Testing Flock blogging…
Well, the day has come, I insinuated that it would, and now it has. My blog is moving, again. I hope y’all love me enough to change your bookmarks. I know, I’m a pain in the ass, but the good news is that I don’t see my blog moving again for a long time. So, no worries.
You can now find me here.
Kristyn
Well, hell! Today was the last day of walking and much to my chagrin I don’t feel much of a sense of victory at having made it to the end. To be honest, all I feel is pain. My ankle is killing me. I managed to walk 3/4 of the timed mile, and though the coach said that I’m okay for my grade, I hurt. I’m thinking I may have a hairline fracture, though it could be sprained, strained, or bruised. Either way, it hurts like hell and so I’m going to the Quack Shack today to have it looked at. The Quack Shack is my schools student health center, and I have no idea why they call it that, nor do I care. My appointment is at 10:30am and they tell me they don’t have an xray machine so they’ll not be able to tell me if it’s broken for sure. But, hopefully the dr. there will be able to tell me something! Maybe, just maybe, they can even give me some drugs for the pain, that would be awesome.
Otherwise, I have a bowling final today at 1:00pm. It’s just a test, and if it’s anything like the first one, it shouldn’t be hard. Then again, if I couldn’t pass a bowling test, I’d just hang it all up, I’m tellin’ ya. So when that’s done, school will be out for this semester. I have never been so glad to see a semester go! I have a whole new appreciation not only for my acedemics courses, but also for physical education majors. Granted, it’s not mentally taxing, but it is physically challenging. I suppose we just all have our strengths, mine, without a doubt, is mental. Not to say that I’m a super genius, I’m not. But I am smart. So there!
Okay, I’m off to get ready for my “doctors” appointment with the Quack Shack. Toodles.
Kristyn
I was in Waco recently and Amanda and I had IHOP. I love IHOP. When I first met Matt we used to go to the IHOP in the middle of the night and have pancakes and coffee and just talk; soak up our time together. Living in Stephenville, there’s no IHOP in sight, not something I’m pleased about, by the way. When Amanda and I went into the IHOP I looked around and something wasn’t right. Other than the fact that it was a new IHOP on New Road, rather than the old standby on University Parks, there wasn’t a smoking section. I asked her, “do they have smoking?” She looked at me for a minute before shaking her head, her reply, “Waco is non-smoking now, remember?” It’s been too long, I hadn’t remembered. I’m not a big smoker, it’s strictly a social activity for me, but Amanda smokes.
When I first came to Waco, to visit Matt, before I moved to Texas, he and I went to eat at Johnny Carino’s. I had never even heard of Johnny’s but I love it, they have the best Italian hands down. We went in, and the smiling, shiny hostess with perfect hair asked us, “Smoking or non?” I just stood and looked at her for a long minute, then I turned my questioning gaze on Matt. He smiled, put his hand on my back, and said, “Smoking.” The girl showed us to our table, in the smoking section. I grew up in California, smoking in public in California is not only against the law, it’s totally taboo.
Now, don’t get me wrong, California doesn’t lock you up for having a cigarette on the sidewalk…yet. They’re very anti-smoking, though. I was driving down the side of highway 215 into Riverside once when I spotted a billboard that said, “At least you can still smoke in your car” and had showed only half the pack of Winston’s, so it said “Wins…” Apparently, it’s also illegal to show the image of a cigarette logo. So, smoking in restaurants never even occurred to me, as I was very young when the non-smoking laws took effect. Neither of my parents smoke, unless you consider my daddy’s pipe smoking. Hence my surprise when I came to Texas, 20 years old, and they’re asking me “smoking or non.”
Several years after I had moved to Waco, some locals pulled a nasty trick and got non-smoking on the ballot. Now, it’s not completely non-smoking, after the initiative passed restaurants have a month or so to outfit their restaurants with a whole separate room, with separate ventilation for smokers. Apparently, smokers are the new lepers. The initiative was set up by a local restaurant owner to drive business to his place -which has since gone out of business. This stupid non-smoking law actually put the local Pancho’s out of business. The draw to Pancho’s was that you could have all you can eat Tex-Mex and smoke. It was brilliant, until non-smoking.
