do you want to sponsor me?

Leslie and I were discussing various ways we could make money, and the best plan is to figure out a way to get sponsored for this blog. I mean check it out, I blog every week day, thats not bad right? and if you sponsor me i'll find a way to throw your product into my daily blogs.

We discussed, and Leslie thinks that she should be sponsored by Dove or Ben's Chili bowl, and she suggested that I get sponsored by Trojan.

Those are good suggestions leslie, although I'd be ok with anyone sponsoring me as long as I could get some money and maybe some free stuff here and there. So if you are reading my blog and want to sponsor me that would be awesome. thanks.

Just doing my part

Ok so I realize that I waste a lot of food on my own, but whenever possible i like to limit it. So I think we should start a campaign to limit one key area of waste...Garnishes. Seriously? they just sit there on the side of the plate and noone eats them. Think about how much you could offset your carbon footprint by leaving them planted. We have Cabbage, parsley, random leafy things, cole slaw...ok so cole slaw isnt a garnish, but still...who eats that??? gross.

So from today forward I will be boycotting all restaurants that just throw around tasteless items of produce for decoration. Are you with me??

I will only make exceptions when it looks like this:

Fun times in the Lab

I am really starting to hate being in the lab. I've been in there for about a week now, and NOTHING has gone right. Finally yesterday we are in full swing, about to run the last test on the second axis when the guy comes to me and says "we are at storm warning level 3 and you are going to have to sign a waiver to continue"...I guess the vibe lab is prone to power surges during storms. AWESOME. I made some phone calls and decided not to sign the form.

As the lab tech told me yesterday..."murphy visits this lab often"

Its so incredibly hot out that I broke a sweat walking down the street to my car this morning, and all I want to do is be outside today, but instead I'll be in the vibe lab dungeon. meh. Oh and the best part is that even after I finish the third axis of this test I have about 4 more pieces lined up to test. At least I have my trusty laptop with solitaire.

bought my first real six string...bought it at costco....

Now I'm ready for my second....So I Found this new guitar/amp set that I want to get. ITS PINK. Awesome right? I brought this up at work the other day b/c my new officemate(yes the two sucky ones are gone and its now me jim and eric yay!) brought his guitar in b/c i guess he was going to practice after work, i dont know, so he showed it to me then we got to talking about his new hollow body one or something---i was impressed...so then i told him about my hopes and dreams of getting a pink one, and he told me that they even sold SPARKLY pink guitars! Check out what we found:



or





Then I continued this discussion with rob later and he made me promise that I wouldnt get anything before talking it over with him first. I kinda trust him since i think he actually reconstructs cool old guitars if i heard right.



(http://images.misupply.com/products/original/Daisy%20Rock/146751AtomicPinkO.jpg

http://www.guitarcenter.com/shop/product?full_sku=514521%2e007

http://www.guitarcenter.com/shop/product?full_sku=514534%2e722)

I wish I could sleep all day today

Another fun weekend had by all.

The weather was beautiful so I managed to be outside for almost the entire time, starting with a bar on the gtown waterfront, and including dinner on the patio by my pool.

Sat I went to the most fun bday party I've been to in a long time. It was for two of Charlotte's children. I think I enjoy hanging out by the swingset more than most soon to be (a month from yesterday) 25 year olds. Also have you ever seen a little kid eat cake? Its amazing. I dont know how they get it everywhere, but they sure do enjoy it. Charlotte, being the great mom that she is, had THREE cakes, so all of her children were happy with thier own flavors. And Levi was really cute running around making sure to catch all the key moments on video. Also Catherine and Bill brought thier new born daughter who is BEAUTIFUL. One of the smallest babies I've ever seen too.

In other news Sat night after the bar (i finally got people to go out in my neighborhood) we had a big sleepover party. Me, Leslie, Peter, and Will. You know when friends sleep together and then suddenly the friendship is awkward? Well I sure hope that Leslie and Will don't succumb to that ;)

We also went and saw knocked up for a second time. Its hillarious again, so if you havent seen it yet GO SEE IT.

There must be some mosquito around or something b/c i woke up with THREE bug bites :( meh. thats the one downside to this weather

OH yeah, and Taco Bell's drive through has joined my axis of evil, check leslie's blog in a day or so to find out why.

Friday at Last!

well testing this week was interesting. it started...and stopped...and now we have a scary meeting because of it.

