nearing completion....

i'm pleased to report that j.mo's momma's deck is nearing completion. just a few last things to take care of (lattice etc) before we can stain it and call it a day. considering we're 100% amateurs in the deck-building arena, i think we've done pretty well. i'm thrilled no one has been seriously injured. and now that we're all BFF's, the staff of our local lowes will be joining us for thanksgiving this year. a win-win for everyone.







the happy workers, feeling fresh at the end of the day:




everyone's favorite job-site supervisor:





last weekend i had the urge to shave all my hair off. for years and years i had super short hair. then, a little more than a year ago i started to let it grow out. and while it was good fun to buy 'product' and have hair that 'did things,' i kinda missed my fuzzhead. so i thought it over and busted out the clippahs yesterday. justin may have brought sexy back, but i'm bringing velcro back-

would you prefer an aisle or window seat?

and have you considered optional MANPADS protection for you upcoming flight?

from cnn.com:

Passenger plane flies with laser-system that repels missiles

(CNN) -- The first passenger plane equipped with a system to repel shoulder-fired missiles successfully completed its flight, a British defense and aerospace company announced Wednesday.


The system aims to protect against fire from missile launchers like these, which were used to fire at an Israeli plane.

1 of 2 The "JetEye" infrared missile-defense system was tested on an American Airlines flight that took off July 11, according to a statement from BAE Systems.

The plane flew from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport in California, the company said.

The JetEye system works by detecting the heat-seeking missiles and then firing a laser, which diverts the missile.

American Airlines refused to make the system mandatory on all trips, but agreed to cooperate with the tests.

The flight represents the final phase of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Counter-Man-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) program, designed to test the suitability of missile-protection equipment for commercial aircraft.


you have to be kidding?? of all the potential acronyms out there, homeland security settled on MANPADS. MANPADS? ugh.

reason #957 i-heart-super88

in the produce section, somewhere between plums and nectarines:

a day for goodbye

i am blessed to be a witness
some have flown away
and can't be with us here today
like the hills of my home
some have crumbled and now are gone
gather around for today won't come again
i am blessed to be a witness

-ben harper


a few pics

hanging with the animals

how much do i miss these guys???????

saying goodbye

yesterday morning the phone rang and it was the news i had been both expecting and dreading for a while now. one of my favorite persons and closest friends passed away. i'm going to miss my grandma more than i can explain, but i know everything is how it should be now.

i love this pic of the three of us:


and this one too:


Thich Nhat Hanh says-

Let us meditate on the birth of a cloud. The cloud was water in an ocean, lake, river and heat from the sun gave it birth – the moment of continuation. Rain is a continuation of the cloud. When I drink tea, it’s very pleasant to be aware I am drinking cloud.

It is impossible for a cloud to die. It can become water, snow – it cannot become nothing. It is also impossible for us to die. Speech, action and thought continue in the future. When we pronounce a word that is compassionate, good and beautiful that is our continuation. The person who dies still continues- They continue in us and around us.

Rain is a continuation of the cloud.

I'm feeling a little sad and quiet, but I'm happy it's raining today.

what the world needs now...

is a little extra g.coleman in our lives. i've decided to start my day with a iced soy coleman latte:



i better get that patented, otherwise it will be the next overpriced thing to show up on the stahbies menu. i can see the mini-vans double parked across america, with soccer moms lined up, frothing at the mouth for their skinny colemans, half-caff colemans, extra hot double cupped colemans... endless possibilities.

enjoy

deckathon08, part II (alternate title: another sore sunday)

just a quick progress report- yesterday was a perfect summer day to be outside banging on some wood ;) the day finished injury-free and we left with the 20 fingers we came with.

slowly but surely


and how impressed are we all with those custom-cut angled pieces?


j.mo swinging his tool




it's getting hot in here

today's the day...

it was 2 years ago today that j.mo and i tied the knot at our fabulous surprise wedding a la dirtydot bbq.

happy anniversary mistah... i sho do love you :)(:

working wood

i gotta say, for a couple of amateurs, j.mo and i are pretty handy around the house. well, in this case, we're handy around his momma's house. last weekend we pulled apart a section of wickid old fencing and replaced all of the boards ourselves. while john was busy demolishing the old fence, i was in the garage on assembly duty with all the bits and pieces that eventually became a table saw. (you know i quadruple checked that shit- the visions of switching this testosterone fueled wood chomping contraption on and watching j.mo take a flying saw blade to the head at 4,000,000 rpm's was something i was hoping to avoid).



with the fence (plus swivel gate, i might add) under our construction belts, it was on to the deck. jmo's momma's deck could give you a splinter if you looked at it the wrong way, let alone set foot on it with bare feet. gray, rotted, splitting old wood... after a measuring session, we had lowes deliver a truckload of new wood and did a little demolition work on the old stuff... today we really stepped up the pace, both with tearing the old crap up and getting started with newdeck08. no major injuries to report- j.mo did get hit in the side with a large piece of wood that rocketed off the saw and his leg did get scraped, but there were no emergency airlifts to the ER. i got a splinter and in true gurlscout style, managed to suck the poison out.

