thus endeth thy hiatus.

it's not like i was trying not to write here, but i've become addicted to the geocaching forums and i'd rather be writing there than here recently. but now i'm back, even though the only reason i'm writing now is that i left work early because i didn't sleep last night and i *still* can't sleep. so i'm here.
so what's been going on, you ask? well, we've had more hurricanes since i've been gone. i don't think there are any on the horizon, but there's still six weeks left of the season, so we'll see how it plays out. for ivan the store didn't close and it missed this area completely. jeanne was forgotten about way over there in haiti, so when it came for us i don't think anyone noticed until it was here. right here. actually the eye passed about 5-10 miles north of my house, but we were one of the few that didn't lose power the whole time.
so what did we do?
we left. sunday was the hurricane, and monday we drove to asheville, nc, to see tmbg play at the orange peel (lots of applause...) they weren't coming here, so christen and i decided that we would drive up and do some geocaching and bum around town for a few days and see them. wow, that was a horrible drive. i think it would have been cheaper, and certainly would have kept us saner, if we would have just flown there and back. how's the public transit system there? i didn't notice. we may need to know for next time. but other than the drive (12 hours up with the hurricane, raining all the way there, and 12 hours back is a full 24 hours of our 3 day vacation) we had a blast. i spent way too much money on books (they have great bookstores in downtown there -- the captain's bookshelf on (get this) page ave. (i bought a 1950s robert graves edition of the greek myths and they had a *signed* copy of the boo by pat conroy! you can't find it anywhere! i couldn't justify spending 75 dollars though, so it stayed in asheville) and malaprop's on haywood street. the guy at malaprop's figured out the name of this spoken word album that i've wanted for the longest time but didn't know what it was called. they didn't have any there, so i ordered it from amazon for $2.37 when we got home. i also bought lucky, by alice sebold. that's an amazing book. i read it on the drive home. we passed a couple more shops but by then i had spent 60 bucks on books and didn't want to chance it. :) they might be giants were amazing, of course. this was my 7th time seeing them, and christen asked what time was the best. i can't choose -- they're always great. corn mo opened for them, and he's ... well, he's got a great voice, but he really needs to work on his accordian-playing skills. when linnell plays, he plays. corn mo sounds like he's just mad at the thing. but you have to admit, for someone to open with "caro mio bien" takes some balls. nothing like opera to quiet an indy-rock crowd.
we did about 5 caches while we were there too. well, we did 7, but one was a multi and we didn't have time to find the final cache and one we just couldn't find. i think it was us. i bought a $5 walking stick at a downtown hiking/mp store called [must figure this out, can't remember] on the way out of town i made christen stop at riverside cemetary and i took pictures of the graves of thomas wolfe and sidney porter -- o henry. i'll post pics; it was really neat. the day before we stopped to see wolfe's childhood home. i think i may buy look homeward, angel. i'd like to read it after reading all the history involved.
so back in tampa, we dragged ourselves back to work for 2 days and then had the weekend off together. so i dragged christen to our very first geoevent. it was a lot of fun -- a lot of fun. i brought baked mac & cheese, which turned out pretty good except that i made way too much of it and ended up with a whole tray of it that i brought to the event and a smaller casarole dish that i left at home. we fed on the casarole dish until today, because i finished it off for lunch. mmmm, mmmm, good. what was left of the other tray i brought to my mother's house and spooned it into a bowl for them to feed off. my only regret about the event is that we didn't know anybody and it wasn't the kind of event where people are introduced to you ... but the next one will be, if i have to host it myself. i've been talking to yuzawa kat about hosting one in tampa, maybe at lettuce lake park. one of these days i'll get out of my introverted funk ... well, i doubt it but we'll see. i'm pretty decent at organizing things, and kat said she'd help with the games etc. anyhow, i'll let you know if it comes to fruition.
christen and i have gotten pretty into bowling lately too. we went last night and my high score was a 158, which i thought was awesome. i'm having such a blast. christen seems to be on a downward slope and can't figure out what's wrong with his game, and i just don't know. we don't throw the same, so how can i fix his game? i do hope he figures it out soon though, because it's not as fun when he's not having a good time and he doesn't have a good time when he's frustrated by his throwing. this time leagues were happening and we got the one lane that wasn't being used by the leagues ... a couple games into it this drunk guy asks if he can join us, because he's here with his mom (she was in a league) and he's really bored. so he started bowling with us, and it was actually a lot of fun. his name was george, and he used to be in prison and hadn't bowled in 10 years. i know all this because he said it over and over and over and over ... you get the idea.
my desktop still isn't working properly. christen was trying to play unreal tournament and it kept freezing on him too. :( hopefully he can fix it, but otherwise we may be working on putting another one together. it's so sad, because this is the second one i've had and i've had nonstop problems with both.
i was blog surfing and there was one called vive teddy ruxpin. it was in some language i don't recognise, but teddy ruxpin, man! i had a teddy and a grubby that hooked together and sang, and the entire library of stories for teddy to read me, and a few outfits (like the tux for when he sang teddy's love songs). oh, how i miss the 80s. do any of those i love the 80s shows every mention my love for teddy? i don't think so.
well i know i had more to say but i don't remember -- probably because it's been so long since i posted. i'll try to be a more frequent visitor.