May 29, 2007

sleepless night

Well... I don't know the best way to "tell" this story. It probably won't be eloquent. I'm rather sleep-deprived. Last night, just as I was finally dozing off to sleep, around 12:30am, I hear what I thought was a gunshot outside our bedroom window. It freaked me out, but Chris wasn't sure it was actually a gunshot, plus we can't see out our bedroom windows anyways, so we just tried to go back to sleep. Then just as I was falling BACK to sleep, we heard a bunch of gunshots all at once (I think I counted ten) right outside. This time we were sure of what we heard, so Chris called the police, and was told that a call had already been made and police were on their way. The strange thing was that we didn't hear anyone talking outside (back behind our apartment is a seedy bar, and we usually hear people out there until all hours of the night, so you'd think if someone was shot outside, people would be making some noise). Chris said "probably someone shot into the air." Within a couple of minutes, there were cop cars EVERYWHERE, and the whole block by our apartment was blocked off. Chris managed to get enough of a glimpse out the window to see cops running around everywhere, see someone put into an ambulance, and then see a police officer inspecting the ground about 15 feet from our bedroom window. Of course at this time we really couldn't sleep, and we were half expecting a police officer to ring the doorbell to see if we knew anything.


After a while of trying to look out windows to see what was happening, we realized we really need to try and get some sleep. Chris had to be up at 5:30am to open the coffee shop, and I had a 90 minute drive and a 12 hour work day ahead of me the next morning. So, of course, it took us a long time to finally fall back to sleep, and I was just barely falling asleep AGAIN when we heard knocking, at 2:30am. We're used to people ringing the doorbell if they need to get us, because the door to our apartment is inside of another locked door, and if anyone knocks on that door, we can't hear it. So Chris opens our door to investigate the noise, and is surprised to see a cop standing there, asking if we heard anything. Chris told him what we knew (gunshot at 12:30, lotsa shots at 12:50, the end). And the officer left. So needless to say, we didn't exactly get any sleep.


This morning I did a google news search for the incident and found this article, which tells me that a man was murdered outside our apartment. Just a little scary. Needless to say, we're REALLY happy to be leaving ghetto downtown Savannah in under three weeks.

May 26, 2007

Computer in a Coma, and a Life Update

Yesterday my computer decided to quit working. I think the hard-drive died. It came as quite a shock. For those of you that don't know, basically everything I do requires that machine. I am a freelance designer, which requires the computer. I manage a business for our PEZ documentary, where all the records are kept on that machine. And I am a graphic design & web design teacher, and when I'm not at the school I need to check emails from students and grade assignments for the online class I teach. So I'm going through a bit of withdrawal today.


We still have Chris's computer to check emails and do a LITTLE bit of necessary work, but, well, Chris's computer sucks. It doesn't have all my software on it. And while I actually have a work laptop that I could, in theory, work on, that one started acting funny a week ago and I need to take it in to work to have the tech guys look at it, because right now I can only boot it up in safe mode. So I'm kind of being forced to do less on the computer and more in the real world for a while. It's probably a blessing in disguise, but right now I'm expecting to start displaying symptoms of withdrawal... like the shakes, or nausea.


What this DOES mean is that I have no excuse NOT to start packing up our home while I'm computer-less. Why would I start packing up my home, you ask? Well... we've officially decided to move to Atlanta. In three weeks. It's a really long story with lots of pieces to it, but the short version is that Chris and I really feel this is where the Lord is leading us, and so we have made the decision to step out in faith and follow, trusting that the Lord will put together the pieces in His timing. The middle of June is when my classes end for the quarter, so at that time we're going to move up the the Atlanta area and start looking for apartments, finalize jobs, etc. Chris's brother and our new sister-in-law have offered to let us stay in their apartment for a month while they're out of town, so we're taking them up on it. It's going to be a crazy ride, but we're looking forward to it all. We're just really ready to get out of Savannah, and we feel that now is the time. As things become more finalized, I'll post updates. For now I don't want to start talking about things we haven't confirmed. But that's what we know.

