One year ago...

FREE MEEEEAAAAALLLL!!!!!!!

Oh man. This is exciting. So I'm driving along West Sahara , on my way to lunch when I see one of these.

Opens in two weeks. Definitely will help when I'm missing Utah.

Also,

I'm really torn between the Jazz/Spurs series. I hate the Jazz. I had to beat off Jazz fans my entire college career and I'm proud to say I never caved. However, I hate the Spurs and I'm so sick of Tim Duncun I could puke. He looks like one of those bush babies. I'd like to see someone new win it for a change. Which is why I'm sort of hoping that Jazz fans all say their prays and pay their tithing so they can pull of a miracle and beat the San Antonio.

Bikers Beware

Yesterday afternoon I hit a man on a bike with my car.

Not joking here.

Luckily, it wasn't very hard and he was perfectly fine. But still. I was on my way to one of our towers. I was trying to turn right onto a street that is hard to see on coming traffic on. Parked cars all along the street make visibility almost impossible without creeping out into traffic a little to see any oncoming cars. I was looking left and when it was clear, took my foot off the break and just as I started to go, this man on the bike tried to ride in front of my and that's when it happened. I hit him. I hit him with my car. I thought for a second I may have broken his leg or something since the car hit his shin/calf. I got out and kept asking him if he was ok, over and over again and at first he didn't say anything; he just stared at me. But then I realized he didn't speak any English. He started saying something in Spanish which I couldn't entirely understand, but he made the gestures of "It's fine. I'm ok" He was actually nice about it and tried to calm me down, but I was definitely shook up. I mean literally, I was shaking. One of my biggest fears is that I will accidently kill someone when I'm driving, like get in an accident or hit a pedestrian....Very glad he was ok. I will definitely be paying more attention when I drive from now on.

BTW

The Office season finale last night was so great. Pam and Jim are freaking cute. And Dwight kills me. I don't know how I'm going to get through the summer without it. Grey's Anatomy was insane. Poor Christina. I feel so bad for her. And George too. People I don't feel bad for: Meredith. She bugs. She doesn't deserve hot Derek and I don't even care that her step-sister is a new intern and going to steal him away from her next season.

Better late than never

(We are catches, Heather. We are)

Ok. Here are the pictures from Huntington. Let me narrate for you:

Misty May and Kerri Walsh. Misty's in the black. We hadn't been on the beach for 5 minutes when I look over to my left and see Kerri Walsh just walking around. She was not more than 10 feet away from me. She stopped to get something out of her backpack, which is when Heather turned around to witness my freak out. She started laughing and I just had to walk away. The weekend had various moments of me being star-struck and this was the first. Here are Misty and Kerri warming up before their match. I mean, you need to understand that these people are just there; no entourage, no body guards. Just them. They're so accessible. I mean, I'm not about to walk up to them and start a conversation right before their match. They need to focus. But it was a trip seeing them just warming up behind the stadium, alone. I mean these are professional athletes. We are talking Olympic gold medals, Gatorade commericals, and Nike endorsements. And it wasn't just them. I'd be like looking at the tournament board and be standing right next to freaking Logan Tom. It was crazy.

Me, Heather and Karch Kirlay. No big deal. Just the best volleyball player in the world. Whatever.

That's a real tour ball, by the way. AND, during this match, the ball came flying over the siding and I caught it and threw it back to Kerri. She really appreciated that.

Nice block.

And this is me with Kerri Walsh. After their match, Heather's Dad, a tour referee, who was so awesome and nice and chummy with all the players, had Kerri come over and meet us. MEET us. I think she said, "Hi, I'm Kerri" and then held out her hand for me to shake, which I didn't notice for a second because I kept staring at her abs. I almost asked her if she lifted weights or was that just from playing on the beach, but I didn't. When we took this picture, she said "Sorry, I'm all dirty." We both laughed. I swear, we could totally be friends..

And this is me with the other half, Misty May. We tried to catch Misty and Kerri together, but we didn't want to bug them when they were alone, practicing. But we got to meet her at the X-Box tent, which is one of her sponsers. She was also extremely nice and normal. When I bent down to take this, she reminded me that her Jamba Juice was behind me and to be careful. Please, I'll go BUY you a new one if you want. Right now, I will.

One the best highlights for me was when this girl came up to Heather and I as we were leaving the stadium and asked us if we were players. She was holding out a Sharpie and wanted us to sign her t-shirt. I was this close from saying yes and just signing my name, but just laughed and said "no." She was all, "Oh, never mind" and walked away. It was pretty funny.

I have more pictures that I will post later. I'm really greatful to Heather and her Dad for hooking me up and inviting me out to Huntington. It was seriously so much fun and I had a blast. Being there really made me miss California and it was hard to get in my car and come back to Vegas. I was also kicking myself for not taking volleyball more seriously in high school. Who knows, I could have a Gatorade contract by now. Maybe not.

GOOD TIMES.

Other things

Speaking of awesome pictures, this weekend I finally got around to taking an antique poster I bought in Barcelona to the framing store to be customed framed. I bought this print last summer while in Europe and have been meaning to take it in to get framed for like a year now and I finally got in my car and drove it down to Aaron & Brother's on Saturday. I'm the most indecisive person I know and this process could have taken an eternity, but the Frame Guy really helped me out and showed me some really beautiful layouts. I finally went with a really pretty double matted brown layout with an antiqued frame. Framing costs a lot of money, something I wasn't entirely prepared for, but I love this poster and it's very sentimental for me so I am trying not to think about how much money I spent on it. It's going to look great and should be ready next week. I have another small watercolor I bought from a local street artist in Florence that I need to get framed, but I might attempt to forego the custom framing process and do it myself. It's a more simple, 8x10 piece that I should be able to handle on my own. We'll see.
I'm also going to be sending all my Europe pictures to Snapfish to be printed out and sent to me so I can get them in albums. I am such a slacker and have wanted to do this since I got back, but again, finding the time to actually sit down and do it has been a struggle. Not that I am so busy, I'm just lazy.

I'm waiting for Heather to get back from her cruise so she can send me the awesome pictures from Huntington because I am an idiot and didn't charge my camera the night before we went. I do have some pictures, but she has the really awesome ones and I just don't want to post about it without the awesome pictures, ok? And trust me, they are awesome.

(Total "awesomes" used in this post, including that one: 5)

It's Thursday, and a very important Thursday at that. Tonight it the 2-hour Grey's Anatomy special that introduces the potential spin-off show with Addision, AKA Dr. Montgomery. As much as I would hate to see Kate Walsh leave Grey's, I must say that a show centered around her would be sweet. She's one of my favorite characters on the show and Grey's is so jam packed full of characters, that she sometimes gets lost in all the drama. She has great hair too. I love it.

Tomorrow I'm off to Huntington Beach to meet up with Heather. She is scoring us some tickets to an AVP tournament which will be amazing, I'm sure. Hopefully, we get to these these two in action. That would be rad. I'm very, very excited to leave. Going to get a nice tan and hang out at the beach all day. Awesome. I'll definitely take some pics and put them up when I get back.

Glad to see the Lakers go. Nothing is as sweet as seeing Kobe eliminated from the playoffs. Also hoping the Warriors don't blow this series. They need to win tonight.

Lame.

I was watching the Real World last night and at the end of the episode, they get surprised with a vacation...to Thailand.

That is really annoying.