before we get started, everyone's tetanus shots are up to date-? we got a whole lotta rusted nails up in there:


check out the g.diddy supastah safety goggles:


the deck re-build is simply not enough, gotta add another set of stairs too:


g+saw


j+saw






pretty impressed with ourselves we are ;) oh yeah- i got out of the shower a few mins ago and j.mo was like 'what's that red splotch all across the top of your ass?' uh, yeah, that would be my sexy sunburn a la plumber's crack:



amazing how becks and i look the same from behind, huh?

here are all the pics from today's adventure in carpentry. hope y'all are having a good weekend...

i pledge allegiance...

i just got back to boston after a few quick days in DC for an international education conference. originally i had thought i was going to be job hunting right now, so that was the main reason for trekking off to DC. when i landed the HBS job a few weeks ago everything was already booked and paid for, so i was able to relax and enjoy the change of scenery without the pressure of landing a new job.

it was a wonderful few days- picture perfect weather, good friends, good food- friday was pretty much a free day and my flight back to boston wasn't until 8p, so i had the whole afternoon to wander around-

a few photos:

union station:


metro:


sexy orange carpeting in the metro:


world war II memorial:




washington monument:


the candidates:


on the hill:


freedom, defiled:


(all the rest of the pics are here)

summerstart

puppylove

where i've been

wow- the past few weeks have been anything but the usual. let's see if i can attempt a re-cap with any semblance of order:

so my brief stint as america's next top intern at harvard's international office was the prefect segue to a shiny new job. luckily, while i was at hio i made a few invaluable connections and exactly as dionne warwick predicted (for the bahgain price of $3.99/minute) the planets aligned and out popped a bona fide solid career opportunity that seems to have been custom-designed pour moi. i have to say the interview process was rather full-on. i had to take 3 sick days from my soon-to-be-no-longer-job in travelparadise and met with 11 different people, all individually(!) but it was well worth the effort- starting june 9th i'll be the manager of immersion programs at harvard business school, working on existing short term study abroad programs as well as helping to research and develop new programs. i could not be more excited. i'm thrilled to have landed a job 'in the field' and so closely tied to both what i went to school for and what i'm interested in. it's also quite the novelty to work somewhere with actual stability and a professional, supportive environment. i suppose somewhere way down inside i will miss my current nuts-o VP that sees no issue with dropping the f-bomb during our usual weekly meeting.

so that's the big news on the jobfront. j.mo and i headed out today to the wrentham outlets to get me a whole new wardrobe- i've had the luxury of sneakers, jeans, and polo shirts for the last 8+ years of work. it's all shirt & tie and hookah shoes from here on out. that $600 gov-mint stimulus couldn't have come at a better time. i wonder if i can write it off as a charitable donation to the banana republic?

may 18th it was all about this:


and this:


it's kind of a curious feeling to no longer be a student. no more trekking off to class, hours of forced reading, no papers, no friggin groupwork. yeah- i don't think i'll be running back to school anytime soon!

the butter queen was kind enough to think of j.mo and i when she scored some excellent red sox tickets. we had a fabulous time a few nights ago at fenway-









after this lovely long weekend i'm off to washington dc for an international education conference- since i scored the HBS job, i don't have to worry about job hunting anymore, so i can just kick back and enjoy dc ;) when i get back to boston i've got one week left at work and then it's up, up, and away. may 2008 has been an incredible month. grad school was a wonderful experience and seems to have already paid off- but i must admit i'm thrilled at the idea of being able to spend more time at home and with friends and family now that it's back to a normal schedule.

so that's where i've been. hope you're all enjoying the long weekend.

-g

a ton of bricks (literally)

ok, i'm mostly going to ignore the fact that it has been over a month since my last post. in 50 words or less, here's where i've been: internship ended, graduation next week, 3rd round of interviews for what could possibly be the perfect job (more on all that later), exercising and running resumed. basically, it's been a thrill and a half to have a normal schedule again and i've been rediscovering all the things i used to enjoy. with this post i hope to be back on the blogginwagon.

there's nothing j.mo and i like more than a project- something around the house, maybe pet-related, an outdoor do-it-choself adventure. living in a relatively small space and lacking a bottomless budget, there aren't all that many projects left for us to do. but we did say last year that we wanted to do something with the front of the house. and for various reasons never got around to it. well last week we got together with the neighbors and decided it was time to get to work on adding a little gayspray to what was a rather sorry bit of front yard.

cue the visuals...

here's what we have been living with: litter-strewn clumps of grass peppered with 'dog treats'(of the non-Franklin variety, of course)- the whole lot inevitably turning brown and dying a crunchy death during the summer months.



not so sexy, huh?


bust out the gloves- you know you live in the hood when there's at least a pound of automotive glass shards in the front yard from the last time a car was broken into.


attack the 'lawn' and tear up all of the grass-







and here come the bricks- literally a ton of them. they're 22lbs each and we carted well over 100 of them home with multiple trips to our local home depot. bricks, oh my bricks. each lifted off of the shelf, loaded on to the trolley, loaded into the car, taken out of the car, stacked into position. and i wonder why i feel like i was hit by a truck this morning.



so 5 trips to home depot, all those bricks, 15 bags of mulch, and a whole bunch of plants and a lot of moaning and groaning later-





before:


after:


well worth the train wreck aching body this morning. hope everyone is having a good weekend- happy mother's day to the mums...