Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. My family and I went to two gatherings, both lots of fun with lots of food. :) I had fun playing with the various kidlets, plus Wayne & Vicky's 6-month old pup Kate who is so sweet and has grown so much since I last saw her. Mocha was pretty good yesterday too... he was as usual very excited to see Mark & Tita Marie when they stopped by. Oh! And at the first party, the gang surprised me with a (belated) birthday cake! Very cool and unexpected. :)

I was among the many travelers affected by the nasty weather in Chicago on Wednesday. I was originally scheduled to arrive around 4pm... my flight eventually landed at midnight and I got home around 2am. My original flight out of Albany was cancelled after we waited about four hours... I got re-booked (in first class!) on the next flight which was also very delayed. Then on our first landing approach into O'Hare we had to abort because another plane didn't clear the runway in time (doh). Finally we landed, taxiied for a while, I waited 20 minutes for my checked bag, trudged through the snow in the parking lot, and finally drove off around 1:30am. Fortunately there was no traffic at that time :) so I got home pretty quick. Anyway, I am glad I made it home safely and didn't have to spend the night at the airport!

I start my new assignment in Cincinnati on Monday (already - so much for downtime!)... I know some people there from the Chicago office so that'll be good. This is supposed to be a pretty short gig, too... six weeks or so. We'll see how it goes!

Happy Birthday to me! :) I turn 30 (gasp) today. I suppose that makes me officially old, ha.

Rather than lament the things I haven't gotten around to doing before I turned 30, I thought I'd list some of the accomplishments I'm proud to have made so far... in no particular order...
- graduated from college with honors
- started grad school
- remain close to the parental units and my sis and grandma
- own my own home (on my second one, now!) and a nice car
- visited France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and the Philippines, plus several states
- visited the Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument, and Eiffel Tower
- learned to play piano
- learned to speak French and Tagalog
- broke 100 pounds bodyweight (hahaha)

Anyway. I'm thankful for an overall good life my first 30 years, and looking forward to an even better next 30 years!

Renewed and changed the address on my driver's license on Friday. Had to update the weight shown on the card... I had "90 pounds" on the old one. :) Now I'm listed as "105"... imagine, as slim as I am now, how scarily thin I must've been in high school when I got my first license! They also took a new photo, which again reminded me of how un-photogenic I am. :P

Had dinner @ the parental units' house on Saturday. Mark and Tita Marie joined us (it was Mark's 40th b-day). This weekend also marks the one-year anniversary of Mocha the "rat terror" being part of our family. Awww!

Congratulations to President Bush. May his second term reverse many of the negatives and build on the positives of his first.

I had a pretty crummy travel day on Sunday (and Monday)... my flight leaving Chicago was three hours late (!) due to a mechanical problem on an earlier leg of the plane's journey that day. When we arrived in Albany at 3am, all the car rental counters were closed, so I had to take a cab to the hotel. The next day I took the hotel's courtesy shuttle back to the airport to pick up a car. On top of all this, I came down with a cold that I am still trying to get over. Blehhh.

On the bright side, I have a new Smartphone. :) I got a gently-used Samsung i600 off of eBay. It arrived yesterday and it's all activated, and I've been playing with the settings and features and such. It will be nice to have my contacts and calendar stuff all in one place instead of being split between my Palm Pilot and cell phone. Incidentally, I am considering this new "toy" to be my self-reward for getting promoted at work. Hehe.