The Blonde Excuse: February 2008 Archives

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February 28, 2008

Happy 21st Birthday Joe!

Last Friday night, Brent and I went to Joe's 21st birthday party with a performance by Damn the Torpedoes. As always, I had a blast... especially my eardrums which took at least 48 hours to recover from standing next to the speakers.

Happy 21st Joe! Look everyone, I bet that's Joe's first beer EVER he's holding in his hand!

John and Jon of Damn the Torpedoes:

Zee's awesome performance with the band:

I really liked how this picture came out without the flash:

Brent and Me:

You know it's bad news when you take a picture of someone and they make this "Oh Crap!" face:

Turns out, Brent spilled beer in my hair!!

He is so lucky to have such a forgiving girlfriend.

The band:

Jon:

Tim:

Dave:

John and Derek:

Brent and Jim:

Jon:

John and Tim:

Dave:

The man of the hour, Joe, came on stage to sing for a while too!

Brent's head somehow got distorted in this picture and that, combined with the face he's making, made this one of my favorite shots of the night. Also, how awesome is their 'fridge tap?

Brent, Jim, and James:

James, Jim, Jon, and Brent:

Walking in the snow back to James and Jim's quad:

Jim decided to make a snow angel:

Of course, after seeing a band play, the guys had to start one of their own.

Will, Jim, James, and Brent playing "Rock Band" on PS3:

And that was my night.

Before you go, make sure you check out Jon's other band, Late Night Uproar, and download their music on iTunes!

Posted by lauren at 07:54 PM | Comments (5)

Snow

There isn't really a particularly interesting story to go along with these pictures except that it snowed a lot a little while ago.... I'll make this entry short and to the point and leave it at that.

Snow:

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:07 AM | Comments (1)

Lunar Eclipse

On the night of the lunar eclipse, Brent and I drove to a nearby park, across the street from the reservoir where we often go for walks, to get some good pictures. I brought my tripod with me to get some good night shots, but I accidentally left the camera attachment piece in my room, making the tripod useless... ugh. I used sticks to try to build a tripod-like contraption and I think it helped my pictures a little bit, but they're definitely not as good as they could have been with a real tripod. Anyway, here are the ones that came out the best:

We had a lunar eclipse about a year ago that I also posted about and when I was re-reading that entry tonight, I read about Brent's and my psychic encounter that we had on the night of the eclipse. I had completely forgotten about this and was really creeped out by it when I read it just now so I thought I'd re-post it.

March 6, 2007

Wow, I actually just realized this, but isn't it cool that we went to Luna Pizza on the night of the lunar eclipse? It's also pretty cool that we met a psychic in Barnes & Noble that night. He happened to be deaf which somehow made him more credible. He was a really nice guy who told Brent that he had a strong, white aura. I hadn't met him yet (Brent was off in one of his nerd aisles while I was looking at normal people books) and he told Brent that he and I are going to get married, isn't that weird? Brent said it was right after I walked past on my way to the bathroom that the guy told him that he was going to marry me, and he didn't even know that we were together! I wish I were psychic. The guy was trying to teach Brent how to be psychic too and then I came over and he told me some cool stories about his experience with psychic stuff. I know I sound like an idiot, but it was actually really really cool. He showed us a book about Nostradamus and when he saw that I was wearing a turquoise necklace (the one Jocelyn brought me from Mexico) he told me all about what turquoise means and how it protects people from the "evil eye." OK, I know I sound like such a loon right now, but wait, it gets better. So the psychic guy told me that I had to rinse my turquoise necklace under cold water to get the something off of it... it sounded like he was saying e-chi but I'm sure that makes no sense. Anyway, he said I had to put my necklace under cold water before I wore it again. I got home and was washing my hands in the bathroom when I saw my necklace in the mirror and remembered what the guy had said. I almost rinsed it off in the water and then thought I was really going off the deep end and started to leave the bathroom. I threw my paper towel into the trash can and, what was there? A can with the words "Evil Eye" right on it, facing up out of the trash. Wow, isn't that creepy? Obviously I turned around, went back to the sink, and rinsed my necklace under cold water IMMEDIATELY. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I thought that was more than coincidence.

