Wolverine

Julie and I finally went to see The Wolverine today at the movie theater.  I love me some Hugh Jackman!  Who doesn't.  It was amazing.  So, SO good.  I loved it more than the first solo Wolverine movie.  Sequels can be kinda anti-climatic, as in you wait and wait and wait for it to be in the theaters only to be disappointed at the end.  I think this is the rare instance where the the sequel was better than the first movie.  It's definitely something that I'd buy and add to my DVD collection.

Before the movie, we went to CVS...Julie had a coupon for candy and I had $3 Extra Bucks and a $1 Sally Hansen.  I basically got this Sally Hansen XtremeWear polish in Pacific Blue for free. I had been eyeing it for a while and heard great things about it on YouTube and blogs.  This was the perfect opportunity to buy it.

After the movie, we went to get sandwiches at PotBelly.  The SharkWeek coupon (buy a sandwich and get a free cookie) was still applicable.  Yum!

Julie spent the rest of the day hanging out at my place.  She played some of the old school Nintendo games that I got last week as well as the Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt game that I acquired via Ebay this past week.  We also watched the second X-Men movie that I had on DVD.  Two Hugh Jackman movies in one day...hooray!

Running in ATL

Well, the meeting today went fine.  I think I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with the project though because it's all about evaluation and that's not something that I've dabbled in very much.  Also, this project is supposed to only take 30% of my time, but after this meeting, I have a feeling that it's going to be more than that.  Whatever.  I'll worry about it on Monday.

Getting home had been quite an adventure.  There were 4 of us total from my organization that went to this meeting.  One guy wanted to be dropped off at a train station so we did that and the 3 remaining people rushed to the airport.  Except we experienced 4:30 PM Friday traffic.  OMG, it was so stressful because the cars were just not moving.  Once the traffic let up, my boss zipped the rest of the way to the airport.

Except we had to return the rental car.  My coworker and I flew out of the rental car, basically ditching my boss (with her permission), and ran to the train that would bring us to the terminal.

Then we had to go through security, which was also a nightmare because while we had our boarding passes on our phones, the security guy directed us to the pre-TSA approved line.  But we weren't pre-TSA approved.  Ugh, it was awful because I thought it had something to do with my phone and so I rushed to print a new boarding pass and go to the regular TSA line.  I told Elizabeth to get to the gate (save yourself!!) and once I got through security, I ran in my flip flops and dress to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare before they started boarding us on the plane.

If I knew I'd be doing this much running today, I would have warmed up and done some running this past week.  Sheesh.

The good thing was that I got a whole aisle to myself.  Whew.  Never ever do I want to do that again!!

Quick Trip to ATL

I'm in Atlanta for a meeting on Friday.  Since my friend Page was going to be passing through, I thought it'd be a great idea to meet up.  It's been quite a while since we've touched base...the last time was the March cruise. 

Her newest and greatest development was getting a kitty (her name is Lily)!  I was shocked when I got the text message yesterday since I didn't think she liked cats.  She's always grown up with dogs.  Anyway, Page drove the kitty to the hotel and her brother Brightman drove to the hotel to pick the kitty up to take it to the house, since the kitty couldn't stay in the car while Page and I were hanging out.  It was so nice to see the two of them.  I hadn't seen Brightman in a few years, so it was great to see that he was doing well.  He pointed out my grey hairs, which he thought were amusing.  Well, I'm glad that someone does, ha ha!

Page and I went to Violette, a French restaurant and it was so good!  We both got the Bouchée à la Reine (puff pastry filled with chicken breast, topped with a creamy mushroom sauce),  Yum!

Mmm...tiramisu!  More yum!

Bye, Page!  It was nice to see you!

Nintendo Entertainment System (continued)

When I got my used Nintendo Entertainment System and games on Sunday, I only spent time on cleaning the game cartridges.  I was too scared to open up the actual system to see if it needed cleaning.  What if I couldn't put it back together?!  After watching a few YouTube videos, I took a deep breath and unscrewed everything and opened up the system when I got home from work.  Wow, was it dusty!  I would have taken a picture, but it was really gross.  With a Swiffer duster, rubbing alcohol and Q-tips, I was able to get it back into a more acceptable shape.  It was even reading games better without as much jiggling around as Sunday. 

I went back to Goodwill after spin class to return Taboo, the eletronic version (the screen was not working when I put fresh batteries in it).  In exchange, I got some A/V wires that I will be keeping and a TI-82 calculator that I need to test out with fresh AAA batteries.  If it works, up on Ebay it goes!  I found a TI-83 Plus calculator but the battery compartment cover was missing and the battery slots have seen better days, I think.  That would have been an awesome find!

