Sarcastic Incredulity

Wanna go

2008-03-19T10:23:00.003-04:00

To the woods. Hiking, camping, whatever. Spring is springing, and I'm getting the itch. I have all the gear I need from last year. All I need now is for the damn weather to cooperated, and some friends to go with me.
Friends? You on board? Laurel Highlands trail.? Any trail? Soon? April? Camping? PLEEEEAAAASSSEEE??
I don't even know who reads this blog cause no one comments (which is fine guys, really.) :P But if you're interested, I am.
Later!

Wow, been a bit of a while

2008-03-18T23:43:00.003-04:00

This past weekend (St. Paddy's Day Weekend) was incredible. We (Me, Jake, Barry, Sarah and John Turner) all parked our asses at Steve's on Friday night. We drank and watched movies and generally screwed around all night.

At eight the next day, we were up at the ass crack of dawn (8 AM) making whisky eggs in the age old tradition that we started last year in Boston. This year, there was the addition of green food coloring. (Do Not Recommend!) We also partook in Carolans and Lucky charms. And drank a quarter of a case of Guinness.

Then Jake, Sarah and I went to the Western Pennsylvania Orchid Ass. show to look at all the pretties and maybe buy some. We did, and we did. It was awesome. Jake got two Dendrobium Kingianums which were both hybridized from the same parent and I got a beautiful Paphiopedilum, which is just gorgeous. All three of us got a good earfull of info involving growing orchids in PA, the element ratios in fertilizer and all sorts of awesome things no one else cares about, but that I'll probably blog about later anyway.

After the Orchid show we made a pit stop at Steves to drop the orchids and Sarah off, have a quick Guinness and then run up to Pine Richland to see Seusical with Carlos.

Two notes on Seussical:
1. It should never have been written
2. The cast of the Pine Richland High School did the most amazing things with it possible. Kudos to the freakishly talented kids.

After that we came back to Steves and settled down for a good night of Super Smash Bro's, DRINKING, Boondock Saints, DRINKING, passing out, and more drinking. Well, I did the passing out. Everyone else did the entertaining laugh a lot giggle fest. I feel as though I missed out. Anyone up for another performance?

Sunday was a day of rest. We laid about and watched Super Bad which is thoroughly enjoyable no matter how many times you see it and recuperated from our collective bender.

Conclusions:

1. I have not outgrown partying, nor will I ever, I think.
2. I do not like Green Eggs and Ham, I do not like them Sam I am!
3. DAMN YOU SEUSS! Get out of my head.
4. Jake is impossibly cute when he doesn't want to get up and hides under blankets.
5. St. Paddy's day is still happy.

IT LIVES!

2008-03-11T22:52:00.004-04:00

My Phal is alive and doing fine. I was poking around in it (as usual) and noticed a nice bit of new root growth. Also the leaves have perked up a lot and regained some of their original luster. So I lost the bloom spike. So what?

I also have a new member of my orchid family. It's a beautiful spotted phal that my mom brought home to me from Lowes where it was languishing in the sales area with a partially crumpled bloom and no Terra cotta pot (only the plastic insert.) I gave it some orchid grow-enhanced water and cleaned off the leaves a bit. It is also looking pretty good.

I've got them all sitting in a row on top of my radiator in front of my south-facing windows in my room. I never realized just how much i like plants in my window. I really do. I believe I need to get some more. Maybe a nice bonsai or a few mini bamboo....hmmmmmmmm.

The Only Reason I'd Become a Parent

2008-03-06T10:34:00.002-05:00

Is to somehow reverse the iniquities of my own upbringing.

I swear that if I am ever blessed (cursed?) with child/ren, I will go out of my way to make them independent enough in their thoughts to never rely on me for approval, even if it means making them not care what I think at all. That way, when I say some stupid, god awful thoughtless idiot thing, I won't crush any good feeling they may have had at the time or stymie their ambitions or actions.

Ugh. And things were looking so up.

On the other hand, I know that I'm far too dependent on what my mother thinks (yes, this is really about me, but hey, MY BLOG!) and I'm just as responsible for altering my perceptions and changing my priorities as she should be for biting her ridiculous tongue.

She realized her gaffe and tried to appologize, but it was already too late. I am desperately trying to salvage the idea that what I'm doing matters and is important. Wow. I'm one sick puppy sometimes.

Regarding Toilets

2008-03-04T23:23:00.004-05:00

And Floods.
Toilets flooding to be exact.
My toilet flooding to be precise.
The stack on the inside of the tank blew sometimes between 4 and 5 pm on thursday of last week spewing hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water into my room and down through the floor and through the dining room ceiling and through the dining room floor into the basement.

