my trip 1

Disclaimer: sorry, but the keyboards here are different, so it's taking some getting used to--sorry for the horrible punctuation, etc. but i dont have time to fix it right now.

We are now in santa maria, we got here at like 5:30 this morning, and have been sitting in the bus station waiting for the city to come to life...we will probably get to our first stop pretty late tonight, we will stay with some of mike's friends...hopefully take a shower...hopefully the shower won't be too cold... :-) then we'll head down to one of my areas.

It~s been really fun for me to be here again. When I had to switch airports in /sao Paulo, I got to drive through the city on a bus for like an hour, and it was fun seeing all the things i'd forgotten about sao paulo: There is graffiti is EVERYWHERE!!! there is a "river" running down the side of the highway...if i~m remembering correctly, they told us it was drinking water...but it looks more like waste water....
I knew i was in the south when, as i was waiting for mike's flight to arrive in walked a man carrying a cuia, and thermus--drinking mate! and then a few minutes later a few gauchos walked in with their big pants and boots on. it made me smile.

The other thing \i "enjoyed" was how different reactions are to my portuguese...one man who spoke fairly english fairly well, was helping me find my bus in sao paulo and any time i tried to speak portuguese he got this horribly confused look on his face, so we mostly just spoke in english. Then after we got to the airport, i was talking to the lady infront of me in portuguese and she asked if i was a Sao Paulo native, and when i told her i am american she was amazed. same thing with the man at the tourist station in porto alegre--"really?! but your portugues is so good!" that gave me a bit of a boost... but it~s still not as good as i'd have hoped. sad how quickly you can loose something that was so important to your daily life...

I~ve taken a few pictures, but nothing really all that exciting--mostly just views out the plane window...so i~m not going to take the time now to find my cable to attach my camera and attatch them now. maybe next time.

Who has amazing friends?

I DO!!!

Today, as I was organizing some of my pictures, I found this one. There were actually a few like them, but I think this is my favorite.

As I was in the other room, they (I don't remember who else was there...in all honestly I don't really know when it was, aside from that date in the corner...what were we doing? I have no clue....and I think that makes it even more fun.) found my camera and took some pictures--isn't that sweet?! That way, I can find them later and have a nice surprise. I never did say thank you...but I do mean it now that I am saying it: THANK YOU!!!

I sure do hope that by being your friend, some of your greatness and creativity will rub off on me. :-)

Marine Corp Ball

I know it's been long awaited, so I begged my sister to send me the pic's last night. :-)

So here we are...you see that girl on the right? That's my friend. I am standing like that on the left, but my sister (who took the picture) didn't get me in. Oh well! :-)

It was quite the eventful day: I worked till 2...or maybe noon...I can't remember now. I think I was supposed to work until 2, but it was such a quiet day, I just decided to leave at 12. The ball was in Palm Springs, so I wanted to be on the road by 3 to beat traffic...but on days like this time is not your friend--especially not on a Friday when you are heading east (...with the hundreds of other people trying to get out of the city for a weekend at the lake). So, when we finally got there we were about an hour late. I felt really bad for it, but our date (who was there waiting outside the whole time) was all about the kindness. I know, it's fairly odd, but I did say "our date"...as in singular...as in one of him for the three of us girls. All I can say is that he was P-I-M-P!

After waiting outside for us, he walked us in as they were finishing hors d'oeuvres. And a minute later we were all invited to enter the dining hall to sit down. Since we were still close to the door, we were one of the first to get there, so we selected a table near the middle and before we were even seated the table was full: the four of us, and 5 fine young men. (plus the one that pulled up another chair later in the evening.) It was quite the evening. There were several official presentations, the important patriotic procedures you would expect, the night's motivational speaker, ceremonial cutting of the official birthday cake, symbolic presentations of the first 3 slices of cake...and then we were dismissed for food.

It was buffet style, so most of out table waited while the lines died down, but you can tell that men in uniform are used to eating on a tight schedule with a large crowd of people. When I finally went for food, some others were already going for seconds ;-). It was very good. The funny think is that after we finished eating my friend and I felt the impulse to be some how helping. We do catering on the weekends, so now when we go to weddings and other such events we don't know how to be guests...we feel like we should be in the kitchen preparing, or behind the buffet serving, or clearing tables, or checking the punch/water levels, or...

I could go on, but I'm sure I've already lost half of you, so we'll get back to the ball--just remember that there were a few minutes of awkwardness sitting there and not doing anything. ...until they turned the music up. We are all very good at dancing! When "Soulja boy" came on, we couldn't keep our friend in her seat! So we followed her to the dance floor...and the rest of the table followed within a few minutes. (Well, almost everyone did, there was a certain someone-who-shall- remain-nameless, who disappeared about this time.) It was a ton of fun!

