erica's joys :)

Yaaaaaay, long weekend! Please be safe with your fireworks and don't start any forest fires.

Here's a quick fireworks/forest fire story:

When I was about 13, my parents had this huge 4th of July party at our house in Alaska. We lived in interior Alaska (North Pole) and the climate is extremely dry there. The area is also very full of trees. As you can imagine, dry+trees+fireworks=bad. Very bad.

I'm getting ahead of myself though, as I was saying, the parents threw a mean 4ofJ party and everybody decided to go out back to the lake (gravel pit) and shoot off fireworks. Nevermind all the dry trees around, the fireworks were going to be pointed towards the water so no worries, right? You guessed it...very wrong.

So apparently, you cannot direct where fireworks go, no matter where you point them. Sometime during the fireworks fun, we noticed smoke and some crackling sounds. Someone yelled fire and all I remember after that is running extremely fast and jumping over one of my little brothers friends (also running) to get to the house to call the fire department. Turns out someone already called 911 so I just stood there on the back porch/deck looking at the fire.

The adults managed to get the fire put out before the fire department arrived but that didn't stop them from citing my dad and giving him 24 hours of community service and a $500 fine. I don't think I need to tell you what the moral of this story is.

Speaking of burning, I just switched the RSS and ATOM feeds to point to Feedburner. I was/am trying to figure out how many people actually care about what I write but don't want to comment. I have the feeling that some just subscribe to see if I post anything about my job. If that's you, trust me, you're pretty much wasting your time. Outside of "Hey look at this cool feature/product," you won't see anything about work in here. Well maybe I'll mention what I had for lunch occasionally (the miso soup was outstanding today btw).

So I just got back from watching The Devil Wears Prada a little while ago. Meryl Streep was outstanding. I read the book a while ago and I'm glad I forgot most of it. Not that it wasn't a good book, mind you, just that I always feel a big letdown when I watch a movie that's been adapted from a book I've read. Forgetting the book helped me to enjoy the movie, I believe.

Last but not least, I will be celebrating the second iteration of my 25th birthday in exactly 1 month. For the occasion I will party in Cauli-fornia then get on a plane and party in Atlanta. Paris Hilton eat your heart out. If you'd like to be reminded about my birthday, use this:

Once again have a good and SAFE weekend everybody.