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APRIL 06 ARCHIVES

10:05 PM 4/9/2006

wow, ucla. thanks a lot. last week's defeat was the biggest letdown since, like, ever. jeez, you think i'd be used to this feeling by now. i lost hope about four minutes before the game ended and ended up drowing my sorrows in sour cream & onion pringles, a tofutti and four chocolate chip cookies. DAMN YOU, UCLA ATHLETICS. stop toying with my emotions - you're like an abusive boyfriend that just keeps dishing out pain and misery year after year after year. i can't figure out why i keep coming back for more. must be the endless supply of school spirit, i suppose.

so me, keri and my sister went to the re-opened getty villa yesterday - it was breathtaking. everything was gorgeous - the architecture, the view, the weather... click here for some pictures that i uploaded from my sister's camera...keri's shots did the getty much more justice, so i'm hoping when she finishes editing them i'll add 'em here.

anyway, one more week til 4/15. i finally submitted my background check and application for my four day defensive handgun class...if anybody's curious about which school i'm going to, it's front sight, approximately 60 miles west of vegas. we're staying on the strip, so hopefully i will have the time and energy to gamble/shop. that is, if i don't accidentally shoot myself or some other poor innocent bystander. i'm going april 21st-24th and already i'm nervous, not because i don't think i can handle the intensity of the program, but because i HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO GUN-APPROPRIATE CLOTHES TO WEAR. "nothing too low cut. nothing too loose on the bottom. no open-toed shoes. none of those ridiculous high heels you're always in. you need something with belt loops for your holster. pants that allow you to move easily. cargo pants, if possible, so you can hold ammo in the pockets. a vest or light jacket. something warm for when we shoot at night. a baseball cap. knee pads, for when you're shooting from the ground." uh...right. i guess it's time to go shopping. AGAIN.

12:57 PM 4/15/2006
so last night i went through my archives and found some of my april entries from the past couple of years. sadly, i haven't made much progress since then. check it out:

april 2001
april 2002
april 2003
april 2004
april 2005

reading those entries made me kinda miss college. then i thought about the painful papers, coma-inducing lectures and killer finals and realized that the working life is much, much better, cuz at least i get paid to work my ass off now. anyway...april 15th is this wknd, so i hope everybody is finished with their tax returns. don't come crying to me at the last minute, begging for help on your 1040. mostly because i really know nothing about personal taxes and don't want to risk totally screwing up your return.

anyway...it's absolutely gorgeous out - me and keri just got back from running to farmer's market, where we probably consumed more calories than we burned... hmm, this is why i usually run alone. now i'm ready to go out and do some serious shoe shopping and then meet up with tom. i can't begin to express how freakin' nice it is to NOT have to work on a weekend - i could really get used to it. the picture below is from last weekend @ 3rd street - keri, me and my sister were messing around with the webcam at the apple store. we came out looking kind of freaky. well, freakier than normal anyways. all right, later everybody.

11:06 PM 4/19/2006

in less than 12 hours, i'll be on my way to shooting school in vegas...and i'm still not done packing yet. i gave up on trying to find gun appropriate clothes and resorted to shoving the most boring things in my wardrobe into a suitcase. thanks to the constant ridicule of my coworkers and friends, i'm only taking four pair of shoes and two bags - i was getting pretty tired of the "jeez connie, it's gun school, not a model shoot!" comments. i'm also taking my camera with me, so i'll be sure to snap pictures every three seconds the entire time - i can't wait to see what'll come out: "here's me with a gun. here's me spacing out. here's me accidentally shooting three people at the range. here's my deputy friend arresting me. here's me next to big bertha in jail. here's me crying." yup, it's gonna be a vacation to remember, all right.

so i'll be back either monday or tuesday...most likely late monday night. i'll have my cell on me, but i'm leaving my work laptop behind (YAY!)... i hope everybody has a fabulous weekend...i'll catch up with you guys when (if) i get back. and if i really do somehow end up in jail, you guys better scrape together enough money to make bail and rescue me. otherwise, when i get out, the first thing i will do is buy a gun and hunt down all you deadbeat friends. haha jk. wow i scare myself sometimes. all right, later.

12:14 AM 4/28/2006

before i forget:

check out the love calculator!

so i'm back from vegas and shooting school...i've never had such an exhausting vacation before. click here to see some pictures. anyway, here's a quick rundown of what my days were like:

thursday:

hit the road to vegas with the deputy and two of his other deputy friends a little before noon. both cars are totally packed with thousands of rounds of ammo, coolers, food, guns, my suitcase, etc. i marvel at how well prepared cops are when they travel - they think of EVERYTHING. i, on the other hand, just show up with a ton of clothes, my blow dryer, my flat iron, my makeup bag, and two bottles of sunscreen. i manage to convince the deputy to let me drive his tacoma from baker to vegas since he's exhausted from working. as he hands over the keys, i realize he is either extremely trusting, or just plain stupid. in any case, i get us there safely. we check into our ghetto motel, and then head to bellagio to eat. i drag him with me to the ferragamo store in caesar's palace to drop 1K on a gorgeous new bag. the entire way there he's trying to talk me out of it so i can use the money to buy a gun instead. yeah, okay buddy. on our way home, the guys pull down the windows to point out two hookers walking down the street. i defend them, saying, "maybe they're just normal girls on their way to a club, did you ever think about that?" two seconds later, a benz with a nasty old white guy slows down to talk to the girls, and they climb into the car. the deputies laugh their asses off as i try desperately to come up with some rational explanation as to why two girls are going clubbing with a guy 40 years older than them.

