Lego nomenclature

Found this on Adam's blog, and I think it needs comment. Because how can you read an article about the names for Lego bricks, and not contribute your own? I'm leaving Barney's names in the chart, since I found some of them strikingly similar to Blockburger Lego names.

Clark, feel free to correct me on this if I misuse any names.

Common Nomenclature for Lego Families

Lego Piece	Barney	mine
Angle Plate 2x2	A bent four-er	bent flatsie foursie
Round Plate 1x1	Round flat one-er	round onesie; coin
Plate 1x1 W. Up Right Holder	A flat clippy piece	flatsie clip
Plate 1x2 W. 1 Knob	A two-er with only one bobble	one-knob twosie flatsie
Plate 1x1 W. Holder	A flat clippy bit	side clip flatsie
Brick 1x1	A rectangular one-er	onesie
Plate 1x1	Flat square one-er	flat onesie
Round Brick 1x1	Cylinder one-er	round onesie
Connector Peg W. Knob	A joining bit	short flagpole type thingy (I don't think we ever really discussed this one)
Turn Plate 2x2, Lower Part	Spinny bit	Spinny bit
Flat Tile 1x1	Flat one-er with no bobble	blank flatsie onesie
Lamp Holder	Flat clippy piece	side onesie
Radiator Grille 1x2	Groovy bit	Grill bit
T-piece	T-shaped joiney thing	I didn't have any of these in my Lego set. But I'd call it a t-bar.
Light Sword Shaft	Light saber handle	I wish I had these in my Lego set.
Turn Plate 2x2, Upper Part	The piece that goes on top of the spinny piece to make it spin	spinny top
Roof Tile 2x2 Inv	An upper piece	upside down slanty foursie
Brick 1x2 M 2 Holes	Two-er hole-y bit	skinny twosie with holes
Diamond With Stick	Lego crystal	ooh, that's a fancy one
Brick 2x2	Four-er	twosie
Butt	Microphone	nightstick
Roof Tile 1x2x3	Upper piece	tall slanty
Brick 1x3	Three-er	skinny threesie
Light Sword Blade	Light saber blade	light saber
Bearing Element 2x2, Double	A piece you clip wheels on	flat wheel base
Right Plate 3x8 W. Angle	Wing piece	plane bit
Dragon’s Fire	Fire piece	Fire
Plate 2x2 Angle	L-shape	bent flatsie foursie
Brick 2x3	Six-er	threesie
Rudder 2x3x2	Wing piece	airplane tail
Roof Tile 2X2 45° No. 2	Control set	computer
Brick 1x1 W. 4 Knobs	An attach-any-side piece	fire hydrant onesie
Angular Brick 1x1	A piece that you can clip something on the side	headlight onesie; onesie with a hole

Just checking.

I was looking around on the internet the other day, and I found the most surprising thing - my blog! I had forgotten all about it.

Looks like several of you (or at least your RSS feeds) did not.

So maybe I'm back. We'll see.

Hello?

Hello?

Fixing the book list meme

This is a meme I've seen drifting around on the Internet for a little while now. The idea is that you take the list, mark the ones you've read with an X, then post it on your (usually) Facebook page so everyone knows how well-read you are (or aren't). The origin of this list is often attributed to the BBC, but I haven't done any actual research into it.

The problems with this list are, in my opinion, many. For one thing, it lists The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia as two separate books, whereas one is the first book in a series, and the other is all seven books of that series. So one of those has to go. It also lists The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as one (heavy) book, likewise Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Which is it list, is it one book or a series? Does Harry Potter count as seven? And if you're listing the complete works of Shakespeare, why did you list Hamlet separately?

The list is also very heavy in what is deemed "classic" British literature (bearing out the BBC origin, I suppose) - but that really skews the list in ways I don't agree with.

And you don't agree with it either, do you?

No, you don't. So let's fix it.

Here's the deal. I'm posting the list below, but with the corrections of taking out each book series and replacing it with the first book in that series - except for the Narnia books, which are already represented separately. That one I'm replacing with Prince Caspian. Your job is to remove as many books as you think don't belong there, but with one catch: for as many books as you remove, you must replace them with a book you do think belongs. Post your changes as a comment on this post. At the end, I'll compile everything (if needed) and see where we ended up.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Fellowship of the Ring - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Prince Caspian - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Suzanne likes to . . .