My mom came home around six and shut the valve off. She was apparently standing hands on hips in the doorway of the sodden dining room when the enormous chandelier over our dining room table came out of it's bracketing in the disintegrating plaster and crashed down onto the table.

I got to go away to Johnstown for the weekend to work on Rabkindermpath.com with Jacob.
My mom got to stay in a wind tunnel. The insurance company is paying for the damage, but it's crazy.

Our dining room is empty. They took the oriental rug to be cleaned and dried professionally because it's wool. All of the furniture is in the living room. They've turned our house into a dehumidifier and heat-blower-induced vortex.

The awesome upshot is that the cleaner people are hauling massive amounts of stuff out of our basement now. At least it's getting cleaned out somehow. They've already hauled away one dumpster and are now filling a second one. And these are the huge kind.

It's strange that a huge calamity like this is reduced to a minor annoyance in comparison with recent events. Death puts things into perspective like none other.

Who gots design??

2008-03-04T09:56:00.002-05:00

WE GOTS DESIGN!
At least the beginnings of the Rabkin Dermatopathology design have been hammered out, thanks to Jake's almost intuitive grasp of logo creation and layout and my almost intuitive ability to sit there and colorblindly question his choice of palate. I'm glad I'm good at copywriting and book keeping. Otherwise Trident would be a one man operation.

Still in all fairness, Jake's been doing a bang up job at a medically related firm for longer than I've been designing anything. So I'll just give myself time to marinate in the bath of design inspiration that is CSSRemix.com and watch and learn from the budding master himself.

Jake, since I'm convinced you're the only person who actually reads this, I hope you are feeling quite good about yourself ;)

Web design = awesome in Christina's world. I am in love with the idea of owning our own company. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Speaking of which, I have some crazy filing stuff to take care of. LATERZ!

Getting jobs is cool!

2008-02-26T23:42:00.002-05:00

We got the email today. Trident Web Design has its first official job: creating a website for Rabkin Dermatopathology. I'm uber excited. The web design thing is awesome. Both Jake and I are really terribly glad to have someone who is not a family member to do a website for. And of course getting paid is always a bonus.

The only repercussion for getting a freelance job is that you have to actually get it done, and deadlines don't wait for creative blocks to fall away. Working under the gun in this capacity is a whole new thing for me, though Jake's done it before with no trouble. Hopefully I can ease into it as easily.

In other news, calligraphy is also cool. I would like to get back into learning about it. In my scads of free time that is. Well, my ass is growing into my chair as I speak. I've been sitting in front of a computer entirely too much lately, but I have to admit I love it. I might have to invest in an ergonomically sound keyboard though. Alpha Grip, HERE I COME!

In other news...

2008-02-20T19:30:00.002-05:00

Del.icio.us is freaking amazing. Oh quit rolling your eyes! Yes, yes I know that I'm way behind the social network power curve here, but I just created a delicious account and it is seriously yummy in my tummy.

It's really the best way out there to have a nice, organized list of your favorites. And what's more, you can save pages out for other people AND you can tag your favorites however you want, just like tagging blog posts so that they're easily sortable. And what's even better is that you can do all this without leaving the page you're on. I'm a total convert.

I posted Cypherstyles on delicious and within 7 minutes, 5 people had favorited the link. Considering our demographic, (the non-blog-reading, pot-smoking hip hop listening BBoy types,) that's INCREDIBLE!

If you don't already have a Delicious account, get one.

Have I killed it? HAVE I????

2008-02-20T18:47:00.000-05:00

From over-watering to under-watering in one fell swoop. If this Phalaenopsis lives, it should go down in history as being the hardiest plant EVAH! Well besides Jake's Dendrobium that keeps rising from the dead like some dry botanical zombie, wrapped in the bandages of it's own leaves. Kudo's to Jacob for keeping it clinging to life.

I would have lost interest completely as soon as it stopped being pretty and green and adopted an attitude of death. I don't know what that says about me, my personality, or my horticultural capability and come to that, I don't much care. ON WITH MY HAPPY-GO-LUCKY LIFE!

I watered the phal. We'll see what happens. In other news, my baby Cattleya is doing quite well. I think it's sending down some nice new roots. The leaves certainly look robust enough. I hope it doesn't have horrible ridiculous frilly blooms like some Cats are prone to have. Then I'll have to kill it passive-aggressively for the reasons stated above. God forbid I ever have an ugly child!