Lets think about better, less stressful things....

so AFI came out with their best movies list and citizen Kane tops it again. have any of you actually seen that movie? I haven't, and I'm pretty sure I've never heard anyone reference it ever so I kinda doubt any of my friends have. Maybe we should all sit down and watch it some time and see what the fuss is about. I'll provide the booze, but someone else is going to have to provide the dvd player since mine is freaking out on me.

I think this might be the last new orleans related post

I travel and fly a lot, so you'd think that by now I'd be pretty good at it and relaxed. This is not true. I get nervous every time. Not nervous that we'll crash or anything, just nervous about logistics (if you know me at all this will nor surprise you).

Friday I left work, stopped home, called a cab and headed straight for the airport. I knew i was cutting it a little close, but I figured it wouldnt matter. So i get to the airport with time to spare, get in line for the self service machines and finally get to the front. I type in my confirmation code and up comes the message "cannot print ticket". Great. So i walked over to one of the guys behind the desk and told him my problem. He said It was under 30 minutes before the flight so there was nothing he could do (note that when i first got in line there was more than 30 minutes). I talked to another guy who also told me that I just couldnt go, and they didnt offer to help find me another flight. Finally I convinced them to print me a "gate pass" not a "boarding pass" so i could just go see the flight and maybe they would let me on. So i ran through security, luckily i'm a pro at that and even have my zip loc of liquids so I have no problems. I get through and get to the gate and the lady looks up my name and gives me THE LAST ticket on the plane. I got on the plane and sat next to a friendly not bad looking older gentleman, and we chatted most of the flight except when we both coincidentally listened to motley crue on our ipods (this only amused me, i dont think he noticed). He told me all sorts of bars to go to, and he was right about all of them. He also informed me that the guy behind me was "the future governor" of Louisiana. I guess this guy is favored to win? I dont know. He seemed nice and smart and very friendly though.

I just looked it up and his name is Bobby Jindal. I asked Laurie and she seems to know all about him.

Also I think i've perfected the damsel in distress thing when it comes to putting my luggage in the over head compartment or taking it down. I must look pretty pathetic trying to do it b/c any guy around me will drop what he's carrying and immediately lift mine for me. I usually hate being that girl, but i'm pretty sure i'd never get my carry on up there if it werent for the kindness of strangers.

New Orleans part III

One thing I was overly impressed by were the police. On every street corner of bourbon street were two or three police officers standing around. We'd walk by and they'd look us up and down and smile at us. On a couple of occasions we approached them and they were so friendly and nice. A couple let us take thier pictures with them. But as soon as anything went wrong they sprinted into action. We saw this first hand on two occasions.

First this really large girl was walking by us and BAM wipes out. Lauren and I run over to her to make sure she is ok and try to pick her up to no success. The rest of the group helps and by the time we get her up (she cant stand either) and sit her down by a wall the police are all over it asking her for her information. After we walked away the smallest girl in our group Lauren announced that she had just "saved the day"!

The next instance we were walking down the street and see this guy FLYING through the air. he lands and smacks his head so hard on the cement. By the time he's landed the police are grabbing him and slamming him to a wall (he's still fighting back) and they end up slamming his head through the window. Crazy.

New Orleans Part II

Clearly a group of 5 girls and one justin draws a lot of attention. Everywhere we went we got comments including some guy telling me my rack was "delicious". Also Justin wasnt too thrilled when bouncers pointed out how lucky he was to have "an entire basketball team's worth of cheerleaders" with him.

One group of guys in particular were pretty funny. The ring leader of that group had it bad for Patty and kept in touch throughout the weekend. I guess guys have their "thing" to snag girls, and this group sure had a creative one....air jump rope. Yes you read that right. Two of them pretended to swing the air rope double dutch style and then a third one jumped in and jumped rope. The second night when we saw them again they did it for us again but this time Patty and I jumped in. how could you resist that?