The saga of the broken finger will appear one of these days, complete with photos! In the mean time, I'm posting fun stuff I find on the interwebs. Clark posted this on his blog, so I thought I'd do it too. Basically, you Google yourself, but with the phrase "[Suzanne] likes to." [You'd insert your own name, of course.] Then you write down the first ten things.

So, without further ado, Suzanne likes to:

• Suzanne likes to say, when asked how long she has been singing, she answers "since I was in the Music Womb".
• Suzanne likes to be part of the action.
• Suzanne likes to contemplate interesting phenomena, like how the three guppies in her aquarium became 161 guppies in five months. [goodness. So far my two are threatening to become more, but haven't as of yet.]
• Suzanne likes to travel and take long walks with her dog, Charley.
• Suzanne likes to serves these popovers with a salad for a light lunch. [Suzanne likes to haves grammar problems, apparently.]
• Suzanne likes to be with her two children, taking them outside and to music festivals.
• Suzanne likes to stay active. [well....]
• Suzanne likes to mix classic elements with something fresh and new.
• Suzanne likes to say that her eight siblings were like having eight built-in best friends.
• Suzanne likes to exercise, watch (and make) movies, travel, spend time with family and work on various writing projects.

So there you have it.

television, television

Today I was reading an article on the New York Times' website, called "Why are there no good parents on TV?"

I liked it. It was a good article. However, what I want to address here is one of the comments posted after the article, by a reader who goes by 'K.'

"Why in the world would an escapist medium like TV bother with anything that was "normal”? I don’t turn on the TV to revisit my boring day. My current favorite shows can be summarized as follows:

• the human race running from robots in spaceships.


• a spy who is stuck in Miami.


• airplane crash survivors on an odd island.


• FBI agents investigating strange phenomena.


• renovating old houses.


• the trials and tribulations of geeks living together, with an attractive neighbor who drops in from time to time.


• a nearly retarded man who lives in Rhode Island and offends nearly everyone on some level


• an often fascinating hour of television devoted to some kind of science.

I can’t say there’s anything good in it, but boy is it entertaining (and sometimes educational, as well)"

Which led me to ask, "how would I summarize some of my favorite TV shows?" Since Big Bang Theory and This Old House were done above, I'll try some others.

• one man's flashbacks to his single days in New York


• who knew that the crap in the attic was valuable after all?


• the most dysfunctional workplace, ever


• the most dysfunctional TV show, ever


• deeply weird doctors who work in an often surreal hospital


• In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

What are your favorite shows?

So . . .

It's been about six weeks. Time to check in here again, I'd say.

Firstly, Happy Holidays to all of you (if you're still here) for all the holidays that recently transpired. Hope yours were good; mine were very nice. Things were a lot more hectic this year than usual, but nearly everything was great and the things that went wrong didn't mess everything up too badly.

What went wrong, you say? Oh, where to begin . . . how about beginning with what went right? Yes, a much better plan.

After dating for eight months, then breaking up for nine months, then dating again for 12 months, Elliott and I became officially engaged on January 12. That was our one year anniversary after getting back together again, and the whole evening was a great success. We had been discussing getting married for a while, and I had even picked out a ring, so I knew it was coming. However, Elliott wanted to make it an occasion and had a Secret Plan for a couple months on how he was going to propose, so I didn't know when or how it was going to happen. On the 12th, we went out to dinner at Cafe Trio (site of our first first date) and then to the Gateway theaters to see Valkyrie. (It was pretty good but dragged in the middle.) This continues our theme of not really going to see "date" movies for momentous dates.

• First date: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
• First Valentine's Day: Blood Diamond
• Second first date-ish type evening: Sweeny Todd
• Engagement night: Valkyrie

So anyway, as we were walking back to the car at about midnight, Elliott steered us over to the Olympic fountain, got down on one knee, and proposed. It was really sweet. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket - the directions I gave him in August 2006 to get to my house to pick me up for our first date! Wrapped in the paper was a ring. Not the ring I had picked out, as it was not ready, but a stand-in that he purchased (appropriately) from the zoo gift shop. It's a very nice stand-in. The wedding is scheduled for August 1st; mark your calendars!

