Bob the Bat

This little guy was seen flying around the third floor of Centaur for the past few days. After day three he was found slowly crawling around the floor, so we were able to capture him and take him to the animal rescue place.

UPDATE: 4 days after the bat was taken to Austin Wildlife Rescue we phoned them to see how the bat was doing. They said he was very dehydrated when he came in but they gave him lots of water (which he drank a lot of) and food (which he ate a lot of), but there were no other problems. The bat is in the hands of bat rehab specialists and will be released back to the wild shortly.

Worlds Colliding?

I have recently discovered some long lost friends on Facebook, and because of my friendships in the past, I have decided to post a little tidbit of my past here on my blog. So why is this post called "Worlds Colliding?" Well, whenever your 16 year old life comes back into contact with your 27 year old life, the people who knew you then are bound not to know you as well now. And your friends now are bound to say "you did what when you were in high school?" So here it goes.

This is me. Well this is me, my mom and my dad. I was about 8 years old in this photo and it was right around the time that I found one of my greatest pleasures of my childhood... Magic. No not like the card game, like hocus pocus and abracadabra. The short version of the story is this. I started doing magic with my dad when I was really young. About 7. We had our own magic business called Mystical Magic and I was my dads assistant. However, that didn't last long. Year after year I'd get more involved in the show, and before you knew it, I was doing over half the show. By age 14 I started my own magic business and doing shows for kids birthday parties and at small amusement parks. That's also the year I started going to magic camp. Yes magic camp. Stop laughing now. It's this week long camp that was at the time held on Long Island, NY. You learn magic, perform magic, compete in magic competitions, etc. This camp really taught me how to perform more gracefully and just overall be more professional. I learned how to present myself and create a show that was more tailored to adult audience. No, not that kinda show. Just more evening style more what you would see in a theater downtown.

During the 4 years I went to magic camp, I developed several different shows, but the one that stuck most was the one from which this picture comes. I was 16 in it. Again, stop laughing. While I now look back and see how slightly embarrassing this photo is, the memories behind it make me smile. The magic act that went with this photo was a 7 minute elegant stage magic act. There were no rabbits, kids, doves, etc. It was just pure classical magic, with lots of silks and roses mixed in. Oh yea, and my grandmother hand made the outfit for me. While some of you may be thinking how dorky it is to be in high school and into magic, consider this. My "high school job" was doing magic. This job paid $100/hour for kids parties and $250/7 minutes for my evening stage show. When I was a senior in high school I had the opportunity to be in a larger magic show (I was the second act in the second half) and we did 8 shows in 7 cities over a 6 week time. It was awesome. I was also fortunate to have performed in New Orleans, Vegas, and other awesome places across the country.

... And then came college. While a lot of my friends and fellow magicians encouraged me to take up magic as a full time profession, I knew that I wanted a more stable job. So I went to college. While I tried to keep up the magic stuff during my freshman year of school, it soon became too difficult. Doing and engineering degree is hard enough without having to drive 3 hours back to my parents house each weekend I had a show to perform. And while I still try to do close-up magic (non-stage stuff) every once in a while, it has surely been a long time since I last set foot on a stage as a magician. I miss it sometimes, but I also know that I have moved onto other exciting and adventurous times in my life. Who knows, maybe someday I'll get back into it.

A complete list

In the upper left corner of this blog, I've added a list of links to all the other sites that I use. I was tired of having to remember them all myself, lest alone when someone asked me for one of them. The flickr page gets updated most often with pics, and the shutterfly page was really only used for the Costa Rica trip. I use Vimeo for large videos that won't fit on here, but I've gotta learn to just take smaller ones. Enjoy all the pics/videos!

A weekend update... why not.

I can't say anything particularly interesting has been going on, but I figured I'd throw up a new blog for those of you out there that are in dire need of something to distract them from work. This weekend was pretty uneventful, which meant it was great and relaxing. I did some working from Houston this week, so I was able to see Jeremy for 5 nights in a row! He was even so nice as to forgo a friends 2nd bachelor party for my surprise visit Wednesday night! Which brings up an interesting point... don't assume that just because your boyfriend ALWAYS goes grocery shopping on Wednesday night then comes home and relaxes, that he will just happen to do the same thing on the exact week that you're planning on surprising him. Fortunately I questioned his strange and unexpected Tuesday night grocery shopping trip, at which point he informed me of the bachelor party plans for Wednesday. So my little Wednesday night surprise became a Tuesday night over the phone surprise. It wasn't exactly the excited response I was going for, but since he knew how much trouble it was for me to get there on a Wednesday night, he so lovingly agreed to spend the night with me. (In my defense, the groom in question already had one bachelor party, and we are going to the wedding next week).

The rest of the weekend included a stop at Tokyo Bowl (best sushi ever), a UFC fight night at Randy's, a girls night out with Ami and friends, a bike ride, and a movie date to see Night at the Museum II. The movie was pretty good, but I'd have to say the first one is better. The bike ride went awesome. Started at 7am and did just about 40 miles in just over 2 hours. I knew we were riding fast, but I wasn't quite sure how fast. I think our average rolling speed was around 20-21mph, so including slowing down and stopping for all the lights along the way, we finished in about 2 hours 10 minutes. Though as we were finishing around 9:15am, it was already wicked hot out. I couldn't imagine doing the 60 mile route in that heat. The UFC fight night was also very interesting. Though the only real exciting part about watching a UFC fight is when one guy knocks the other guy out cold. I can't imagine that such a beating is really "good" for the body. In two of the three fights the loosing guy got knocked out cold by the subsequent winner. The first time it was pretty quick. You could see the guy just drop to the floor. But in the last fight, the bigger dood just pounded the grap out of the little guy. It was basically beating someone up who was already unconscious. Seemed a little unnecessary to me, but I guess good for television.

Ziplining video is finally up!

I finally got some of the videos from Costa Rica uploaded on Vimeo. They are both of us zip lining through the canopy in Monteverde. On the long video Jeremy and I are zipping together but you can't see him well because he is behind me. That was the longest/fastest of the 18 lines that we did. The other video is of me on one of the shorter lines. You can see that this line actually goes through the trees, while the longer one is more on top of the canopy. I didn't realize he was videoing that one until we got done. Click here to enjoy!