misfitmonkey

Holy smokes, life has been busy. We closed on the house on Friday the 18th and on Sunday, around 11:30, we brought our two adopted Tibetan mastiffs home.

My stepdad Jeff and my uncle Scott drove all the way to Virginia Beach during that awful snowstorm the weekend before Christmas (they drove THROUGH D.C., which was a disaster zone) to retrieve these two rescues from a Tibetan mastiff breeder who was fostering them with her other dogs.

Here’s some info on them from the rescue website:

These very sweet dogs are in need of a home due to the misfortune of their owner who has lost her own home. Mae and Makai were bred by Donald Davis, a US breeder who passed away last year, so Himalaya Tibetan Mastiffs and Sa Nashoba Tibetatan Mastiffs are working together to find them a new home.

Mae’s registered name is Mei Xiang Saje and her date of birth is Jan. 22, 2001. Her dam is Kyra Rose and her sire is Ely Tanuk. Mae is spayed and in excellent health. Her vaccinations are up to date.

Makai was never registered by his owner, but he is a brother to Mae from a later breeding. His date of birth is February 12, 2003. He is also in apparently excellent health and he is intact. Any prospective home will have to agree to have him neutered.

Makai is scheduled to be neutered on the 11th, per my agreement with the breeder, and he has the same birthday as Jim, which I thought was a neat coincidence. Mae is a little older (they’re both older, really) and is an older sibling to Makai.

They are small for Tibetan mastiffs, but still definitely fit into the large dog category, and they are SO FREAKING MELLOW. I mean, these dogs sleep, they walk around a bit, and then they sleep some more. They are genetically predisposed to love the cold (mountain dogs), so the most excited I’ve seen them has been outdoors (today with all the snow they were going completely bonkers).

Still working on the eating routine since TMs are wary at first and the most prominent evidence of this is that they aren’t eating a lot (TMs aren’t big eaters, despite their size, but still), and they also won’t set foot in the basement.

Bringing the cat over from the apartment went well (dogs didn’t care, cat is a little pissed), and my family has fallen in love with both Mae and Makai in very short order. My little brothers can tell them apart already, which is difficult for most people, and we took them to both Christmas celebrations this year (in-laws and my family) with no hiccups.

The most noteworthy part of getting these two dogs is that I am totally and completely in instant love with them. I mean, for the first few days I would lie on the floor next to them and just stroke their bellies or watch them sleep.

I knew when I met my first mastiff outside of a PetSmart several years ago that the breed was my instant favorite and that I really wanted to get one when I had a place that would allow a dog, but I was totally unprepared for falling in actual and immediate love with THESE two dogs.

Between the new house, two new members of our family, and a lot of family time over the past several days, this has been a truly amazing holiday season. :) I hope all of you had an equally wonderful holiday!

If you’re going to be one of those people that complains about all the Nanowrimo talk during November… shoo. Go ‘way. Not interested. It’s what I do each year, and it’s AWESOME.

For those of you who don’t know, I am the Municipal Liaison for the Canton, Ohio region of National Novel Writing Month, and this is my seventh year with that title (my eighth year doing Nano). If you’re enjoying the madness, friend me up on the site! :)

This year has been really interesting so far, because I started at midnight last night with a specific novel in mind, a serious novel with a lot of heavy topics planned, and it completely TANKED before I hit 500 words. I discovered in short order that completely turning away from my Nanowrimo writing style was absurd and counterproductive, so I took a restroom break and returned to the table with zero plan and a lot of determination.

Now I have 1175 words of a novel that just materialized as I kept writing, and it would appear that I’m now writing about a cyborg man named Wendell who refuses to fight crime and save the planet because of a manufacturing mishap that has resulted in his constantly craving french fries. Since he was supposed to be the planet’s last ditch effort to same humanity, his creator, Peter Stimple, is in seriously trouble with his higher ups, and chaos will surely ensue.