When we moved to Stephenville two years ago, we were able to smoke in restaurants again. So, we actually started eating in restaurants again. You see, when the non-smoking law passed in Waco, Matt started boycotting all restaurants that were non-smoking. Imagine how I suffered! All my favorite places were now off-limits, except Johnny’s and Red Lobster and only on special occasions. Matt sees it as an affront to his human rights.
Things have changed so much. There’s definitely a problem when you can’t smoke in Texas. What’s next, outlawing bar-b-que? I can’t even seem to keep strait where smoking is allowed, and where it’s not. All I know is that smoke is strictly off limits in California. At least they’re unified on that front. Smoking laws differ city to city here. I really hate to see things change like this. I love Texas, though I don’t care much for most “southern ethics.” I’ve had some of the best times of my adult life in Texas and to see these changes makes me yearn for the old days. The days when Matt and I used to just go to the park, or to our favorite haunt, IHOP, and talk all night.
Carpe Noctem, seize the night! Smoking and IHOP represented my happiness, and you can’t even smoke in IHOP anymore.
Kristyn
Okay so here’s the deal, I thought I could live without scripts, but I can’t. Oh the shame. I began my illustrious blogging career with Blogger and I used that platform for three years before I decided enough was enough. Blogger is good, don’t get me wrong, I just needed something more, hence my change to wordpress. WordPress is an all inclusive program, it does nearly everything for you, and has functions Blogger doesn’t, such as the ability to password protect posts. Unfortunately, WordPress.com is not customizable beyond their awesome widget system. I need customizable features, I have to have them, it’s shallow, I know.
So, in an endeavor to find that customizability I so crave, I’m going to be making a change in the foreseeable future. No, I’m NOT going back to Blogger, but I am going somewhere else. I’ve been turning over the idea of hosting my blog under my own domain name, the one I want is available, and if I purchase server space I can use WordPress.org and get customizability. Also, if I got my own server space, which is really inexpensive, I could host a photoblog, etc.
The question now is where should I go? If anyone has any suggestions as to which host I should look into, let me know, I’m really at a loss here. I’m considering Blue Host, WordPress recommends them. Another problem for me is I’m just the slightest bit dumb where setting all this up is concerned, so something that’s user friendly would be helpful.
Thanks guys!
KristynMarie
Someone I love dearly told me recently that she listens to 50’s feel good music when she’s down and it makes her feel better. I admit it, I’ve been feeling particularly low this week, so I decided to try to her trick. I love Fat Boy Slim’s ‘Weapon of Choice,” I particularly love the video. Christopher Walken is hilarious, he’s an awesome actor, and most people have no idea that he attended Juliard. Christopher Walken is a dancer. So, I watched the video a few times to make myself feel better and it definetly made me smile. So, in the future, I’m going to try this again. Thanks for the suggestion girly!
I was going to put the video up here, but apparently embeded code doesn’t work on wordpress.com. Yet another reason I’m going to have to try to get my own website with wordpress.org. So if y’all want to watch the video that makes me smile, click here.
UPDATE: I was reading the WordPress.com Forum’s and came across this arbitrarily. I found that I can indeed put up vids, it’s just a matter of messing with the code. Woot! So now you can click the vid from my blog…and it’s only a few days late.
KristynMarie
First things first, a huge, resounding thanks to everyone who left me comments on the last post! It’s great to know that I’m not alone where my feelings for the BTE’s are concerned. Now, onto other things before I risk becoming one of those people who doesn’t update regularly.