When you're color blind:

2008-02-12T19:16:00.000-05:00

Web design sucks.
Matching Clothing Sucks.
Helping other people with web design sucks.
Driving on a sunny day sucks.
Hating pink sucks.
Hating colors I usually like because I think they're pink sucks.
Web design sucks.
Changing transmission fluid sucks.
Web Design Sucks.
Web Design Sucks.
Web Design Sucks.

If there is a program out there I can use to group colors by the primary color they are most associated with and just randomly pick from that palate I would probably die of utter happiness.

Other things that suck:
Web design.
Just in case I didn't mention it.

Orchids AKA My Recent Obsession

2008-02-07T19:44:00.001-05:00

When my dad was alive, he constantly grew things. I find it slightly ironic that it was only through his death (however circumspectly) that the passion for growing things began to grow in me. As a sympathy gift, we received a Phaelanopsis. I sort of found myself staring at it an awful lot, and then my wonderful boyfriend Jake, who also grows orchids said they were difficult to take care of because their particular climate and light and care requirements. This of course meant that I HAD to make this thing survive and bloom more or my. pride. would. suffer. I'm sure that was not the intent of his comment, but thanks to my ridiculously competitive nature, I found myself obsessing over the plant. He lent me a few books about orchid care and growing, and between him, my natural mothering thing that I do, and the challenge the poor thing presented, I find myself completely orchid gaga.

Why do I say "poor thing?" Well, in my craze, I over-watered the plant and it grew some nice mold. I learned my lesson and re-potted it, hopefully in time. In any case, poor liddle phaela not withstanding, I am totally obsessed. I've been planning an orchidarium (I've been informed that Terrarium is to dull a word) and I'm just really excited.

My dad would be proud. He had a green thumb. I'm not sure yet whether my new botanical urges will be contained to the Orchid species (Genus? Phylum? I don't remember the hierarchy!) or whether I am destined to be concerned with all thing green, but the seeds have been planted, as it were. Wish me luck!!

And never the twain shall meet?

2007-10-01T10:43:00.001-04:00

They're right. It IS either always time or money. Maybe that's what retirement is. The point as which both coincide. I want to retire now, please. Please?

Calendar Woes.

2007-09-18T16:48:00.000-04:00

I flipped through Google Calendar today. It was an interesting flipping. Until now, I haven't really ever documented my daily activities with any kind of actual normalcy, but since June-ish I have been.

It has been quite an eventful summer. Between camping, traveling all over the country and falling head over heels in love, I've been rather busy. It's interesting now that things are calming down, how strange it is for me to look forward to all these blank squares. In June, August was already booked. Now I haven't anything to do at all except a concert on the first of October and whatever Birthday celebration I plan for myself.

Oh, and, lest I forget, a ridiculous amount of work.

I wonder if it's because we're conditioned from an early age that play happens in the summer and work is in the fall and winter? I bet that's true because even those that I know who are finished with school continue to have this mentality.

Even though Fall is my favorite season, I get uncomfortable at it's onset. It seems like only yesterday that I looked up a the leaves on the trees and said "when the hell did they pop up overnight?" and now they're getting ready to start turning colors and falling down.

I think I'm also unnerved because I look back at this spectacular summer and wonder if it will be the last of the relatively carefree ones that I will ever have.

If that does end up being the case, I can rest easily in the knowledge that I have gone out of youth with a bang.

Here's to banging.

Now back to (more) writing.

Man, I wish I liked writing more.

2007-09-11T17:50:00.000-04:00

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE writing. But I just spent all day writing, and I'm sick of it but I have way more to do.

Let's see...writing for NEC website, writing for Tridentwebdesign.com, writing for freelance stuff and writing for, well, sarcastic incredulity. Granted, this isn't really writing, it's bitching, but waddaya gonna do?

If I liked writing about 10 times as much as I do now, this would all be fine. So.

I wish I liked writing more.

San Francisco!!!!

2007-09-03T13:56:00.001-04:00

Link to Pics! http://picasaweb.google.com/christina.keffer/California2007

Just recently I visited my future home. I didn't know at the time of my arrival that it would be my future home, but after about six seconds in the fresh, sun drenched air, I figured that out right quick.

