It was irie

Irie (pronounced i-reee) Jamaican word for everyting is alright, a-okay and such...

It was. Until I got home. First the fact that Jamaica is magical and has caputured my heart needs to be known. The island is a lush tropical forest covering miles (or kilometers if you're jamaican or non-american) of mountains that are surrounded by clear blue beaches. The town of Ocho Rios was quaint and dirty and full of life and odd characters. Sure there was garbage on the streets and in the outside food markets and dudes trying to sell us pot and cocaine and all sorts of touristy souvenirs (two of which we bought by the way) but there is something to be said about a happy people who live in a third world country that has the 3rd highest murder rate in the entire world. They keep smiling. They take things slower and, hey, if it can be put off until tomorrow then put it off and have a good time now. My kind of people. We didn't have a lot of money for our trip (and had even less every time we left our resort; damn good sales people) so we chose two activities and the rest of the time we had to entertain ourselves. We zip lines through the canopy of the rain forest on top of a mountain. 9 drops, 1 completely vertical and totally fun. Basically we get harnessed to two lines suspended way up along the top of the forest and we let them push us from one platform to another. Some were only 30 feet up and I think the last one was over 100 feet high and 600 feet across to the end. I screamed twice at the joy of gravities pounding on me. Chad said he wasn't scared but I have a photo that proves otherwise. I highly recommend that to anyone not too afraid of heights. The other activity we did was climbing Dunn's River Falls. We start at sea level, holding hands with 40 other tourists and we all help one another get up these rocks in the middle of this absolutely gorgeous waterfall, probably a total of 75 yards (not meters cause i don't convert worth a damn.) We spent a ton of time on our beach which our hotel room overlooked 14 stories up. The water was perfect, no waves and 100% clear. Some tiny fish swam by us but nothing too fascinating. The cruise ships docked in our lagoon and at first I thought it would annoy me but they were only there 3 of 7 days we were and in the end it was kinda interesting to watch the different boats and passengers file off. And before i knew it, one night, I was watching the boat and I turned around to see if I could see Chad up in our balcony for maybe 3 minutes and when I turned around the ship had already taken off and I couldn't even see it in the horizon. It didn't even make a sound. Eerie, not Irie. The pools were plentiful and perfect and so were the restaurants and buffeteria. We ate more jerk chicken and grilled cheese sandwiches than anything else and the red stripe beer never stopped flowing. One night we went in to town to the jerke center (which is so funny cause I too work at a jerk center) and got some authentic bbq (or jerke as the they call it.) Loved it. They were very Irie. The trip there and back was long and difficult and filled with delays and ridiculousness. although first class for an hour and a half at the airlines expense was pretty sweet. We got home. I got sunburned and diarhea but it was totally worth it. I haven't slept right since the day we left, that I could do without. I loaded all my pics on myspace and then when I turned around to post them here my computer took it's last breathe and died. So I have no pics to show you yet but I'm working on it. They are all trapped on my harddrive. not Irie. Then I went back to work and both my employees seem to think it was time for them to take time off too so I basically worked alone for 3 days. Sure they had good excuses but something to me doesn't add up and even my boss made a comment about it that doesn't sit well with me. Every time I leave I feel like everyone turns on me. Obviously I can't say too much but I am curious to see what's going to go down at work tomorrow.

et tu, t.v.?

