Jade's Babblings

Vacation was an interesting experience. Here’s the summary of it for you.
To view pictures go here.

Wednesday – We were supposed to be picked up at our condo by a van since we had so much stuff. The van broke down so they sent us a ten person limo! Woo hoo! Met up with some of the guys at Logan airport, had our luggage checked through by hand (big armor boxes with thousands of dollars worth of costumes in them), and then got on our tiny bus with wings. It was a Canadair jet. The plane only sat 48 people. The ride there was awful – tons of turbulence, it was at night, I just didn’t like it. Fortunately, Aaron sat in front of me and John and he proceeded to go through all the Lewis Black and blue collar comedy tour routines he could think of. That stopped me from crying for a little bit at least.

We landed about 10:00 p.m. Indiana time (an hour ahead of us) and John and I went to our hotel in yet another ten person limo. We rock. Ordered room service and then crashed.

Thursday – the lines at CIII were god-awful. Even if you had bought a badge before the event you were still waiting in hours long lines. John and I had gotten into our Fett and Boushh costumes and finally gave up on standing in line. We just walked up and down the line and took pictures with people. I like to think it made their wait a tiny bit more bearable. Then one of our NEG friends, Jason, ended up getting John and I along with two of our other friends volunteer badges. We had to work in retail for two hours that day.

I thought, “Retail. How bad can it be? Stocking shelves and stuff. I can do that. I worked at a video store.” Oh how wrong I was.

It was the official CIII store and the line was, shocker, hours long. People were NOT happy. They saw us walk in with our red volunteer shirts on and they started cheering. This, in case you were wondering, is not a good sign. I had my life threatened twice (one guy said he’d come back and shoot me if his t-shirt sizes weren’t right) and it was just chaos from beginning to end.

Also, the gencon people, who were being PAID to be there, sat at tables the whole time and drank water and ate snacks. When one of us lowly volunteers would ask them a question they acted like we shouldn’t be bothering them with such trivial things when they had relaxing to do.

But when it was all over John and I were allowed to run around the back room and buy a bunch of stuff without having to wait in the line. So it was all worth it. I vowed never to volunteer for the retail line again. Next time we just showed up in armor. They can’t make you run around then.

Right after volunteering we had to rush back to the hotel room and get ready for the NEG party at Matt’s house. That’s where he and some of the other NEG members were staying. His family lives in IN, about 10 minutes from the convention center so that was convenient. The Japanese garrison showed up too. They know a couple people from our garrison so we got to hang out with them all night. It was a lot of fun. I got a couple pictures of all of us together. They had karaoke at the dinner but we won’t relive the horror.

Friday we trooped a bit up and down the line again and then we got changed into our “comfortable” costumes. John had his officer’s uniform and I brought my Mara Jade, newly equipped with my Jeff Parks Mara Jade lightsabre. Oh yea!

We went to get autographs. Some of the lines were a little long – about a half hour – but it really wasn’t too bad. I met Amy Allen (Jedi Knight Aayla Secura) and Shannon McRandle (Mara Jade). John met Jango Fett, a couple officers, and Kit Fisto. Very cool people. We got pictures with all of them.

Then it was off to the 501st party at CIII. That wasn’t too bad. It was really boring at first. But then more people started showing up and we raised a lot of money through ticket sales for Katie. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click on her name.) Her father, Albin, was there and he gave us an update on Katie. Her tumor has shrunk 50%. Amazing. They even had a video she made for all of us. Sweet kid.

Albin did this fun thing where he called out all the garrisons that were there and we all cheered and all that. The NEG is like the second largest or something like that. Anyway, we were pretty loud. John and I left shortly after that. I guess we missed the celebs that showed up later, but whatever. We were tired. I got some great pictures that night too.

Saturday was pretty laid back. All we did was go shopping in the dealer room, see the panel on the Heart of an Empire documentary, and go to dinner with Bob, Aaron, and Craig. We had tickets to Celebration at CIII but we heard it sucked so we went to dinner instead. John and I did stand just outside the line for a bit though in our Boushh and Fett. No one in our garrison had seen us yet so we waited around for some of them. They finally showed and we got some pictures. At one point Peter Mayhew walked by us to go out for a smoke. He was really feeding off the crowd – jumping around and waving. He’s a nice guy too. Everyone loved our costumes. I was glad the debut went well. ; )

The HoaE panel was awesome. I can not wait to see that film. It’s going to rock!
Shopping was “okay”. I was hoping for some patches, but only one dealer had any and they sucked. I got a 12” Padme and Qui Gon instead that I had been looking for.