For those of you who are curious, I found a picture of that Evil Eye beer can HERE.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 12:44 AM | Comments (3)

Driving In The Mist

Driving to and from school on the Merritt Parkway for the past four years, I've always noticed how creepy it is at night. Despite being a highway, there are no street lights so headlights are all you can see. Every once in a while, I've been on the Merritt at night in the fog with no light but the headlights of the occasional car coming from the other direction. The trees in the middle of the highway always look so eerie, sitting in the fog or mist like that. I've always wanted to get a good picture of it, so when Brent was driving us back to school from my house a couple weekends ago, I tried to get a few pictures because it was the perfect night... rain, mist, fog, darkness, not too many cars... the works.

Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to get a good picture while on the highway, but I did my best and I'll have to leave the rest to your imaginations:

Now imagine being in my shoes and driving this alone sometimes! Someone out there should make a horror movie set on that highway at night!

While on the subject of spooky roads, Brent and I took a wrong exit off of I-84 a little while ago (sorry for all the boring highway talk) and ended up in this weird nearly deserted farmland area... in Connecticut? There's so much of this state I don't know about. Anyway, we stopped at this intersection that was the meeting of four roads with a blinking red light hanging in the middle. It was one of the creepiest places I've ever been. I had Brent stop the car so that I could take a picture, but it didn't come out too well. If we weren't both terrified and ready to get out of there, I probably could have gotten a better one, but here's my one shot:

Don't wander on scary streets alone at night!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 12:32 AM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2008

Beach Patrol

Don't be fooled by Rocky's size, he's one tough puppy. My parents, Brent, and I took him to the beach a little while ago and he barked at everyone and everything in sight, letting them all know that this is his beach.

Rocky:

We took him down to the water's edge to see the ocean (well, I guess it's really just the Long Island Sound). Here's Brent by the water:

Rocky:

He's such a happy little guy, flapping his ears in the wind:

I actually just got back from my house where Brent and I had dinner tonight and was able to see Rocky and Frisky for the first time in a couple weeks. Frisky is doing so well, by the way. She's really starting to look like her old self again, and Rocky is, as always, absolutely adorable.

After peeing on my feet to say hello (I'm the only one he does this to) Rocky ran upstairs with his new shoe-shaped bone (a real treasure) to hide it somewhere. Rocky loves these shoe bones and whenever he has one, he buries it somewhere so that no one can find it. Whenever anyone gets close to where he's buried his bone, he gets frantic and will go dig it up and re-hide it.

Anyway, I heard him run upstairs with his bone and knew it was either hidden in my room or my brother Geoff's old room, so about an hour later I made a big show in front of Rocky that I was going upstairs and stomped around a lot so he'd hear me up there. Of course he came running up after me and left me alone until I got near my bed. My bed was neatly made with one corner a little messed up with a pillow dragged on top of it. Rocky started snarling and jumped on top of my bed to keep me away from it. I reached under the displaced pillow, pulled my blankets and sheet back, and found his bone hidden in my nice, clean bed! He does this to me all the time. I'm always finding his drool-soaked bones and toys hidden in my clean sheets. He's so cute though, I guess he's worth the trouble.

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 11:58 PM | Comments (1)

SoCo & Lime

The Friday after Valentine's Day, Brent and I were down in Greenwich for the weekend, Molly was home for the weekend, and Cathy and her boyfriend Jacob were also around, so the five of us went out for drinks in Stamford. We started at Black Bear and ended up at Tiernans, as is usually the case.

Molly, Cathy, and Jacob:

Brent and Me:

Molly was having a bad day so between the other four of us, we bought her multiple rounds of SoCo & Lime shots:

Alcohol fixes all of life's problems, right?