My Cinderella DVD that I bought last week sold tonight. Woot!

A part of me wishes that I got into this Ebay thing earlier...

Baptism Card

Ebay Update: My TI-83 graphing calculator has found a new home.  I've had it since I was a sophomore or junior in high school, but since then it's really had no purpose since all the math I need to do can be done with a regular calculator. 

Card: My friend's baby is getting baptized in a few weeks so tonight, I made the card to go with her present.  After doing a little research on what baptism cards are supposed to look like (I'm not a religious person, so this is venturing outside my realm of knowledge), I decided to go with a simple origami dove for the embellishment for the card.

Card Specs: 
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Charcoal
Stamps: Fiskars- Sentiments
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Embossing Folder: Sizzix + Basic Grey- Kaleidoscope 

Goodwill Finds

Before I get into my Goodwill finds, I forgot to share this last week.  When my Japanese uncle came to visit the house after the family BBQ last Sunday, he saw that I had a lot of cards with origami on them.  He asked me for a sheet of paper so that he could fold me an origami dog.  This is what he came up with from memory.  So cute!  I hadn't seen that design before, but I'm afraid that if I took it apart to investigate, I wouldn't be able to fold it back together.

After going to spin class this morning, I wandered over to Goodwill and I found a blast from the past, an old Nintendo Entertainment System, for $9.95.  It's seen better days, but it came with 2 controllers and there were lots of games there for $1.  Vintage NES games, the good ones, still have some value to them so it'd be worth a try to resell these games.  The console didn't come with a power supply, so I had to buy one at a video game store.  The guy plugged it in and there was a blinking light, which translated to the console not being able to read games.  He said that it wouldn't be worth getting the power supply.  I went back to my car and debated if it'd be worth the risk anyway.  This was an older machine, so it'd probably require some jiggling around and cleaning.  I went back inside and got the AC adapter anyway.  The guy probably thought I was weird, but I was on a mission!  After some major game cleaning (thank you, YouTube), I got all the games to work!  It was like a miracle or something because these games were dirty!  Anyway, this was a fun little afternoon project.  If I could sell a few of the games, it'd totally pay for this haul.

Oh, I also sold my old Sony Walkman on Ebay today.  With my iPhone, no need for a cassette player anymore!

 

Baltimore

I sacrificed my yard saling time this morning to sleep in, and it was totally worth it!

The trip to Baltimore with Meg and Robyn didn't go quite as planned.  When we got there, at 2:00 PM the Aquarium sign said that they were selling the 6:00 PM entry tickets.  Whoa.  We were not expecting so many people there.  4 hours was a lot of time to kill in between and even if we got in at 6, that meant that they were going to kick us out around 8:30 or 9 PM and we didn't want to rush around the exhibits.  We instead decided to go to the nearby Barnes and Noble and, with their help, I picked out this book for my friend's kid's baptism present.

We walked by this candy store that had these giant gummy bears.

And a Coast Guard ship...

We drove around to get to our final destination was G & M Restaurant, where Robyn said they had amazing crabcakes and dessert.  Oh, yes.  She was right.  Trying to get out of Baltimore was interesting.  We noticed there were quite a few people headed to the Baltimore Convention Center.  Some people were dressed up with full on wings, tail, and ears.  I used my phone to look up what event was going on.  Err...it was a Brony convention.  o_0  Guys that like My Little Ponies.  No joke. 

I got the crabcake platter (the crabcake was like the size of a big fist), which came with a side salad and 2 sides (cauliflower and baked potato).  We went next door for dessert and I got a slice of the tiramisu and the red velvet cake for Julie and I to share later.  The waitress was telling us about how she just started a week ago and showed us a picture of her two kids.  When she asked about dessert and we told her about getting it to-go, she said that she tells herself every night that if she made enough money tonight, she'd buy herself a slice, but she always came out short.  I added a separate $5 bill to the tip for her cheesecake fund.  I don't know if her story was true or she was trying to get an extra tip, but if it was true, I helped someone tonight and if it's not, that's bad karma for her.

After dinner, we drove back to Robyn's place and hung out for a while until about 9:30 PM.  I headed to my parents' house and also my cousin's because Mom told me that a bunch of them were watching a movie downstairs.  It turned out to be the 2nd G.I. Joe movie, like the last 10 minutes.  Oops.