So this year Christmas and New Year's were very busy, trying to do everything with both families for the first time. We went to Elliott's aunt and uncle's house in Heber for Christmas Eve, then he came over to our house for Christmas dinner, and then we went to his grandparents' for Christmas More Dinner. New Year's Eve (also his birthday) we party-hopped to three different parties, ending up with his friends from high school before midnight.

The only real thing that went wrong and was directly related to the holidays was that Elliott's car was totalled on Christmas night. A big blizzardy storm struck up while we were at his grandparents' house, and once he got me home and then headed back to his house the roads were quite slick. His car was doing great in the snow, but some idiot in a Lincoln Navigator was foolishly going the posted speed limit and smashed into the back of him at a stoplight. Elliott was pretty much fine, but the car was not.

After having to miss work and go without a car for a few days, not to mention a few weeks of insurance headaches (insurance adjusters don't work much between 12/25 and 1/1), he now has a new, used Saturn to drive without paying much of anything out of his pocket. All's well that ends well, but dealing with the mess of a totalled car really takes it out of you for those weeks [ed. note: see the gazillions of posts by me in the fall of 2006].

Pictures will be posted soon of the stand-in ring, the "real" ring, and other stuff.

Up next: the saga of the broken finger!

What is a Blockburger?

Once again, our readers look to us for insightful answers. Clark has brought to my attention the fact that many persons out on the interweb don't know what a Blockburger is. To wit:

"It's listed as an annual Blockburger favorite. I don't know what Blockburger is, but you could Google it?"

So I'm writing this blog post in hopes that I can help someone who actually does Google it. The answer? I am a Blockburger! So is my brother, and his wife, and their baby. My little sister is a Blockburger, as are my parents. My two older sisters used to be Blockburgers, but they got married and now are other things.

In more esoteric ways, Blockburgers are many things. We are pretty smart (most of the time; sometimes we trip on curbs and break our hands). We are competitive. We tend to have sweaty feet and hands. We're terribly sarcastic.

We're religious. We like to read books and play cards. Many are known to do math for fun. Others like to diagram sentences. We can be pedantic and tend not to recognize rhetorical questions. We're introverted, but talk a lot.

We're really not that athletic.

But we are musical.

Almost every Blockburger I've met has been left-handed, but that ratio is steadily shifting. There may soon be only one left-handed Blockburger.

We enjoy figuring things out before we're told about them. We like to trick people in clever ways. [Ad hoc, ergo propter hoc?] We like puzzles of all kinds.

We sunburn easily.

Have any other suggestions for how to define a Blockburger? If so, please comment below. My sample size, after all, is pretty small.

Delicious Snacks

Recently, someone brought a batch of delicious smores treats to work. They are made out of Golden Grahams, chocolate, and mini marshmallows. Also, crack and a little bit of evil. I have eaten almost the whole tray and will probably go into a diabetic coma soon.

But first I will eat one more.

Eating like a grown-up

So, after reading Shannon's tales of vegetable-eating, I felt that I should be a little more of an adult about food. So recently, I have tried eating more things I would normally not even consider. I ate seafood three nights in a row in September, and then this past weekend I had yams. Twice! Not bad. I won't be seeking them out, but I'll have them on Thanksgiving. Then last night - sushi! I can't afford it, but I'll eat it.

Except for that one that had a whole crab on top. Too lifelike.

Dear Fly:

Dear Fly that is flying around my office:

Thank you for visiting. As you know, I am a big fan of insects in general.

However, I would deeply appreciate it if you would respect my personal space, and moreover, if you would allow me to get some work done. As you see, my office is roughly ten feet by ten feet square, giving us 100 square feet of room to fill up. It's another eight feet tall, giving you 800 cubic feet of flying space. Feel free to explore the area. Points of interest include:

• The fish tank
• The shelf of bug paraphernalia
• Rubbermaid tubs of stuff
• The vase of dried roses
• The candy dish

It is really not necessary for you to be within six inches of me at all times. I am flattered that you like my hair, now get out of it. I neither need nor enjoy your attempts to help me click the mouse buttons. I do not wish to hear secrets whispered in my ear.

Perhaps you would like to become better aquainted with one of my coworkers?

