My brain is broken.

I can't decide what to go back to school for. I think this may indicate that I shouldn't go back at all. Shouldn't one have a solid idea before making the decision? I long for the days of undergrad where you can be 'undecided' and still apply, and be accepted, to your school of choice. Where you can take general classes in a variety of subjects until you find one that piques your interest. Ugh. I'm getting a headache, an ulcer, and getting very close to completely shutting down. I've gone from environmental science to ecology to conservation biology to microbiology to epidemiology to journalism (threw that one in for variety). I work in the medical field and now am uncertain of if I want to get out of it entirely. I like being in the know and all that, but at the same time, it's not what I intended to do in the first place so I should be okay with leaving. Also, I don't want to feel like I've wasted the past 6 years working in microbiology, and I fear that if I leave the field, I will. Talk about quarter-life crisis. Maybe I should just give it all up and become a starving artist. Oh, that's right, I have no artistic ability. Save from writing. Writing does not pay the bills. Unless you are a journalist or something, hence the thought of journalism. I've tried a couple of career quizzes online and I've been told that I would like to be in administration...does that sound like me? I think not. I took one that involved choosing colors that you like to look at and was told that my 1st occupation choice would be as a creator (non-conformist, free-spirit, creative) and that my 2nd choice would be as an organizer (conformist, blah, blah) which to me is pretty much the polar opposite of creator. Argh. I'm bi-polar. And all this time I thought I was just depressed. Ha. Ha. I may need someone to make this decision for me. Any takers?

Mmm...cheese curds

Okay, so I'm home from the fair. What a great day. Pure sunshine with only 75 degrees. Normally this would be too cold for me, but it translates to 85 degrees Fair temp so it worked out. We ate a lot of food, drank a lot of beer and generally had a wonderful time. It didn't start out that great though. We decided to use the park & ride from Northtown mall. The lot was too full so I had to park kind of far away. Annoyed. We pay our $5 and get on the bus. Waiting, hungry. The bus driver is reading a paper and waiting for more people to get on before leaving. Still hungry. An obnoxious alarm begins to sound. Brett, being hung-over from his 10 year reunion is not pleased. Still hungry. Okay, so eventually the bus driver tells us that the bus is breaking down as we sit there and we need to get off and use the bus that has pulled in behind us. Fine, we move and get on our way. A little hitch, but I give the park & ride system at Northtown mall an overall thumbs down (partly due to the ride home where the bus driver decided to take the scenic route). Either way...we made it into the fair, with its masses of Minnesotans. People-watching at its best. Overly short shorts, fanny packs galore, people pushing strollers while looking the opposite direction (Jessica's fave), 2 year-olds having been subjected to the "Fair-Do" by their mothers, mass chaos at the corn roast. We decided to use a method of community food which worked out quite well. I don't think any of us felt icky-full at any point during the day. We tried the deep fried green beans and gave it a resounding two thumbs up! The "Perfect pickle" (deep fried pickle slices) was a little disappointing, possibly because the slices were lava hot, but still tasty. The fried bacon-on-a-stick was really yummy, but that was expected...bacon=yum. We did not partake in the pickle popsicle (frozen pickle juice in a Mr. Freeze-type plastic sleeve thingy), but there's always next year. The deep fried Twinkie almost cost Brett his life as he inhaled the powered sugar before even taking a bite. Jessica got her berries and cream only to find a better berries and cream stand later on...she had both. Or rather WE had both...yummy. Un-cored strawberries with Reddi-Whip the first time and then cored strawberries with Cool Whip the second time. I say good both ways, but Jessica prefers the cored berries with Cool Whip. Kevin got cajun seasoned shrimp-on-a-stick and gave a thumbs up. Brett got deep friend oysters...he claims they were good. I'm sure they probably were, deep fried anything is good. Funny thing was both Jessica and I somehow were picturing oysters on the half shell when he said that's what he was getting. Apparently we both forgot that we were in the land of "if you can, fry it". Of course we also had the staples of fair food: pronto pups (corn dogs), corn and the cob, cheese curds (OMG...yum) and cheese-on-a-stick. We even wandered through the Grandstand building, the Progress building (filled with all things green and eco-friendly), and the Home Improvement building (found carpet made from corn!). Like I said, it was a great day at the Minnesota State Fair. I highly recommend the fried green beans. They can be found in the Food building at the O'Gara's stand. Mmm.

I may need to enter Olympic-watcher rehab...

