Hola, amiga--lo siento but I forgot something earlier; I got distracted twice over--my niece and a couple of her friends came by wanting to see if they could weasel me out of some See's lollipops--they did, so who's the real sucker, huh? I can't eat them, after all, and now that I have a sound card that works, I have my MP3s back and have had Coldplay & Radiohead on (now that I think about it, I could have used my MP3 player--duh!). Yep, rode a camel & an elephant. The camel scared the bejezzus out of me once I was up on his (or maybe it was a her?) hump. I thought it was going to be real cool but once I was up there, not so cool. The elephant was a lot bigger and I was up there with other people and it felt a lot safer--broad back, on the shoulder and so on--may have been higher up, but I felt a lot safer. They both smelled about the same though, but the camel was a whole lot softer, especially its belly, while the elephant was real rough and they have this really coarse hair--not a lot, but more than I thought they would before I got up close and personal. My elder niece got to go to a safari park outside Sta Rosa CA this past summer, but they don't have animal rides there. I don't think they have them at the San Francisco Zoo, either, but they might at Six Flags Marineworld in Vallejo CA; we have a small park here that features local animals--wolves and the like. When I was a sophomore in college, I took a physical anthro course that took me to the SF Zoo where I tried out some chimp-style faces and got a lot of attention--certain things flung at me and such. My niece is right, I guess--I am a big ape!

Oh, just finished your toy video, too. Impressive. You'll have to give those toys a test drive sometime, I mean, you paid good money for them and all. Like Ryan I have a Fleshlight but also like Ryan mine's sitting in a drawer. I can't remember how long ago I got it, a couple years now, I think, nor can I remember the last time I used it. It was okay, but to be perfectly honest, I'd prefer the original, and more importantly, I'd prefer giving pleasure and seeing what works and what doesn't--women and their reactions are way more fascinating to me than anything else, and guys are just too easy to, um, plug in, turn on, blow a fuse and go off, know what I mean? Anyway, that's just me for what its worth.

I can see, I can see ...no, I mean I can hear. Finally got the PC working. For whatever reason, WinXP couldn't figure out that the drivers for my sound card were the drivers for my sound card until I downloaded the drivers, again, and reinstalled them, again. You do have a very lovely voice, Danielle. I got to watch some of your first update, then checked out your tattoo removal. I might have my elder niece watch it, too--she's interested in them now that her aunt has a very large one on her breast, and her mom likes 'em, too. I admit, when I was younger I thought about getting one (there was this cool parlour next to my favourite used book store in Sta Rosa), but I never saw anything I liked at that moment that I thought I'd like later. Of course, my niece is not quite 11 yet, so that she's thinking about tattoos right now does give me pause (not to mention her asking why women would want to pose naked--I'm not sure where that's coming from, since I've never seen her with my Playboys, nor do I go online and do anything but genealogy or check my email when she's around without having a "dummy screen" up to cover an FTV download, and I've only been a member for a few days and her questions have been cropping up since she got back from Sta Rosa at the end of July. She's also going to have sex ed this year which has my bro & sis-in-law anxious, but knowledge is power. Just in case she has more questions afterward, and just in case her mom or dad are too freaked out, I bought a copy of Discovery Channel's Anatomy of Sex DVD because if they can't handle it, how am I? I'm getting an ulcer thinking about it--they grow up so fast! Anyway, yeah I heard your oohs, and they were sweet, but I loved your speaking voice even more and hearing what you had to say even more. One last thing--you must have been nervous during that first outing with Rob, because it looked like your hands were shaking when you pulled the top of your dress back up when you were outside. Must have been a huge thrill and rush, huh? Neat. :-)

My bad ...I thought I read somewhere in here that he was married to someone named Melissa. Sorry, Rob (insert sheepish smiley face here; insert foot in mouth).

General studies is a good idea--you can work on your GE requirements and get a sample of what's out there. I started, quit, started, quit in part because life was disorganized at home (my Mom was getting a divorce, my younger brother was having problems and so on). I was single-minded when I started, planning on studying biology but after a semester I'd taken some psych courses (to fulfill my GE) and wound up changing majors. Then I changed to anthro, and then to history where I focused on Britain & Europe. Looking back now, there were some classes I dismissed as a waste of my time (philosophy, for example--in Calif. there's a requirement to take a philo course called "Critical Thinking"; it comes in handy). that have proven to be of more value than some of the courses I wanted to take. And then there's the courses I wanted to take, but was too much in a hurry to follow my heart. "Time be thine, and thy best graces spend it at thy will!" (Hamlet). Advice I should have followed, which I hope you will, for your sake.

