Whirlwind

Happy May Day. I was thinking this morning that May really kicks off the summer, even if it isn't technically summer yet. And I thought to myself, hey, May starts up the tornado season, and that means summer to my mind. Eerily enough, we've been having a little bit of tornadic action this afternoon. As we speak we've had two official warnings (still under one actually), and the sirens have gone off three times. I went down this last time to try and get a look, because the radar showed the edge of the storm passing over us. Of course, people being people, others had the same idea, and a guy informed me that a funnel cloud had been spotted over town. I'm looking at the sky, and I'm not seeing a funnel cloud (I am a certified Skywarn spotter, so I know what to look for), but I'm guessing that we were looking at the wall cloud. I snapped a couple of pictures of the gnarliness.

Also, I have to admit that my eyesight is not super fantastic right now. I've needed new a new prescription since December-ish, but didn't have the funds and now hardly have the time. Which is odd considering how important your sight is. Brian Regan says it best, "How can instantly improved vision not be at the top of your To Do list? Should I go get contacts today? Nah, I got a sock drawer to sort!"

Ok, Tornado sirens round four, the excitement continues! Back in a bit.

....

Back again. More storms rolled through, "it was all sound and fury signifying nothing". Still the occasional bit of thunder, hour and a half later, even though most everything seems to have gone past.

:::::Other news, I had a voice mail from the District Manager last night letting me know that my vacation request had been approved. My last promotion gave me two weeks after a working it for a year. So for 2007 I had two weeks, but wasn't eligible for them until about mid-December. Meaning that I'd have to take them both together during the last half of December. Not entirely a bad thing, I know. I decided to take a week off in October (paid or not) when Julia and I are going to hang out with Mark when he visits our hemisphere. It's only two months before I'm eligible for my vacation, so I was hoping they wouldn't be a bunch of asshats about it. Happily, I got approval, so the week of October 15th I'll be getting paid to do a whole bunch of awesome non-work stuff.

:::::Also, the other day I created a character and submitted it to the Make Your Own Venture Brothers Villain Contest . I didn't find out about it until about two days before the deadline. I whipped a character up in a couple hours Sunday night, just before deadline. The moderator really liked my character, and I won second place in the first round. I'm not sure what that means, or what the grand prize is since nothing about 'round 2' has been posted yet.

:::::Warning, Shopping ahead: Julia and I went shopping Sunday. I was hoping to find something to wear to my cousin's wedding this Saturday. We went to a couple shops, Fashion Bug was a bust the first time, although I did get a top when we walked back over. We also went to a place called Dress Barn. The first time I went there, years ago, they only had old-lady dresses and shapeless caftan looking things. Their stock has much improved, they had some pretty cute stuff. Of course, the dress in the window we thought was really cute was the only one they had of it and not in my size. I probably tried on a dozen dresses, and didn't get any of them. There were a couple I really liked, but nothing felt right.

There was a red dress (a little too flashy). A black dress (not really good for a wedding), I still want to go back and get it, but it is eighty dollars and I don't have a reason for getting it. I really liked it though, and so rarely do I try on something and think "this is awesome, I must have this". Ok, that never happens. I tried on a black skirt and white top w/embroidery. The top came with a jacket that must have weighed five pounds! The white jacket made me feel like James Bond, if James Bond were female, and American, and...never mind, you get the idea.

We even used my camera to take pictures for comparison so that I wouldn't have to keep trying things back on. I read the idea in a magazine, and it's a super good one if you have a bunch of stuff to try on, or a bunch of different shops to visit.
We also learned that a lot of shops close up early (6pm) on Sunday. Wtf? This was highly irritating. Why does everything shut down early on Sunday evening? I mean, church is in the moring, so.....then we wandered over to Target (which was actually still open) and tried on some more clothes. I picked up a nice navy wrap dress, so between that and the new shirt I bought I guess I'll figure something out for Saturday.