What have I been up to lately? What have I been doing with my time? Glad you asked. No, I have not cleaned up my weed farm of a yard. No, I haven't painted my bedroom or bathroom. I've barely cleaned at all. I have spent hours on end watching these summer Olympics. I'm watching table tennis as I write this. I have no idea what has come over me. Prior to table tennis, I was watching synchronized swimming. Yep, synchronized swimming. It was mesmerizing. I couldn't stop watching. I'm amazed at all I've seen. And quite frankly, my status as couch potato has never felt more lame. Although I did walk around Lake Calhoun two times in the past week. But these Olympic athletes are just spectacular. Oh well, I'll just have to see how much food I can stuff into my body tomorrow.

That's right everybody, it's the time for the great Minnesota get-together. STATE FAIR TIME!! Anything and everything on a stick. I've heard a couple of new items this year are fried bacon on a stick and deep-fried green beans (not on a stick). I plan to bring my camera and take a pic of everything for you poor schmucks living in TX and CA. I'll give the rundown when I roll myself home tomorrow.

There's something about hail...

I walked in the door this afternoon and about 30 seconds later it started hailing. I must have some sort of force field around me that protects me from these mini ice balls falling from the sky. Sweet.

On another note...my scooter was delivered today!! Yay...sort of. It's way pinker than it looked online, but I guess that's retribution for not going to an actual dealer to purchase it. It's like Bazooka bubble gum pink...or Double Bubble. As long as the reference conjures images of large bubbles and flavor that lasts approximately 25 seconds. Also, I knew that I would have to attach the handlebar, side mirrors and front wheel, but damn. This thing came packaged to within an inch of its life. And it's from China so the user guide leaves a bit to be desired. It's translated to English...as well as you can translate Chinese directly to English. I'll give you an example in reference to checking the tires:

TYRE
check the tyre pressure regularly and adjust.
-Check after the tyre cooled
-Check if there any metal trash or gravel in thegroove of tyres
WARNING:
-If the tyre pressure dose not accord with the standard, it will possibly the traffic accident.
-It is dangerous to, use the worn tire, It will effect to the friction between tyre and road. It will possilly bring trouble tor dring or even an accident.

Seriously...that was word for word including spaces and punctuation. You should notice that they did spell tire correctly once in there. However, I'm not sure what to make of "tor dring"...I feel like tor might be for, but dring? Hmm...yikes...I fear for my safety! Although, I picture a cute little old Chinese man telling me that worn tyres will possilly bring me trouble. When I get the darn thing assembled and out of it's metal casing deal I'll post a picture of it...in all it's pink glory.

I love storms, but come on!

I don't know how, but my car escaped hail damage even though I was literally driving through a hailstorm. It's nothing short of amazing. I was on my way to California Pizza Kitchen at Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove to meet my girls for dinner and drinks before heading to the theater to see Sex & The City. As I was driving down 94 I looked to the right and saw that it looked to be raining pretty hard over the shopping area, so I rolled up my windows and closed the moon roof in preparation. Oh, was I in for a shock!! I took a right onto Hemlock Lane and drove directly into a hailstorm. OMG! I didn't know what to do. I kept driving, albeit very slowly, but I wasn't sure if it would do any good to stop. I called my friend to let her know what was going on and she said that she could barely hear me over the sound of marble sized hail slamming into my poor car. With every bang and thump I could just picture the damage that I was going to have to deal with. I kept waiting for glass to break...it was really scary. I finally made it to the parking lot by CPK and sat there wondering what I should do. Strong winds were blowing tiny trees sideways and I was told that the area was under a tornado warning. My sister called to make sure that I was okay and told me I should make run for it and get inside instead of being a sitting duck in my car. Just after she said that, it stopped. It stopped hailing and raining and the sun peaked out a little. I wasn't sure if this was the calm before the real storm or not, but I made a break for it and ran into the restaurant. I was shaken a bit, but after a couple of raspberry mojitos all was well.

And Sex & The City was SO GOOD!!! It was pretty cool being in a theater that was almost all women. There is a scene involving an amazingly fantastic closet and when Carrie opened the doors and we first saw it, all the women in the theater gasped and ah'ed. It was hilarious! I'm so glad that I got to see it with my sister and two of my close friends. I was missing Kristy though :(

And afterwards I met up with a friend from college that I haven't seen in years. It was great to see her and have a couple of cocktails. Also, her friends were very cool. One boy in particular piqued my interest. We'll see...that story may have to be continued.