RANT ON: I’ve been getting spam comments out the wazoo! Is it wordpress? Does it attract the evil spam? I don’t recall getting this much spam on Blogger, or any spam on blogger for that matter. Lucky for me, wordpress thought of it and uses Askimet to solve the problem. The issue I have with Askimet is that it’s not completely accurate when judging what is and is not spam. So, I have to check the spam tab on my wordpress often to make sure that comments I actually want don’t end up being junked –Askimet apparently thought that several of NN’s comments were junk, but I saved them in time. Spam is making me nuts! What the hell is wrong with people who send this crap? Do they not realize that no one reads spam? They’re wasting their time and trying my nerves! Nothing pisses me off like comment/email spam! RANT OFF.
Okay, so I did so much bitching about the exercise class and my desire to drop it that I feel like I own y’all an update. I’m still enrolled, and we’re several days past the drop date. I have to finish it our, I’ve no other choice. Finish or fail. Lately, I’ve been feeling so beaten up, failing sounds like a viable option. Well, okay, I hate to fail, but this is rediculous. On top of my pure and utter hatred for this class, I have a badly swollen ankle! I have no idea what the heck I did to it, but my left ankle hurts like hell. So, I’m going to walking and limping around and doing my best to participate. Luckily there are only 3 days left. I can do it, only 3 days to go! I’m so excited that I’m almost done. I’ve never been so happy to see the end of anything, save perhaps for algebra, but come on you can only take a class so many times before passing it becomes your only priority!
So, that’s what’s new on my end. Oh, one more thing. It would seem that my in-laws have forgotten my birthday. Sheesh, what the heck is wrong with them? I’d bet good money that they didn’t forget Jessica’s birthday (my sister-in-law; the hubby’s step-brother’s wife). I’m shaking my head.
On that note, I’m off to cook dinner and find some ice for my ankle. Hope life with everyone is awesome. I know I’m slacking in the comment department guys, I’m sorry, I’ve been really busy. I hope to be caught up this weekend.
KristynMarie
Traffic exchanges, comments, & bad blogging karma
Published July 24, 2006 Blogging , Popular Posts 24 CommentsWell, after an awesome birthday, I woke up today feeling like total shit. I’m almost positive I ate something bad at some point yesterday and I’ve missed class today, which is making me feel worse. So, in an attempt to forget that I’m feeling terrible, I’ve been surfing blogs on Blogmad. Using these traffic exchanges always makes me think about the blogosphere as a whole. It seems that Blogmad, Blogexplosion, Blog advance and the like are taking over the net! Everyone uses them, I’ve come across several of my regular haunts on these exchanges; WordPress tells me I get a LOT of hits per day and most of them are exchange traffic. I suppose I’m wondering how many of you actually use traffic exchanges?
When I’m surfing around, trying to earn credits for traffic, I do my best to read (almost) every blog I come across. The failing of these exchanges is that they tend to show the same blog repeatedly, which annoys the hell out of me. Now, I’ll admit that I’m guilty of not reading financial blogs and while I give my all to reading “geek” blogs, I’m usually at a loss as to what the heck they’re rambling on about. My personal favorite is “personal” blogs. I love to read about the lives of others, and if it makes me a web voyeur, so be it! I only have one life, and frankly I don’t feel like it’s interesting enough. I can’t be everywhere, living everyone’s lives, so reading about others is my way of becoming more worldly, one blog at a time.
One of the blogs I ran across this morning, the name of which I cannot recall for the life of me, was talking about breaking your blog in, comments, and hate mail. After reading it over, I felt a little disappointed. I’ve never gotten hate mail, so does that mean that my blog isn’t “broken in”? If it does, then someone send me hate mail, I’m waiting. No, really, please don’t. Hate mail means you’ve angered someone, and while I don’t necessarily care if others are offended by my ideas, I’d hate to think I’d driven someone to writing something nasty and hateful and wasting that ten minutes they’ll never be able to get back to write something that I’m just going to junk.
So a question…Do those of you who use traffic exchanges read the blogs your surfing or do you just click past to earn credits? I, personally, believe it’s bad blogging karma. For every blog you just click past without so much as consideration, someone is going to do that to yours. I get lots of hits per day (when I bother to surf for traffic) and I don’t get anywhere near enough comments to satisfy the number of hits. So, just for shits and giggles, if youre reading this, leave me a comment.
