Shelby's Life and Whatnot

My New 'Do

So I finally got around to cutting my hair. I chopped about 5 inches off! I'm in a bad place with my bangs still. I used to wear them straight across my forehead but got tired of that style so I decided to do something different. However, I didn't consult a hair professional before that, so I just trimmed them myself, straight across again. I'm actually very good at trimming my own hair in a straight line--even my old stylist said she couldn't tell I'd done them myself. Unfortunately, it was the wrong thing to do for side-parted bangs, since now one side really, really needs to grow out and it's going to take a while. Damn.

Anyway, as a result I've been pinning my bangs back with a clip because I can't deal with them in my eyes at work. My new style also incorporates the side bangs and I may have to pin them back too for a month or so because they're long enough to stay on their own. Oh well.

I got a new stylist. I'd been seeing Kim, my mom's stylist and the one who did my hair all throughout high school, but she is up in Palos Verdes and it's just hard to get out there (45 min. away without traffic) in time for an appointment, especially with my work schedule. She kept saying, "You really need to find someone in Orange County." So a friend of mine from the internet recommended TriKo Salon in Newport Beach and I made an appointment. I was thrilled! My stylist Jaime was awesome--we really hit it off and she had great ideas for my hair. I'm very thrilled with my cut. So here are the old pictures, and the new 'do is in the extended entry.

Old front:

Old back:

New front:

New back:

It's Hot

It's strangely humid here. I know compared to the rest of the country this isn't humid at all, but dammit, I don't live in the rest of the country! If I wanted humidity I'd move to FLORIDA! Nothing else to report beyond that, sadly. I headed over to Disney's California Adventure after work today with some co-workers. A good time was had by all.

More Good News from the Cardiologist

It's your favorite intermittant blogger!

I had a visit to the cardiologist today. Everything still looks good. My ejection fraction is still 50% (normal is 55-60%), left ventricle only slightly dilated, and a very minor mitral valve prolapse. My blood test results were peachy too. Apparently my cholesterol is "Fantastic." Blood pressure and heart rate are good. She's pleased by how much weight I've lost. All in all it was a good visit. I go back in 7 months.

Looks Phishy To Me

How phish-savvy are you? Do you know what phish is? Phishing is a method by which people on the internet attempt to get your personal information by setting up fake websites and emails to trick you into handing over your information. McAfee set up a nice quiz to test your phish-detecting skills and explain the tricks scammers use to get your information. I scored a 10 out of 10! Go me!

Go take the quiz yourself.

Unfortunately, the site doesn't render correctly in Firefox, so Mozilla users are going to have to dust off that old IE shortcut.

The Last Harry Potter

I finished it.

It was good.

That's all I'll say ;).

A Real Fan

Now this pug is a REAL Olivia Newton-John fan!

I Heart Camping!

Our camping trip was awesome. Pismo Beach was a great place to camp and the weather really cooperated. The food was great, as food cooked outdoors always is (except for dehydrated backpacking food--that sucks). The showers were decent and the bathrooms were also decent. On the whole I had a great time.

We're Going Camping!

Yes, it's true. We're going camping. Camping is a concept the Rosiak family is, on the whole, entirely unfamiliar with. To say that my parents aren't campers is putting it mildly. When I did backpacking at Girl Scout camp, my parents thought, "Where did this 'love of the outdoors' come from? Surely not from us!"

As my dad will be quick to point out, we have been camping. Once. It went like this--we stayed the night in someone else's RV. Shortly thereafter, Dad got pneumonia. Clearly the pneumonia was caused by the "camping" and therefore we should never ever go camping again, ever, lest someone just DIE or something.

We also did a sort-of camping kind of thing. That is, we ended up sleeping in our minivan one night. We had been staying in a lovely resort just outside of Yosemite. Unfortunately, there were some fires in Yosemite, as happens every once in a while, so we had to drive around to a different entrance to go inside. While we were there blissfully hiking or biking or whatever ridiculous "getting back to nature" activity we were doing, the fire moved around and the forest service closed all entrances (hence, exits) to Yosemite Valley, which is where we were. Obviously everyone else got wind of this before we did, because once we found out, there was not a hotel room, cabin, or tent to be had. And there we were with our minivan--just miles away from our cozy Yosemite resort.

Brad and I tried to remain light-hearted, but when your parents' idea of "roughing it" is a Motel 6, it's not so easy. We lined up in the parking lot with dozens of other unfortunate people who probably liked camping a lot more than we did, and did our best to fall asleep. We were awoken at some ungodly hour in the morning by a forest ranger, who was directing the evacuation of the valley. We managed to get out, although not entirely unscathed. Dad, who slept in the driver's seat, had his foot wedged so tightly under the brake pedal he wasn't able to walk for a while. Mom was grumpy because her curling iron wouldn't plug into the cigarette lighter. I felt okay, because I'm short and able to stretch reasonably out on the back seat of the minivan.

Almost as fun was the horseback riding trip we took, after which Dad swore he'd never come within a hundred yards of a horse again. Wimp. Let's just say we've had better vacations.