The midnight kickoff at Denny’s last night was awesome overall. There were a few of us who’ve been doing this together for a while now, and new people popped in right at midnight and joined us. Pretty good turn out for the midnight event, so I’m sure today’s kickoff event will be a huge success. :) Happy noveling!

(If slideshow doesn’t appear, photo set is here.)

Here are the pictures from the second big day of the family vacation! :) We went to South Bass island in the Put-In Bay area, rode bikes, had great pizza, drank really good wine and got a few family shots that I’m really happy to have. The pictures of me on the ferry back from South Bass were taken by Jeff, who was playing around with my camera. He took a great shot of the sun setting (the portrait shots of the sun setting over water).

Watch above or click here.

Stay tuned for more vacation pics! It was a great week and I’m just now getting back into laptop mode, so I’ll be catching up on the photo blogging and hopefully edit some of the video this weekend. :)

Took some shots of the beautiful sky we had while driving all the way to Toledo on Saturday… great view, and it was a great start to the family vacation. :)

Or click: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timshelyn/sets/72157621667682085/

Thanks to all the presenters, all the volunteers who helped with registration, all the organizers (notably @AngeloMandato, @DoctorAnonymous, @MerryCricket)and everyone else who made the weekend such a total blast! There are just too many people to list, but I met a lot of great new people and I saw a lot of people I built friendships with last year at Podcamp Ohio.

I took a lot of photos, so I’ll leave you with the slideshow, and you can see several recorded session here (they are gradually being added as Coefficient Media goes through all the footage). Thanks to DG Hollums of The Guys Podcast, who helped me with camera settings and was generally very spiffy, per usual. Note in the photos that Doctor Anonymous is completely incapable of smiling in a photograph unless you catch him unaware… what a ham! ;)

Can’t wait until next year!

Also a big thanks to the sponsors, who deserve some major love (especially loved the caffeinated water Avitae throughout the event!): The Ohio State University Center For The Study And Teaching Of Writing, Blubrry.com, Doctor Anonymous Podcast, Circle Of Seven Productions Book Trailers and Marketing, AssistCoach.com, blip.tv, TechSmith, SpaceBlue, Blue Microphones and Avitae.

I had some fun with the goofy frames at Pearle Vision the other day when shopping for glasses… click on Brandice Potter for all the horrible shots. ;)

Jim and I rode out to my mom’s to go with my family to the Sebring Firemen’s Festival this past weekend and I made my first couple Harley videos of the season. :) I have to say, that yearly festival was a lot more impression when I was kid… going as an adult, I just found myself watching all the miserable parents drag their sugar-crazed kids from carnival ride to merry-go-round to lemonade stand, etc. (my poor mom and crankly little bros included). Always good to spend time with family though, and it was bike night so Jim got to scope out the other bikes.

This was the first video (mute the sound if you want to watch).

Also, the only time I will eat a corndog is when they’re made at a fair in fresh batter (too many frozen dogs as a kid… blech), so having corndogs and fresh lemonade for dinner was a treat.

Got a couple cute shots of Jim with Ben on his shoulders at sunset too. Are they just about the cutest men ever? (The correct answer is yes, of course.)

Overall, a good evening. I also ate a funnel cake, because I can’t be stopped when it comes to funnel cakes, especially fresh ones sold by a seven-year old money miscounting cashier. YUM!

There are very few things that I can keep alive other than myself at this stage in my life… My cat seems to be fairing well (although my husband is the one to remember to feed her most of the time), I once had a fiddler crab that kept my interest for almost a year, and I can grow hen and chicks.

What’s even cooler? (Other than that I took the above picture and don’t seem to have totally screwed it up with my very undeveloped photography abilities.) The hen and chicks I happen to be growing in my dark red pot this year are descendants from the very hen and chicks that my mother planted at my great-grandmother’s house when she was a child.

They are very special hen and chicks. :) AND, you can accidentally leave them out in the elements all winter and they’ll perk right up come spring. That’s my kind of plant!

What are you growing in your garden (or on your apartment window sill) this year?

