This Weekend....

... I hit a raccoon at 3am driving north on 100. It had babies following it. I saw them in the rear-view mirror. I am a horrible person. It broke my car. I guess that's what I deserve.

On a brighter note, by tomorrow night I will be in CAPE MAY!! Cape May is my favorite city. I love Cape May. As soon as I get to the hotel, I'm throwing my stuff on the bed and skipping accross the street to the beach. It'll be late evening by that time... perfect. I've had dreams about walking along Cape May Beach at night. (Serious.)

I also get to stop in Philly and D.C. It'll be a crazy week.

Happiness is a new Tom Petty CD

I am listening to Tom Petty's new disc, Highway Companion, as we speak... or as I type. I just picked it up at Best Buy - this is the first time I've ever purchased a new CD on the day of its release.
I'm almost all the way through it. It's nice, it's good, it's Tom - he's quite a bit more mellow on this one... I wonder if it's because he is getting on in years. :)

If you're a TP fan, I recommend.

Yep.

Before I officially start my last day of work, I'd like to share with you Virgo's horoscope for today.

July 21, 2006 A long-awaited vacation, or even a move you've been hoping to make could finally be made possible. Before you go, however, there may be some paperwork that needs to be taken care of. Thoughts of business advancement may be playing on your mind, and you might be considering taking a course or two that might increase your marketability and help you a take a step further in achieving your goals.

Crazy.

End credits

Tomorrow is my last day of work at Opus. It's kind of surreal, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. My experience at this job is ending on a very positive note, and I've learned so much over the past year. I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to stumble through it myself, without anyone holding my hand along the way.
I now feel more confident in my problem solving skills, my ability to pick up on new things and survive in a new environment.
I survived a year of severe change! I'm very proud of myself and will be sad to leave the people at the office.

But life beckons... and I come a-runnin.' (I think I just made that word up... at least the spelling of it.)

This next step in my journey is kinda freaking me out. Moving to a new place... starting school again... growing up.
I adore the cities and my apartment here, and I'll be sad to leave my good friends who are in this area. However, one of my life goals is to see as much of the world as I can... so I figure I'd better start now, no matter how scary this unknown future seems.
I'm confident now that I can do this on my own.

Also note - to celebrate my last day of work, I'm going to Drink (with a capital "D" - meaning the bar, called Drink, in Uptown)... tomorrow night. You should come.

Why I will never gamble

My luck: Last Thursday, the first day this area got any substantial amount of rain, my car window got stuck down.

The rest of the story:
I live in an apartment with no large trash cans, so I only have small garbage bags. It took four of them, a roll of duct tape, and two people to patch it up.

Then I had to drive to Eden Prairie.

The garbage bags came off.

Then I spent the next hour of my life in the Walmart parking lot trying to stick a very large piece of plastic table covering to a very wet car.

Thank God I wasn't alone... I probably would've freaked out.

Nothing happened to the car. The tape came off fine. Nothing was stolen. The window was fixed the next day (thanks Dad for taking it to the dealership) - and (here's the best part) it was free. (!!) They also fixed the rear-view mirror that had gotten smashed the weekend before while my car was parked on the street. That was not free.

Four days left of work.

Random Stuff

Hmm, it's been a little while since that last post.

Apparently Tom Petty was so amazing that I had to leave the post up long enough to make sure everyone saw it.
I don't know who "everyone" is.

9 days left of work. Please come and celebrate with me on the 21st when I'm finished. Buy me drinks and food because I'll need to save my money.

Just finished my "diagnostic stats exam" that I need to get back to the grad dept by Wednesday. I like stats when I know what I'm doing, but most of the time I don't. I've never taken a good stats course... hopefully that'll happen next year.

In other news, I love summer.
I love the cities in the summer.
I'm excited for my few weeks off after el trabajo ends, but terrified of moving.
It'll be an experience.
That's such a weird phrase... "it'll be an experience." Well, yes... of course it will.

I need to stop writing. I'm not saying anything remotely intelligent.
I'll be back when I have something to talk about!