Barry, Sarah, Jacob and I traveled across the country via airplane to go to an event in LA for business, and we made a three day detour to San Francisco to visit Eli who now lives in the Palo Alto area. (Palo Alto is about 30 minutes away from San Fran.)
The first day in CA was spent in Palo Alto wandering around the shopping district there. The temperature was between seventy and seventy five, the breeze was gentle and cool, and all around a sense of laid back peace pervaded. We ate lunch with Eli at Zao's Noodle place which was incredible, not only because of the ridiculously good Thai fusion food, but also because of the ambiance. The building, like so many others in the area sported a HUGE sky light and gigantic street side windows. It was like eating outside, and although the building was small, it seemed much bigger because of it's architecture. We spent the rest of that day wandering around Palo Alto waiting for Eli to get out of work so we could hang out.

That night we had the best Sushi EVER. I'm not sure whether there was a placebo effect in evidence, but the seafood in CA in general tasted far superior to what I can get at home, even at our favorite place in the Strip.

The next day (the 22nd) we took the caltrain into San Francisco and spent the day walking around Chinatown, which was amazing. They had everything in these huge warehouse-style buildings. Seriously... everything from brocade dresses and beautiful Asian dinnerware to bobble head dolls. I bought a Charles Dickens Action figure and there was a toy called the avenging Narwhal, which picture you can see here. We ate dinner at an awesome sushi place called the Sushi Boat where the sushi was served on a conveyor belt made of little wooden ships floating around on water. The sushi was amazing, and reasonably priced. The price depended on what pattern was on the dish it was served on, just like the system they have in Japan at their sushi shops.

After dinner we wandered up to a really interesting place further toward Fisherman's Wharf. I say interesting because it was peculiar to me that a city of San Francisco's size could support such a HUGE red light district as the one that we found ourselves in. The strip joints were huge and advertised unabashedly with giant animated neon lights. It was hilarious.

We met up with Eli and after searching around for a bar, we ended up at the San Francisco Brew Company. It was sort of a dive but too dimly lit to let you really appreciate the shabbiness. They had good beer so we got a table and started drinking. About one or two rounds in, a rat skittered out from behind the clock that stood against the far wall and ran along the crown moulding. It was soon followed by another. The bartender found this amusing as did we all (it WAS around two rounds into the night) and we decided to stay anyway. One rat was dubbed Paul after a late regular of the bar, and the other we named Fema for obvious reasons.

After the bar, we went to a hotel called the Andante which was located right in the downtown area. I had found it before we left and made reservations. The rooms were amazing, each had it's own theme and hand painted murals on the walls. Our bathroom was literally as big as our bedroom, and all the amenities were top notch. Everything was spotlessly, sparklingly clean. And the kicker? Only $93 after taxes! Can you believe that? Right in the middle of San Francisco!!! It was a wonderful place, and I will go back there to stay every time I'm in San Fran.

Anyway, it wasn't that late at the time, and we wanted a pub or someplace to go. I called down to the front desk and the incredibly helpful guy there told us about an Irish bar that was down the street about two blocks. He also told us to stop by the desk so he could tell us where NOT to go. It was at the front desk that I discovered our close proximity to the Tenderloin district. That's the place where there are roving bands of transvestite/transgender/who knows- prostitutes and...whatever wandering about the streets. It was about two blocks east of us. But we saw neither hide nor hair extension of those unsavory characters when we took our stroll down to the Irish pub which was called Lefty O'Douls, and was amazing. Sure the guy at the piano bar couldn't hit his high notes, but the beer was good enough that no one really cared.

As we staggered back up the hill to our hotel, the neon glow of all night diner heaven caught our eyes and we went in for some breakfast...or something. I don't remember what I ate but it was good. Unfortunately i remember neither the name or the ambiance of said diner, but that goes along with the drink.

The next morning we woke up and took a walk up to the nearest cable car stop, pausing along the way at a wonderful grocery store for water. One of the things that stuck me as peculiar (in a good way) on our walk to the cable car was that EVERY single building that lined the streets had a bay window. I guess it's the easiest way to make a small apartment a bit bigger so that the tenants don't remember how paying $1600 a month for a 400 square foot apartment is insane every day they wake up and take the two steps from their bed to their "kitchen." It made for very attractive streets though, that's for sure.

We took the cable car downtown, which was also beautiful and so incredibly clean. We were meeting up with Eli, Barry and Sarah at Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf where we had been instructed by several friends that we HAD to lunch on the clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls that they serve there. We walked from the end of the cable car line to the tram line that ran along the bay. After waiting through three cars that passed us by because they were over crowded, we decided to just walk up to Pier 39. The weather was sunny and a stiff breeze was blowing off the ocean to our right as we made our way up the shore of the bay.