Molly and Cathy dancing (I wish someone would remind that weird guy in the background with the unbuttoned shirt that this is Connecticut. And that he's way too old to be here. And maybe also that he's a massive tool):

Brent:

It's almost the weekend, so go out, have a shot of SoCo for me, and keep your shirts buttoned!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 11:43 PM | Comments (2)

Wet Cat

A little while ago when Brent and I were visiting Shadow, Winston, and George at his house, we turned on a water faucet and Shadow went nuts. I didn't think to bring my camera, so all these pictures were taken on my iPhone.

Anyway, Shadow loved the water and wanted to get right in the sink to "catch" it:

Isn't she getting big?

A couple times she actually stuck her whole head under the stream, getting soaked:

George and Winston:

Shadow back in the sink:

She's so cute:

Also, as mentioned a few entries ago, I tried to get a picture of the really heavy fog over in Avon. It actually didn't come out showing the fog too well, but here it is anyway:

Brent's parents are going away for the weekend, so Brent and I are going to go get the bunnies and bring them down to my house, so maybe I'll have some more cute animal pictures coming up soon!

Posted by lauren at 12:19 PM | Comments (2)

Update

So here's my Diagnose Me Update. I still have pretty much all my old symptoms, but the throat thing is getting a lot worse. Randomly, my whole throat will swell up and it feels like I'm trying to swallow over a huge lump. It will stay that way for about 15-20mins at a time and then go back to normal (usually leaving me feeling pretty hoarse for a little while). Everything I've looked up online points to thyroid disease... thoughts anyone?

Just in case it isn't my thyroid... I've been seeing every specialist on the planet getting all sorts of weird tests done. On Monday, I got to wear this sexy contraption around all day:

It's called a Holter monitor and it basically takes a 24 hour EKG. I had all sorts of wires attached to me all day which was super embarrassing. I think I left my room twice, both times wearing two layers of jacket to cover my wires and gigantic beeper box.

There were five of these attached all over my chest:

Thanks again for everyone's comments and ideas! The Diagnose Me entry actually helped a lot and I think I'm headed in the right direction to getting a diagnosis... I hope. This has been going on for weeks now!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 09:11 AM | Comments (3)

Thanks Trent!

One of the most exciting moments of my life has arrived.... I got linked on Pink Is The New Blog!

Now we all owe Trent big time, so make sure you read his site EVERY DAY! It has been one of the links in my blog for a long time now so you have no excuse not to (not even the blonde excuse...ha..ha...).

THANKS!!

Posted by lauren at 03:22 AM | Comments (2)

February 25, 2008

Spice Girls Concert

I finally got my Spice Girls concert videos and pictures loaded! The night before Valentine's Day, I went out for a pre-Valentine's date with Cathy, Molly, Molly's sister Sara, and Sara's fiancé's sister, Steph to the Spice Girls concert! I know I can speak for Cathy, Molly, and me when I say that we have been HUGE Spice Girls fans since 5th grade. Growing up, they were my idols, and now that I've grown up and know what's really important in life, I can honestly say I would sell my soul to be a Spice Girl. My new personal goal in life is to be an international superstar. Do you think I have a shot?

Spice Girls:

Molly, Me, and Cathy:

Sara and Molly (I'm not sure where Steph was when I was taking these pictures):

So exciting:

Their job must be so much fun:

Some of my earlier pictures are a little blurry because I was too excited to get the settings right on my camera at first. I promise they get better later on:

Ginger, Sporty, Scary, Baby, and Posh:

Stop right now, thank you very much....

I really loved how true their outfits stayed to their old "characters" they used to play back in the 90s:

"The Lady Is A Vamp" Stage:

After the song, they got into dressing rooms right on stage to change into their new outfits, while singing!

Back in the dressing rooms:

"Two Become One":

This next part was my absolute favorite. All of the Spice Girls put on modern adaptations of their exact old outfits! Here's an old picture from the 90s:

Ginger:

Baby:

Sporty:

Scary:

Posh:

Each of the girls got her own solo, which I loved.

