Waking up made easy(er)

Everyone who knows me will testify that I am a night owl. I will happily stay up until 2 or 3am but HATE getting up in the morning with every fiber of my being. I realize that's strong language, but I have strong feelings here.
Unfortunately, the summer job I got requires me to report at 0 six thirty hours in the morning. I knew I was going to need help if I was going to be civil, much less functional.
Since my egg and toast are ready at about 5:30 (my mother is very sweet), I need to be moving by 5:15. Rather then having a single alarm that goes off, then dragging myself out of bed and growling at everyone within reach; I have set up a three step system.
1. My clock radio comes on at around four thirty. It's tuned to a music station, and the volume is turned way down. I've never woken up to it, but it's enough to start pulling me out of really deep sleep.
2. At 5:01 my cell phone alarm goes off. Since the music has been on, I usually hear it pretty quickly, but I don't even attempt to get up or even open my eyes. I smack it to make it shut up, then reach up and turn on my reading lamp. The light further penetrates the fog, and I start to actually wake up.
3. Seven minutes later my cell phone goes off again. Sometimes I smack it one more time, but I'll usually get up then.
By the time my feet hit the floor, I've got nearly a 45 minute head start on full consciousness (it can take an hour and a half to get there), this means it doesn't take as long for me to get dressed, my outfit is less likely to look like it was assembled by a blind person, and most importantly, I don't end up growling at my family.

Local wildlife

I confess that I sort of cheated on that last post. Alright, maybe more than sort of. Actually, I had the code saved already so that all I had to do was paste and post. I really cheated. Tonight, I'm making a real post. Note that I did not say a good post, or a thoughtful post, or even a post with a point, just a real one.

On the day that I finally remembered to carry my camera to school, I was walking down an outside staircase with a retaining wall to my right. It had hundreds of flowers cascading over it thus:

I was walking down that staircase minding my own business when I heard a noise right by my ear. I turned my head a saw this:
Let's look a little closer
A bee. Of course at that point, I did the only natural thing - pulled out my camera and started taking pictures like a good blogger.
Unfortunately, the bee was much faster than my camera, so I only got one more picture of her (Useless trivia: All worker bees are infertile females.).

And with more of the flowers left in the frame:
Unfortunately, I have nothing insightful to say, so enjoy the pictures and try not to think about it too much.

This is a post

Your home is a Magic Magnate's Villa Your kitchen is someplace you never go, because you "have people for that." There's a Chocolatessen, which is rapidly becoming your favorite room of the house. Having one is also becoming a trend among your wealthy neighbors. Your master bedroom is the size of a small barn, with carpet thick enough to reach your ankles. Your study has hardback editions of every classic ever written, plus a special edition of Rich Dad, Poor Dad with the parts you ghost-authored highlighted. One of your garages holds your collection of ferraris, and is measured in acreage. Your home also includes a guest wing and private quarters for your servants. Your guests enjoy your home theater with hi-def plasma screen TV, and the thrones you watch it from. Outside is your hedge maze and gardens, meticulously tended by a team of world-class botanists. And, you have a pet -- a doberman pincer named "Warren". Below is a snippet of the blueprints:

Build YOUR Dream Home!

and for variety from the Ferraries

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Useless geeky thing I discovered:
Acme Klein Bottles - where yesterday's future is here today!

15 years

Blessed tagged me to do this meme.

Think back on the last 15 years of your life. What would you tell someone that you hadn’t seen or talked to for 15 years? How would you sum up your life? You get 10 bullet points. A list of 10 things to summarize about you. At the end of your list, tag 5 more people and send on the love…

15 years ago I was 8. I probably wouldn’t recognize anyone that I knew then and haven’t seen since.
1. I’ve gained close to 100 pounds and gotten a little bit taller.
2. My parents pulled me from the public school system and put me in a private school before beginning homeschooling from which I graduated.
3. We bought a house a few streets down from where we lived.
4. My dad got a promotion a few states away.
5. We sold the house, moved across the few states, and bought another one.
6. My older sister got married, and we still haven’t convinced her husband that he needs to move this way. I miss her.
7. I went to our local community college and earned two degrees.
8. I graduated at the top of my class, so they made me give a speech.
9. I’m now attending a state university and trying not to let it kill me.
10. I have a niece, Lil Sugar. She is the cutest child in the whole world, and lives way too far away. We still haven’t convinced her father that he needs to move this way.

I tag:
Daramis – Have fun with it.
Jessie – This one will require words.
Chris – Because I can
Lawrence – You haven’t posted in ages.
Anyone else who wants to do it.

I got tired of looking at white on black. I don't particularly like this, so I'll be changing it more soon.

News

Good:

The images are fixed. Now you can see the pretty flowers in all of their glory rather than just the left two-thirds. Sorry about the weird linking in the post; I need to come up with a new strategy.

I finally have access and can therefore perform my duties at work rather than just being a desk ornament.

Bad:

My watch died at precisely 2:49 this afternoon.

I'm not going to get enough enough sleep tonight.

Aaargghh

The images in the previous post should have fit. I'll fix them as soon as I can, but I will be already at work in 8 hours, so I don't want to get started messing with it right now. Goodnight all

I'm easily distracted

If you don't believe it ask my sister, or check my posting frequency - I intend to post once or twice a week.

I took my camera to school several weeks ago intending to take pictures of the campus, some of the architecture, a couple of truly enormous lecture halls, and maybe capture the sheer size of the place in general.

But then I met this





A whole row of them in fact. And I found myself compelled to take pictures of them from every angle.



Straight down





How about a different angle





...and a close up...




Great! Great! Now let's get that bud into the picture




Alright, now from the side





Hmmm, got a metal rail there; I think I can do a better job of framing that



Yeah, that's better.


Alright folks, we'll give you a call when you're proofs are ready.


And then I had to go to class. I did get some of the building though - see the bricks in the last couple.
Further installments will be posted when I get around to it.