Nightswimming with Mr. November

Chris and I were in Atlanta this weekend, mainly to attend the REM concert at the Lakewood Amphitheater. Such a great show and we got sooooo lucky with the weather (the thunderstorm didn't hit till late that night). The National and Modest Mouse opened (I heart Modest Mouse, although I wished they'd played more of their older stuff). The National was selling tshirts that said Mr. November (name of one of their songs) and Obama on it. So great, wish I'd bought one. Grrr! Anyhoo...Michael Stipe shook his thang and they played a great mix of oldies and new stuff. Here's the set list:

1) These Days
2) Living Well
3) So Fast So Numb
4) What's the Frequency Kenneth
5) Time After Time
6) Driver 8
7) Man Sized Wreath
8) Walk Unafraid
9) Hollow Man
10) Ignoreland
11) Houston
12) Electrolite
13) (Don't Go Back To) Rockville, (Mike on lead)
14) Auctioneer
15) Harbourcoat
16) The One I Love
17) I've Been High
18) Let Me In, (accoustical version with Bill R. joining on guitar)
19) Bad Day
20) Horse to Water
21) Orange Crush
22) I'm Gonna DJ
23) Supernatural Superserious
24) Losing My Religion
25) Pretty Persuasion
26) NightSwimming
27) Fall on Me (with Johnny Marr)
28) Man on the Moon (also with Johnny Marr)

Vintage Finds

After a busy work week, we've had a even busier weekend of home improvement. I think half of our weekend was spent at Home Depot - no, seriously. By the end of this week we should know the staff by name. We ordered kitchen cabinets, bought cabinets for the laundry room, ordered countertops, an over-the-range microwave, a dishwasher, what else...oh I finally bought a lacecap hydrangea (I've had a minor obsession with hydrangeas for a while now - they were in my wedding bouquet). Whew, that's some serious HD shopping.

Due to an afternoon downpour, I found myself inside online instead of outside gardening (which was The Plan) - but all was not lost. I ran across this fantastic blog Vintage Children's Books My Child Loves.

I think this might be my long lost passion! After perusing the site I found myself searching online for fantastic vintage books and ended up ordering not one, but thirteen (holy cow!) goodies from Powell's Books online. Somehow I got all of those for under $50 including shipping. Woo hoo. So random readers and supportive friends, do you have any favorite oldies but goodies to share with me? Give me your suggestions and I'll track them down for my unborn child; who obviously, needs a large reading collection before he's even born!

Totally Unrelated Sidenote: In case you didn't know, the wonderful Tim Russert from Meet the Press passed away unexpectedly a couple days ago at the way too young age of 58. They aired a wonderful but so sad tribute this morning on Meet the Press. If you missed it, I think they have it online at MSNBC. My thoughts/prayers go out to his family and friends.

Duck, Duck Goose

This week I'm coming atcha from Duck, NC in the Outer Banks. Unfortunately I'm still working most of the week, but there's definitely worse places to work remotely from. Chris' aunt and uncle have a house that's a couple blocks from the beach, so we're staying here with my in-laws. Today is sunny in the mid-70s (might get warmer) and breezy. Right now Chris and my father-n-law are off kayaking and my mother-n-law is parked on the beach reading. If all goes well I'll join her down on the beach in a few hours. In the meantime Leftie (the inlaws black lab) and I are stuck here at the house, but at least there's wifi and I can work from the deck! So although I'm bummed to be working, I should be thankful to be able to work outside in good weather and in the company of a cute dog. Right? Right!

Who's Excited?

SATC hits theaters tomorrow folks, now who's excited? Like moi, totally! Made plans and purchased tickets to check it out tomorrow night. Nice thing about living in Savannah, so far SATC tickets for tomorrow have not sold out yet, unlike in some cities where wannabe Carries and Charlottes (etc) are lining up for the pic. Kinda feelin like rushing out to Blockbuster to rent the last season just to refresh my memory of where things left off. Hmm... sounds like a plan!

Anyhow, sorry for all the silence lately. I was away in DC for Memorial Day weekend visiting girlfriends in DC. What started off as a quick trip to do some baby shopping turned into a baby blast weekend with close friends and even a dinner/baby shower thrown together by DC mom extraordinaire Laurita. Such good, generous people I have for friends. Count me lucky. I also got to spend some quality time with some of my favorite toddlers - Alexander (the Great) and the oh so talkative Grey. Adorable, I miss everyone already!

Alrighty, I'm going to get my SATC on. I suggest you do the same.

Doing Time in PayPal Purgatory

I apologize in advance for the long rant below - somehow when a website does me wrong I feel the need to publicly vent.

How long does it take to update your mailing address and phone number on the PayPal website? It should take a matter of minutes. If the system works correctly.

Paypal prides itself on being secure. Soooo secure that they make you confirm that you are indeed the account holder before you can make certain changes to your profile. Their method of doing this involves calling you and then you have to give them a confirmation number. This is where I ran into trouble. The only number that they gave as an option to call was my old work number. Great. It didn't give me the option of my current phone number (even though I had it listed as my home phone and the primary contact number). GRRRRR! The other option was to contact me by phone at a specific address, but the only address they gave me as an option was my old address that I was trying to remove. Confused yet? Yeah, it shouldn't be this hard. I'm pretty adept at navigating websites, even ones that aren't so user friendly. After trying multiple times to resolve this online, I noticed a phone number that you can call to update your profile through customer service. Long story short it took 2 representatives and a half hour to remove an address and a phone number from my profile. Moral of the story: not sure there is one, but PayPal either needs smarter customer service folks or they need to sort out these bugs in their system.