2008 was a huge year for me. Last night, the ball dropped in NYC, Jim and I counted down and kissed, and I felt a little sad, because this last year has been a very big year, full of changes and really cool trips, and the beginning of a new phase in my life. Here’s an overview:

January

STeaP went to NYC for the Haydenfilms Film Festival and to film an episode at Alice’s Teacup. Click the pic below for the Flickr photo set, and you view all the videos here. This was a really cool thing for STeaP and it was only the second time I’d ever been to NYC. I had a lot of fun, met a lot of cool people for the first time, and we got a great episode out of the whole thing. :)

April

I passed my board exam to become an LISW, was hired by Viddler, celebrated by 27th birthday, and enjoyed my last month of grad school and working part time in the MRDD field. This pic is from the week of my birthday, when I was relaxing with Jim on our balcony and basking in a busy but exciting month:

May

I graduated from graduate school, receiving my Masters in Social Work. I now have six letters after my name (seven after my two years of supervision are done), and I don’t intend to write another paper in a long time. Here’s a pic of me with two of my favorite classmates, and commencement clips. :)

June

I got married. This is by far the biggest event of a pretty eventful year, best trip I’ve ever taken, and thousands of amazing memories captured in video and photographs. June 7, 2008 will always remain one of my favorite days EVER. Click the picture for the entire wedding photo collection.

Write-ups - Arriving in Vegas, Marriage License, Pre-Wedding Prep with Simi, All Videos
Recap: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5

And of course, because I’m a geek, it was broadcasted live and posted online:

The end of June also brought Ohio’s first ever podcamp, Podcamp Ohio This was a really great weekend, I did two sessions and ran registration, and I was running on geekgasm fumes for days after the event was over. All of my videos from the event are here, and here’s a shot from the Podcamp Ohio Flickr Pool:

I also became an aunt for the first time, when my brother and sister-in-law had their first child. :)

August

I went to New Media Expo 2008 with Viddler. I met a ton of people I had only seen online up until that point, and I interviewed a lot of great people. I was exhausted after my second trip to Vegas in three months, but it was worth it AND I got to go on the Star Trek Experience before it closed down. :) Click on the picture for the entire Flickr album, and the videos I did are all here. My favorite video (with CC Chapman) is below the pic:

Earl Grey Brandice was revealed on STeaP, a tea that I’m really proud of helping with. It’s really exciting to have a tea named after you! :)

And finally, August resulted in my first masters-level job, at the hospital I had interned at during my last year of grad school. I feel like this should take up more space in this post, but since I try to keep specific details of where I work private and I can talk about most of what I do in a day’s work, all you get are a couple of videos (linked at the top of the paragraph). This has been a huge thing this year, second only to getting married. Huge, huge life change.

October

I left Viddler. It was a good decision for me, and I’ve become a lot less interested in online media as a business. I’m much more interested in simply using online media to share my life and my interests, and I may do some more writing about that at a later date.

I went to Podcamp Pittsburgh 3, where I met Chris Brogan and a lot of really great people, including a run-in with a former college classmate. Click the shot of Chris and I for all of my PCPGH3 photos, and my arrival video is here.

Also, October brought a big change for STeaP when Joe left the show. Dianah helped host the first non-Joe episode, and learning how to keep STeaP going while doing all of the heavy lifting on my own has been quite a challenge, although I think it’s been worth it. :)

November

I failed at Nanowrimo. First time in several years that I haven’t completed this challenge, and I hope it will simply be a glitch in a long line of successful novel-writing Novembers. My first Nano update was my only video update. :( I look really tired in that video, which sort of hints at one of the reasons I just couldn’t get past the halfway mark this year.

December

I became an aunt for the second time in one year, when my sister had baby Damien, born December 15th at 6 pounds 3 ounces. I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to get attached to my other nephew, because Jim’s brother moved away to Turkey this December, but spending several days over Christmas with my family (which was amazing) gave me time to really fall in love with this little guy. Click this adorable picture for all of my Christmas photos:

So.

