With crow all over the place, I shall begin, though rather embarrassingly. I did do something new this weekend, which was to attend the AIDS in Africa exhibit at Crystal Cathedral this past Sunday. Unfortunately there isn’t too much to say about it, other than it was really good albeit short, and they don’t allow cameras inside. The pictures I have here are gathered from the Orange County Register’s website. Basically you are handed an iPod shuffle and some headphones when you first walk in. The guide speaking on the iPod gives you the name of a single child (out of 4), and you walk through the exhibit looking at this child’s photos and learn, eventually, whether or not they got AIDS or not. They even have a mock clinic set up where you hold out your hand and get your test results. It’s pretty powerful, and I’m not ashamed to say I cried a bit. But the whole exhibit takes no more than 20 minutes to walk through, that is, if you decide not to write a message on the prayer wall and\or listen to AIDS relief workers tell you ways to contribute.
I’m also embarrassed to say that I had an opportunity to go up to Long Beach on Sunday night to attend the Amazing Race Family/Friends/Fans party (that actually had a few of the reality star cast members there) but I got tired (read: lazy) and decided not to go. Now that would have made some great pictures.
You may be wondering what the hell I HAVE been doing, since it’s pretty obvious that I haven’t been updating here…so I’ll embarrassingly tell you…..I’ve been watching TV.
That’s right. TV. Big glorious flat screen TV. Kevin and I pooled to together the generosity that was ‘Christmas presents from family’ as well as a few of our own dollars, and ordered a Sony Aquos 37” flat screen television from Amazon. We ordered it the Friday after New Years and obsessed about its whereabouts for a week. And when I mean obsessed, I mean obsessed. I was on the Amazon site every hour on the hour. We called the shipping company every day to find out where in the country it currently was (which was mostly Reno, NV). It was suppose to be delivered to us on January 15th…we couldn’t wait that long. When we called and found out it was in Los Angeles, we fought Friday afternoon traffic (I say that blasé, but anyone who has ever lived in Southern California knows the pure hell that that statement is), endured the crazy over-fanatic security guard, and saved off hunger pains just so that TV would be snuggly in our living room for the Saturday afternoon Packer game.
Of course, any time you buy something that needs to be plugged in, you need to actually set it up. It doesn’t magically unwrap itself, put in the proper cords and wires, and tune in to the newest episode of ‘House’. Noooo, it needs help. I told Kevin that I would let him do everything…stay out of his way…cover my ears when he cursed too much. But I couldn’t stay away. It was new technology in the house, I had to touch it. As Kevin says, I’m for the tornado method of unwrapping everything right away, figure out as much as I can on my own, then try to locate the discarded manual under the pile of styrofoam and twisty-ties when I get stuck. He’s the keep everything in box while he reads through the directions and carefully pulls things out one by one as he needs them way. Yeah, I know, yet we get along so well….except of course when we are setting anything at all up\putting something together…which is how we got in a fight Friday night. And when I say ‘fight’, I mean ‘overreacting because we are both frustrated’. Basically I pulled out the power cord directly from the TV while it was powered on and I got overreacted-yelled at by Kevin and I overreacted-huffed away while he was still talking. We made up quickly and I’m proud to say that we were both on the couch Saturday afternoon watching the Packers kick the Seahawks butts in glorious HD. Seriously, it was like it was snowing in our living room it was so awesome.
Out with the old...
...in with the new.
And that’s what I’ve been up to, and also a reasonable explanation why I haven’t posted in awhile. I’m making it a goal to make the upcoming weeks a bit more interesting for you all to read so stick around, it will get better.
4 comments:
Moe,
Congrats on the new TV! I keep telling myself that my 32" CRT TV will have to do for me until I can afford to really increase the dimensions significantly. (Actually, that's easy for me to say because I also have a 50" rear projection in the basement for when I can actually check out of life above-ground.)
Anywho, the AIDS thing sounds interesting. Set design is obviously the biggest concern of the people who set it up, since they didn't go so far as to create a pool of children that would take more than one hand to count (and that, the hand of a single-digit amputee). Huh what? The Titanic touring exhibit, as well as the Holocaust Museum, do something similar but there are dozens if not more names you can draw, and interesting true-life tidbits about each one as you go through the exhibits. My own six year old jewish child died on a train on the way to a camp in Austria. Very sad.
What was I saying? Oh, right. It's very nice that they're doing an AIDS in Africa awareness thing. I'm sure they would expand the list of children if they didn't have another useless glass tower to build in Garden Grove.
;-)
Ed
Hi Ed,
Yeah, Crystal Cathedral was kind of...big, for lack of better words and getting my ass on a one way track to hell. I have to say though, their bathrooms were impressive. If I was homeless, I would totally hang out there.
I've been wanting to go to the tolerance museum (is that in Long Beach?) and the Holocaust museum for awhile now...maybe sometime this year.
Kevin and I love the new TV. He had to convince me to get the 37" rather than the 32" and I'm glad he did. I never considered the 'shrinkage' factor when watching something in SD.
Yippee a new post! I've really got to work on one myself.
The AIDs Awareness thing sounds really interesting. It's the kind of thing that you are glad you went to even though it wasn't enjoyable. (Like most Tarantino movies...) Were there many people there?
Congrats on the TV! Sounds exciting! What did you do with the old one?
I'm still in NoDak heading to the west coast at the end of this month. If this makes you happy it's been -10F these days, bloody cold.
Hi Shannen!
Yes, the exhibit was interesting but unpleasant in the way you described. There were tons of people there, but because I made reservations online, I got to cut to the front of the line.
We still have the old TV. We're holding onto it in case something (gasp!) happens to the new one and we have to send it back. Obviously we're hoping that doesn't happen.
-10 degrees! EEK! You could write a post on how fast water freezes when you throw a bucket of it outside. I normally get a bit of glee when I hear about the coldness others are experiencing back east but that's just insane.
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