May 22, 2007

What, no GoLive? What a surprise...

A year or so ago, my husband and one of my best friends were both taking a web design class at SCAD. They were being forced to use Adobe GoLive in this class, although it is TERRIBLE web design software (and this is coming from an Adobe girl). I complained about it and mentioned they should be learning Dreamweaver. They said "Well, Adobe bought out Macromedia, so our teacher said that Dreamweaver will be discontinued, so we have to learn GoLive." I insisted that this was ridiculous, Dreamweaver is the industry standard, and there's no WAY Adobe would trash it. They insisted that their teacher is WAY smart (he has a degree from HARVARD, after all) and WAY cool, and of course since I'm not a Harvard grad, nor do I take pictures of deer antlers covered in icing, I must not know what I'm talking about. In their defense, the Kendra-bashing did not actually happen, but in my mind it may as well have, since they were so enamored with their teacher and his GoLive-loving ways. And don't even get me STARTED on how his OWN website is all images and in no way optimized for search engines to even FIND HIM. Some web teacher.


Well, ladies and gents, you know what's coming. The new Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium comes packaged with none other than Dreamweaver, NOT GoLive. GoLive has, in fact, been discontinued from the Creative Suite. Although this victory matters to no one but myself, I still take great pride in knowing What's Up. I am The Nerdiest.

ego

Sure, I graduated nearly 10 years ago, but it's still kinda cool that my high school (Fort Myers High School) was just ranked in the top 100 in the COUNTRY.


And what's with all the talk of Florida schools being among the worst? I was always surprised because I got a pretty stellar high school education, in Florida. But I guess as a state it's not so hot, but there are some good ones. 22 of the top 100 schools are in Florida, actually. (12 in Texas, 13 in N.Y, only 7 in California, 11 in Va, and after that is seems like no state has more than a handful).

May 21, 2007

new sister-in-law!

My brother-in-law Sam got married to an awesome girl named Nicole this past weekend, and Chris and I were blessed to be a part of it. It was a crazy-busy weekend, but worth every minute of it. Lots of time with family, making new friends, and celebrating. Good times were had by all.

May 09, 2007

Favorite Sesame Street Moments

I don't know how I got sidetracked watching old Sesame Street clips this morning, but here are my favorite clips in Sesame Street history.






This time-waster was brought to you by the letter K.

May 07, 2007

Don't Mess With Our Chocolate!

If there's one thing that really gets me mad, it's when corporations lobby the FDA to drop regulations on food products. I think the worst is when companies want the FDA to loosen standards on organics, but on a more universal topic that people other than me might care about, chocolate companies are trying to get the FDA to cut back their regulations on what's labeled chocolate. CHOCOLATE! They want the FDA to allow them to use vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter, and milk substitutes instead of milk, and still label it "chocolate" ... making the chocolate less tasty and less, well, chocolatey. I don't care of companies want to make fake chocolate to save money, but I don't want them to be able to call it chocolate. It just bugs me that the FDA really is in the business of serving businesses, at the expense of the consumers. Not that this is something new... just something we need to be increasingly aware of when it's becoming more clear that what we eat affects our health, and not just in the "eating fat makes you fat" kind of way.

May 01, 2007

back, but not for long

We got back from Atlanta late Sunday night. Had all day Monday to catch up on some stuff at home. Off to work Tues/Wed, and the cycle continues again. I finally pulled out my PDA and counted how many days I've actually been home in the past few months.
Here's the tally:



  • March: 17 days outta 31

  • April: 12 days outta 30

  • May: (tentative) 12 days outta 31 (but that might decrease).


Luckily we have an awesome friend to check out mail and hang out in our house when we're gone, water our plants & keep our internet company. But MAN, that air mattress doesn't suit my neck so well.


Anyways, I'm still waiting for the rest of the pieces to be put together to figure out what we're doing with ourselves after June... When I know something I will share.