I looked around today and I am just so unhappy with television lately that I thought I'd share my disgust with you lovely people. My Tivo has so little to do. My scheduled recordings don't go past the 14th. That's highly unusual. What is the deal with striking writers for 3 months and then they come back only to give us mediocre 4 to 5 episodes and then take the summer off? Why should they get the summer off? Didn't they just get 3 months off? I say it's time to do some over time before we get so fed up with television that we actually go out and find more meaningful ways of entertaining ourselves like volunteer work, exercising, binge drinking or reading (hahahahaha sorry just had to throw that in there to see if you were paying attention. see, it's funny cause I don't like to read. oh, never mind.) My point is that studios have a lot to make up for with us faithful watchers. Sure, TV is free (yeah, that's why I pay Cox $200/month) but the both the studios and the advertisers need us to watch TV otherwise we won't go out and know which crap of theirs to buy. Thus hurting our already saggy economy and henceforth sending us straight into an ugly recession the likes of which ye have never seen.....arrrr! Thank blog that Showtime is bringing back Weeds for the summer but in all honesty I haven't seen a new episode since August 2007 so they have a bit of nerve keeping fans waiting that long between seasons every year. Those tricky bastards are taking a big risk cause people my age today are so brain dead that they're not going to remember to tune in again in 10 months to see what happened. Am I right? I am.
In other news and grumblings, where the hell is my stimulus check? I don't know. I was supposed to get it by May 16 but so far nothing. Chad hasn't gotten his either. Most of my friends have gotten theirs and Chad and I filed and cashed our tax returns in February so why we don't each have $600 now is beyond me. My friend Corina paid her taxes on April 15 and she still got her money a week before I was "scheduled" to get mine. Why am I destined to be held down? By TV, and by G.W.? I know it's not cause we make too much money. That's certainly not the issue. Last I checked my karma was doing just fine so what is the freaking deal?

Back from Orlando

Bought a dress for the occassion

Kim, Misty, Amy, Ruth and I, waiting in line for Big Thunder Mtn.

We had just went down Splash Mtn. We were in the front. The water really stung my eyes.

We had to earn all the different pins for our lanyards. Our theme was "connections" and all the pins represent puzzle pieces of our corporate values. I earned the round pin for getting up early (3a.m. AZ time) and doing water aerobics. Only 16 of us did it out of 1000+. Others did a 3K or 5K.

Amy, Pooh Bear, Me, Ruth and Misty

My boss and me and Mickey and Minnie

We had to dress up for the awards dinner. This is in the lobby

Around the hotel grounds I found this beautiful Magnolia.

Cinderella's Castle, Magic Kingdom

Just got back from Orlando last night. The company sends all managers and higher ranking employees to Florida every other year. I had a really good time this go around. I got to room with Amy, my old textbook manager at Estrella. She now manages one the Devry stores here in Phoenix. We did lots of work stuff but got to play a lot as well. One night we went to the Magic Kingdom (which I call Disney World but apparently that's wrong because the entire property is Disney World and the Disneyland duplicate is called the Magic Kingdom.) 5 Managers and our boss went and we had a super fun time in 5 hours. We rode every mountain in front of us, some a couple of times over. The park wasn't very crowded and the lines weren't very long and it is a scary look in how crappy our economy is to see Disneyworld only half full. Next week we're off to Jamaica and I am counting the days, less than 9 now.


In other news, I got my money back from that psycho in Florida. Seems a surprise visit with a bat was the way to go. No, actually, Paypal ruled in my favor and she agreed to give me a refund once I sent her back her peice of crap. Justice prevails and I hope kharma bites her on the ass for trying to get out of doing the right thing and instead have the post office pick up the bill for it.


I got home and Shadow has some gigantic growth on the top of her tail, at the end of her back. Don't know how she got it. It's about the size of a golf ball underneathe her skin. Chad took her in to the vet and they cut it open and squeezed some stuff out but apparently that's all they did cause when I got home last night she was bleeding on my carpet. The lamp shade Chad bought for her to keep her from licking at it was doing the trick cause she has a tongue longer than the shade so she got at it and reopended the scab. We had to rig it last night and staple some construction paper on the perimeter of the shade to extend it. Now she's even blinder than before and running in to everything. She can't get out the doggie door or eat or drink with it on so I took it off while I'm awake. I've had a very close eye on her since I returned. I've been trying to get a scab to regrow but the gash is so deep that it's gonna take more than a few days of neosporin and bandaging to heal it. She's not gushing at all it's just kinda dripping out of her. I bandaged it up but it's in such a bad angle with her butt and her legs that the bandage has to be reset every few hours or when she manages to get at it when I take my eyes off of her. Poor thing. She's in good spirits though so at least I know it's not hurting her.


Super bad news is that Tivo didn't record LOST and I don't know why since it has never missed recording an episode since I set the season pass so I am more than a little upset. I'm gonna have to buckle down and watch it on my computer monitor. 2 hour season finale is worth sitting at my desk I guess.