June 23, 2003--Eliot Hall is now demolished :( I also have to mention that while we were at K'Tok's family's house, we were watching CNN Headline News and they showed my old college dorm being demolished. I knew it was going to happen because there had been long-time plans to build new dorms in its place. But that dorm meant a lot to me. It is where I discovered Wicca, where I held my self-initiation in 1997, and where I spent my first full year as a Wiccan.

I created an animated gif (245 KB) of the demolition using the pictures from the school newspaper's website to honor those memories. You can click to see it in a pop-up window if you'd like...I posted it more for personal reasons than anything else.

June 23, 2003--The birthday re-hash So yours truly is now 25. It's funny because I still get carded for buying alcohol on a more frequent basis than I expected. Anyway, I had a good weekend...first of all, I had/have Friday-Tuesday off, and one of those days includes holiday pay. K'Tok gave me my presents when he came home on Thursday because we were going up to his parents' house on Friday. He gave me an Herbal Encyclopedia CD-ROM which will be useful for this website at some point or another, the new Metallica CD, a pair of *nice* Oakley sunglasses (I have very photosensitive eyes), and best of all...the collector's edition of Ages of Mythology and a new video card to go into Mephisto, one of his old computers that he's giving to me. He just bought a new Alienware machine, so Mephisto is going to become my graphics station. Yes, we name our computers and happily refer to them by their names. I'm working on Lilith right now.

And I am getting off-track a bit.

We went up to his family's house with a purpose...I wanted to spend Saturday at Busch Gardens. This was a major feat because K'Tok had this thing about not liking roller coasters while I'm a fanatic. Remember the picture from last year of my friend and I riding the Hurler about a gazillion times in the pouring rain? Yeah...nothing comes between me and my rides. Friday was pretty uneventful as far as birthdays go. His family gave me some really cool presents as well...his sister, for example, found a navel ring with a pentacle charm dangling from it at a Renaissance Faire. Then there was the jar of mixed gummi treats. And the duckie stuffed animal that quacked when you squeeze it. And the water prism suncatcher. Bunches of other wonderful little "things" that I loved! We had Outback to go for dinner (yum!) and I blew out all the candles on my birthday cake in one go.

Saturday was the challenge, though. K'Tok said he promised he would go on the rides, but he didn't think he'd like them. Being the stubborn Taurus he is, he was refusing to admit he could possibly enjoy a roller coaster. So we hit Alpengeist first to get the toughest one out of the way while the lines were short. He and his sister were screaming obscenities the entire time (while I was laughing like a deranged maniac), but when they got off, they slowly came around to admitting that it was fun. Getting them on Apollo's Chariot was much easier and they both thoroughly enjoyed that one. I got a keychain of the picture they took because it sums up our reactions to the ride.

We then took in some hits of bad karma that we feel no remorse for: we discovered that at the cafe area beside Roman Rapids (a water ride where you're destined to get soaked) there are 10 little stations where, for a quarter, you can take a shot at dousing the riders with water. It was beautiful! Then again, I don't think it's truly bad karma because if they didn't want to get wet, they wouldn't have gotten on the ride in the first place, right? *evil grin*

We actually didn't do many rides other than the sky tram that day. There's so much to do there that we still enjoyed ourselves. We watched the Wild Wings show, and fed the lorikeets, and watched the bald eagles build a nest, and went shopping, and played games...it was a great day!

So now I'm home, I have today and tomorrow off, so I'm going to work on cleaning the apartment some more and try to write. I just wanted to give a quick update and say thank you for the birthday wishes, especially from those of you on the board!

June 12 , 2003--Perm and a haircut...300 bits! I just have to say I finally got a much-needed haircut. The last one I had was a little less than a year ago. Yeah, you know when your hair is getting too long when you try to raise yourself up in bed when you wake up in the morning, only to put your elbow on your hair which pulls your head back down. If you're used to that kind of thing, go ahead and accuse me of whining. I just have a thing for personal comfort.

Which is why I also got a perm for a change. That, and I'm also going to Russia in July and I don't want to have to lug a bunch of styling tools so I can look nice when we go to the concert. Luggage has weight limits, and I have space limits...so a comb and some gel is the method for me.

But before that, your favorite Gemini is turning 25 in a matter of days. Yup, on June 20, I'll be a quarter of a century old. Gifts are nice, money is preferred. *grin*

And yes, I did do an update...I added Uncle Hyena's final Sabbat poem. He posted it on the forum, so I added it to his gallery. Go read!

I'm also teaching myself Flash to hopefully do a cartoon on how to cast a circle. I have most of the images drawn, but not colored. Then it will be fun putting it all together. Aren't you excited? I am! Now I need more free time...between reading 3 computer books, 3 pagan books, and one thick biography on Peter the Great, I'm swamped!

But see...I did manage an update...