Sunday morning we had to get up early for the 501st legion photo at 7 a.m. It wasn’t light enough outside so they marched us all the way around the con center and then into the exhibit room. Wow, there are a lot of people in that photo! And you can totally see me because for some reason they separated my little group from the rest. Kinda neat. Oh, and the guy who played Captain Typho (sp) showed up for it. . . in full pilot costume! Very cool.

Then we packed and kind of just hung out the rest of the day. We went to the RAM, which was this restaurant that totally catered to 501st members. 50% off in armor, 25% off with a garrison badge (which we all had thanks to Aaron). We were going to go to spatcon, but The Patriot was on TV so we watched that instead. Then it was back on the plane early Monday afternoon. The flight home was sooooo smooth. I took pictures and looked out the window the whole time. And I listened to my mp3 player that John bought me. This is the second big trip in my life that has been backed up by Third Eye Blind’s “Never Let You Go” (the first being my trip to Michigan). Bob and Aaron must have been happy I wasn’t flipping out because they were sitting in front of us.

We picked up Pixel that night after going out to Friendly’s with John’s parents. She was so happy to see us. Then we picked up Gunther and Gimli yesterday. ::funny story – I was telling John on the way home that I wished Gunther would pick up some of the stuff the other birds say at the place he was being bird sat at. One bird says “peek a boo” and I find it adorable. Just as I said that I heard Gunther in the backseat say, “peek a boo!” So cute!:: And we’re picking up Amelie from Ray’s house today.

So that was vacation. Woo hoo! Now when do I get a vacation to recover from my vacation?

I'll do my review of CIII later. For now I just have time for this. So sad. . .
(If the first link doesn't work, try this.)

Yea baby!

In about 24 hours from now I will be on a plane (eep) traveling to Indiana to go to CIII. I could not be more psyched. Well, unless I didn't have to fly. Then I'd be freakin' ecstatic.

I gave Sarah our flight info so she could track my flight and that way if I got nervous I could call her and she could tell me how far along on our route we are. So that's a bit of a reassurance.

I'm all packed and set to go. Tomorrow morning we're dropping Pixel off at John and Val's and we're bringing Gunther and Button (the birds) to this lady's house who had bird sat for us before. She'll give them freshies every morning and talk and play with them. Ray picked up Amelie this afternoon. She was miserable in her carrier but he called when he got her home and he said she and Felicity (his cat) were doing fine.

Gunther scared me to death last night. Amelie must have jumped on his cage and scared him or something because we heard him fall. So we went in to check on him and one of his flight feathers had broken off. I picked it up and there was blood on the tip. That is NOT good. Birds cannot clot which means if John and I couldn't stop the bleeding Gunther could die.

I took him out and he had little splatters of blood everywhere. I was freaking out. We put flour on the wound and sat with him for a while. He was all freaked out. I had a glass of water out for him, but he would only drink if I put some on my fingertips and put it in his mouth. He calmed down a bit though and stopped bleeding. We put him to bed and then I checked on him again later. He seemed okay. And he was still alive this morning. Always a plus.

So I am freaked about tomorrow but I'm really excited too. Some of our friends are getting there before us. And earlier flight I guess. This one guy from the 501st, Migz, called John today and I guess they're going to give us a call when we land tomorrow night and see if we want to hang out. We aren't landing until about 9:30 p.m. but we all figured the last thing we'd want to do is sleep since we'll be so psyched up from the plane ride and excitement and all.

The only thing that kind of sucks is that John emailed a couple guys in the garrison about my whole fear of flying thing. They were worried I was going to freak out or something. At least I freak out quietly. ha ha. Anyway, I guess it's not that big of a deal. It's just that I feel kind of silly because I was joking around about it on our forum and now I feel like it's been made to seem like a really big deal and I was downplaying it or something I guess. There's nothing I can do about it anyway and it doesn't matter so I'm moving on.

I posted a link to some awesome flight instructions. Go here and click on the first link. I think it says "saftey instructions for 501st flight" or some such thing.

Well, time to get offline. I've been on forever. Hopefully next time I write on here I'll be in Indianapolis, if I can get this stupid thing to work out there. Later!

I have this friend Diane. She's on blogger too and you can find her blog here.
She's an awesome writer and a really great person all around. I like her interesting views on things. Oh, and she's also a JW, which is cool.

Anyway, some of the people at her high school found her blog and were, of course, bitching about it. High school. . . . I liked high school, but it still wasn't this amazing "be all end all" for me that it was for some people I knew. They were popular there and expected to ride that through the rest of their lives. Uh uh. Ain't happenin'.