This year has been huge… I got married, I finished my masters, I passed my LISW exam, I got my dream job, I took several really great trips, and I spent time with friends and family (including a couple new members that gave me the new title of “Aunt Brandi”). It has been the kind of year that I will remember for the rest of my life, a real landmark year. I can’t wait to see what all of these big events will mean down the road, and I hope you have all had some happy landmark events this year as well. :)

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

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Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

Both local Cantowrimo kickoffs were a success! We had twelve people at Denny’s at midnight for the late night extravaganza, and at least seventeen people at the Saturday four-hour kickoff with goody bags and introductions. I had a really great time and between the two kickoffs, I got myself past yesterday’s word count goal.

To see all the photos that I took of the midnight event, click on the photo of Paul and Dianah:

To see all the photos that I took of the Saturday event, click on this photo of Shelley, me, and Renae:

To see all the Cantowrimo photos, click here. I’m really excited for the group that we have this year, and I think we’re all going to finish this year. I know that some of you who read the blog have started Nanowrimo this year because of all my talk about it, and I wish you all well! Keep me posted on word counts and other Nano adventures!

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

Click on their tomato-y faces to get the scoop on the Brightkite iPhone app and to throw your own tomatoes. I feel much better having thrown them. :)

By the way, this is how EVERY web service should be handling their blog. Transparency takes balls and earns respect. Tell the user what’s happening, even when it’s not good news and own up to your responsibility to your community. It’s time that every website operated this way, so kudos to Brightkite for having the balls to say “yeah, it’s behind, but we’re working on it and you can throw virtual plant life at us while you’re waiting.”

Rock on.

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

Yes that’s right. I HATE the books, but when the fourth book of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series was released today, but pre-ordered release-date shipping copy arrived in the mail and I plan on finishing it by the end of the weekend.

I hate the heroine, I find the idea of having sex with a completely ice cold vampire mildly distrubing even if the heroine is gagging for it, and the writing is sub-par at best, but I continue to read this stupid, stupid series of books. (Please don’t ask me why. I have no idea.)

To make matters even more hilariously bizarre, when Dianah and I went to Gary Vaynerchuk’s book signing in Hudson, I actually purchased a t-shirt the bookstore was selling for the new release. I am sick. I am truly sick. At least I can take comfort in the fact that this SHOULD be the end of the story. Please god let it be the end.

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

What’s sad about the photo below is that it is a VAST improvement on my previous driver’s license (and I mean, REALLY vast), despite the fact that I look someone who is about to (or already did) murder someone.

I swear that those little cameras take and distort my face into some miserable expression every time I have a license photo taken. I am destined to look unhappy on plastic:

The positive points:

1. I am now legally Brandice Schnabel, in addition to being legally married. Social security card on its way, bank account changed, new debit card ordered, and now new license acquired.

2. I am an organ donor. Are you? (I hope so.)

3. My hair does not look nearly as horrific as it did on my old license.

4. There were no children at the BMV (in my experience, children I encounter at the BMV are obnoxious and frequently throw plastic picnic tables at each other).

So… now I just have to slowly get all of my bills in my new name (phone calls, I believe… no more fancy paperwork, etc.), and I’ll be good.

I have to say that all the instructions online for changing your name make it sound terrifying, and the three big things (bank, SSN, license) took 48 hours total, and could’ve realistically been done in one full day. Piece of cake, seriously.

Recommendations for anyone who ever has to do this stuff:

- Go to your local Social Security Administration office instead of mailing in application. MUCH faster and they don’t keep your important documents and lose them (birth certificate, etc.). I got a temporary SS card/letter on the spot. All I needed was marriage license and driver’s license.

- All the bank asked for was my old ID (I didn’t have my new one yet) and my marriage certificate. Took five minutes and they ordered a new debit card in that five minutes.

- Smile in your driver’s license photo, even if there are signs saying not to, and once again, all I needed was the marriage license and my old driver’s license. Go during a business day and it’s not too busy.

