Obamarama

All you single ladies! Rejoice! Obama is here!

I had a great time visiting friends and politicians in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Shaline, Kaushal, Lisa, Khalda, Barack... We are one!

Where's Obama? Where's Waldo? We saw him speak in Baltimore on Saturday, and we rocked out at the "We Are One" concert on Sunday.

Crime and punishment

Time to polish the ol' resume: I just received another diploma... from online traffic school!

While visiting my family over Thanksgiving, I received a speeding ticket from the Winter Park Police Department. For not driving with extraordinary care, I paid a hefty fee and signed up for a 4-hour online course to better myself.

In a literary turn of events, the punishment fit the crime a bit too snugly. The course was not only mindnumbingly silly (sample subheading: "What is a stop sign?"), but slow-paced. The student is required to spend a minumum amount of time on each module. So even if it took me 15 minutes to read a section and do a short quiz, I had to wait for the timer to tick off 50 minutes before moving on. I COULDN'T SPEED THROUGH IT! The agony!

Thusly, I was able to while away my time on the computer during these traffic jams. It's not a good idea to multitask while driving, but it's slightly less dangerous to do so while completing an online crash course.

Why am I yawning at 6pm?

As I nodded off during dinner this evening, Garrett and I pondered why it is that we seem to get sleepy so early in Houston (other than that we both participate in rigorous educational activities). We didn't notice that it was dark so early or feel so tired while on vacation in Florida. Some weak scientific theories were thrown about: Does it have to do with the latitude of Houston? its location within the Central Time Zone? its smog? Surely it is caused by more than the end of daylight savings.

Then I had it: Orlando is controlled by the theme parks. Disney and Universal must have created a machine (or made some very powerful connections) that makes daylight last longer, so that tourists stay at the parks later (and spend more money). Houston, on the other hand, is controlled by energy companies. They have rigged it so that the sun sets earlier, forcing residents to scurry indoors and turn on their lights/TV/AC/heat, consuming electricity and gas.

Take that, Bill Nye the Science Guy! You can call me Kiki the Science Geek.

Free Coffee

Happy New Year!

We're back in Texas after a two-day roadtrip. Highlights include:

• Discovering that 429 North does not, in fact, lead to the Florida Turnpike.


• The resulting detour through Mount Dora, Eustis, Tavares, Leesburg, Wildwood, etc.
  
• The detour not mattering because I-75 was jammed with Georgia Bulldog fans returning from the bowl game.
  
• One silver Prius taking an alternate highway north to Tallahassee through the rolling hills and past the numerous horse farms of Central Florida.


• Pulled-pork sandwiches at BubbaQue's BBQ in Bronson, Florida (also home to the Mother Clucker Sandwich).


• Waking to a cool, overcast morning in Baton Rouge and crossing over a river shrouded by a dense fog.


• A van full of what we can only describe as Gypsies at a gas station, including barefoot children and small puppies playing amongst the pumps.


• After not spying a Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts for almost 300 miles, pulling into a McDonald's in eastern Texas and receiving FREE McCafe coffee drinks!

Now that we're home in Rice Village, it's the calm before the storm: even though Garrett received a-MA-za-zing grades for his first semester, he fears he'll be pummelled in the second. To be fair, his already oppresive workload will double. On New Year's Eve, we discovered a mistake in Trivial Pursuit! It didn't mention the Moops (Seinfeld reference!), but said the French and Indian War took place twenty years too late. Kristin and Harper are shocked and appalled!