Sincerely,

Suzanne

One Word Answers

I've got to answer all these questions with one word and one word only. Here goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? Pocketed
2. Where is your significant other? Switzerland
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Dead
5. Your father? Engineer
6. Your favorite thing? Snuggling
7. Your dream last night? Peril
8. Your dream/goal? Love
9. The room you're in? Office
10. Your hobby? Origami
11. Your fear? Alone
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Home
13. Where were you last night? Gateway
14. What you're not? Fashionable
15. One of your wish-list items? Europe
16. Where you grew up? Utah
17. The last thing you did? Email
18. What are you wearing? Green
19. Your TV? Flat
20. Your pet? Fishes
21. Your computer? Movies
22. Your mood? Wistful
23. Missing someone? Yes
24. Your car? Johnny5
25. Something you're not wearing? Makeup
26. Favorite store? Barnesandnoble
27. Your summer? Over!
28. Love someone? Elliott
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Sunday

NYTimes.com

While we're perusing the New York Times, check this one out: From Mars! Wow!

Math skills

For years, I have maintained that I am not very good at math. I cannot do matrices without specific, detailed instructions for every single problem. I sometimes transpose digits. Geometry and trigonometry I can do. I think because there are pictures.

Anyway, I just found this interesting article on the New York Times website, about two main different types of math: approximation, and calculation. Approximation is what you use when you glance up and down the check-out lines at the store and decide which one to join. Calculation is how you figure out exact math.

This article reminded me a lot about some of the posts on Clark's blog, approximating how many balloons it will take to fill the room, etc.

Along with the article, they have a test you can try to see how good your approximating skills are. I got 100% on 25 tests, so I am a good guesser! I think a calculation test would yield far different results. (See: academic decathlon math test)

Fish

So, I have been making a tentative foray into the field of fish . . . owning. Fish-tankery. I've got this great bow-fronted glass fish tank in my office, 35 gallons, and it seems a shame to waste it. It's full of water, it's got gravel in the bottom, nice decorative chunk of wood in there. All ready to go. Bunch o' snails keeps the glass clean.

I can't get a fish to live in it.

Well, not exactly. I had a fish in there that I pulled out of a creek in Park City. I think he was a mosquito fish - the kind you put in your backyard pond to eat the mosquito larvae - and he lived in there for nearly a year, all on his own. Just him and the snails. During that time I think I cleaned the tank twice, but he was very happy and swam all over and came up to the top to get fed and everything.

Then I went on vacation to Colorado and he vanished. I think he may have died and been flushed by someone who won't own up to it, but the mystery lingers.

So anyway, after this happened I decided to get serious about this fish business. I cleaned the tank, vacuumed out all of the gunk, gave the filter some serious time and elbow grease, hauled around more 5-gallon buckets of water than I care to think about, and finally had a sparkly clean tank fit for vertebrates to live happy lives.

I went to PetCo, and bought some beautiful fantail goldfish. I like them a lot. So I got three of them and put them all in the tank. They swam around, very happy. All week, happy fish. I go home for the weekend, come back . . . dead fish.

Sigh.

So, cleaned the tank again. Replaced water. Let the water age so there wouldn't be chlorine. Bought a new light bulb for the light that had stopped working. Went to Wal-Mart, bought some wonderful little pearl scale goldfish, nice fat round ones that could barely move and were round like golf balls. Great fish. They swim around, all happy, I go home for the night, come back . . . dead fish.

Sigh.

But one of them lived! So I had one lonesome fish. I also had bought a ghost shrimp that accidentally got scooped up with the goldfish at the store. After he was put in the tank (and named Agadore), he was never seen again. I don't know; maybe he's still in there.

So I have one fat cute fish who seems pretty content with his lot in life. I went home for the weekend, come back . . . dead fish.

COME ON!! This is just crazy. How do fish even live at all? They're like the houseplants of the animal kingdom. (I can't keep houseplants alive either.)

So now I have a very nice empty fish tank. Well, not quite empty. When they scooped up my pearl scale goldfish and accidental shrimp, they also scooped up two tiny baby fish. They're each a little more than a quarter of an inch long. These two little fry are swimming around quite happily in their humongous empty tank, apparently healthy.

So I guess what I've learned from the experience is this: fish that you pay for will die the moment you walk out of the room. But free fish . . . free fish are happy to live for a long time.

