Water! It is very important.

Brandon's visiting from Japan and he brought us all shirts. Thanks buddy. Water is very important.

Funny videos

Here are two videos that I enjoyed tonight:

People scared of stockings

Host laughing at poor man's voice

The Starbucks Diet

I joked with some friends about my new Starbucks diet but I have to say that it hasn't slowed down my progress any. Maybe there is some merit in this idea of combining exercise with my love for Starbucks to get me motivated and off my butt. It involves running at a moderate pace to the Starbucks downtown (10-15 min.), presenting my credit card in exchange for a tall green tea frappuccino without whipped cream, and briskly walking back (15 min.) while drinking said frappuccino.

I've done it 3 times out of my last 4 runs and so far have noticed only positive results. I'm leaning toward it being due to the fact that I actually exercised at all versus the fact the I drank a mixture of skim milk, green tea powder, melon syrup, and whatever else during this exercise. I'm sure it hasn't helped any but hopefully the sugars in it don't hurt too much either.

Anyway, I've slimmed down a little since the beginning of May and my Starbucks trips haven't slowed my progress any, at least according to this week's weigh-in, so I think as long as I do everything else right it should be okay to have some self-indulgent Starbucks trips here and there. Being fit should be fun too, right?

Replacements

Sigh, I did it. I tore out my dead flowers.

I was able to salvage the last remaining periwinkle and move it to the backyard to replace a dead one there.

Here's what the mailbox bed looks like now. No more pretty pink flowers but at least these plants aren't dead:













These were the liriope next to the house that I'd just set on the ground a month ago without planting. They've been doing very well in that spot and had actually started to grow into the ground, which required some yanking. I saw a few earthworms underneath. That made me very happy because it gives me hope that our soil isn't hopelessly crappy.

More dead

Here is the newest sight for sore eyes that is my front flowerbed *tear*.

Good night and good luck

Here's a recent pic of me with a sexy farmer's tan from that weekend in the garden.





















I think those are pretty much all of the updates I've got right now. Time for bed. Sweet dreams!

L.A. trip

Here are some pics from our trip to Los Angeles.

Outside the E3 convention.













This is supposed to be Nathan Fillion from the Firefly series at E3. Only I suck at taking pictures of Nathan Fillion. This was demonstrated to me numerous times. Sadly, this was my best shot (gray shirt & jeans on the right).













Grauman's Chinese Theater






















Warner Bros. Lot - Central Perk set from the TV show 'Friends', which totally rocked my world. Mine was the only world rocked by this set, though. I guess that's what I get for traveling with boys.













Van we saw in Korea Town
















Apparently this sign is a common sight in hotels in the state of California. However, I have never seen one before. Thus, it amuses me probably more than it should. I'm glad we spent seven nights there.













Curl up & die, Mike. Die!!






















Redondo Beach









































The happy couple














I guess I should have rolled up my jeans. Oh wait, I did.

RIP flowers

Here are some month-old pics of the flowerbeds that my mom helped me dig in June. It was quite a bit of work, especially since the dirt might as well have been concrete, and there were numerous rocks in the dirt that were basically more concrete...in concrete. If that makes sense.

I mentioned in my last post that my flowers have since bought it thanks to the damn weather. Also thanks to some hungry ants. Bastards. I'm now going to correct myself and say that some of my flowers have bought it....but many others are clearly on their way.

I've indicated the dead with a red 'X'. Just assume that the rest of the periwinkles are about to die. It's sad.

Periwinkles around the mailbox.














Periwinkles, hostas, and a hydrangea on one side.














Periwinkles, hostas, and a hydrangea on the other side.














My liriope that are doing well, as expected. I have three other liriope not pictured here that are just sitting on top of the grass against the side of the house. They have been sitting there for a month and are doing GREAT. These things are basically impossible to kill, which is fortunate/unfortunate/I haven't decided.














And finally, my pot of petunias and something else unidentified. This pic is a month old. They are not this nice-looking right now thanks to all of the rain. In fact, when I pulled this picture up a minute ago I couldn't believe that my currently pathetic petunias ever looked this nice.

Back for good? Too early to tell.

Well, it's been a while. Don't know if anyone actually reads this thing but I figured I'd update anyway. Don't know if I'm back for good, either, but I'll try.

We finally closed on the house in late April and spent the next few days moving in. It was definitely tedious transporting all of our (mostly unnecessary) crap over about 6 trips but it finally got done. Despite the fact that our brand new compressor broke less than a month after we moved in for two weeks during a hellish 95ish degree heat wave, life here has been quite nice. It's also been nearly dust-free, much unlike our 40 year-old apartment. Maybe I won't get bronchitis this year.

Right before our air conditioning crapped out we went to Los Angeles with Mike and some other friends for the E3 gaming conference. It was my first time to CA and definitely interesting! The conference was very cool. I'll share some pictures from our trip and maybe a few other things in a little while.

After our trip, we got back and had lots of company over. My mom was one of the guests, along with my sister, and they contributed to a very very busy weekend of gardening and puppy picking-up. My mom's new puppy is the cutest thing. Its tentative name, however, is not so much. Meet Pfeffernusse von Wolfe (Pfeffer):



















She's a Mini Schnauzer and very petnap-worthy.

Right now we're just relaxing and enjoying our home and the fact that it's summer. Well, today wasn't that enjoyable since it reached 100 degrees here and we're in the freaking mountains. This temperamental summer has completely destroyed the periwinkles my mom and I planted last month. They're poor little plant skeletons now. I've decided to rip them out this weekend, plant some leftover liriope that I know can tolerate anything short of a nuke, and forget about it. I actually have a bit of a green thumb but I don't think anyone can be a good gardener in this type of weather. Despite the ups and downs, though, I'm really in my element. Summer does me good. Well, really any time outside of tax season does me good, but especially summer.

Anyway, it's good to be back! Hope your summer is going well and please feel free to leave me a note!