At 10 pm sharp they announced that the first bus was there to take a load back to the base, and it was easy to see that the men in uniform are used to their schedule--which I can't really blame them for, since I've got a fairly strict curfew, too. So about then there was a mad rush to exchange numbers/e-mail addresses before running to get to the front of the bus line. Our date and one of his friends were perfect gentlemen, opening doors for us, and escorting us to our car. (Here's to you Mitch, even though you will probably never read this. Thank you for a wonderful evening! I'm so glad you invited me--er--us, even if you were forced into it by your sister.)

All in all, it was a wonderful evening--definitely worth the hours spent in the car!

Insane?

I have a friend who sends my random news articles, and today's was very interesting. Here is the quick notes version: Boy sees Girl on NY train. Boy and Girl share eye contact. Girl gets off train. Boy gets off train. Boy can't find Girl in crowd. Boy creates website to find Girl. Girl's friend sees website and replies. Boy and Girl reunite. The end.
Kinda a cute modern romance. I wonder if anyone ever created a website to find me, but since I don't randomly search for "GirlOfMyDreams" websites, (and neither do my friends...that I know of...), we have yet to be reconnected. That's a sad thought. Oh well.
My question is this: Assuming that train rides are usually more than a few seconds, why didn't Boy go talk to Girl? Because if they both got off at the same spot, that would imply that they were on the train for a little while at least, unless Boy is super lazy and rode the bus for only half a mile. In which case Girl should run away now! ...Or jog away, since obviously Boy is not interested in the physical exertion...come to think of it, walking away would probably suffice...
Moral of the story: If you are a Boy, and you see a Girl on a train, you should go talk to her. But if for whatever reason that is not a possibility, set up a website. But make sure that your website includes a sketch of yourself with an arrow pointing to your head, leading from the words "not insane."

Thanks Fireman Trav!

Ok, so I know I owe you some pictures from the Marine Corp Ball, but I have to wait till my sister decides to e-mail them to me. The formality of the event required a dressy clutch instead of my huge pink "Kaiser Permanente" tote, and between the three of us girl we could find only 1 dressy looking purse. That meant we took the smallest phone (Lisa's), camera (Cindy's), chap stick, and gum. And that's all that would fit--and even then it all had to be arranged just right or the clasp wouldn't close.

So, anyway, while I wait for pictures to come, I thought I'd share with you the pictures we took with my phone on Monday. As some of you know, I have a weekend job. Well, this weekend it carried over into Monday morning for a prayer breakfast event which was held at the local fire station. During the praying portion of the event, when we really couldn't do anything because it would be too much of a distraction, we were outside by the fire engine. Now, obviously there were some very attractive firemen. I mean, really. I think that's one of the requirements for being a fireman. (I think being saved by a Hottie-McHotterson helps give fire victims a reason/motivation to get through the ordeal alive.) So, we were standing around the truck being nosey and looking in the open doors of the truck, when Hottie McFireman walked around the front of the truck. We'll call him...Trav. :-) I was obviously caught, so I said, "Oh, sorry. We're just being nosey." To which he replied "Oh, no, don't worry. You can climb all over that thing." ...So we did. We climbed in. We looked around at everything. We opened the ice chest (full of water packs). We put our numbers in the cell phone that was charging (not really, but now that I think of it, we totally should have!). And when Fireman Trav was finished with his paper work he came over and answered any questions we had. He said we could put on the hard helmet that was sitting on the back shelf--which we did. And we took pictures in it. My picture is pretty unflattering, but here is Cindy (she's always cute):

After laughing at us for playing super model with the helmet, Fireman Trav. took us around the outside of the truck and opened all the cabinets to show us what's inside. He explained the different uses of the 2.5 inch hose and the 4 inch hose; showed us the secret hiding spots for the 4 extra air tanks; the chain saw; the little Velcro pouch that has their color coded cards in it. and then, when our coworker came over to ask if we brought the "Sterno fire putter-outers" Fireman Trav said "Well, there's the hose. You girls are qualified firefighters now." And walked away, leaving us with full permission to use the fire truck as needed to put out any fires we could find. (Well, that's not a direct quote, but...) All in all, a wonderful day. I mean, it totally made my 4 am wake up worth it. And I was a happy camper when I went to my real job and then to school. :-)

Dear Publishers,

My teacher was using your company's Power point presentations in class, and I just wanted to let you know that the keystone is portrayed incorrect, or better it is structurally unsound. In the pictures of the communication archway the trust "Keystone" block is portrayed as a triangle pointing up, when the triangle should be pointing down. You should probably fix that...Unless the point you wanted to make is that we cant relly on trust to keep our communication in tact....In which case good job, and also, I'm sorry for the people who know you, and the world you all live in.
Trusting in you,
Heather
PS. I figure you will want to know this so you can make a new version and charge people $100 for your mistake (you're welcome) but can I please have a free copy of the text book? I mean, I am providing you with a good excuse to make a new edition, and thereby not allow the schools to resell old books keeping money for themselves. You still come out ahead.