One guy was chatting with us and he made people lick his sweaty face (ew) and then had brittany and brianna kiss---but then he tried to convince brianna that he was 3rd string qb for the arizona cardinals. he said she could google it, but i dont know if i believe him.

since the jump rope one is a good attempt i'll now write about the bad attempt, sorry i haven't written up those in a while, i know you all miss that feature of my blog. Ok so i'm standing at bourbon cowboy watching one of the terrible girls that was hired to dance attempt to dance when this guy approaches me. He had been looking at me for a while so I wasn't surprised.
Him: "hey, are you afraid for everyone's safety?"
Me: "what?"
Him: "yeah, like are you afraid that something is going to collapse and people will get hurt?"
Me: "I mean I guess so, but I wasnt really concerned about it"
Him: "oh so you dont work on that building project down the street then do you"
Me: No
Him: "ok that makes sense that you arent concerned then. I work there and i'm in charge of making sure everything works and is safe"
Me: " are you an engineer"
Him: "yeah"

I pretty much told him I had to leave at this point. WTF. Why do the engineers seek me out! do I have a huge sign on my forehead that says Engineer?

two or three more posts to come about this weekend

You cant get THIS fucked up in Tijuana: Brittany's Bachelorette party in New Orleans

This weekend six of us traveled down to New Orleans to Celebrate Brittany's Bachelorette party in style. This blog will require a couple posts. I'll sum stuff up today and then follow up the next few days. The party consisted of me, Brittany, Brianna, Justin, Patty, and Lauren. (some GW friends, some new friends)

We spent the entire weekend in the french quarter, only leaving to get to and from the airport. I landed and we immediately went out to Bourbon Cowboy, and since we made brittany wear a sash that said "sexy little bride" the bouncers tried WITH FORCE to make brittany ride the bull...but she refused to sign the legal release so there wasn't much they could do--although we did have a bull riding accident. Probably more on that later.

Just walking up and down bourbon street is fun, they have walk up daiquiri shops that you can take with you. I got a cajun storm which turns out to be 151, and grain alcohol...whoops. it was yummy though. And people really do stand on the balconies throwing beads at girls.

We stayed at the W hotel and they had a button on the phone which was a direct line to the concierge and it said "whatever whenever". We tested this theory out and it turns out it works for things like Playing cards and champagne, but not packing tape or a couple other things.

I promise more later, with a lot more stories, i'm just way too tired to write anything coherent today...but thats the sign of a great weekend right?

I wish you werent such a rule breaker

I found this website that has really weird out out dated laws that are still in the books.

Generally I consider myself a law abiding citizen, for the most part. If i were to ever break any laws I'd say that I probably only break one at a time...this was until I read this website. It would appear as if I partook in at least 3 simultaneously! I'm such a rebel.


http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/virginia/

As far as Massachusetts laws go it looks like the entire Red Sox team has some fines to pay:
An old ordinance declares goatees illegal unless you first pay a special license fee for the privilege of wearing one in public.

I dont even know

So back in march I hooked up with this kid, and we never crossed paths after that. It was a little weird since we had common friends, but no real awkward situation arose from that....until last night.

I was out to dinner with my parents and I get this call from a number I didnt recognize. He left a message i could barely hear so I figured i'd call back and see whats up... I was pretty sure there was zero percent chance he meant to call me and i was determined to see how awkward I could make this conversation, it was a great goal. This is how the conversation went.

Me: hey
him: hey, whats up? how is your leg?
Me: oh, its fine, thanks
him: is it????
Me: yeah....did you call the wrong rachel?
Him: ummmm possibly...which rachel is this
I told him
Him: oh...yeah...wrong rachel
Me: its cool (note that i was laughing pretty hard by this point)
Him: so i missed you last night
Me: what??
Him: sorry....wrong rachel.

Shortly after hanging up the phone I called his co worker to tell the story and give him hints on how to drop it at work tomorrow and try and mess with him a little bit. I hope that worked out well :)

I should also mention that my voice mail says both my first and last name, so when he left the first message he probably should have figured it out...what a smartie.

I'm hoping this interaction broke the ice so future hang outs aren't awkward for the sake of our common friends.

Axis of Evil

Leslie and I amuse each other most of the time. At least she amuses me, maybe i weird her out...who knows. Anyway here is a conversation she and I had yesterday that I keep remembering and laughing.

Leslie: I have to go write a Press Release, I'll be back in a little
Me: Oh is the PR answering the question "why is Rachel so awesome?"
Leslie: No, that's not news
Me: Yeah, but sometimes people need to be reminded
Leslie: Whats your news hook this time?
Me: guess we could do it like bush does...Safran declares war on someone much more weak...therefore she is awesome
Leslie: on your own personal axis of evil: Haircuts. Orange. Yankees.
Me: don't forget snakes
Leslie: Snakes are in my personal axis of evil don't worry- a war is already being waged on that front

The axis list was modified a little b/c i couldnt post one of her real options.

