily, my coworker, Jessica, is shutter-happy, so I will get all of her pics before I leave. The workdays are long and hot. The tradewinds haven't been blowing as much as normal, possibly due to Tropical Depression Cosme that passed by the islands a few days ago. It doesn't help that we spend most of our days hunched over a monitoring well in black asphalt in the beating sun. I really can't complain too much considering we are surrounded by palm trees, gorgeous flowering bushes, and amazing birds all day. The giant cockroaches and ants nests that we find in the well vaults were alarming at first, but now they are all in an average work day.

For several reasons, we can't work on the Base on the weekends, so we have packed them full of activities on the north shore of Oahu. Last weekend, Jessica, John (another coworeker), and I snorkeled, chilled on the beach, ate a ton of shave ice, sipped mai tais, and watched two amazing sunsets all in one weekend. Did I mention the enormous sea turtles? There's a beach on the north shore called Turtle Beach (how appropriate) where huge sea turtles come up onto the beach to bask in the sun. I was walking out of the water and accidentally tripped over a turtle that I thought was a huge rock. I think we have a picture of the giant bruise I'm sporting from that incident. I was actually more worried about the turtle at the time, but the ranger who was present on the beach assured me that he didn't feel a thing. One interesting fact about Turtle Beach, from the book Oahu Revealed: "Turtle Beach is a modern name. It sure beats th ancient Hawaiian name for this beach, which was Kukae'ohiki meaning excrement of the ghost crabs." I didn't see any ghost crabs. Nor did I see any of their excrement. I'm thankful for this small favor.

I was able to get one cool photo before my camera died. This was taken on our way "home" to our hotel from the Base last week:

At least we had something nice to look at during our hour-long commute!