- Don’t read online guides to changing your name. They’re stupid, and will just scare you. Just go in this order - Social Security card, driver’s license, bank account, everything else. Done.

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

My eyes are barely open as I type this… it’s time to stop fiddling and go to sleep.

So, my phone (the new 3G) is updated, synched, and working. I put the new SIM card they gave me for the old phone that will be switched to Jim and plug that iPhone in and I get this:

I’ve heard a lot about activation being down, so I’m assuming that’s the issue, so I’m going to take a SERIOUSLY needed nap and I’ll pursue Jim’s phone further in a bit. *yawn*

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

…about our wedding day. :)

1. I was incredibly hungover when I woke up Saturday morning and was barely alive until we got back from the hair appointment. Then, I think it was the adrenaline or realizing I was getting married that just completely flushed the alcohol from my system.

2. Our wedding was broadcast live over the internet. Our minister was amazing and the chapel was beautiful to the point that I got choked up when I first walked in. Here’s the saved and edited version:

3. The view from top of the Stratosphere is amazing… none of our outdoor wedding shots are in front of a background or photoshopped (it’s really that beautiful of a view).

4. Dinner was absolutely delicious (seriously, we didn’t hear one complaint and I was completely FLOORED by how good the ravioli and steak were), catered at Fellini’s Restaurant:

1st - Antipasti (Cold assortment of yummy salami, prosciutto, mortadella, soppressata, provolone, fontinella, roasted peppers, marinated eggplant, marinated zucchini, marinated artichoke hearts, and olives)</p>

2nd - Ravioli all Vodka (Ravioli pasta filled with a blend of ricotta and Romano cheeses, simmered in a pink sauce made with vodka)

3rd - Choice of Soup or Salad

4th - Entrees (Chicken Marsala, Veal Picatta, Grilled New York Steak, Grilled Salmon Fillet)

5. We had (I believe) 31 people total (including us) at the wedding, all of them had dinner with us, and a good portion of them partied with us at Polly Esther’s nightclub in the hotel. I apparently danced on both the bar and a stripper pole in my wedding dress, and it was by far the most fun I’ve had in my entire life, with all of my favorite people there and everyone happy and dancing and complete strangers congratulating us. The night time celebration will go down as the best partying I’ve ever done in my life.

The only video snapshots are bad ones, which can be found HERE.

These are my two favorite pictures from the evening:

6. All the pictures from the day of our wedding can be found here: wedding, professional wedding pics, and Polly Esther’s.

7. Anything that happened after Polly Esther’s is none of yo’ beeswax. :)

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

…about the day before the Vegas wedding. :)

1. My second hairdresser was awesome, which was lucky because the one the day before had been a total bust. I wore my tentative wedding hair to the bachelorette lunch. Lunch was friggin’ awesome (Mexican cuisine of the tastiest variety):

2. Dianah, Susan and I went to an oxygen bar:

3. I bought a Coach wristlet for $50 at Caesar’s Palace, because Kristen gets a 50% discount as a Coach employee (at ANY store), so I had a small bag to carry that evening. I got this, but in black. I also bought a bracelet at the Playboy store. Shopping:

4. Shopping, dinner at Roxy’s Diner, running into clothed male revue boys, all very fun. Then the night officially started at Fremont St:

5. The club we ended up spending most of the night at was supposed to be visited by Adam Sandler that night, but he never showed. Kristen and I crashed his reserved VIP section, were given drinks, and then we were escorted out of the VIP area.

6. I don’t remember this Tweet.

7. We never made it to a strip club (and Dianah never got to join us *sad*). I’m a little sad about that, but we wouldn’t have had time with how much time we spent at The Bank… everyone just got too drunk to keep track of time.

8. Undisclosed debauchery is filtered to the LiveJournal. VIPs can go dig up the big juiciness of the night there.

[You can find all the pictures from the bachelorette extravaganza HERE and that day’s Twitters are HERE.]