One of my favorite SNL skits happens to be the Axis of Evil one. Since i'm at work I cant find it on youtube and link it, so here is a transcript I found. I'm laughing pretty hard just reading it. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01mbush.phtml

Good times with good friends

Last night I went out to dinner with Kelly and Karlyn. Both were at one point in time orbital employees, and us girls gotta stick together. Karlyn still works here, but Kelly has moved on to Scranton, PA....yes thats right, the home of the show "the office".

Work brought Kelly to alexandria this week so Karlyn and I went over and we all got dinner. Things felt like Kelly never left, it was great. I miss the weekend hh turned annapolis/federal hill/baltimore turned sleepover nights! Those were the best. I think a road trip to PA is in order :)

I was trying to convince Kelly that this year for her bday she should throw herself a "decade of drinking" party. When I turn 31 there is no doubt in my mind thats what I'm gonna do. Karlyn on the other hand freaked out and never admitted to turning 31, infact I'm pretty sure she claims to be in her 20's still. Maybe I should start planning my party now. Its gonna be awesome and you are all invited!

Carbon Monoxide Scare/Music update/pain index

Sat night/ Sunday morning at 5am I was awakened by a short but loud blast of sound. Then silence. Then another short blast. I kept thinking it would stop so I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn't.

I got out of bed and moved the chairs to start to take apart the smoke detector since I assumed that the batteries were running low. As I climbed up the blast went off again, but not from the device I was climbing towards. I turned around and there it was, my carbon monoxide detector.

I unplugged it and found some instructions on the back instructing me to press the "test" button and also to get out and call 911 b/c carbon monoxide WILL KILL YOU. great. So i pressed the button which only made it start beeping more. At this point I called for back-up. We inspected the detector a bit more and realized that really it was just trying to tell us that the battery was low...which I though was dumb b/c it was plugged in and shouldn't have been using battery power this whole time, so I didnt believe thats what it was. The instructions said there was a malfunction in the machine which was probably battery if it was flashing the words "bat" and there was a beep 3 times a minute...both of which were happening.

After agreeing to go back to sleep (with all the balcony doors open) I asked what it would feel like if we were dying of carbon monoxide poisoning anyway. Headache and a "high" feeling I was told. Great, due to my panic I was starting to feel light headed and convinced myself almost high with a definite headache.

I made it through the night and am working on replacing that battery. I guess I should start keeping around 9volt batteries now. stupid carbon monoxide detector.
---

Tuesday the save darfur CD comes out. I'm totally excited about this, not because I know too much about darfur but really just because the CD sounds great. its John Lennon songs covered by modern artists...like green day. Will Rachel have this cd day 1 of release? Yes. (I already downloaded the greenday song!)

----
Pain factor today is surprisingly only at medium! Is this whole gym thing worth me always hurting? at least its starting to hurt less :) I'm actually really impressed that its not too bad today! maybe I'll make it back to the gym even sooner this week!

Air Guitar Rocks Part II

Rachel "Air Kisses" Safran

Also I have now bought Bjorn Turoque (get it....born to rock)'s book called "To Air is Human". Also I am eagerly awaiting the movie "air guitar nation" which is currently in theaters...but only in arizona...looks like i'll wait till its on dvd.


also here is a picture i found on flickr from the show. Check out those gold bike pants, check out that fanny pack, check out the awesomeness.

Air Guitar Rocks!

"Its impossible to hold an air guitar and a gun at the same time, so make air not war". That was some of the wisdom given to us in possibly the best thing I've ever witnessed at the 9:30 club. The Air Guitar Competition!

There were about 25 contestants, 1 MC, and 3 Judges.

The Judges were pretty amusing. Two were from local band Army of Me and the third was from XM radio. Vince clearly had little interest in being there and sat and ate more food than I've ever seen a little guy eat! The XM guy was this cute little nerdy guy who totally loved being the judge. And Brad seemed totally amused by the whole thing and was very vocal, and even took it well when the entire sold out crowd started chanting "ass hole" to him.

The MC evidently had competed ELEVEN times and even gone to Finland for two or three world competitions. He showed us his stuff, and he was pretty good. Plus he was the funniest one there. After every act he had something to say. For example, after the Jimi-Hendrix-esq act he announced "there was a moment when i thought you were going to ejaculate on stage".