Back to the subject - so these people are being really dumb about it and Diane just does not care. I mean, how cool is that, at that age, to just not care what other people think?
So I got to thinking - I haven't put a link to this blog on my website yet. You can get to my website if you find this blog, but not vice versa. I debate all the time about doing it, but I know that Ray's family still reads my site sometimes and I don't want them judging me or my life with John.

But hey, everyone probably does that anyway, right? And it's not like I write about anything terribly horrible in here. I'm not ashamed of any of my decisions, so why not own up to them?
So, I think that I will be putting a link to this on my site. I'll think about it for today, really make sure it's what I should do. Because once that link is up there everyone can find it and bookmark it and even if I take the link down they'll still be here, judging. lol. Guess I'm good for some drama today.

Well, this is my last day of work before vacation. Just try me with some drama. See what happens!
:)

Well, one more hour and I get to leave work.

If you'll look to your left you'll see I have added two countdowns - to the two most important events of the year! I have also added a terror alert level that never seems to update but which I love anyway so enjoy Bert.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom I have tried messing around with javascript to add a nifty little clock with eight time zones on it, but it may not be working. Keep checking. Still no? Okay, your obligation is filled.

Onto some cool news. John is friends with Margaret Weis who wrote the Dragonlance series. He just ordered me the Legends series, annotated in hardcover, and signed! So it arrived yesterday and I sent her a thank you email. It was long-winded, I'll admit. But I tried to make it interesting. I said, "Reading your stories is like reading Tolkien, but better – the awesome stories without the monotonous writing." C'mon, that's gotta be one of the best compliments ever.

So she wrote back and said this, "Dear Jessie,

You are very welcome! Thanks for writing.

Say “hi” to Vader for me.:)

Margaret"

Soooo exciting for me. As an aspiring writer, hearing from a real writer is one of the most exciting things ever. It's celebrity at it's best. I think that deserves a Woo Hoo!

I’m kind of frustrated right now. I’m sitting here at work and I have today, tomorrow, and Friday left before my vacation begins. The week is going by really quick when I think about it in terms of having to get on a plane when this week ends. But it’s going by slowly day to day when I’m just sitting here waiting to go home.

Why is it that in life we are always waiting? Ever since I was little I’ve been waiting to grow up, graduate eighth grade, then graduate high school. On to college (I never made it past the second half of my third year). Then when you actually are an adult it’s time to wait for other things – getting married, buying a home, having kids, finding the right job, getting a raise, vacation time. . .yadda yadda yadda.

I know that through the rest of this week I will wait for it to end. Today I wait to get out of here so that John and I can go to Sarah and Paul's and have some fun. Tomorrow I will wait to get out of work because I have to go to H&R and get my taxes done. For this year and last because Ray never filed them. That'll be fun. Once it is Friday at 5:00 I am out of here and it’s time to start my vacation. Then I will wait for Saturday morning so that Val can dye my hair red (the things I’ll do to look like Mara Jade). After that it’s on to waiting for the afternoon to hurry up and get there so that John will come home from work and we can get ready (for the first time) to have both my parents over when both John and I are home.

Sunday will just be a day of relaxation (I hope) and waiting for Tuesday, which is when Ray will pick up Amelie after work. He’s cat-sitting her while John and I are away. I’m waiting for that because I hope it goes well. It will only be the second time Ray sees John and I don’t want any awkwardness and such.

Tuesday night leads into Wednesday morning when we will take Pixel over to John and Val’s and take Gunther and Button over to Deanna’s to be bird-sat. then it’s a few more hours of waiting for the limo van to arrive and pick us up for the airport. We have so much gear we had to get a van.

And then comes the worst waiting of all – sitting in the airport. Yes, sitting in the airport where all you can think about (if you’re paranoid like me) is all the horrible things that can go wrong on your flight. And the fact that you even have to get on a plane. I’m getting antsy just thinking about it.

Once I get on the plane it’s time to wait for it to land.
And after that? After that is pure fun. But I have to go through all that waiting to get to it.


Incidentally, I tried to put a countdown clock to CIII and one to Revenge of the Sith on my blog here but I can’t find any good ones. Anyone have some easy to edit suggestions?

You know, I usually don’t waste my time with politics. The most political I’ve ever gotten is saying that I liked Fahrenheit 9/11. And I did. It was a superb movie. Not as good or revealing as Bowling for Columbine, but certainly worthy of mention.

Today Wil Wheaton posted a letter from an angry fan in his blog. There’s a section where you can comment on his entries. Sometimes people go a bit overboard in the political stuff. I mean, a discussion on this guy’s comments is not going to change the world, truly.