Wonder how many I’ll actually get??
KristynMarie
Happy Birthday to Me!!
Published July 23, 2006 Family & Friends , Memories , Summer , fun 3 Comments
Today was my 28th Birthday! I think I mentioned that I was having a really good birthday several days ago, and things have only gotten better. Matt got me a bowling ball, Amanda got me a tackle box for my dice collection. When I woke up this morning at 7am, yes 7am, I was not pleased that I was awake so early, but I was in a good mood none the less. I mean, hey, you only get one birthday a year, right?! Everyone was awake, but shortly after I got up they went back to sleep. It was nice to have some quiet time to just play my game, and both Matt and Amanda hadn’t gotten enough sleep to be up that early, I had.
I spent the morning playing World of Warcraft. My character, Maeleigh, made maximum level today, level 60! It’s awesome to have leveled her so high on my birthday! Ooh, sorry, I get carried away with the game chatter if I’m not careful.
We had Cici’s pizza for lunch and then Amanda had to go home. Matt and I watched some movies, including ‘Hostel,’ ‘Saw II,’ and ‘The Family Stone.’ When the movies were over, Matt decided he’d bake me a birthday cake, rather than buying me one. It was really, really, really sweet! So, while I went out to dinner for my b-day with Melanie, Matt baked me a cake. I made the icing, but the cake came out really, really well. I have to say, it’s the nicest thing Matt has ever done for me! He’s an awesome husband!
Mel and I went to a local Bar & Grill called Bull Nettle. It was great, she bought me a birthday cake and pink candles –she knows how much I LOVE pink!! She also bought me this awesome little clock I’ve been wanting from Wal-Mart and a pair of silver heart ear rings.
Otherwise, my wonderful family bought me a gift card for iTunes, which I love. Music, music, music!! They’ve given me the gift of groove! 
Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday already! I hope all of you had an awesome weekend. I’m off to bed, I’m feeling a little sick, and I have school in the morning. Good night !!
Kristyn
I was outside with Anakin this morning, I’m trying, once again, to potty train the stupid mutt (and by mutt I mean stupid dog, rather than mixed breed). So, I’m standing on the steps, which are wet from the morning showers, and Ani is sniffing around when these two strange looking people approach me. They look too normal for their own good and don’t live in the neighborhood, so I’m thinking “great, church people.” Sure enough, they were church people. I have nothing against church people, except when they show up on my door and try to make me go to their church. I don’t force my beliefs on them, I don’t show up at their houses and tell them what I think, why should they do the same to me? I’ve noticed that more and more protestant churches are doing it these days, it’s not just Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons anymore.
So I’m particularly grumpy in the mornings, I suck at waking up, and they tell me that their from a local church and they’re going door to door in our neighborhood looking for people who want their kids to go to church in the mornings. I just looked at them, could they be serious? They’re looking for people willing to trust their kids to perfect strangers every Sunday morning, simply because these people say their from a church. Oh my god, in a world where Amber Alert is a household word, what the hell would possess people to do this?
I tell them, “I don’t have any kids, I have a dog, so no thanks.” This was very nice for me in the morning, I have restraint with strangers, even with church solicitors who are looking to find children. But, they didn’t go away, they tried to get me to go to their church. “Do you go to church?” they ask, and not that it’s any of their business but I said, very simply, “no.” So they tell me where I can find their church, as though they think I just haven’t found the right church yet. What they don’t get is that “no” means I don’t want to go to ANY church. So I nod, and rub my eyes still trying to wake up, and send them to the house next door where they have like 10 kids (probably not literally, but it seems that way).
This morning has reminded me why I hate people sometimes. I have a renewed cynicism. How the heck can they think people are going to just say, “oh, sure, here’s little johnny, you can take him now.” Jeez!! They’ll be lucky if people don’t punch them in the nose and call the police. If I had kids, I’d probably call the cops.
I just saw the people walking the other way down the street, wonder if they found anyone to give them their children?
KristynMarie