Now the contestants were an entirely different story. They all had amazing costumes. One came out as "goat boy", another was a "glam bomb"...this guy was wearing sparklie makeup, had tights, even brought his own glitter to throw on stage. I wanted him to win. People ranged in age from like 17 to maybe 50 something. One guy came out and rocked it to the transformers song. that was awesome.

The rules for this competition stated no props can be used to replicate a guitar, but you can use either electric or acoustic as long as its made of air. There were two rounds of competition. The first round was prepared in advance and each person could pick their own 60 second clip of any song, the second round was just the top 5 contestants and it was a wordless version of the Boston song "long time".

The end of the contest was a little of a let down b/c no one that i wanted to win won. Oh well.

I cant wait to go watch my next air guitar show!!!

Elevators are probably the most awkward invention

Probably the most awkward times of the day are the elevator rides. I take a minimum of 4 a day (coming and going in my apt and coming and going at my office) sometimes i throw in a few more for lunch or random car runs etc.

Both in my apt and my office building I've started recognizing a number of people so we do the awkward nod hi and then just stand there in silence or chatting about the weather for the next awkward 13 or 7 floors. We only know each other from seeing each other so often, but rarely exchange names or any other personal information that would allow for a lengthy and not awkward conversation.

In my apt there is the added awkwardness of somewhat knowing people from GW, like the guy that I played soccer with, but never had a full conversation with until we were trapped inside the moving box that is the elevator.

On Grey's Anatomy they glamorize this awkward phenomenon with sexually charged stares and key moments in the show. WHY CANT THIS EVER HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE? Sure I frequently get on the elevator at work with "hottie" or "tepid", but I think the closest we've come to any interaction is someone saying something like "well at least its friday"---smooth, real smooth.

Also at work there are a bunch of doctors offices on other floors, mainly ob/gyn and geriatrics which means that i get on these moving death traps with only old people and preggos...if saved by the bell taught me anything its never get on an elevator with a pregnant lady because she will go into labor.

And as a side note i read that In 1998, in the United States, it was reported that of the estimated 120 billion rides per year in the approximately 600,000 elevators in the U.S., 10,000 people wound up in the emergency room because of elevator-related accidents---statistically thats a small amount, but really thats a lot more than i expected!

There are Five different types of chairs in this room!

Knocked Up
Before the movie had even come out Leslie and I agreed that this movie was not one we should see with boys, and that we needed to see it together. We just knew it would make for totally awkward situations. We were right.

Overall the movie was AWESOME. I pretty much laughed straight through from start to end (with the exception of one scene which I have since dubbed the worst scene ever shown in a movie).

Paul Rudd was hilarious. Between him, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segel the guys couldn't have been casted better. Even Katherine Heigel was great.

While the whole movie was amazing two scenes stick out as my favorites. First when Allison (katherine) was driving her nieces to school one of the little girls randomly says "I googled murder" and then proceeds to describe the pictures she saw. The second involves a hotel room, shrooms, and FIVE different types of chairs.

You need to all go see this movie so that we can all quote it and discuss it :)

"I'm sorry I told you to go fuck your bong"
"Its alright.....I didn't"

As a side note, I still hurt today :(

Painful monday morning

Ouch, every inch of my body hurts today. I think i worked out more this weekend than I have in a loooong time. Warmed up with sat's 5K. The race for the cure went well, we had a huge group, and raised a substantial amount of money. Then I followed up with sunday gym time with the trainer I mentioned before, weights and everything. Now my body just wants me to sit still forever.

Leslie's birthday party was, as predicted, totally random and lots of fun. I cant really blog about most of it, but ask me and I'll tell you. Before going to Irish times a few of us met up for dinner at T-bone's house, they ordered pizza, and by my request we got the oreo pizza for dessert. It was ok. The weird thing is that it really was on a pizza crust, if i were the one making it I'd put it on a cookie crust.

Irish times was fun, the bartenders were really nice. Jessica started by asking them all sorts of awkward questions, and then gave them the chance to pose back some more awkward questions which they hapily jumped on. One of them tried to ask us some pretty inapropriate and awkward questions, but since my best friend works with some pretty disturbing issues at NCMEC I had already discussed that very topic that day and jumped right in with a response. Another highlight was when Sarah (leslie's psu friend) tried to make ted feel awkward by lunging at him, but he didnt miss a beat and lunged right back. I'll post pictures soon.

(look for an awesome movie review tomorrow)