I dreamed my whole desk was clean...

Guess what? It's that time of year again. Busy season. You know how I know? When I left work tonight, my desk looked like this.

Basically, it looks like the inside of my head.

Try not to be too jealous.

Cameras are fun!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all you blog people you! I hope it was amazing and all that jazz. I decided that instead of just tell you how awesome my life is, I would show you! Yay! All with the help of my new tiny pocket sized camera! (Prepare yourself for picture overload. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

This year for Christmas my parents got a bouncy house! Yay! Trust me, life is better when you have a bouncy house. Supposedly, it is "for the grandkids", but Jared and I know better. We know.

The traditional Christmas Day cleaning of the guns. We start them early. He may only be 2 years old, but that Vance is already quite a shot.

This year I made each of my nieces and nephews bleach pen shirts. Here are Carter-boy and Vance showing off my handy work. As you can tell, they LOVE them. Pretty much I am the best aunt of all time.

Cropstar and I found AWESOME shirts, and we now have magical shaman to guide our lives. Trust me, we know exactly how cool we look.

Every year, at least every year for the past 10 years, after watching the fireworks at midnight, my dad takes gasoline, writes the year in the street, and lights it on fire. It is awesome.

Fireworks are awesome!

I went to a few concerts - I saw a band called 100 Monkeys. The lead singer is apparently the guy who played Jasper in the Twilight movies. However, it took me quite a while to figure out exactly which one he was. Turns out he was this one. It's a good thing it is dark, because otherwise he would be all kinds of sparkly...

And, of course, 100 Monkeys had a mascot. A banana.

And, then it was Cropstar's birthday... and we had to see Flogging Molly. Yay for Flogging Molly!

So, that is my past few weeks in a nutshell. I would like to leave you with my New Year's resolutions for 2010.

1. Become independetly wealthy

2. Contribute money to worthy causes.

3. Have a bridge named after me for all my charitable works.

I don't see how I can fail at this one. Or, maybe I'll just put my name on a bridge and call it good. We shall see.

It's all Tiger's fault...

Today and tomorrow I am in San Francisco attending the National SEC Financial Reporting Conference. It is about as exciting as it sounds. Today at lunch I sat next to a man who was completely fascinated by the fact that I was from Las Vegas. He asked about the downturn in the economy, and I told him yes, times were tough for the casinos on the Strip. He responded, "Well, and this Tiger Wood's situation can't help either."

"Why would the Tiger Wood's situation have anything to do with Las Vegas?"

"Well, now that he got caught, married men won't feel as comfortable coming to Las Vegas. That has to hurt the bottom line."

"It only takes one bad apple to ruin the whole bunch, doesn't it?"

I see a whole new marketing campaign here.

I'm back!

So, for some reason, at the beginning of October, I lost the desire to blog. Gasp! I know. But, then at Thanksgiving, I realized I missed blogging and wanted to return to the cyber world. But, then I felt pressure, because my first blog back needed to be really really funny. Too much pressure! So, here it is, my blog return, and it isn't that funny, so get over it.

As part of my "30 while 30" list, I have to learn to play the guitar. Ms. McGee, Cha Cha, and I have all signed up for a 5 week course at UNLV. After taking this class, we are forming a girl band. Cropstar will be our drummer.

Seeing as how I am actually signed up for a guitar class, and I currently don't have a guitar, you would think my #1 priority would be finding a guitar. But, it is not. My #1 priority is coming up with a name and t-shirt design for our girl band. No band can survive without a good name or t-shirt design. And, more importantly, if we come up with the t-shirt design soon, we can get them made so the three of us can wear them together to the first day of class so everyone else will know we are super cool.

So, I am open to suggestions. Ideas for our band?

Also, as a side note, UNLV offers all sorts of fun continuing education classes. Up next, cake decorating. Watch out world!

Livin' la Vida Loca

I love live music. Apparently, it is my passion. I would see almost anyone in concert, except not Dixie Chicks or Garth Brooks, because I do have standards. The last week of September was a concert filled extravaganza.

Saturday night: Yeah Yeah Yeahs (see post below)
Wednesday night: Air Raid Anthem at the Beauty Bar, along with various other local bands. (Check them out on iTunes!)
Thursday night: Flogging Molly at the Pearl, best venue in Las Vegas. I love Irish rock.
Saturday night: The Killers in Salt Lake City. Simply amazing.

The show in Salt Lake City involved a road trip with my girls, which was pretty much as perfect of a weekend as you can get. The only dark mark on this perfect weekend was the reluctance of my good friend; we will call her “Hot Cop”, to arrest me. Background story. Hot Cop is an actual police officer, patrolling the streets of Utah, keeping us all safe. And, she carries hot pink handcuffs. I am a good, law abiding citizen who has never been arrested, nor do I have any plans to actually be arrested. This is why I came up with the perfect plan, a picture of me being arrested by Hot Cop, leaning up against the police car, being frisked, wearing the hot pink handcuffs. Funny for everyone involved, and a picture to show my mom and freak her out! Perfect! But Hot Cop refused! So, to provide Hot Cop some extra incentive the next time I make it to Utah, below is a list of actual laws in the State of Utah that I have broken. (All laws have been verified by the website www.dumblaws.com. And, the Internet never lies.)

1. Birds have the right of way on all highways.
When I was attending BYU I drove a red Bronco, and I am talking the full size old school Bronco, and it was amazing. One day while driving down I-15 with my brother and sister, a hawk went into a dive straight for the car. We saw it coming, and because of traffic, were unable to do anything to prevent the inevitable, and instead took our only course of action, which was screaming at the top of our lungs. The hawk hit the top of the windshield, bounced off, and landed on the side of the freeway where we can only assume he died. Because I failed to give a bird the right of way, I am a bird murderer.