Posh:

Scary:

Scary Spice brought some random guy up on the stage to participate:

Baby:

"Viva Forever":

At the end of the song, Ginger Spice sunk away into the stage, representing her leaving the group. For a few songs, it was just the other four girls, and then she came back:

Ginger's Solo:

Girl Power:

Sporty's Solo:

Posh:

Baby:

Scary:

I love this picture:

Singing "Mama":

"Spice Up Your Life":

And finally, the videos!

"If You Can't Dance"

"Spice Up Your Life"

I was going to post my "Wannabe" video here, but something happened to it when it uploaded onto Google Video so I'm going to have to post that in a couple days when I can re-upload it.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

Posted by lauren at 12:41 AM | Comments (18)

February 22, 2008

Valentine's Day

As I mentioned earlier, Brent and I split Valentine's Day into two different dates, our Casablanca date and our dinner date, which was actually on Valentine's Day. This year, we tried a restaurant neither of us had been to before, Trumbull Kitchen. The food was delicious! It was sort of a fusion restaurant... but of everything. As an appetizer, we got eel sushi rolls (a first for both of us) and a plate of New Yorker rolls, which was grilled sirloin wrapped up in rice like regular sushi. It was one of the most amazing foods I've ever had. For dinner, Brent had pad thai and I had grilled salmon and we both really enjoyed our meals. Trumbull Kitchen is definitely worth checking out if you're ever in the area!

Here we are dressed up for dinner. You might recognize that as the beautiful Marc Jacobs dress Jocelyn got me for Christmas! I had to wear a sweater just because it was so cold, but I thought it still looked cute like that too!

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!

Posted by lauren at 02:01 AM | Comments (5)

February 21, 2008

Thank You

I just wanted to thank everybody who wrote in with ideas on my Diagnose Me entry. I'm fairly confident at this point that it's my thyroid because lately I've felt a huge lump in my throat that makes it nearly impossible to even swallow at times. I also lose my voice on and off, both of which are symptoms of thyroid issues. Hopefully my blood tests will confirm this. Without all your comments, though, I never would have even gotten that blood test! I had no idea there were so many people out there who read and care enough to write in to help. Thanks everyone!

And now, because I owe you big time, I'm going to actually post some pictures. These are all from my iPhone and were taken in all different times and places. Hopefully I'll be able to do a more legitimate entry sometime soon.

Hartford has some of the prettiest nighttime skies:

I think I took that picture at night when Brent and I were on our way to his house because Brent needed to pick up the bunnies to take them to the vet to get their pedicures. While there, I took these adorable pictures of Shadow who was very happy to see Brent back for a night:

While we were over in Avon (where Brent lives) there was SO much fog! Probably because it's sort of a mountainous area. Anyway, somehow I don't have those pictures on my computer. I haven't quite mastered my iPhone yet despite the great book about it I got for Christmas, but I'll try to get those pictures off my phone tonight. Anyway, the fog was really thick but also so pretty.

We hung around in Avon for a while at a local hardware store looking for some sort of anti-ant stuff. I could have just said "ant repellent" but "anti-ant" was more fun. The dorms at school have a major ant infestation. Brent and I both bought some non-toxic ant traps a while ago but there are still literally hundreds! I'm particularly upset about this because I'm severely allergic to ant bites. Oh well, that can just be another thing to add on to my mysterious illness.

Anyway, this is such a disjointed entry and I'm sorry for that, but I'm going to blame it on my trick thyroid so you have to bear with me. That being said, here's a story about squirrels. After reading that sentence, I realize how much I need a life right now... but about those squirrels.... Brent and I were walking to our dining hall when we heard this awful screeching noise coming from nearby. We both turned, expecting to see a vulture, when we discovered that the noise was coming from a squirrel. It was hiding on a car tire and screeching really loudly. There was then a similar reply from off in the distance, where Brent and I saw a nest of squirrels, nervously peering out of a hole in a tree. We were obviously perplexed, not really knowing squirrels to screech and scream at each other, when we saw a huge hawk in a tree nearby. We felt so bad for the scared little squirrel whose family was warning him about the hawk that we thought we had to step in. We scared the hawk away so that the poor little squirrel could get safely back to his home. Here he is on the car tire:

At this point I'm not even going to try to connect this entry into anything coherent, just so you know.