We ate lunch at a small offshoot of the famous Boudin bakery on Pier 39. It was absolutely delicious! The sourdough was milder than we had expected, and the clam chowder was so good that you just had to pause after the first mouth full and look at whoever sat next to you with raised eyebrows. After we were finished we took a walk on the busy tourist trap of a boardwalk that they had created around Pier 39. There was one worthwhile stop though, a fruit stand that had huge figs as well as several other fruits that would be considered exotic here in Pittsburgh, but were standard fair in Cali. Several figs later, we were summoned to the foot of the Pier to meet everyone.

We all walked over to the wharf famous for it's collection of Sea Lions. We spent an amused three quarters of an hour watching their antics from the overlook. They were playing "King of the dock" and pushing each other off and generally stinking and making a lot of noise. The seagulls in this area were also precocious. One especially brash or hungry one literally stole a snow cone out of the hands of a man standing about 20 feet away from us. It swooped down over his shoulder, bashed his head with its wing, and knocked the snow cone from his hands into the bay where it then proceeded to get food out of it. Not the smartest seagull I've ever seen. I wanted to ask the guy how it felt to be mugged by a bird, but I thought that might be in somewhat bad taste so I refrained.

After that we got in the car that Eli was quality testing and drove all up and down the hills of San Francisco including the famous switchback Lombard Street, which was just as steep and curvy as you'd imagine.

We made our way up to Telegraph Hill and Coit's tower which sits on top of it and took some beautiful pictures of the surrounding city and bay. Then we drove over to Saulsalito and made Eli's Volkswagen very unhappy driving up the impossibly steep and twisting roads to get some of the most amazing views of the bay and San Francisco imaginable. I think that if I was nuts enough to buy a house there, I could wake up every single day and look out my front window and never tier of the stunning scenery that I would see, even if I lived to be a hundred years old. Eventually we made our way back down the cliffs and had a wonderful chill drink at a bar on the bay open to the outside. The Sangria was great, the service sucked, but at least they gave us free rounds to make up for the inconvenience of having to ask for the drinks we already ordered. We discussed housing prices and the cost of living all with a subconscious undertone of "what do I have to do with my life to AFFORD this?? Surely there is a way!" while looking at the sailboats bobbing around in the bay.

After drinks we headed back over the bridge to pick up Nicole (Eli's girlfriend) after work. We crammed back into his car and drove over to Japan Town on a quest for Udon Noodles which Jake had been lusting after since before we even left for California. We found a wonderful noodle house in a larger building that housed many other shops that were all mostly closed up and had ourselves a dinner of udon that was indistinguishable from that which I had in Japan. It was wonderful. We then wearily crammed back into Eli's car and drove back down to Palo Alto where we all pretty much passed out. We had an early day the next day because we had to leave with Eli to pick up the rental car we were getting and to regretfully take Sarah to the Airport. We ate lunch at the airport which was, ironically, the first place we really felt we had been gouged price-wise, and began one of the best legs of our journey.

In a burst of pure genius, we had decided to drive down to LA along the Coastal Highway. My dad had forewarned me that if we stopped at every single overlook we'd never make it to LA, and cautioned us to remember that for every beautiful overlook, there would be another four or five down the road within a mile. I didn't really take him seriously because I know myself, and I'm not a serious photographer by any means....but sure enough, we found ourselves stopping at every single place. The first place was amazing. It was a state park beach right where we got onto Route 1. We screwed around there for a good long time taking silly pictures and stuff. After that we found ourselves stopping more often than we probably should have, but everything was so steeped in beauty it was hard to pass by.... Jacob took tons of pics out of the car. I really can't describe it, you'll just have to check out my Picasa pics.

It took from noon till around 11pm to get to John and Emily's in LA and that was with several very long stops, including a wonderful dinner we had in a restaurant on with one of the most beautiful views ever.

John and Emily are friends of ours who graciously put us up for a few days in their amazing North Hollywood apartment. We were pretty tired that night, but we still went to the neighborhood diner where I almost fell asleep at the table. The next day we awoke and decided to go to Santa Monica. My first taste of driving in LA was being stuck on the freeway for over an hour. Go figure. The scenery was nice though, and we were catching up with John. Emily had to go to work, so couldn't make it. When we got to Santa Monica and found parking for $7 for the whole day, we wen ton a quest to find a good Mexican restaurant. There was a lovely promenade lined with boutiques and shops that had a directory and we just looked for any restaurant that began la or el. We walked five blocks to the name we decided on and it ended up being expensive and Italian so we took a random road that Barry suggested back to the promenade and there it was, Border Grill. John made the smart assumption that it was probably not the Canadian Border that they were alluding to so we went in and had one of the best Mexican meals I have ever had. We started out with chips and four different kinds of salsa (all homemade) The waiter stopped by and asked if we would like some Guacamole in a way that implied it was gratis so we agreed. It ended up being pretty expensive guacamole, but it was tasty and had at least four avocados in it. (mmmm avocado) It was a bit overpriced, but I had expected that from it's location. After lunch we wandered up through the shopping promenade and then made our way down to the beach which was dirty but expansive. We walked down to Santa Monica Pier where they had an arcade, carny rides and other things you'd expect from a boardwalk area. We stayed there for a while and admired the view on the pier and then walked back toward shore. We had coffee at an outdoor cafe that reminded me so much of Europe it was amazing, and people watched for a while then began to shop in earnest. There were expensive stores and also some that were really inexpensive. I got things at the inexpensive ones and window shopped at the expensive ones.