Anyway, this one guy, Alan, posted a lot of stuff, but here’s one thing in particular I found comical. (He was responding to another poster):

“Gary Hammontree: If you fail this second test, YOU CANNOT BREED!!!!
Whoa! First test a for voting; now votes for reproduction? I can't believe you are serious about this. This idea is way too open to abuse. Generally, people who make comments like this think they would never be in the excluded group. I suggest you go study German history.”

Normally I honest to god stay out of this crap, but I couldn’t resist. Here’s my reply:

“Alan,
While I’m sure we can all appreciate you going through everyone’s comments and pointing out ones that could have a lot of harmful effects if they came true I think that you have to agree that this one:
Gary Hammontree: If you fail this second test, YOU CANNOT BREED!!!!
Is not meant seriously.
Your comment:

Whoa! First test a for voting; now votes for reproduction? I can't believe you are serious about this. This idea is way too open to abuse. Generally, people who make comments like this think they would never be in the excluded group. I suggest you go study German history.

Is correct. It would be a scary world if people were not allowed to breed by the government. But c’mon, surely you’ve spotted someone or spoken with a person who you’ve later said to yourself “should not be allowed to reproduce.” We’ve all done it.

I think everyone needs to stop taking themselves so seriously. The elections are over. The U.S. has a president, whether they wanted him or not, and let’s just get back to our regular lives of hating each other for reasons better than politics. Anyone care to move on to religion next?

p.s. That was a JOKE. ;)”

And it was. I was totally kidding about moving on to something else and all that. Now, before I post the next part, anyone care to tell me if I anywhere in that post said “Get over it” to anyone? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller? No? I didn’t think so. Yet here’s one person’s comment:

“Not another one of those "Bush won, get over it" people.

http://www.hategun.com/features/getoverit/index.html”

I visited the website. It’s whiny. Am I upset Bush won? Hell yes! I’m not afraid to say it. The guy couldn’t care less about sending millions to die for oil. But do I bitch about it every damn day? NO! I have better things to do with my life.

I simply replied:

“::sigh:: I know it's not a message board, but sometimes it's really hard not to respond to things.

I don't know if this was directed at me:
"Not another one of those "Bush won, get over it" people.

http://www.hategun.com/features/getoverit/index.html"

But I'm not really a "bush won, get over it" type I'm more of a "SOMEone won and there's nothing we can do but wait four years and try to fix the things we can" type.

I didn't vote for Bush. I didn't vote for the "other guy" either. That's right. ::shocked gasp:: I didn't vote.

I was simply trying to convey that "Alan" should not take things so seriously. That's all. Since when is being happy a bad thing? Trying to deal with what we've got in front of us a bad thing? I think not.
Just my two credits.
Move along, move along.”

So that’s my little story for the day. Oh, and one comment after mine that upset me but that has nothing to do with me so I didn’t reply:

“Actually, Patrick Stewart has a home in Southern CA and was on record stating that if Bush won he was moving back to England. I love his work and do indeed think he is one classy (and handsome) fellow but I can't help wondering: does he need help packing?

(Sorry for the lack of reference but I've deleted the email where I got this info.)”

I love Patrick Stewart. I don’t blame celebrities for saying they’d move to Canada/England/Etc. People saying “need help packing” is as old as “bush won, get over it” so let’s just all MOVE ALONG.

I finished the Chronicles. John just ordered me an autographed copy of the legend series on Margaret Weis' site. He's been emailing her a couple times since yesterday. So cool. I'd much rather know an awesome talented author than a "movie star" type person.

So, here are all my favorite Chronicles quotes.

Have you ever been in love with somebody who could not return your feelings?

Oh, this is SUCH a good one! Yes, indeed I have. But it wasn’t for any good reasons like he had a girlfriend, or he lived too far away, or he cared too much about me to ruin our friendship or some crap like that. No, no. This was because he was emotionally incapable of love. At least that is the conclusion I’ve reached after therapy and lots of introspection. Oh, and observation of the “subject”.

When I was sixteen I dated this guy, Jacob. I met him when I was a little bit younger, but yea, we dated. For about eight months. Pretty long relationship in high school. I totally loved him. Head over heels.

The first time he said he loved me? He wrote it on a piece of paper. Couldn’t even say it! I was right there sitting next to him! Psycho. That should have tipped me off but alas I was too naïve and went on to spend the next year all messed up about it.

To tell the honest truth, it still gets to me from time to time. Just because he was so messed up and he was emotionally abusive and liked to make everything look like my fault. Augh.

::smile::

Nothing but blue skies, do I see. . . .

(This is an entry I did on Friday, but blogger wouldn't load it.)

