Haven't They Heard of the Holiday Inn?

The prez was in town yesterday afternoon to speak at a fundraiser at the hotel next door for a senate hopeful. Whenever the president (or Al Gore) comes to town they stay at Lowes. Apparently they think it is the only hotel in town. Besides the sharp shooters on our roof and the ultra tight security, traffic was murder. Certain parts of the street were annoyingly blocked off so we had to zig zag to get home. It all would have been worth the minor pains we endured if I could have had some fun waterbombing the motorcade or heckling the protesters. Too bad the repercussions would have been too severe. {Sigh} All the fun things in life are forbidden.

And It's only August

Daniel got busted today for flooding the bathroom. He said he wanted to see how high the water would go, "but I didn't think it would go that high". This is going to be a long, long school year. His teacher thinks he is very smart and they are going to test him to see if he needs to be in more advanced classes. I'm sure he is pretty smart. A dumb kid wouldn't dream up half of the adventures he gets himself into. I still do not dare to leave screw drivers around. There's no telling what will end up dismantled.
We had a contest at our work where we had to decorate this school supply filled laundry basket to some movie theme. We picked 'Mater from Cars. I liked ours best (of course I'm totally biased), but we didn't win. Wait 'till next year! We had several contests this week as part of our United Way drive. A group of us also did some hard labor yesterday(well, hard compared to sitting on our butts for eight hours) painting the YW Womens Shelter and Nashville Cares (an agency that helps AIDS and HIV positive people). It's always good to help others, but even if you take the charity factor away it still was a lot of fun and it helped break up the week. I'm going to sign up again next year. I love this job!
Well, I got turned down for our home loan. The problem was that I had no credit history. This is nothing new to me, as I have a fair understanding of how the loan industry works but back in April I was led to believe that they were aware of this and everything was all hunky dory. So anyway, I need to open up a charge account somewhere, buy stuff I may or may not need, then pay it off faithfully for a few months so I can have something on my credit report. I'll still get my house, I just need to wait a few more months than planned.
Aside from having an Imelda Marcos like shoe fetish, Lea Anna's pillow collection has the potential to reach epic porportions. It started out with a simple Care Bear quilt and from there I was conned into a couple of Care Bear Pillows, two heart pillows and now she is trying to talk me into sewing her princess pillows. Oh yea, and more Care Bear pillows, of course.

More Art 'n' CRUD

Ok... I fixed the first one and made a title image that I was happy with.



I did two other magazine covers because I enjoyed dooing the first one so much... Each one came out better than the last, but I still can't help but feel that they're missing something... Oh, well... I'll get better...







My next project will be a a business card... I'm also going to do some WORD ART 'cause it looks really cool.

LOOK AT MY HAIR! IT'S SO COOL!!!

Libia Tolomei Letteriello

Libby hasn't had any fluids for several days now. They are giving her a lot of morphine to try to keep her comfortable, so she really isn't awake/aware now. The family has been with her around the clock.

15 August 2006 - Update:
Libby passed away quietly shortly before midnight last night. I will post details of funeral arrangements here as soon as I have them.

A "Choo Choo Pie" web site that includes a Grandma Libby memorial section is now online. Libby made a few recordings that are posted there, and there is a place that you can post a story or comment about Libby.

The Dead Will Walk...

...IN JOB CORPS!!! We had boring-ass meeting this morning... The administrators didn't lecture us about anything new, either. I find it utterly fascinating how Job Corps staff can find different ways to say the SAME SHIT over and over and drag it out for THIRTY MINUTES. I wonder if that's a job requirment...

I think the only think that didn't suck about it was Mr. Rice (the CSO aka Head Honcho) because his analogies are interesting... I still wouldn't want to sit through another 30-min. speech though...

The guy sitting next to me is eating taco bell... It smells! He's always EATING something...and it always smells funny!

Last time I checked, you weren't supposed to EAT OR DRINK around computers because it's hazardous and messy... Not to mention the smell of Taco Bell beans and meet seems to seep everywhere... Argh!

On the bright side, I am not sick anymore! I was horrible on Monday... I went to the Health Office at AFOC and tried to tell them I was sick and needed to go to the Job Corpse nurse, but all they did is make me fill out crappy papers! (Not to mention, they kept giving me ones in SPANISH.) I tried to tell them that I didn't medicine or whatever... I just need to rest, but they still didn't listen... The damn nurse chic kept asking me about being sexually active and offered to give me contraceptives 'n' what-not... She almost had me pee in a damn cup!!!

She FINALLY took my temperature and told me I had a fever. (DUH!) I asked her is she coul call Job Corps to see if they'd let me go to THEIR health office, but she gave me a card for the free clinic across the street (even though I told her I didn't need it) and she sent me back to class.

So I decided, "F*** HER! I'l call Job Corps myself." It ended up doing me no good at all. All they told me was to KEEP taking TYLENOL (PFT! JOB CORPS can CHOKE on MY TYLENOL!) and fluids and come in during walk-in hours! I tried to tell them that Fluids and tylenol don't work ('cause that's what I did ALL of yesturday), but the nurse just kept asking me questions and throwing me off...

