From me to you.

I had the following conversation before my softball game last night:

“So was that your son at the game last week?”

“Yeah, that was my son”

“Cool! Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

In my head:

Well I’m 29, but I turn 30 in a week? Nah, that’s too long and desperate sounding. I’m 29? Truthful, but seeing as I turn 30 in a week do I really want to desperately hold on to my 20s? Maybe I should just get it over with and say I’m 30. 30 is such a big number.

“I’m 30″ (with a sigh)

“No kidding? You definitely don’t look it.”

So apparently I don’t look like I’m 30. Yay?

Do girl scout cookies taste better because they’re only available once a year? I say no. Kate says yes. Discuss.

But I’ll be a good sport, since both Anna and Jackie tagged me for this one:

Four jobs I’ve had:

• Locksmith grunt (this was super fun)
• General Office Grunt @ American Red Cross (via Temp Agency)
• General Office Grunt @ World Bank (via Temp Agency)
• Web Author/Technical Writer @ current employer

Four movies I can watch over and over:

• Princess Bride
• Anything by Pixar
• Father of the Bride
• The Fifth Element

Four books I could read over and over:

• The Shadow Rising
• Ghost Soldiers
• Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
• Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

Four TV shows I love:

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer
• 24
• Lost
• Good Eats (can’t watch anymore - no cable)

Four places I’ve lived:

• Springfield, VA
• Faifax, VA
• Vienna, VA
• Blacksburg, VA

Four places I’ve vacationed:

• Zion National Park, UT
• Acadia National Park, ME
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison, CO
• Rome, Italy

Four of my favorite dishes:

• Salmon
• Chicken Caserole (Mom’s recipe)
• Kate’s Sauce & Pasta
• Steak (Medium, please)

Four sites I visit daily:

• The Washington Post
• Google Reader (newsreaders rock!)
• Techsideline.com
• The Internet Movie Database

Four places I would rather be right now:

• US Virgin Islands (Specifically St. John)
• Somewhere in Colorado (Learning to Ski)
• London (Visiting Jackie & Jon)
• Alaska or Australia (yeah, that’s cheating, I know)

Four people I am tagging:

• Amy
• Ken
• Laura
• Margaret

I am not a writer. Well, I suppose I am a writer. Just not a trained writer. Don’t get me wrong — I make an honest effort to use proper grammar, check my spelling, and generally assemble words in a manner that make them easy to read. I envy people for whom writing seems to come naturally. I just haven’t been formally trained in doing so.

However, in this, the era of the Throbbing Brain (i.e., the Internet), there is no shortage of articles out there designed to help aspiring writers like me. Actually I’m not really sure that I’m an “aspiring” writer, as that would imply that there is some overarching goal of the words that appear in this space. Which there isn’t.

I recently stumbled upon an article entitled Writing Gooder that I thought gave a nice summary of ways in which bloggers can improve their most important online skill: writing. While I definitely recognize the need for improved diction and grammar, I thought the section about adding detail was particularly fascinating. The author observes that many writers heavily rely on translating one sense (sight) into words, while often neglecting the others. I definitely fall prey to this trap, but honestly feel a bit silly talking about how things smell, taste, sound, and hear. My mastery of the english language is at a level where I feel like I sound silly trying to put these senses into words.

But if there is a time of year that lends itself to exploring the other senses, it is certainly this time of year. The holidays are an oppportunity to feast on a variety of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. So when you’re spending time with your family, hanging out by the Christmas tree, tucking in to that scrumptious Christmas feast, or soaking in the hot tub (as I hope to do a fair amount of), take a moment to appreciate it with all of your senses, and then share it with the rest of the Internet! Apparently it makes for good reading.

It is my honor to out yet another new blogger. I worked with Margaret for nearly 6 years, and when she left to go to grad school, I gave her the link to my Web site. That was in September. At the time, she said she was “anti-blog”. I never really investigated what she meant by that, because there are plenty of reasons not to bare your soul on the Internet. But I was unsure whether she meant she disliked blog as a whole, or just didn’t want to keep her own.

After a little while, I noticed the occasional comment from her popping up here and on Philadelphia Bunnyface’s blog, so I presumed her anti-blog-ness was limited to keeping her own. Either that or graduate school wasn’t keeping her busy enough and she needed to find ways to waste time. Yeah, right.

So I get an email today from a certain anti-blogger fessing up that she has finally given in. That’s right, Meb (as we affectionately call her) has joined the sick and twisted ranks of the blogosphere. So welcome, Meb. I trust that you’ll pitch in and make the Internet an even stranger place!

In keeping with Kate’s theme for the day (frustration), I am posting my frustration of the day. Our home computer, which we have had for a little over a year, has been dead since last Wednesday. It is currently un-bootable, and we’ve been using my old computer as a back up (glad I saved it).

So tonight is “save-the-computer” night. I’m not exactly sure what happened (virus, worm, faulty hard-drive, etc), but I have a couple of ideas of how I might salvage the data on the disk, but I might be relying on those who are more technically savy than me (like him or him). Part of me is actually looking forward to this as a learning experience. How sick is that?

Of course, the other part of me is petrified that I’m going to lose a lot of data from the past year. If only I had signed up for Flickr and backed up all my pictures earlier! Dah!!

First off, our moms are awesome. Kate’s mom spent two and a half weeks with us here cooking, cleaning, and generally making our lives so much easier after Simon was born. She left today, and we’re already missing her! So thanks Mom! While I took Kate to the airport today, my mother picked up where her mother left off and kept Kate company. We are blessed to have such wonderful, supportive families.

The other thing I wanted to mention was this opinion piece in the Washington Post about Down Syndrome babies and prenatal testing. I don’t have much to say about it other than I thought it was an EXCEPTIONAL piece, and I just wanted to throw it out here for other people to read.