outer mongolia....

so yes, i'm in mongolia. i guess not outer mongolia, but more in central mongolia. i arrived in the capital, ulaan bataar, late last night after spending 15 gloriously, long hours in the seoul airport. that wasn't planned. i was actually only suppose to spend 6 hours there, but the winds were too harsh in mongolia and the planes got grounded.

no, this trip wasn't planned. its for work and i found out monday at 2 pm that i needed to leave for mongolia the following day. i'll be here for a week and so far, the people have been very nice and everyone seems to speak really good english. i just wish i had packed warmer clothes. the high today is only going to be 45 degrees.

hopefully i will have more adventures to tell...

wishlist item #987

i think we could all use a vampire protection kit - especially with this new crop of handsome and trendy vampires like edward cullen that could be living amongst us.

dangling from a 20” sterling silver chain, you’ll find a silver hand-forged cross and a hand-carved hardwood stake. you really just need a pair of mini garlic bulbs to dry out & wear as earrings to go along with it.

nature moment: dead shark taking the bus

The body of a shark was left lying in the middle of downtown Miami street after two men tried to sell it to several fish markets.

The men apparently carried the five or six-foot-long fish around on the city's Metromover downtown train, prompting calls to police.

News footage Tuesday night showed the dead animal in the street with police officers and cruisers nearby. Two stations reported that a pair of men had tried to sell the animal to at least three fish markets for around $10.

Rob Orta, an employee at Casablanca Fish Market, told television station WSVN that the men offered his business the shark.

"But we don't buy sharks off the street," Orta told the station.

Wildlife officials later determined the animal was a nurse shark. The case could result in misdemeanor charges of improper killing and disposal of an animal and selling a shark without a license.

One resident of the area where the shark was dumped said he didn't know what was going on at first.

"It was a relief that it was a shark," said Keith Smith. "When I first saw it, I thought it was a body because of all the shootings that have been going on."

source

stupid question moment of the week....

so i recently cut my hair off. probably at least six or seven inches. i've had long hair for almost four years, so it was a big decision, but it's been great to have short hair again!

i did this last week while i was out of town in DC, and i came into the office on monday to many comments and compliments of my new hairstyle. one lady in particular kept telling me how much she liked it short and if it was hard to make the decision to cut so much of my hair off.

i told her that it wasn't a hard decision, but i wish i could have donated my hair to the organization locks for love.

she replied, "oh but you couldn't, because they won't take oriental hair?"

"no," i said. "they don't take care that has been colored."

i couldn't decide whether or not that was the time i should tell her that "oriental" really isn't a term we use these days. but i was too busy being sad that she thought my hair would be rejected because it was "oriental."

exploring....

so i tried to get out and see the lovely scenery western mass has to offer while i've been out there. one saturday i explored a trail that parallels the railroad tracks and lets you see these lovely keystone bridges that are the oldest of its kind. unfortunately the trail was still really muddy so half the time i had to walk on the railroad tracks. that is.....until i saw signs posted that certain parts of the tracks had high voltage electrical currents running through them. so they warned you not to walk on them. which i thought was very nice of them.

i left my heart in san francisco.....

so sometimes i have to travel for my job. okay. i guess these days, it's more like all the time rather than sometimes. i know i've been very very bad at not updating my blog and i'm gonna try and do better. i promise.

last weekend, work needed me to do an emergency trip to san fran. and of course it was quite the trial for me to have to fly off to san fran and revel in the sun and good food and the wonder of japantown and shopping for 48 hours. but somehow i managed to do it.

with the help of a little elf named janelle. she came along for the ride and it was a whirlwind trip. our flight left at 8:30 am on friday and we called a cab to come and take us to the airport. on the way to the cab, ms. janelle took a spill down the grassy hill in front of my apartment. thank goodness there were no grass stains and no major injuries but it did jack up her hip a bit. but a star trooper she is....and she pressed forward and accepted the first class seat on the plane to san fran.

we landed a few hours later and grabbed another cab (cabs seem to be theme in this trip; i think we took 7 cabs in one day). i told the cabbie the address we needed to go to - a not-so-great neighborhood in san fran (which i had no idea even existed!). about two blocks from our final destination, he stopped the cab and told us to get out. he said that was as far as he could go and he had another "appointment" he had to get to. huh? i was super duper confused but not one to outstay their welcome, we scrambled out of the cab and i threw some money at him. and we walked the last few blocks.

our whole purpose of the trip was to deliver these secret boxes to a-place-i-cannot-name location. the original secret boxes had been shipped a few days before from alaska, but because of some volcano up there, fed ex had a hard time getting their deliveries out. so we were worried that the secret boxes wouldn't get to the secret location on time. but lo and behold, when we walked into the lobby of our final destination, guess what was sitting there? yep. the original set of secret boxes. so we turned back around, grabbed another cab to our hotel, shipped the extra set of secret boxes home, and played the rest of the day in japantown.

now japantown is a slice of heaven because it reminds me so much of the motherland - korea. with its yummy food, grocery stores that contain unimaginable treasures (like eyebrow razors, car air fresheners that smell like magical apples, and soft candies that feel like pillows in your mouth), sticker photo booths, and of course stationary stores that have notebooks that say: To produce music is also in a sense to produce children.

several hours later, we took another cab back to the hotel, ordered room service for dinner and watched mindless tv. we had tickets to see Leslie and the LY's that night so we had to regain our strength after doing so much mindless shopping and eating. we had a minor disaster on the way to the concert that involved some lost credit cards in a runaway cab. but we didn't let this slow us down and we kept pressing on .......to see below woman rap and jiggle on stage with her backup singers dressed as lions. it was pretty dang awesome.

we slept in sunday morning and explored nob hill. we ate at this little cafe and stuffed our faces with omelets and french toast before heading off to the shopping district. oh and i bought some new eye glasses on the way too. and then it was back to the airport to catch our flight home. yep. i could get used to spending my weekend like this.

no more ESPN.....

so as i lay on my bed in my hotel room, contemplating life and my purpose here, i flip through the channels of my cable tv and the same pressing thought keeps returning my mind: why are there so many dang channels of ESPN? we've got just plain ESPN. then we have ESPN HD. then ESPN 2. and finally ESPN classic. next we'll have ESPN real world. ESPN true hollywood story. and ESPN office.

i'm sick of all the ESPN channels! especially when my hotel tv doesn't get the CW!

attending mass...

so i've been spending the past month in western mass and ct for work. western mass by day; ct by night.....or at least on the weekends. since the beginning of the year, i've spent two full weekends at home in utah and the rest on the east coast. as much as i'm tired of living out of a suitcase, i haven't minded the commute. the best of both worlds.

dal was a sweetheart and introduced me to his good pal AM who lives out here in west hartford. AM had a smashing party last night where i got to meet he and his roommate's coolio friends. the beer lawyer was one of those people and he gave me a great lesson on the importance of winning competitions. or may just winning period. someday i will become competitive. but until then, i'm fine with just watching from the sidelines.

the beer lawyer

AM's roommate and friends

the beer lawyer and AM