High School Tag

Hey looky, it's been two months and no blog post. I'm a bad blogger. To make up for it, I am going to post the high school tag even though no one tagged me.

1. Did you date someone from your school? I dated John Young for a while between sophomore and junior years. Then we broke up for no reason at all, but stayed friends until he moved away after college. It was better that way.

2. What kind of car did you drive? 1987 Chevy Cavalier named "The Skunk."

3. It’s Friday night...where are you? Driving around in Doug Minnick's car (or John's), listening to The Best of Queen.

4. Were you a party animal? Absolutely not.

5. Were you considered a flirt? No, too socially awkward.

6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Choir? Never! I was in the jazz band for like a month.

7. Were you a nerd? Have you met me?

8. Were you on any varsity teams? Academic Decathlon team (unofficial) captain. Woo! Only we weren't that smart so our shirts say "Academic Decathalon." No kidding.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?Nope.

10. Can you still sing the fight song? "Through all the seasons of the year / and all the years to come / we sing our praises loud and clear / to Hillcrest High we love so dear / something something / mumble . . . rolling hills!" In senior year we all made a big show of pulling out our student ID cards every time we had to sing the school song, since the words were all on the back of the card. That's the only reason anyone knew them.

11. Who were your favorite teachers? The lovely Ms. Victoria Brinton.

12. Where did you sit during lunch? In the hall, just down from the Coke machines and across from the door to the courtyard.

13. What was your school's full name? Hillcrest High School

14. School mascot? Husky. Though the cheerleaders insist that "h-u-s-k-i-e" is how you spell it.

15. Did you go to Homecoming and who with? Yes, in junior year with a kid named Jason.

16. If you could go back and do it again, would you? . . . No. I had no responsibilities, but the drama . . . ugh. Anyway, all the mistakes I made then are what got me where I am today. And I like that place.

17. What do you remember most about graduation? It was during the NBA finals, Bulls v. Jazz, and everyone had a radio plugged into their ear. Including the choir. The speakers would give score updates. Jazz lost. Zak MacKay wore orange and green striped socks and rolled up his pant legs, so when he walked across the stage you could see his socks from the back row.

18. Where did you go senior skip day? We kidnapped Stephen Reynolds and forced him to miss a day of school. We took him to Arby's then returned him to school again. Then we went . . . somewhere else. Though now that I've typed all that, I'm not sure if that was senior year or some other year. Hm.

19. Were you in any clubs? Dead Poets Society.

20. Have you gained some weight since then? Sigh.

21. Who was your prom date? Tim Price.

22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Skipped it.

What to do with an aged lemur?

Happy Birthday to ME!

Hey looky, it's been a month and no blog posts. I should do something about that. Soon I will post many interesting things about what went on in my month of May, but in the mean time you will have to make do with a birthday report.

I turned 29 yesterday (for reals, I'm not one of those 29-repeaters) and it was lots of fun. I had been looking forward to this birthday - which is not usual for me - so it was doubly fun, I think. It was the first day of having all the kids back at work, but everything went like clockwork despite my not having received their uniform shirts yet (oops).

My boss Chris brought in wonderful gourmet cupcakes from Minis that were absolutely delicious and beautiful to boot. We all went out for lunch at Rumbi (peanut sauce - yum). And then, at the end of the day, Elliott showed up at the Zoo with a card and some beautiful pink roses!

From there we went and picked up Meme, and then went to dad's for the usual cake and ice cream after dinner. Christy had cooked a mountain of spaghetti for dinner, and Elliott finished off every single noodle of it. I love spaghetti.

After presents and cake (chocolate with banana frosting! Woo!) we got to watch the Celtics DEMOLISH the Lakers. Delicious. Elliott and I took Meme home and then played some PS2 before calling it a night.

I got some fun gift cards, a book, cash, Lego Indiana Jones, and some cute flip-flops and matching bag. Good times. Tonight my friends and I are all going out to dinner at Macaroni Grill.

Hooray for birthdays!

Sad News

http://www.legacy.com/DeseretNews/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=109097570

Thievery

Either someone is stealing letters off our signs, or they have begun to fall off on their own, but this morning as I arrived I noticed that I now work at:

HO LE ZO