2. It is considered an offence to hunt whales.
I think everyone is well aware of my pro-whale hunting stance. Sure, it is controversial, like a pro-littering stance, but we all need to stand up for what we believe. A few years ago, our family took a vacation to Tonga, and I don’t even have words to describe how awesome and beautiful it was. One of the most amazing experiences we had was the opportunity to swim with whales. And when I say swim with whales, I mean these large ocean dwelling mammals were 10 feet away from us. But, before we were able to swim with the whales, we had to first find the whales, which involved a whale hunt. That is right, in Tonga, I hunted whales. Another law of Utah broken.

3. Throwing snowballs in Provo will result in a $50 fine.
I spent 5 years of my life living in Provo, going to BYU, and was involved in several snowball fights, and threw MANY snowballs. And, I never paid any fines. I am sure there is a warrant out for my arrest on this one.

These are the laws of Utah that I have already broken. There are a few others I intend to break at my next available opportunity. Pictures will be coming.

1. No one may walk down the street carrying a paper bag containing a violin.
I have the violin and paper bag all ready. Just need the street.

2. Auctions may not be advertised by hiring trombone players to play on the street.
I have already hired the trombone player. And, I have my auction all ready.

So, Hot Cop, you can clearly see, I am a dangerous person, in need of a fake arrest to scare me straight. Hot Cop, take me away.

But I NEED it!

On Saturday night, after attending an amazing wedding reception, where they turned the church gym into a 50's diner, literally, Cropstar and I were unsure of what our evening plans would entail. That is until about 8:30 pm when we both realized at the exact same moment that we NEEDED to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in concert at the Pearl at the Palms. (PS - Best venue in Las Vegas.) Unfortunately, the show started at 8 pm! Gasp! We rushed down, got tickets, missed the opening band, but after buying matching T-shirts, were in our seats when the show began. The glorious show. The life changing show. The show where I realized my new life goal - to find an mp3 of the acoustic version of Maps.

Some of you out there may think this is a silly goal. This is where you are wrong. And I will tell you why. Karen O is the reason why. She is amazing. (For those of you unfamiliar with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, she is the lead singer.) Karen O is an original. When you see an outfit and wonder, Who in the world would wear that?, the answer is Karen O. She had on only what can be described as a Japanese inspired kimono onesie covered in geometric neon colored shapes, paired with yellow zebra stripped tights, and fringed shoes. For reals. And, she put on an amazing show where I might have thrown out my shoulder for all of the crazy dancing.

But, for me the highlight of the show was Karen O singing an acoustic version of my favorite Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, Maps. Some of you may be familiar with Maps because it is featured on the first Rock Band. But, you probably aren't familiar with this:



Now that you have heard it, I am sure you understand why it is my new life goal to own this song. I love this. I need this. This is my plea to the Internet universe - help me find the mp3 of this version of Maps! I have looked, I have searched, and video is as close as I have come. Help me Obie Wan, you are my only hope!

Swagga like me

I have superpowers. One is my ability to consume large quantities of food. Another is to live off little to no sleep. I thought turning 30 would be the kryptonite to this superpower, but still I persevere and push through. 30 is no match for me! I can’t remember the last time I went to bed before midnight. Seriously. But, last night was going to be different. I was going to be in bed by 11pm, which is a HUGE deal. This all changed with one phone call from Cha-Cha. “Get down to the Beauty Bar now. We are going to be in a music video.” Who can say no to that?

That statement turned out to be very true. We were in a music video for Swagga, who is apparently a reggae/hip hop star. (Don’t worry, I have never heard of him either.) We had to learn choreographed dance moves, got all the water we could drink, and were able to be in the presence of greatness. At several times during the evening I had to remind myself, this is real life.

Being in a music video for my new best friend Swagga taught me several important things. The first, there is a Crazy Horse 3 here in Las Vegas. I learned this from one of our fellow dancers, who works there as a stripper. Our stripper friend arrived in what she described as her “modest work attire”. This consisted of a fish net top, gold bikini bra, fish net thigh-highs, and a gold mini skirt. All this nicely accentuated by clear platform stripper heels and upper thigh tattoo. She became a very good friend of mine during the night, as she probably felt a kinship to me because we were similarly dressed. (I was wearing a black t-shirt and a denim skirt. We were practically twins.)

You can now make music videos without even using cameras. When we first arrived, the “choreographer” was teaching us the group dance routine. I say “choreographer” as his only qualification appears to be teaching a hip hop dance class at a local studio. (I got his card, first class is free, call me if you want to go!) While learning the dance, I noticed that there were no cameras anywhere. At all. Lights were going up, people were standing around wearing all black, but no cameras. I felt like perhaps we were being punked. When the photographer finally arrived (we knew it was him because he was wearing all black AND a hat) he had one camera around his neck. A camera for taking pictures of your trip to Europe, not for filming my world debut music video. Cropstar assures me that these cameras are fully capable of shooting amazing video, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding. I will wait for my debut on YouTube before I make any final judgments.

Being in a music video requires you to stand VERY close to people you would not otherwise associate with in life. In order to make Swagga seem popular, we were instructed to “crush” him when the music came on. Our stripper friend was excited for and excelled at this direction. I also got close and personal with Swagga, and I am sure the extra effort I put into "crushing" him will be noticed and appreciated on screen.

Standing very close and dancing with strangers will result in smashed toes. Just ask Josh, who was a baby about the whole thing and started crying the moment his toe started bleeding.

We left the shoot before it was over, because Josh was crying, and because it was after midnight and we all have actual lives that require us to sleep, no matter how good we look on film. Just goes to show how amazing it is to live in Las Vegas. Strippers, rappers, dancers, Puerto Ricans can all unite for one cause. Swagga! Look for us on YouTube!

Swagga's best dancers taking a break from the action: