Lifting the Black Cloud

Ok I'm stretching a bit to do this entry... But I had to somehow work in a post about my next travel excursion, which is rapidly approaching.



I get to go to Washington, DC in about a week and a half! YAY! I'm going with my awesome friend Tanya, who is going there to do some graduate school research and is graciously letting me tag along so I can add one more city to my list of places I've been to. While she is deep in the archives, I will be out sight-seeing, museum-hopping, and getting to know our country's capital just a bit better. I want a picture of the White House, I'd like to tour the Capitol, and of course, there's the "you'll never see everything in a day" Smithsonian Museums.



I have to say that in the back of my mind, I have sort of a gloomy perception of DC... with all its war memorials, Arlington Cemetery, Holocaust Museum, etc... I just hope I don't find it totally depressing. And I'm a bit daunted by the Smithsonian Museums. I'm sure Tanya will be able to point me in the right direction to start, but there's so much to see, and I know I get bored quickly in museums. I just don't want to get overwhelmed with it all. I have only about two and a half days to see as much as I can.

I'm looking forward to breaking down these misconceptions and getting to know DC as the fascinating trove of our country's history that it is. I'll be able to say "I've BEEN there!" every time I see the White House or the Capitol on TV. I'll have a better understanding of the city itself and what to see and do there, since I book people on planes there all the time. :)

And hopefully, maybe some cherry blossoms will be starting to peek out. :)

Purple Pics!

I had no idea what to do for purple. So I collected some cool purple pictures. Can't go wrong with purple pictures.



I will always have a fondness in my memory for purple irises. Their scent takes me straight back to the house I grew up in, because they grew in the backyard and we loved to smell them.



Amethyst is the birthstone for February, so it's only appropriate to mention it in the Purple Post. I have a stone that looks like one of these. :)



Here is a cool painting I found. It's called "Purple Backstreets" by Kazuya Akimoto. Neato.



Here is an awesome sky pic. The caption for this read: "Purple sky over Leland’s Fishtown in Leelanau County." Dunno where that is.



Here is a comic illustrating a joke by Mitch Hedberg, drawn by a brilliant artist and cartoonist named Brianna Garcia, maybe more well-known by the online moniker "bri_chan." You can view more of her art here. She has an interesting sense of humor when it comes to Disney... :) (you may need to click on the strip to read it better)



Grape water! I love this stuff. I gave up diet white soda for Lent (usually my "water" throughout the day at work) and drink this stuff instead. It's yum.


And finally, I couldn't resist, for Tracie's sake:

Go Blue Devils!

My sister has been a HUGE Duke fan for some years now. And only in the last few years, I've been sharing in her Duke mania, if somewhat to a lesser degree. But the basketball games are just fun to watch. Because Duke almost always wins. Right now they're 21-1 in their season, and undefeated in their division. They work well together on the court. And how can you not respect their coach, Mike Krzyzewski (YES I can spell his name without looking it up!)? He will stand for nothing but class on his team... Duke players are usually clean-cut guys without all the tattoos up and down their arms. They're a well-run, well-playing team that's fun to root for.

Jen says that lots of people say to her that they can't stand Duke, because they're like the Yankees of college basketball. She says it's not like that at all... they didn't get where they're at because of loads and loads of money and being able to recruit the highest-paid players. They got where they are because of Coach K being an excellent coach and recruiting the best playing talent. Makes sense to me.

In other basketball news, Mizzou beat Nebraska yesterday, 86-78 in overtime! That was exciting. :)

Green Bay, WI: Home of...

You thought I was going to say the Packers, right? NOPE! Unless you're talking about packin' napkins, cause that's what this city can do. They are home to the FASTEST NAPKIN MAKIN' MACHINE IN THE WORLD. That's right, IN THE WORLD. A little company called Fort James could crank those puppies out faster than you could say Brawny, until they got bought out by Georgia-Pacific (which happens to be a major client of my current employer).

You wonder how I know this? I had the pleasure of rewriting the résumé of an ex-napkin-packer for this company today. And I was just ever so slightly amused that he pointed out that he operated the fastest napkin machine in the world. I just wondered how he knew such a fact. Was it tested? Was it put up against other napkin-makers? I just don't know.

And just so that this isn't a totally wasted post, here's some Valentine's Day news for M&M's fans:

Green M&Ms for Valentine's Day?