A few days before Valentine's Day, Brent and I went to see Casablanca at Cinestudio, our school's 1930s-style movie theater. I managed to sneak this picture inside the theater. Don't you wish all theaters still looked like this?

Here's Brent right after the movie in the snow:

Snowy campus:

Brent in the process of cleaning off his car windshield:

There he is again:

All right, now this next part should probably be an entry in and of itself but it's not because... well, because I don't feel like it. On a completely different day... maybe before the above pictures, maybe after... I have no idea how time works anymore... there were snow squalls that came through Hartford that produced real white-out conditions. I have pictures of this on my real camera as well, but they're still on one of my memory cards rather than my computer, so for now I'll post the ones I had on my iPhone.

First of all, these pictures were all taken at about 4:30pm when the sun is usually still out. Brent and I had been at his house for something (most likely something animal-related, but I don't remember) and as we started driving back to school, the sun was out and shining bright! We were commenting on how nice the afternoon was when we saw what looked like huge thunderheads rolling in. We stopped off at Michael's craft store because I needed ribbon (Brent will tell you that I have an obsessive useless ribbon collection, but he is wrong) when the sky suddenly got very dark and saw the first snowflakes falling out of the sky. When looking at these pictures, remember that this is just minutes after the sun had been out and we had full daylight:

The wind started howling and blowing small objects across the parking lot. It reminded me of some of the crazy thunderstorms we get in Florida (my favorite of which involved a flying shopping cart in a strip mall parking lot). Here's Brent walking into the wind as the sky continued to get darker and the snow started falling harder:

Shopping cart on the loose!

We were in the store for under ten minutes and came outside to this:

Now remember, this is the middle of the afternoon! Brent and I made a mad dash for the car and the conditions kept getting worse and worse. We were going to try to make it back to school but the visibility was so bad that we had to stop at Barnes & Noble to wait it out. Here's the last picture I took on my iPhone, when the storm was getting better:

Anyway, Brent and I got back to school, grabbed our cameras, and walked around campus taking pictures which I will hopefully post soon.

Before I go, I have one final update on my health issues for you all. While I was writing this entry, I got an e-mail from the Health Center that my bloodwork all came back normal. I still think it's my thyroid but, of course, it's going to be difficult to diagnose.

Thanks again everyone!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:23 PM | Comments (6)

February 19, 2008

Diagnose Me

I figured I'd share this with all of you because maybe you'll have some ideas for me. Anyway, starting exactly two weeks ago, I've been passing out (well, nearly passing out) quite frequently. It starts with a fuzzy feeling in my head, almost like a really severe "head rush," and if I don't immediately stand up and walk around to get some air, I'll pass out. That's the strangest part about it... that I feel less like I'm going to faint if I stand up, and more like I'm about to pass out when I'm sitting down and very relaxed.

I've been to the ER twice and seen a cardiologist and a neurologist with no luck. My other minor symptoms include a strange taste in my throat/back of my mouth, pressure in my head, brief very sharp pains in the top-right portion of my head and behind my eyes, and something I call "roller-coaster head" (the feeling you get when you've been on a roller coaster one too many times and your brain feels like it's been jostled around to the point of disconnecting from your skull and has nothing better to do than bang against the inside of your head with even the slightest movement). OK, so I've definitely made this sound like it's a migraine, but it isn't. I've had migraines a couple times before and this is very distinctly not a migraine - mostly because my head doesn't "hurt" for the most part.

One other interesting tidbit of information that may or may not be helpful to those of you actively trying to diagnose me right now (who doesn't love a good project?) is that when I get these "pressure headaches" (which aren't really headaches, but just "pressure" sounds too vague) they seem to be focused in my temples and - here's the weird one - between the two sides of my jaw and across the roof of my mouth. Is it possible to have a severe pressure headache across the roof of one's mouth? Well, I do.