It is gorgeous out. Spring is finally here. And with it comes allergies. But oh well. Spring has sprung. Until Sunday. A co-worker told me it may snow. That's New England for ya.

But it's Friday and I get to go home soon. John's home already waiting for me and playing Knights of the Old Republic. I wonder what we'll do tonight. Probably watch a movie. I'm pretty tired.

I'm feeling a bit better. My voice still sounds awful and I'm stuffed up with a bit of a feverish feeling. But my throat stopped hurting, which is the best part, and I'm starting to feel a bit less out of it.

Something kind of cool happened at work today. I posted it on my 501st forum so I'll save myself the trouble and just copy and paste:

*******

I was just sitting in my cubicle chatting with one of the ladies I work with. Our boss meandered by and stopped in to say hi. John had bought me the first three Dragonlance books for Christmas and I'm reading the third one now. So my boss saw it and asked if I ever read any adventure stories. I said sure that I read a lot of stuff, etc. etc.

Then he goes, "Ever hear of an author named Bob Salvatore? I used to work with him at EMC Hopkinton."
I said I'd heard of an R.A. Salvatore because he had written some Star Wars books. He says, "Yea, that's him. I just went to visit him when he did a book signing at B&N in Leominster." He went on to say that Bob could always be found at work hunched over his keyboard working on stories.

Life is pretty random but I thought that was really cool.My boss and co-worker saw me geek out for a moment but I recovered quickly.

And in case the name isn't ringing any bells (though I can't imagine that happening with this group) R.A. Salvatore kicked off the New Jedi Order series with Vector Prime (those dang expanded universe fans) and also wrote AOTC. Very neat. Small world.

*******
The "this group" mentioned above is the 501^st geeks. If they don't know who Salvatore is I'll be surprised. The rest of you are forgiven, however.

Well, I'm leaving shortly and I'm off to write an email to my friend Chante before I go. I've been neglecting her lately. Easy enough to do when she lives in Texas. : )

I am sick. Whether it’s actual “virus, going to really throw up” sick or just “I’m terrified to fly in two weeks” sick we may never know. All I know is I was just in my boss’ office talking to him about how to do a new project and I almost asked him if I could leave twice cuz I thought I was going to throw up all over him. Now isn’t that fun?

On a good note, I called my doctor’s office today and told the secretary, “Hi. I’m a patient of Dr. (name changed to protect the not so innocent). I’m flying on April 20^th and I’m a little. . .well, I’m terrified.” The lady laughed and asked if I wanted a prescription and I said yes. So she had my doc call me back and she had to leave me a voicemail because I never get reception at EMC. I think it’s a conspiracy.

She called in four pills of xanax to CVS for me. Kewl! I wish I could take one ahead of time to see how it works, but I’m so paranoid that I’ll drop one and not be able to take one on the return flight or something so I’ll just leave them alone.

I’ve been doing this online fear of flying course. If you want to download the course and the captain’s book you have to make a donation. I have NO MONEY and I happened to mention that on the message board that goes with the course. So the captain emailed me personally and sent me the links for free. I had posted about Pixel having to be rushed to the ER and how we just bought a condo and all that.

So that’s great. That means I can download lesson five (the last one) of the course to my mp3 player and listen to it if I get nervous. It explains every step of take off and landing.

But I knew that alone wouldn’t be enough. My therapist gave me some relaxation techniques, but lets face it – once you’re in full panic mode picturing pink bunnies ain’t gonna do nothin’ for ya. (did you like my horrible grammar?)

What else is new?

I talked to a friend from high school for a bit yesterday – Crystal. Real nice girl. She apparently still keeps in touch with, I don’t know, EVERYONE from Bay Path so she invited me to this fourth of July party one of them is having. I think I’ve talked to the kid twice but Crystal said it wouldn’t be a problem. She and this other kid from my shop (I went to a tech school), Justin, are even going to get me in touch with a disfellowshipped JW friend from way back when. I’m so excited.

It’s funny, three of my friends now (without discussing it with one another) have said that they didn’t like me with Ray. That he was nice and all but they hated asking me to go anywhere because they didn’t want him tagging along. I wasn’t as much fun or something. Foote and Moir seem to like John a lot more, which is great for me since that’s who I’m with an all. It does make me feel a little bad for Ray though. Not that he would care what my friends think, I guess, just that he is a pretty nice guy and it’s weird to hear people say they didn’t find him nearly as personable as I thought he was. He gets along with everyone, can have a conversation with anybody. It’s very weird to hear. But like I said, good for me and John.

Well, back to feeling sick at work. Yippee.