Sinus Infection

Saturday, Aug 2nd, 2008 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

OK – a break from pretty photos of my trips for a moment – I have a sinus infection. I’ve never had one before, and I have to say it’s quite unpleasant, mostly due to the length of time it’s had me feeling miserable. Congestion, cough, headaches, exhaustion. I think this started with a cold I had a couple weeks ago that made me miss a couple days of work, it went very bad cold > mild allergies > sinus infection. Even worse, it’s the summer. My body wants to sit in cool, crisp, air-conditioned rooms, but my sinuses want warm and humid. The result? I obey my sinuses, because they give me a headache if I don’t obey. Yuck yuck. And I’m feeling a bit down because of all this, so I want to eat, but food either tastes like nothing or just tastes *weird*. Sigh.

I’ve been on antibiotics since Wednesday night, so hopefully I’ll start feeling better soon.

Filed under: health

Niagara Falls – The Falls and Skylon Tower

Monday, Jul 28th, 2008 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Saturday was the day for the Maid of the Mist and dinner at Skylon Tower.

Maid of the Mist was fun – and wet! We took a late morning ride out.

After that we did some wandering around the strip, relaxed for a while, then for dinner headed up to Skylon Tower.

The food was spectacular.

And the VIEW was to die for!

..and a photo of me on top of the tower :)

Filed under: travel

Niagara Falls – Long walk and finally see the falls!

Sunday, Jul 27th, 2008 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

After the aviary we took a walk with the intention of seeing Simcoe St and then heading out to a brewery I found on one of the tourist maps I picked up.

As we turned onto Simcoe St I saw a black squirrel. I knew about black squirrels but what I didn’t know was that in Canada black squirrels and black cats get along…

OK, so that’s a bit tongue in cheek, but it was funny to see the squirrel, panic about the cat coming toward it, and then watch it walk right past it without a second thought. Huh, guess he wasn’t hungry.

Unfortunately I neglected to inspect the scale on the map and felt quite foolish when I realized how far we had to walk to get to the brewery. And even more foolish when we arrived at the closed brewery! Ack! The address was right, but the building was closed up, apparently that map I picked up was a bit dated. We got a nice walk out of it though, and got to see some amusing Inns on the way, like this one:

Since the brewery was a bust, we walked back toward the main touristy area of Niagara Falls and found a pizzeria to eat at. The beer list was unimpressive, so I just went with a Labatt Blue (Ew? But I was in Canada!)

After food we went walking toward the main “strip” of Niagara Falls, the tourist district full of campy museums of all kinds, haunted houses, mini golf, ice cream, souvenir shops – and I loved all of it. But first it was down to see the falls!

And then, being me, I had to get some fudge and go to one of the campy wax museums – hurrah!

By the time we left the wax museum we were pretty tired. We got some ice cream on the way back to the B&B and then crashed for the night. Plans for the next day? Maid of the Myst! Dinner in Skylon Tower!

Filed under: travel

Niagara Falls – Arrival, Aviary

Sunday, Jul 27th, 2008 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

My friend Stephen and I took a trip up to Niagara Falls, Canada over the 4th of July weekend. We left midday on Thursday, stopped in my old stomping grounds of Seneca Falls to fill up with gas and say hello to an old friend, and arrived around 11PM in Canada. We checked into Ambiance By The Falls then went downtown and found Hard Rock Cafe where we had some late night snacks and drinks before heading back.

Friday started out with a trip to Bird Kingdom. I’m afraid of birds, but have been trying to get over the fear – so, aviary!

The one on the left is a very scary looking hornbill, that I think was following me around…

…and this is me being scared of turning my back on said scary hornbill

Filed under: animals, travel

Network configured

Saturday, Jul 26th, 2008 by pleia2 | 1 Comments

I have my new network set up at the house. Michael gave me a static IP of my own (and a pretty reversal coming soon!), so I now manage my own network at the house. I’ve developed into quite a capable sysadmin over the past year, and running my own firewall and network will allow me to further develop those skills – plus I won’t need to nag Michael every time I need a port opened. Since I needed my network and machines configured for work anyway, I spent a bunch of evenings this week setting it up.

I have a zillion things to blog about and piles of pictures to share. My trip to Niagara Falls with Stephen, going on a Wine and Cheese train ride with Michael, my trip up to HOPE with my friend Mike from New Jersey. Hopefully will have downtime soon to get to writing about all these things…

Filed under: computers

I was listening…

Saturday, Jul 26th, 2008 by pleia2 | 1 Comments

…to a show on NPR and somehow in the conversation it came up that people only write in diaries when they’re sad. I was never one to write in diaries, and in my blog I find that I do the complete opposite. I haven’t been the best at posting lately, and although I’ve been busy and going on trips with close friends a lot over these past few months it hasn’t succeeded in completely masking the deep sorrow and feeling of loss over the failure of my marriage.

After months of self exploration of all kinds, heartache, lies and honesty, and a couples therapist, Michael and I have decided to try again. I moved back into the house this week (financial and “I need grounding” decision), and I’m leaving soon to finish moving the last of the furniture. I’m hopeful about this new attempt, much that was once buried has been flushed into the open and I feel we owe it to each other to give it another go.

Things will be different this time around.

Filed under: Uncategorized

New, irresponsible, shiny

Tuesday, Jul 15th, 2008 by pleia2 | 2 Comments

I was at the mall with a friend yesterday helping him buy some jewelry as a gift for his cousin. It dawned on me that I’ve developed the girly love of shiny things over the years, and that I didn’t have enough. So I splurged on something I’d seen last year and had filled me with geek girl glee.

Oh so pretty.

Filed under: Uncategorized

New PrincessLeia.com Design!

Monday, Jul 14th, 2008 by pleia2 | 1 Comments

My friend Jay promised me a bit ago to put his mad design skills to use on a new design for PrincessLeia.com. He came through today as expected and after work I excitedly wrote up the template html, which I installed this evening.

The result? See for yourself:

A-ma-zing!!! Thank you Jay!

It’s about time I had a professional design it rather than relying on my own paltry design skills :)

Filed under: plug, ubuntu planet

Simcoe Street in Niagara Falls, Canada

Tuesday, Jul 8th, 2008 by pleia2 | 4 Comments

While browsing the tourist maps I noticed Simcoe Street! Since my little kitten is named Simcoe, I had to go exploring. So I dragged Stephen through the suburbs so I could walk down the entirety of Simcoe street and take pictures.

Filed under: animals

Ubuntu at Best Buy: Package Details

Tuesday, Jul 8th, 2008 by pleia2 | 37 Comments

I learned this morning via #ubuntu-us that they’re now selling Ubuntu at Best Buy, and couldn’t help myself: during my lunch break I swung out to Best Buy to drop $20 on a copy.

It wasn’t easy to find, I spent about 10 minutes searching through their software section, past their big Microsoft Windows Vista and Office displays. I finally found it on the bottom shelf with lots of other miscellaneous software.