And last but not least, my newest symptom is that last Thursday, I felt really lightheaded (like I always do, now) and I sensed it getting worse, then I suddenly got this sharp pain that pulsed from my head all the way down to the tips of my toes. It literally felt like an electric jolt. I know this, because I once stuck my toe in my dad's electric putting ball return machine and it gave me a pretty good shock that ran all the way from my toe up to my fingertips.

That being said, all my bloodwork is normal (no infection, normal blood levels of all kinds), I had a head CT that came out normal, I've had 4 EKGs that came out normal, my blood pressure is normal, my pulse rate is normal (even during my fainting spells), and I just had an ultrasound of my heart taken and that looks normal as well. Basically, I have everyone stumped!

This has been going on now since February 5th and I'm really ready to be over it but no one seems to be able to help me. I figured maybe one of my faithful blog readers would have some idea (I'm much more inclined to trust the advice of some random person I don't know who knows someone who knows someone who had the same thing, than I am to trust a medical specialist).

Anyway, please write in with any ideas! I'd appreciate any help anyone might be able to provide!

Here's me modeling my hospital gown at the ER (doesn't it look cute with my Marc Jacobs bag?):

Here's Brent who has been amazing and has taken me to all my appointments and unexpected ER visits and waited with me for hours and hours with nothing to do:

Useless machinery!

I promise to do my best to keep up with posting but it hasn't been easy juggling school, homework, and a myriad of special medical appointments and tests along with keeping up with my blog.

Don't forget to write in if you have ANY ideas! I really appreciate any thoughts you might have!

Posted by lauren at 12:51 AM | Comments (19)

February 16, 2008

Home For The Weekend

So apparently I'm home fpr the weekend. Its one of those things that just sort of sneaks up on you sometimes. It started with an afternoon appointment with my doctor which turned into dinner then drinks with friends, a night in my own bed, 2pm breakfast with Brent (who came home with me), a movie and Italian take-out, and finally another night at home and away from the stinky dorms. After three and a half years of dorm life I cannot wait to get out. Anyway, I didn't bring my computer home so here I am blogging from my iPhone with no pictures to give you. I have SO many, so here's a little preview of what's to come:

-Shadow being adorable
-Spice Girls concert
-Snowstorm
-Valentine's Day with Brent
-Bars in Stamford with my friends

Oh, and all my Europe pictures....

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)

February 13, 2008

A Walk In The Woods

As you know, Brent and I have taken up hiking as a hobby. Last week sometime, we went to a little hiking place on Avon Mountain. Somehow I managed to forget my camera, but luckily I had my iPhone with me! iPhones take really good pictures, actually, as long as you have enough light.

As you'll be able to tell from my pictures, this hike was not nearly as difficult as our last. Here's Brent following the trail:

We decided it was too cold to walk over a plank into the snowy woods, so we went back to the main trail:

See those two little shadows in the back? That's Brent and me:

I love the woods:

A little green left on the ground:

I love the way this came out:

Light and shadows on snow is one of my favorite things to photograph:

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't that knot in the tree look like a person holding on?

The last little bit of sun peeking through the trees:

Aren't those pretty good for a camera phone? All those photos are un-Photoshopped! Anyway, I have to go get ready for the Spice Girls Reunion Concert now! Jealous?

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 04:03 PM | Comments (3)

Casablanca

Every Valentine's Day, Brent and I go to Cinestudio to see Casablanca in an old 1930s-style theater here at school. This was our fourth year of this little tradition and the movie gets better and better every time. I realize it's not Valentine's Day yet, but this year it was only playing on the 10th, 11th, and 12th rather than the 14th for some reason. Anyway, this was part 1 of our Valentine's Day date with more to come on Thursday!