BTW I read one of your posts where you stated "Rob and his wife"....Rob isn't married.

Right now only general studies, until I figure out what I want to do. I've also ridden on a camel, at the zoo but I've never ridden an elephant. That most have been fun.

By the way, I meant to ask what you're studying this winter?

A few years back, after I'd finished work on my MA, I was set to send in my app & GRE scores to Berkeley Theological Union. There was just one hitch--you have to apply to a specific religious school, or in the case of Christianity, you have to apply to a denominational school. If I remember right, there were schools for Judaism (which I'm not), Buddhism (which is probably closest to me), Methodism (which I was raised as), Lutheranism, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, and then the Catholics had 3 schools of their own (Augustinian, Jesuit and Benedictine, I think). Raised Methodist but by then very unorthodox in my beliefs, I couldn't in good conscience apply there; sympathetic to Buddhism but not truly a dedicated Buddhist, I couldn't apply there, and none of the others came close, so I delayed and delayed, and then life moved on in a different direction. Actually, in a weird way, it might have been a better way of learning how to let go of the dross and just live and let live (more of the Taoist way--tell me, when you drink vinegar, do you wince or do you smile? I'm learning to smile--after all, what would you expect vinegar to taste like besides vinegar?). Back in grad school, I took a seminar hosted by a professor who had actually written a book about the women in a branch of my great-grandma's family, a section of which was identifying your own biases and prejudices and confronting them to test their validity. I've had a lot of time to do just that the past few years, and the vast majority I've let slip away (except for those gosh darn teenagers--they won't stay off the grass, dag nabbit!!! ha ha.). I've read a lot of theological texts, from the Christian Bible (in various translations), the Jewish Talmud (which is an eye-opener, especially when you see how Rabbis debate the meanings of the Torah as opposed to how Christians of various denominations view those same passages), the Qur'an, Tao te Ching, Upanishads, Baghavad Gita, the Gnostic Gospels (i.e., the Nag Hammadi library, Dead Sea Scrolls), plus other words like Eisenman's James: The Brother of Jesus (960+/- pages of text plus endnotes & The Historical Jesus by Crossan (which is actually a discussion of 1st Century Judea and Hebrews (at the time they still saw themselves as Jews, Benjamites, Levites, Danites and so on). I set that study aside a few years back because it, frankly, started hurting my brain! I've never studied the Satanists, but I have been quite intrigued by the Wiccas (maybe has something to do with my Salem connection--scarcely a day goes by that I don't think of Rebecca or Sarah). Right now, with a 2 1/2 year old niece, I'm reading more Dr. Seuss than anything, other than my Smithsonian & Nat'l Geographics. For me, the theological studies went hand in hand with my general interest in how people build social and cultural structures, including politics, and how they're all founded on the basic family structure. I took a lot of cultural anthro & social psych courses in my early years at college. By the way, I heartily recommend Black Elk Speaks if you find an interest in Nativa American and specifically Lakota Sioux beliefs--there is a large part of me that is animist, somewhere between what I understand of Shinto & what I gleaned from Black Elk Speaks. I'm a hodge-podge of mixed beliefs, but it seems to work more or less for me. Tomorrow, when my sis-in-law's off and I have some quiet time, I'll start my day with some Tai Chi, then maybe unroll my bean bag (my yoga matt--its cotton batting in a hemp case--like a big, firm pillow) and just work on posture and breathing for a while and let my mind wander here and there and un-knot itself. I can use it, too--there's only so much the meds I take can do for me (like I said, life threw a monkey wrench at me and I've had to learn how to adapt a bit).

Cheers--geo

This coming Friday, 9/19. I'm a year behind LeoRex, right between Apollo 11 & the end of the Beatles. A cousin of mine in Michigan was born I think it was during the Apollo 11 landing, while another cousin in NY was born right around the time Abbey Road came out (maybe it was Let it Be). By the way, I noticed you liked horseback riding. I have a 2nd cousin who teaches dressage, German technique (she used to compete). Her mom owns the horse farm in N. Calif. she teaches at. I have never, as far as I can remember, ever ridden a horse--maybe one of those ponies at a park when I was little. I have, however, ridden an elephant and a camel. Stinky buggers, but way cool. That was when I was maybe 6 or 7 at a safari park under close supervision. Doesn't matter--I rode 'em, and that's what counts! ;-). Oh, and Leo, if you read this, too, I have a cousin who builds bikes in Sta Cruz CA (I think he's still building them anyway--he could have retired actually).