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

So, shortly before we went to Vegas and got married and such, I started staying up really late, getting things done, worrying about things, or just staying up late to do something I wanted to do. Then we went to Vegas and the time zone change made that an advantage, because I was already in West Coast mode, and then on top of that, we started staying up way too late out in Vegas (because it’s Vegas and there’s no concept of time), and by the time we arrived back at home, I was used to being up until about 4:00 a.m.

It’s gotten progressively later and later, until last night, when I stayed up until 6:30 a.m., took a shower for Tuesday morning and saw Jim off to WORK before going to bed.

That is totally not acceptable. Totally not a way to operate, and tonight, I am taking the bull by the horns. I have two Advil PM tablets in hand, I’m downing them now and I am GOING to be asleep prior to 1:00 a.m. I am not going to become some weird third shift person who works sometimes at 3:30 a.m. because… well, I’m awake and what the hell else is there to do at ridiculous hours like that?

Plus, I’m WAY sick of that penis enlargement informercial that doubles as a staged sex talk show. Horrifyingly awful and it’s on constantly on more than one channel after 4:00 a.m. NO MORE.

*goes to eat the mushroom and go tumbling down the rabbit hole and such*

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

…about the Thursday before our Vegas wedding (our second day in Vegas)!

1. Simi and I went to my first hairdresser appointment and discovered that the woman who does the bridal styling COULDN’T BRAID. She looked at me like I had three heads when I described the hair I wanted. Luckily, I made appointments with two salons in Vegas (the Friday appt. went much better), so we just walked out.

2. When Jim and I were at the courthouse getting our marriage license, the following exchange took place between the clerk and the couple that went ahead of us:

CLERK: Congratulations to you both. *hands the man the license and paperwork*
FUTURE GROOM: I guess… *sigh and noncomittal shrug*
FUTURE BRIDE: *silence*
JIM: *barely contained laughter*

Here we are after getting our license:

3. We went to Quark’s Bar, where all the following very exciting things happened:

- We were entertained by a very funny Klingon and an awkward Ferengi

- Dianah introduced me to very tasty Borg drinks:

- My dad arrived and met us, and it was my first time seeing him in person in FIVE YEARS (three times as long since I’d seen my stepmother as well). We had a really great time catching up and I was really excited to see them both.

- I met KAREN!!! Karen and I have had practically twin lives recently (she got married the weekend before we did and was in Vegas on her honeymoon!), and we’d never met in person before. We instantly clicked (my stepmother had no idea we’d never met in person until afterward… thought we were long time friends) and now she has to come see me in Ohio!

4. My dad, Susan (stepmom), Paul (Jim’s cousin), and Jim and I all walked to the Stratosphere from the Star Trek Experience and continued hanging out in the bar there, and I found myself waking up the morning of the bachelorette party with a hangover. D’oh!!

More to come! You can check out the “wedding” tag on the blog to see all the wedding posts. :)

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.

…about our first day in Vegas!

(I’m going to be doing occasional day by day blog posts about what was great about each day we were in Vegas, highlighted by my favorite pictures from that day. Don’t worry, I’ll space them out!)

1. I got incredibly sick on the plane and was practically green when we landed. Here’s a view of Lake Mead as we were landing:

2. I lost more money gambling our first night there (roughly $100) than I lost any other day, and it was fantastic.

3. We ate at a buffet with Simi after getting to the Stratosphere, and it was my FIRST time seeing Simi in about five years. Simi and I hadn’t seen each other since Jim and I first started dating, and she could still remember when I had first turned Jim down for dates for two full week before finally going out with him. So excited to see Simi!! :)

4. Oh! I had to stuff my gown in the overhead compartment. Those evil flight attendant hussies. :|

5. Jim and I upgraded our room when we arrived and ended up with a jacuzzi SO HUGE that it took up a good portion of the free space that would’ve been available in our room… (SO worth it.) Here was the view from our room:

Stay tuned for Thursday’s activities and fun tidbits. :)

Originally published at Brandice.net. You can comment here or there.