Now my thraot's just a little dry, but that will heal by tomorrow morning... I'm just glad that I'll be all better in time to see My Ruin... If I had to, Id have gone sick... I'd have given everybody in the pit a cold. HA! HA!

My buddy, Vershaun, was nice enough to braid the front of my hair last night, so it doesn't look like utter crap anymore! (Yeah... I finally had to take down the black and white braids.) She even combed it out and put it into a ponytail and poofed it out... It's really big. The best part is that the only thing I had to give her in return was the freedom to play with my hair...

I think it's funny that so many people like to do that... My dad always told me that becuase of the type of hair I have, people are always going to want to do it. He was right, but I still don't get it... Oh, well. It's only temporary.

This Saturday I will be getting my hair re-braided. My colors of choice, this time, are BLUE, NEON GREEN, and BLACK. I can't wait!!!
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STUFF I DID IN CLASS
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Grandma Libby

Libby was doing better today, but has been going downhill recently. I suppose it's to be expected when you're 93 years old, but still - it was difficult seeing this camera phone picture Kelly sent me a little while ago.

Remember all she did for us. Keep her and the family in your thoughts. I have no doubt that we'd all have been much worse off were it not for Libby. To this day I can't figure out how we were fortunate enough to have been sent such an angel, but I'm grateful.

Celebrity Neighbors*

*sort of

Bobby Brown just moved in down the street from me. No - I'm not kidding. I met him tonight when I was out walking the dogs. Fortunately, his wife is named Diana, not Whitney, and neither one of them seem to have a crack habit. In fact, he's a career Army guy stationed at Fort Mac. FYI, that's where Aunt Sarah retired from.

A few weeks ago I met another neighbor - a Prince from Nigeria. Again, I'm for real, y'all. I saw him out watering his lawn one evening and he seemed friendly but afraid of the dogs. We kept walking. The next time I saw him he was a lot more friendly. He owns a limousine service and has XX cars and a Hummer limo and so forth (you can tell how impressed I was with all this since I can't really recall exactly what he said).

He had this lovely accent so I asked him where he was from and he said Africa. I was like, dude - that's a big place. What country? Maybe he figured a white lady in Douglasville, Georgia, would think Africa is Africa and be done with it. Not this one. So he tells me he's from Nigeria, gives me his business card, and I see that his first name really is Prince. And he tells me I should call him some time. "We could be friends. I will not cause you any problems," he says. This is after putting me through a quiz about every aspect of my life including all of y'all. He knows everyone's birthdays and shoe sizes, by the way. It was quite endearing. But no - I did not call him.

A, go FOC yourself!!!

I FINALLY started my trade at Job Corps!

I've completed my first week at AFOC (Abram Freidman Occupational Cneter)... It's pretty cool. It's work-as-you-go, so I'm pretty much teaching MYSELF. I already know Adobe and Illustrator, so I'm attempting to teach myself QuarkXPress (a program for magazine layouts 'n' stuff). So, I've had a full week at AFOC... It's pretty cool. All I've really done, though, its play on photoshop and the internet. I did get SOME work done trying to learn QuarkXPress, but not a lot.

Also, I've been moved to a 2-man room at the Studio Club dorms. My roommate has been a girl name Inez for the past 3 weeks. She's really cool and we have a lot in common... She's even in the same trade as me (although, she's trying to get it changed, we both still like graphic arts), so she's in my same class at AFOC.

AFOC's food is kind of...odd. It seems like it all has barely any flavor. (At least if Job Corps had crappy food, I could eat cereal.....WHICH I CAN'T DO HERE!) Job Corps students are also not allowed to leave the AFOC campus unless its at lunch... We can't got to lunch early either. Since the lines get so long, so quick Job Corps students usually leavy 10min early, but if we're caught in line early we get written up... It's kind of gay, but we've all found ways around it... At least we Job Corps students have our OWN lunch line. It helps that we don't have to compete with the other AFOC students, especially since the lunch ladies are kind of slow. (SERIOUSLY! They don't understand english very well and it takes them an unnecessary amount of time to get you your DAMN slice of pizza!)

I hate that damn Quark program... The books they give you to learn are hard to understand...and when I ACTUALLY understand them, they end up being WRONG. I figure, if I mess around with it long enough, I'll learn it.... That's how I learned Adobe and all those other image programs. Who needs a stinkin' manual anyway...

Until then, I've mainly been putting pictures together, so I can compile my own magazine-thingy as a way to learn the damn program. I'll like it when I get good at it... The only thing that REALLY annoys me are the limited fonts. My laptop has niftier stuff on it, so I do a lot of the work when I get back to the dorms..... That's actually why I'm sitting here typing instead of doing my work...

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On a more exciting note, I get to see SKUMLOVE (an industrial band) perform at Whisky A Go Go again tonight. w00t! I'm so glad it's not at Zen Sushi or some other place that's just as retarded. (They performed at Zen Sushi LAST week, but because of utterly WRONG metro directions I ended up walking for almost 2 hours before I got there... Even then they ALMOST didn't perform becuase the management were being a**holes the singer, Skum, and his wife.)

I'm going to leave Job Corps as early as possible, so I can get to the Whisky early. (I also need time to do my hair, 'cause now that it's out of braids, it looks like sh** all the time...ack!)