It was after dark when we decided to go back to John and Emily's. I was pretty set on the idea of getting changed and going to a club that night, but when I got back and did some research, one of the pervading things I found was that women would get in quickly but guys might not get in at all. The idea of going to a club and not being able to get Barry or Jake in sucked, so we decided not to. Barry, Jacob and I also had a pretty early day the next day because that was the beginning of the event that caused us to go to California in the first place: Freestyles Session. John and Emily eventually convinced Barry to go to this awesome strip club called the Peppermint Rhino or something like that but Jacob and I were so exhausted, we opted for sleep. So we basically had a chill evening in the apartment and drank John and Emily's Stella Artois which they didn't like anyway so we were actually doing them a favor. Really.

The next day was a typical event day. Get up early, load car down with RETARDED amounts of DVDS and go to the venue, which was really really close to where John and Emily lived. We got there at ten, set up shop and proceeded to COMPLETELY PAY FOR OUR TRIP WITHIN THE FIRST HALF OF THE DAY!!!!!!! That's right. That's what we did. There were hundreds of Japanese people there and they all bought like there was never going to be another breakdance DVD ever again.

Barry hobnobbed and we all took turns seeing what was going on at the actual event. And we sold. Oh man did we ever sell. And the best part was, we were out of there at exactly eight o'clock. So we drove back to John and Emily's and found an AMAZING Italian place on Ventura Blvd. I had the best Alfredo ever with three different kinds of mushrooms in it and Jacob had an excellent if rich tortellini dish with saffron and sage sauce. Everything was wonderful and nothing but the wine was over 20 dollars. It was an incredible meal, and afterwards we all went into a nice food coma all night.

We were at the event at 10:30 the next day and did a brisk business pulling in anyone who had not bought from us the previous day. Even those who didn't get anything walked away with posters, stickers, lanyards and loads of other shwag that promoted our site like woah. It was really amazing how many people we reached. The even was amazing. I saw the popping and locking finals and part of the bboy final. Totally amazing.

Afterward, at around 10:30 PM, we met John and went to an In and Out Burger (AMAZING) after which we drove along the sunset strip. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday night and it was totally dead, but against all odds, the Hustler store was open and we walked around there for a while. It was our last night in LA so I wanted to hit up a bar or some sort of nightlife, but being Sunday night, not much was to be had. So we went back to John and Emily's and proceeded to get completely wasted off expertly mixed margaritas courtesy of Barry. Well into the night, John and Jacob decided that they wanted to get some food at the diner and I decided that unless I wanted to share my beautiful boyfriend's body with a bum, I better go along and babysit. Our waitress was a hilarious 50-something woman. When we sat down and got our drinks she left menus, as usual. We BSed and didn't do anything about deciding because we were all a bit tipsy as usual, and then she came back, eyed us up and asked if she should just pretend we didn't exist for a while. In those words. It was hilarious. So we finally decided on stuff just as she began pointedly clearing her throat from behind the counter. Our food was good, I think. Sleep later was even better.

We woke up and had left over margaritas for breakfast and decided to head out to Venice beach to meet up with Eli and Nicole,who had driven down to see us and another of his friends living in LA. It was cool because he somehow made it into a work trip and got paid for mileage and gas. Lucky bastard:) We met in Venice and had a nice but overpriced lunch and then wandered around a bit. I could have stayed there for days but that was impossible. Then we drove back up to John and Emily's and gathered our things and packed the car one last time. Our drive to the Airport was uneventful and we made it with lots of time. Our flight left at 10:50 pm. I had booked it that way on purpose so that we could wring every last drop of experience from our trip possible. It was a lovely last day in the beautiful sun-drenched state where I will soon live. Apparently the view of the LA lights was amazing as we flew out, but I was obliviously asleep on Jacob's lap, which was also not unpleasant.

