Life has been busy. I haven’t had a chance to update my blog in over four months! A lot has happened in the past four months…

On January 12 I closed on my house! What a blessing it has been. I’m loving the house and the location is great. Mom came and stayed with me for a week in February and really helped to make everything look more like home. Fifty of my friends and I broke in the house on my birthday, March 24 for Mark-a-Palooza. It was a blast! Thanks to everyone that helped me celebrate.

The house hasn’t been all fun and games. As any new home owner will tell you, there’s always something that goes wrong. About two weeks ago I started hearing noises on my roof and I found a hole in my chimney siding. Raccoons invaded my house!

Getting rid of them was quite an ordeal. The coons weren’t in an area that was accessible from my attic and tracking exactly where they were wasn’t easy. I called an animal trapper who set traps on my roof and in my attic, but those didn’t work. I finally pinpointed where they were and we removed four babies on Monday night and another one Tuesday night. So there were five babies born and a mama raccoon living in my house for over a week! Crazy! I think the mama is gone now but I’ll find out for sure tonight.

I’ve been riding my bike a few times a week on the bike trails that are all over The Woodlands. I even rode to the grocery one day when I only needed a few things. I also like riding out to Northshore Park on Lake Woodlands. It’s a nice 25 min ride each way. My neighbor also rides so we’re going to hit some off road trails soon.

I’ve added several new albums to my Scene Me gallery. Go take a look at my pics from Austin for Thanksgiving, Sugar Bowl, Costume Party, Dallas in February, Mark-a-Palooza, Dallas in April, and Waterway Art Festival.

I’m hoping it won’t be as long before my next post!

My Dwight Schrute bobble-head finally arrived after being backordered for two months. Dwight is of course Rainn Wilson from The Office.

If this is the evolution of dance, then I’m not sure we can say it’s evolving for the better! Pretty funny and you know you’ve done all of these! I would have liked to have seen some Napoleon Dynamite though.

The Office is definitely my favorite show on TV right now. I haven’t been a big TV watcher the past few years, except for 24, but now I can’t miss The Office. It’s totally different that any other show and it’s the type of entertainment that people either detest or absolutely love, almost in a Napoleon Dynamite kind of way.

If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s a mockumentary about the employees of Dunder Mifflin paper company in Scranton, PA. You can read more on Wikipedia, or one of the many fan sites. It’s really a staged/fictional reality show because the characters acknowledge the camera and interviews are given throughout the show. Oh and there is no laugh track!

Thursday is when The Office usually comes on but there wasn’t an episode tonight and I found out that there are only three more episodes this season :-( and the next one does not air for three more weeks! Luckily I found some good clips on YouTube. The first one can pretty much be titled, “Will Pam and Jim ever happen?” I think just about everyone that watches the show is ready for Jim to do something!

The other clip is all sarcastic Jim and serious Dwight. To quote Kevin, “Nice”.

My 1GB iPod Shuffle that I ordered from the Apple Store online on January 17 finally arrived today! When I ordered the estimated shipping was 3-4 weeks, so I’m glad it arrived a little early. In case you haven’t seen Apple’s newest iconic music player here are a few photos

I’ve had my 20GB iPod for almost a year and a half now and the Shuffle certainly will be a great complement to its larger sibling. Why would I need two portable music players? There are a variety of factors that let me to decide to get the Shuffle and they are practical reasons, not just reasons to get Apple’s newest toy!

If you don’t have a portable music player then my reasons might not make much sense. Taking my entire music collection with me in a package the size of a deck of cards is awesome. I can always access anything I want to listen to and iTunes makes managing a huge collection of 3000+ songs a breeze. I even have a dock in my car to integrate with my factor stereo. The point is, now matter where I go I can have my music. So if I can take all of it with me on the 20GB iPod, why would I need a smaller iPod Shuffle? The simple answer is that in some circumstances the Shuffle is a much better fit for my listening.

A perfect example of this is going to the gym. I’ve been taking my 20GB iPod to the gym for a while. I have a workout playlist that provides great tunes. But the iPod is a little big and I run a risk of damaging this pricey player. I don’t need 3000 songs to pick from when I’m at the gym. I don’t usually switch tracks so I just put the playlist on shuffle and go. This is exactly what the Shuffle is perfect for! It’s really small, it has no moving parts so it would be really hard to damage and it can contain just my workout playlist. Sweet!

The Shuffle will also be good for short listening sessions. Going to the park, riding a bike, or maybe even cleaning house. Since these are mostly active times the Shuffle is perfect since it’s not as delicate as the larger iPod.

Now it’s time for me to be honest. If the Shuffle was only a music player I probably would not of been able to justify buying one just to have a second music player. The Shuffle also doubles as a flash memory stick. I’ve debated getting a some kind of removable storage for some time but wasn’t really sure I needed it. There have been a few times that I could use one but not really enough to actually go out and buy one. Since the Shuffle provides both removable storage and a tiny music player, the combo is what sold me.

So far it appears the iPod Shuffle is great. I can’t wait to use it at the gym and other random times I want to take some tunes with me!