Here's a little movie montage someone made on YouTube to the song "As Time Goes By" (Yes, I posted this last year too):

Brent did a much longer post with a lot of pictures (from our crazy snowstorm we're in the middle of) on Brent Meets World that you should definitely check out HERE. For those of you wondering what happened to his blog, the archives got deleted somehow so he had to start fresh. However, with a new camera and a copy of Photoshop this year, Brent Meets World should be better than ever!

Posted by lauren at 03:23 AM | Comments (0)

February 10, 2008

Damn The Torpedoes

Last Saturday night, Brent and I went to see Damn the Torpedoes performing at Pike (a frat here at Trinity). Damn the Torpedoes is my friend Jon's cover band, which plays at a lot of parties and frats here. His other band, Late Night Uproar, has a lot of huge stuff going on now and Jon is going to give me all the info. pretty soon and let me listen to some of their new stuff so make sure you keep checking back for that so that you can be a total music snob and tell all your friends you knew about them first.

Brent and Me before heading over to Pike for the concert:

Jon:

Mark and Andrew getting a picture with Jon:

John:

Jon:

Tim:

John and Jon:

Check out this video of "Brown Eyed Girl" (Unfortunately, because Google Video is one of the worst programs in the entire world, my video got really messed up part way through so when you start hearing static, just turn your volume down for ten seconds and then it goes back to normal):

Dave on the drums:

Jon:

Tim:

Brent and Me (Brent was mid-singing along):

Jon:

John:

Here they are performing "Only the Good Die Young":

John, Jon, and Tim:

Tim:

Jon:

Dave:

The audience jumping and singing along:

I finally got the whole band in one picture:

Bad idea, Brent:

I love this picture:

John:

Tim:

Jim and Brent:

"Flagpole Sitta" (video taken by Brent):

Didn't get enough? Try checking out Late Night Uproar's Website where you can listen to a bunch of their songs! If you like it (which you will) go on iTunes and download their album "Say Hello to the Uproars"!

Posted by lauren at 12:32 PM | Comments (4)

February 09, 2008

Roaring 20s

So last Saturday my school had a Roaring 20s party. Brent and I went after the Damn the Torpedoes concert at Pike (I'm still uploading the videos but that post will come soon). Brent already owned all the components to his outfit (I really think he was born in the wrong generation) but I had to go out to get the right stuff to make my own. As mentioned recently, my big purple feather was for my 20s headband which I only super-glued to my fingers a few times before getting the whole thing put together.

Great Depression who?

You have to remember that this is all happening after our night out, so if some people (Brent) look a little faded at this point, that's why.

Here's Brent serenading me with Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" down the hallways:

This was not meant to be some sort of artistic shot, I was actually tying to get a picture of Brent singing and ended up grabbing him to keep him from falling backwards down the stairway:

Brent's picture of me:

Don't forget to come back soon for pictures and videos from my friend Jon's college band Damn the Torpedoes!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 03:39 PM | Comments (4)

February 06, 2008

Join My Map

So I just made this map that you can join and I'm going to be really upset if you don't, so click to join now!

By the way, I'm trying to find a way to add this permanently to my site.... Theoretically, I should be able to put this in the sidebar (there's a link for that on www.frappr.com where I got the map application) but I don't know how to change the size of my site to allow something that's as wide as it is (even the small version is too wide). I figure someone out there must know what to do, right? If so, please let me know!

Posted by lauren at 11:47 PM | Comments (8)

Purple Feather

I'm waiting for some videos to upload right now in preparation for a concert post I'm going to be doing soon, so I figured I'd give you a little teaser in the meantime. You can try to guess what on Earth this is for.

Purple Feather:

Sitting in the weird candle Brent and I made (as seen on Waxing and Whining):

And finally, reflecting in the wine I was drinking out of a margarita glass (who has wine glasses in college, really):

Basically, I was really bored while waiting for Brent to finish whatever he was doing at the time, and needed something to occupy myself with.