All in all, our trip was a colossal success, both from a business perspective and a personal one. I found a new goal in life (be able to live in Northern California) and we all had a wonderful experience. Hope you all enjoy the pics. They're Here: Feel free to comment, and to those who were on my trip, feel free to make corrections where needed!

TRIDENTWEBDESIGN.COM!!!!!!!!!!

2007-08-09T18:48:00.000-04:00

Holy Shit folks! The webdesign triumvirate of power has finally agreed on a NAME for our company of awesomeness. It shall be called Tridentwebdesign.com, and it shall be the best comprehensive webdesign company in the WORLD encorporating all three elements of webdesign, Excelent, clean site archetecture, Amazing Graphic Design and Eternal SEO. Congratulations to us future billionaires:) YAY!

The Wall

2007-08-01T10:23:00.000-04:00

There's this wall in my life right now. It is a huge monolithic white limestone wall from hell and right across it, there is the perfect name for a certain web development company. I figured last night that the best way to demolish this wall was to run into it as hard as I could, using my cranium as a nice little buffer for my body. This, unsurprisingly, yielded nothing but frustration. An on the note of frustration, let me talk a little bit about domain parkers.

First, I'll preface my comment by adding that I was not on the ball back in the late '90s when the dross of the entrepreneurial world was accumulating web real estate by the truckloads with a voracity that would put England to shame even back in her colonistic days. No, I was in high school, blissfully unaware that this group of total TOOLBAGS (albeit smart toolbags) was collecting all the names I would someday want more than my next breath and making thousands of pointless, duplicated web pages with them. They did this in order to have someone like myself--a young, innocent, optimistic, doe-eyed little business starter-- come around and buy these domain names for ridiculous, unfair, awfully high prices. To hell with you you smarter-than-me people! I dislike you!

Anyway, back to names. It just makes me shudder that such a small and seemingly insignificant thing as a name can hold up the works to something much much bigger. Maybe it's because of the pressure to find one that the wall is so high. Oh well. Maybe instead of banging my head against it, I'll start looking for handholds. That would be far more intelligent.

First of all, a Rant.

2007-07-25T20:58:00.000-04:00

Ok. So very recently, i put up some pictures on my Myspace Page .

They were pictures of the various things i've done this summer like go rafting. I am wearing a bikini in some of these pictures. I am not, however doing the inane provocative pose that one sees all over myspace in any of them. The day after...the DAY AFTER I posted them I got no less than 15 friend requests from various men.

I admit that I may have been a bit silly in thinking that people want to be "friends" for reasons other than sex. I am increadibly disapointed in (almost ) the whole human race at the moment. Blech. If any of you guys followed my link to this blog, you are summarily dismissed! Out!

GRRRRR!

WORK

2007-07-24T16:29:00.001-04:00

WORK YOU BLASTED A HREF FUCKER!
bboy video

WOW! A whole week later

2007-07-20T13:36:00.000-04:00

I can't BELIEVE I have not yet posted about the fantastic white water rafting trip I took with Jacob and his brother Eric and a bunch of people Eric knows. It was amazeing.

We started out last friday night to this place near Ohiopyle called Tall Oak Campground. It's private so there was much alcohol. I actually brought all the fixings for a Martinis including the shaker and olives. That was hilarious. Campfire Jenga was played which is just...well, it's not a good idea to do when you're in a group of freakin' pyromaniacs.

Rafting the next day was awesome. We covered the seven mile (ish ) bit of the Yaugh that passes through Ohiopyle and probably hit about 6 rapids between class three and five. I was in Erics boat with Jacob and we got through all of them just fine due to their experiance. One of the other rafts capsized at one point though and there were several tense minutes waiting at the bottom of the rapids area for everyone to be ok or not....Everyone did end up being ok by the way, just cold and shaken. The rest of the trip was exhilarating and went off without capsizing.

On the way back to the campsite, Eric's Jeep sort of broke down, but one of his friends fixed it in a very Macgyver-ish fashion, so that was ok too.

Has anyone ever noticed that food just tastes better when you're camping? 'Cause it really really does.

Anyway, anyone interested in seeing some really awesome pics can go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/christina.keffer/FantasticRafting

The pictures actually turned out GREAT.

Thanks Jake and Eric for an awesome time!

