Wednesday, July 30, 2008

My day at RWA

Ahoy! So I'm here in San Francisco (as evidenced by photos below). My work conference thingy was all day Monday and Tuesday and was very productive. Monday night, I met up with blogger buddies KristieJ, katiebabs, ciara, alys, and tracy and we walked for EVER to get to a yummy Thai restaurant. kb has posted some wild n' crazy photos on Ramblings on Romance. Don't believe it...I wuz not drunk. heh. ;)

Last night was a monumental event. I finally met my partnah in crime, ms. lisabea. We had a blast and mr. lisabea is a really good sport, it has to be said. He went out with us crazy ladies and endured an evening of sushi and squeeing and sake. Back at the hotel lobby, we met up with rosie and author Carrie Lofty and just hung out at the bar drinking and talking. heh. Carrie has a book coming out in December called "What a Scoundrel Wants". More about that later (looks fab, can't wait!). I had to head back to my hotel in Japantown and pretty much crashed. I'm still getting used to this 3-hour time change thingy.

This morning we ventured forth to find a reasonably priced breakfast (the hotel buffet is like $20+) and were thrilled to find...wait for it...a DENNY'S! woot! Grand slam, baybey! Samhain editor Angela James (who has a fun blog) joined us and we had an excellent time slamming coffee, eggs, pancakes and assorted meat products. mmmmm...foooood. Not only is Angela cool to hang with and cool because Samhain has such great books (and such nice covers, ahem) but she also bought our breakfast. awww. Too many nice people!

mkay, so time to head out for more fun and excitement. Will try to check in later. Wish you were here!

teddy, lb and I are going to try to hit some of those recommended locations that you told us about. report to follow. ;)

edited to add: i totally hijacked SB Sarah in the hallway. poor thing. lol. She's a good sport and freakin' funny too.

oh yeah and I met Gena Showalter and Jill Monroe (along with rosie and kristiej) in front of the elevators.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Guess where I am?








More details to follow...

Thursday, July 17, 2008

one down, one to go

Wow, to look at this blog, you would think I'm a total slacker. No updates for 10 freaking days? eeeeeek!!!

I feel like I've been trapped in some sort of parallel universe. Getting up in the morning and reading my marketing book over coffee before hurridly throwing together lunches for DBF and myself and rushing to work. Coming home from a full day at the office and sitting right down to study until bed time. I'm not sure what exactly it is about this semester but it's been much more time-consuming than the previous two I took on this MBA path. A combination of lots of busy-work in the marketing class (not hard, just takes a lot of time) and really dense theory in the economics class. Last night after completing my marketing final in record pace, I came home and worked on another assignment for econ. That final won't be until Sunday night. So from today till then, I have to focus on memorizing four or five chapters of scintillating material on topics like unemployment, inflation and whatnot. Thrilling.

But on the positive side, I did get a new book in the mail (yay PBS!) and have been reading it in agonizingly slow increments as I find the time. This is a different way of reading for me. Usually, I sit down and devour a book in roughly an hour, maybe two. This time around, I'm just grabbing 5 or 10 minutes to read a chapter or two. So at least it will last longer. Which book? Ah yes, the incomparable Loretta Chase. The Lion's Daughter. I believe I put this on my wishlist after reading that Chase-a-thon over at Book Smugglers. Or maybe it was something else. I can't remember...just that I read that it was good and stuck it on my list and when it was available, the nice people at PBS asked me if I wanted it. So far it is entertaining. The heroine is teetering dangerously close to annoying, but she hasn't crossed the line yet so I'm happy about that. And the hero is funny and charming and reminds me a little of Rupert from the other book. Anyways, yay books. The cover makes me laugh.

(see why I haven't been blogging...I really have nothing interesting to say. lol)

In other news, DBF and I will be staying home this weekend instead of going on a four day vacation as we had planned. The long story short is that we had made some plans with a group of three other couples to go to the beach and rent two houses, go fishing, relax, etc. We're not super tight with any of said couples, but we are acquaintances and thought it would be a good opportunity for us to get out and see another part of the state...do something we normally would not do on our own. A week before the trip, we were asked by the couple who has been planning everything if we would mind not sharing a room (mind you, said room had two single beds in it, lol) because they are hosting a European exchange student who had marked on her application that she is a Christian. And they are Christian (pretty religious too, but we've always been able to live and let live in the past) and didn't want to offend her sensibilities. Apparently the idea of me and my BF, a couple in their late twenties that have been together for five years but aren't officially "married" sharing a room (again, with TWO SINGLE BEDS) might offend her. or something. Anyways, DBF was so not pleased to be asked this question. Highly insulted and really upset. At first I just thought it was silly and was inclined to shrug and say, sure whatever, just let them have their way. But now I see his point. We were supposedly equal participants in this venture, were going to be PAYING for the privelege of our sleeping quarters just the same price as everyone else. Out of all four couples, why would we be asked to split up just for the sake of some stranger's potential ease of mind? And they didn't even know if this student would actually CARE (she's from freaking france, I'm sure she's been exposed to the concept of unmarried couples) AND she was going to be staying in the other house anyways and not in the house where we were. Even though it was a "request" and not a demand, we felt that we wouldn't be comfortable now with the group, so we cancelled. ugh. It was a big freaking mess.

so yeah, no mini vacation at the end of the summer term. :( We'll try to come up with something that the two of us can do cheaply and funly (heh) before the end of August, but it won't include random 'friends'. *sigh*

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

forget reading


Well, I may not have time for reading or blogging in the mad race for the MBA summer term finish line. BUT I have found time to listen to an audiobook as I drift off to sleep in the evening. La Nora. This is her best, imho. Those Quinn boys are just fab. I'm partial to Phillip myself. Mainly because his book was my first NR read. But Cam and Ethan and Seth are all keepers too. What is so cool about these books is that while the romance between each brother and his woman is good and romantic and stuff, what's really great is the interaction between the guys. Miz Nora gets it right and it feels so natural and real. I luvs it.

So yeah. No books being read (except for that monster marketing tome on the sidebar). But at least there is some audiobook goodness to see me through.

The other end of this tunnel includes a quick trip to the other side of the country (yay San Fran!) and dinner, drinks and other hijinks with some of my blogging friends. I try to keep this in mind as I slog through the homework. It's like a carrot to keep me motivated.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

You can run, but you can't hide



K, so I am back from my roadtrip, but if I thought that it would be a vacation from my crazy life of work and MBA madness, I was sorely mistaken. le sigh. I'm up to my ears in homework and of course I am putting off things like group projects that MUST be done in the next two weeks so that said weeks will be even more stressful. Excellent!

Anyways, here is a LOLcat to brighten your day/night. One day soon I hope to actually blog again. Might not be until MBA summer school lets out and I get one glorious month of freedom from class (not from work, mind you, but I'll take what I can get.) Oh and let's start the countdown to San Fran! woot!