friday:

my alarm goes off at 5:15 am, and i seriously consider calling off the entire thing. but then i think, when am i ever going to have the opportunity to attend a hard-core defensive handgun class for free again? go next door to eat breakfast, and then we roll out to the school. the guys start putting on their cop gear. i spend the next ten minutes trying to figure out how to put on my belt and holster. a random school instructor who is about 65 years old asks if he can help me out. i let him stick my hand in my waistband to pull the belt tighter and think, "wow, this is probably the most action i'm gonna get this weekend." we start shooting, and i manage not to kill anybody. i've got three cops surrounding me and multiple instructors constantly shouting advice and encouragement, so luckily i don't turn out to be the crappiest shooter there. the day ends around 6:30, and we drive to silverton to eat. i'm so tired i can hardly carry a conversation. head back to the hotel, scrub off all the dust and sweat and sunscreen, and crash around eleven.

saturday:

the deputy sets the alarm for 5:15 to go running. we don't end up getting up until 5:45. eat breakfast, head to school again, where we continue to work on our shooting skills. the instructors change the targets, which are now actual pictures of shady looking people with guns. the targets are rigged to flip around, and they nearly give me a heart attack the first couple of times. we go through practices where we have to yell out a warning to our paper adversary (something along the lines of, "take one more step and i'll blow your f****ng head off!") and then proceed to shoot them in the thoracic cavity. if they turn back around to us after we shoot them in the chest, we take them out with a head shot. since i'm have noticeable difficulty with shouting at paper targets, the guys take turns trying to get me fired up by yelling things into my ear. deputy: "okay, i'm coming in to rape you and your mom!" deputy's friend: "and your little dog too!" we also learn how to reload quickly and clear gun malfunctions, which seriously screws up my nails. by the end of the day, i've gone through four bandaids. goodbye, $15 manicure.

sunday:

this time we don't even pretend like we're gonna attempt to work out, and set the alarm for 5:45. at mid-morning we switch partners, so now i'm by myself all the way on the other end of the range with random people who fortunately turn out to be super nice and encouraging. they ask me how i'm connected with the guys ("Are you somebody's girlfriend or do you just run with them?" "Uh, neither...") and question me on how/where i learned to shoot - i tell them i used to play a lot of duck hunt in elementary school. um, i didn't really have much choice, considering that was the only nintendo game i owned. sad. anyway, we run through simulations in a one-room shack, where bad guys pop up through windows and you take 'em out, one by one. sit through more lectures, eat dinner, and then get ready for our night shoot. it's pitch dark outside, so everybody has flashlights. aside from a shaky start (instructor: "connie, you should probably aim your flashlight and gun at your own target, not your neighbor's."), it goes pretty smoothly. get back to the motel at ten, hit the showers, and then crash.

monday:

final day of class. we go through another simulation where me and an instructor walk through a fake house and i shoot at targets in various rooms. i manage not to shoot the innocent lady in the hallway, mostly because i'm distracted by what sort of clothes she's wearing. we also do a skills test, where we're graded on how fast/accurately we shoot and how quickly we can reload and clear malfunctions. the beginning part is fine but my head shots are all over the place. the deputy walks up behind me, examines my target, and tells me, "connie, i love you and all, but if somebody ever takes me hostage, do NOT take the head shot. just shoot me in the leg, wait for me to drop, and then get the bad guy in the chest." we set up one last scenario - a paper hostage surrounded by two adversaries' heads. the instructor tells us to write the names of our significant others on the hostage's chest before taking out the two adversaries with head shots. i briefly contemplate writing down an ex-boyfriend's name so i can purposely shoot the hostage in the head, but ultimately reconsider, as i really don't need to advertise my bitterness to a bunch of random strangers. the deputy tells me i can put his name down on my target, but after his earlier comment about my shooting ability, i end up writing lynn's name instead. after all, if i'm gonna save somebody, it better damn well be a good girlfriend, not some guy who should be defending himself. i do pretty well but manage to shoot off lynn's right ear. sorry, honey. class ends, there's a quick closing ceremony, where hundreds of tired, sweaty students pile into a room to see who graduated with top honors (sadly, i wasn't one of them), and we head home. by the time i shower and slide into my own bed (oh, how i've missed you, 800 count sheets), it's after midnight. a few text messages later, i'm passed out, and sleep until nine thirty the next day. beautiful!

so all in all, it was a fabulous experience, which leaves me wondering where to go from here. coincidentally, i'm going paintballing for the first time with a bunch of my (male) coworkers this saturday, so we'll see if i learned anything remotely applicable from last weekend. i originally declined the invitation (after all, how do you explain the bruises to your date the week after when you're attending some dumb gala in a cocktail dress?), but since there's all this sh*t talking going around the office about me being scared, i feel like i ought to show up and at least try to represent. watch, i'm probably gonna end up seriously bruised and crying. and when the guys start feeling bad and come over to console me, i'll freakin' cap their ass. either that, or drop off a huge pile of b*tch work on their desks monday morning.

all right, it's time to get some work done. jesus christ, i can't believe i'm working on quarterly stuff again, i swear i just wrapped up all my year-end provisions last week. i'm supposed to work some more this weekend but the thought of staring at my laptop when i could be be shopping makes me seriously want to vomit. somebody hand this girl another vacation, stat!