At any rate, we are joining a longstanding camping tradition for a particular wine event. We'll be camping with a couple of other couples from the wine group, which will be very fun. I hope. I'm not crazy about the idea of paying for a shower with quarters and walking in the dark to go to the bathroom, but I think it should be really fun. At least there will be wine.

My Hair

Well my hair is the longest it's been since high school. Actually, I think it may be even longer than it was in high school, which would make it the longest it's ever been. Now I think I want to get rid of it. Don't worry, I'm not going to shave it off and get atrocious weaves. I just think I need something more manageable. Our store can get hot when it gets crowded, so wearing it down is a pain, but putting it up every day is also a pain. I'm 100% in favor of maintenance-free hair. I've also been growing out my bangs but they're kind of scruffy and look like I stepped out of the late 80s. Those just need a bit of a trim and perhaps a layer or two. The rest...well, I'm not so sure about. The problem is that my hair needs to be convertible-proof. That is, it either needs to be short enough so that it doesn't blow around in my face when I'm driving with the top down, or long enough so that I can pull it back to prevent it from blowing around in my face when I'm driving with the top down. Oh the dilemma! My hair takes a long time to grow out--it's been a good 2 years for this length--so chopping it off is always traumatic. However, it's just hair, and I plan to have a couple more years ahead of me to grow it out, so...

Stay tuned.

Poor Possum

Last year we had a baby possum who ate the grapes off of our vines on our fence. We were concerned because possum+dog=not so good, but he was always out of reach. He was pretty cute, too. So this year he's been hanging around again. Well, we think it's the same possum at least.

Although I should say it was the same possum, since he is now flattened in the street outside of our house. Poor thing. We've got some jerks who drive through our street at a gazillion miles an hour and I'm quite sure he was just run over without a second thought.

Naturally this would happen on a Friday evening. It looks like animal control wouldn't be available to come pick him up until Monday. Aside from the gross factor of having a dead possum in the street, it would be impossible to try to walk either dog past him, as they would tear your arm off trying to get to him and, I don't know, roll in him? Eat him? Whatever.

Unfortunately, we've decided that Kevin should take matters into his own hands, so he's out there bagging up the remains. Maybe this will discourage the trash pickers this week.

So, What Have You Been Doing These Past 15 Years?

Well I had a super-cool lunch today! A very old friend had contacted me a couple of weeks ago and we thought we'd get together and reconnect. We finally got a chance to do so today, and it was wonderful. Helen and I had actually been campers together at Girl Scout Camp (actually, counselors-in-training) at ages 15 and 16 and then worked 2 summers as staff together. Then I went off to my college ways and she went off to hers and we just kind of gradually drifted apart. So I was a bit surprised on my birthday when I got an email that said, "Hey, I have here in my calendar that it's your birthday, so I thought I'd look you up! How are you?" As it turns out, she lives right nearby in Irvine. I got a little bit lost meeting her, which is no surprise, since I could even get myself lost meeting her across the street. But once we met it was one of those situations where it feels like we'd never left. Except for that whole, "So, recount your entire adult life to me." Hee hee. Anyway, it was great to see her--yay for old friends!

The Poor Prius, She Is Dead

We have a long and glorious history in this family of having catastrophes while one is away. However, this past weekend, Kevin took the cake.

The short story is that everyone's okay. The long story is that the Prius is absolutely, completely, and utterly totaled. Kevin got in a huge wreck and then had a heckuva time trying to track me down. I was up with Wendy at her camp which is out of reach of cell phones. We had been out and about all day and so had not gotten the 1) cell phone message Kevin left for me, 2) email my dad sent to me and Wendy, and 3) voice mail from Wendy's office saying that "your friend's husband called and I didn't want to give him your home number." It wasn't until Kevin looked up our old phone bills that he found Wendy's home number.

I guess we really should make a list of emergency phone numbers, hunh?

At any rate, Kevin got rear-ended on the freeway, although he was going with the flow of traffic, around 60-65 mph, and there was no stop-and-go or slowing down. Some guy slammed into him from behind, which pushed him over to the carpool lane where he was again slammed into by a mid-size truck (kind of that gray area between pickup and big rig). Unbelievably (you'll understand what I mean when you see the pictures), Kevin, his dad (front passenger seat) and his brother (rear right-hand seat) were completely uninjured. Kevin sustained a large, ugly bruise and a contusion from the airbag (we presume)--Ken, my father-in-law, walked away completely unscathed, and Zach, my brother-in-law, hit his head and was evaluated at the hospital with no major injury.

You won't believe the car. Seriously. Looking at the pictures, it's amazing that anyone walked away from that accident. The thing that I found most striking about the pictures is that once you get past the damage, the pictures of the passenger cabin are almost completely intact. Aside from the deployed air bags, you can hardly tell there was an accident at all. If anyone says that the Prius isn't a safe car, they're wrong. I put a teaser picture in the extended entry, but for the whole shebang and the link to more pictures, you'll have to visit Kevin's blog post on the subject.

Our poor car!

The Funniest 5 Seconds on the Internet