Photos from Texas

2007-07-11T12:07:00.000-04:00

Here are some highlights from the trip. I will eventually get a pic feed on this blog, I swear.

http://picasaweb.google.com/christina.keffer/TexasHilights

A few more words on insane masochism

2007-07-06T18:44:00.000-04:00

Ouch. Really, really ouch, but totally totally worth it.
5 Day Camping Trip=Ultimate Success
1 Day at Jake's= Mmmm awesome.
1 Five o'clock morning= Lived through
1 Delicious meal at a place called the Taco Hut near Houston TX, AWESOME
Rest of the trip: Looking like it's gonna be pretty fun. Now, excuse me while I go be social, I'll fill in more detales of the past adventures soon.
Oh and check out the pictures from the trip at http://picasaweb.google.com/christina.keffer/2007CanoeExtraveganza02
For the time being, though I will be posting them in a much more ordered fashion here soon. Lots of love to all who are reading this! Later!

A few comments on insane masochism.

2007-06-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

Today, I woke up and tumbled out of my bed for the last time in the next 11 days. The following five days will be spent on the ground (albeit padded by the sleeping pad Chad so nicely decided to lend me.) and the following six days will be spent anywhere from Johnstown, PA to Texas. Why have I put two rigerous trips back to back, allowing myself no time at all to rest in between? The reasons are as follows:

1. Life is too damn short to take the physical discomfort of the body into account when making plans to make said life more interesting.

2. The chance to go on a five day canoe trip that I neither had to organize, nor motivate people to participate in may only come around once or twice in my life. Am I going to pass it up just because I'll be all achey and sore for the wedding in Texas? Hells no I'm not. Good lord.

3. "But Christina," you may say, "You have two days between camping and leaving for texas with which to recoup your strength before leaving for Texas. Why not spend it sleeping in your soft, comfortable bed?" BAH I say to you! Bah! I will not rest! I will train horsies and then visit Jacob! That is what I will do and I laugh in defiance in the face of your pragmatism! Because of what worth is mere sleep when I could instead be making headway in multiple areas of drunken debauchery and web design in Johnstown? The answer, I tell you is none.

So. Take that body! Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and you'll have to be damn strong to house this fine mind that just managed to justify a punishing two weeks with very little trouble.

Hmmmmmmmm

2007-06-25T13:59:00.000-04:00

I wonder if by posting this i will upload a new version of the template that has my tracking snippet in it...Interesting questions...

When Lawyer sues lawyer, who wins? The lawyers? Hardly.

2007-06-19T15:28:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe.

Seems that this genius made a website ranking his fellow sharkeys "algorithmically" for the quality of their services. Really Mark Brittan? You're going to build a website that actually ranks other lawyers? And you're gonna rank YOURSELF too? REALLY?

3 reasons this is a bad idea:

#1. Dude, you're going to get sued. Do you really expect your colleagues to sit quietly by and watch themselves get ranked under the "Extreme Caution" Category? The only person who needs to use extreme caution is you because I'm sure they're sharpening their knives at this moment.

#2. DUDE YOU'RE GOING TO GET SUED!!! What about that 40 year old pissed of divorcee who used you're rating as the basis on which to choose the lawyer that was supposed to protect his investments and his house from the money-grabbing beotch who ceased being arm candy at 25? An algorithm that rates disbarred and imprisoned lawyers above other people doesn't really fill me with a lot of hope for that guy's case. And who is he gonna go after to recoup his losses? Hmmmmmm?

#3. Have you ever used Google? They've got the best ranking algorithms in the business, and even THEIR results are skewed and often illogical. What makes you think you can do better at algorithmic ranking than Matt Cutts? Did you even bother to take yourself out of your own algorithm? Or is that you sitting pretty with an "excellent" rating on your own website?

In my humble opinion, a lawyer putting up a ranking site for other lawyers belongs gets whatever equivalent of the Darwin award there is for financial stability, mental health and/or professional growth. Good luck Mark Britton. You're going to need it.

Shakedown Cruise for Sarcastic Incredulity

2007-06-11T18:41:00.001-04:00

There have been a lot of things lately that beg the question "really?" delivered in a suitably scathing and irascible way. So I decided today to throw my two cents into the fountain of verbosity and air my general good humored malcontent.

Does anyone care what I have to say? The only thing more prevelant than my disbelief that anyone cares what I think, is the apathy which I feel when I entertain the question.

For instance, there are probably very few people indeed who are interested in the article about web latency (how long it takes google to pick up your new website) that I just read at Search Engine Watch, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway, because I think it's interesting.

But for now, I'm going to save this post and see what it looks like on my bright and shiny new blog which was it's primary purpose in the first place. For more about latency, stay tuned.