Well, I was going to make you all wait to see what it was for, but this isn't really a fun game so I'll just tell you. Brent and I went to a Roaring 20s party at school on Saturday (the feather was part of my outfit) so come back soon for pictures!

-Lauren

PS- Where are all my commenters? I know you're all still here reading....

Posted by lauren at 12:44 PM | Comments (4)

February 05, 2008

Couch Potato Cat

My mom recently bought shadow a DVD all of her own of birds, fish, mice, and other cats. It's supposed to keep cats occupied while their owners are away, and Shadow loves it. Shadow has always been a big fan of Animal Planet, so now that she has her very own video to watch she's very happy.

Here she is sitting in my lap watching her show:

She's so cute:

Too bad she had to go home after =(
Also, as mentioned earlier, it was Winston and George's birthday on February 1st! Brent and I got them their favorite Whole Foods vegetables and a special "salad bowl" as their birthday cake. Here they are eating it:

George is getting a little chubby....

Happy Birthday Guys!

Here's Shadow trying to steal their veggies:

Winston in his torpedo pose (yes, he really sleeps like this):

100 Calorie Cat!

She looks so ferocious:

Anyway, more pictures from the weekend's parties coming soon!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at 01:58 PM | Comments (3)

February 04, 2008

Lost In The Woods - Castle Craig

As promised, I am now (finally) posting my hiking pictures.

It all started a little over a week ago at Borders Books where Brent and I were flipping through a camping and hiking guide. We saw that in our area, there was a mountain trail rated "difficult" for hikers. We're definitely NOT expert hikers, but decided to give it a try anyway. The following Saturday morning, we drove to Hubbard Park in Meriden, CT to climb to Castle Craig.

We considered finding trail maps online and printing them, but then decided that there must be some sort of trail guide at the park itself. Of course, we were wrong.

As we set out on our journey, I had to take pictures of our new gore-tex hiking boots. They're amazing. We were trudging through cold snow and icy water all day long and they kept our feet 100% warm and dry! Unfortunately, it was really only our feet that stayed so toasty... but at least it was something.

Brent:

Me:

Brent testing out the icy trail:

Despite the slippery conditions, we were fortunate to be hiking in the winter because we had footsteps to follow:

It was at this point in the hike that we lost the trail. As we got into a more densely wooded area, there wasn't as much snow on the ground and the "trail" turned into nothing but rocks and trees. We weren't about to turn around to look for another one, though, so we figured that if we kept going up, we'd eventually get to where we wanted to be.

This may not look steep, but it actually really was. We were grabbing onto rocks, trees... pretty much anything we could get our hands on to keep from tumbling backwards down the mountain:

While I was hanging onto a tree trunk, I knelt down and found what looks like the top to one of those really old milk bottles:

It made me wonder how far off the trail we really were if there was still litter from 1950....

We finally reached the top, thinking "We're here! It's the castle!" But... we were wrong. Very wrong:

We did find this nice little resting place though, where we unpacked our sandwiches and had lunch:

We decided to take a look around while we were there:

I zoomed in on the hills in the above picture to find lots of houses:

After lunch, we didn't know where to go, left, right, or straight forward. We decided to take a left because we figured maybe we could somehow get around the mountain and up, rather than having to deal with those giant cliffs that the castle sits on top of.

As we walked, we came upon these leaves frozen in a puddle. I liked the way the ice outlined them in white:

This is the trail??

This was also a very steep hike, worsened by the fact that what we were walking on was a thin layer of fallen leaves on top of (literally) a mountain of small rocks. What this means, is that every time one of us loses our footing, rocks go flying backwards bombarding the person below. Brent was nice enough to let me go first and I was nice enough not to kick rocks in his face.

Here we are getting closer... see the castle?

If you're wondering, that's Brent's "Life is Good" winter hat that he got in Boston a little while ago.

Here's where I really panicked, wondering how we were going to get up there:

These are some of the rocks I told you about:

Brent was our pathfinder for the day, so every once in a while when it started looking really dangerous, he'd run off ahead to find the best path up for me. What a great boyfriend: