Virtualdistortion.com

Posted on: June 19th, 2009 The Beautiful Truth

Everyone should watch this. (I watched it online thanks to Netflix.)

Posted on: June 15th, 2009 Aruba - A New Favorite Place (June 4-8, 2009)

I am not even sure how to describe how amazing Aruba is. I will go back…..

The Caribbean sea water was amazingly clear. On Friday afternoon we boarded a big boat with an open bar and went snorkeling. I held a live starfish, touched a sea urchin, saw other sea urchins, lots of colorful fish of all sizes, a puffer fish (not puffed up though), coral (including brain coral) and I ran my hand across a big purple fish. I’m scuba diving next time!

It was special for me to be in such a beautiful place on Saturday, June 6, as it was my dad’s birthday as well as his two year mark of passing. (I was in Napoli, Italy on that day two years ago.) In 2003 he took me to Europe for a month which got my love for traveling started. He gave me life and since I feel more alive than ever when I am traveling.. I felt very connected to him. It was also a very special day for Liquid and I!

The picture above is noteworthy because this evening that we were walking on the beach I felt like life made sense more than it has ever not made sense. I was truly happy and I recognized it. Every day had the same tone.

On Sunday the plan was to go snorkeling again but Liquid and I went tubing instead! We both rode on one tube at the same time. The boat, named “Ocean Faith”, ran out of gas half way through our time. Ironic. I liked it because we got to sit on the tube in the water longer than we paid for. In the evening we went out on a dinner cruise with Paul and company.

Balashi, the only beer produced on the island, is very good.. very flavorful. We drank quite a bit of it (; Aside from that I really loved the “banana paradise” made with Grand Marnier.

Pictured here is a grilled shrimp salad. All of the food we ate had something to do with seafood. Grouper sandwiches, whole shrimp, lobster, calamari… Mmm.

The locals and those on vacation in Aruba really were as happy as could be. We made friends everywhere we went. The service was great and everyone kept asking if we’d come back. Sure, they survive on tourism, but I’ve not experienced a place so welcoming in a non-threatening sort of way. (In Mexico it feels like they are begging too much)

Paul nearly got hit on the head by a coconut. I didn’t get to see it — he just told us about it a few minutes after it happened, coconut in hand.

Oh, the wind! Aruba is hot and windy. I usually don’t like wind because I have long hair but I loved Aruba’s wind.

Liquid and I got “wish bracelets” made out of some natural fibers. We both wished that we would return to Aruba. A few days later they fell off so I’m hoping it comes true. I love Aruba.

Did I mention that I love Aruba and want to go back? ^__^

View my whole set of photos here!

Posted on: June 1st, 2009 Memorial Day Weekend in Minnesota

The last time I was in MN before this trip was Christmas with Liquid. Mid-April I started missing everybody so I planned a long weekend getaway. It was a solo trip in the Civic that has no cruise control and allows me to feel every bump — it was well worth it.

The whole vacation was fantastic.

I picked up my best bud, Jackie, from St. Cloud and she hung out with me the entire weekend. I am really glad it worked out that way. Quality AND quantity!

Most of the time we dedicated to chillin’ out with Jesse, Jessica and Ashton in Nisswa, except for Sunday the 24th when we drove to to the cabin and visited Aunt Tudi. I had not seen her in way too long so it was awesome to say the least.

We taught Ashton how to roll his tongue and what the word ‘fling’ meant, among other things. The word I heard the most out of him was “WHAT!”. Jackie did art with him and he hung it in the chicken box which I got a kick out of. Jackie brought him some giant marshmallows, too.

Because we are who we are.. we made this to-do list. Fun and Asparagus overlap.

We only made it out in the canoe ONCE!

Asparagus! Jesk’s patch down on ‘the point’ was pretty much over-flowing.. so we had it every day with almost every meal. We ate it raw and whole while sitting in the garden. We ate it raw, chopped up in salads. We ate it boiled next to mac ‘n cheese. We seared it in a cast iron pan, mixed in black beans, and ate it in wraps. We put it in the wok and cooked it over the campfire. We ate it charcoal grilled. MMMMmm ! Jesk gave me a bucket full of roots to plant at my house. (=

I’m sure I forgot something but pictures help tell the story, so .. View the whole set on Flickr

Posted on: May 3rd, 2009 Thunder and Birgit Are Home!

Posted on: April 27th, 2009 Fixing, Fixing!

I have finally started to fix my blog. Unfortunately, the old theme that I used and modified is not compatible with the new version of wordpress and they have not updated it so I have to choose a new one. Oh well - I have wanted to change the look of VD for awhile and doing all of this might kick me into adding more content such as all of my previous VD graphics!

Woot! This will, most likely, take a few days.. at least. Stay tuned.

Posted on: March 31st, 2009 Hijacked.

My blog will be getting a makeover in the near future. For now I am going to leave this default template up because I’m busy — go figure. My images are messed up until I get in there and do some fixing too. The reason for this is that my laptop got some wicked viruses on it and one of them logged into my FTP account and edited all of my .php files. Liquid restored my posts from a backup and upgraded me to the latest version of wordpress, which I wanted to do awhile ago anyways, so it’s not so terrible.

My laptop will soon be pimpin’ a fresh install of XP Tablet which will be great. I’ve been running the same install for TWO YEARS. I am good at keeping things clean but apparently not THAT good…

Posted on: March 28th, 2009 Earth Hour

Do me and the rest of the world a favor and turn off your lights tonight for (at least) an hour.
This may not apply to the amish or those who forgot to pay their power bill.
Thank you (;

Posted on: March 17th, 2009 Post-Colorado Life

Well for starters, my red Sony P-200 got stolen. BOO. I am replacing it with this:

The Canon Rebel XTi. It’s a DSLR. Finally! I am very excited. (More on it later.)

We have been busy at work programming the general municipal election April 7th for Missouri and Kansas. I’ve been doing some typesetting too which is more fun than election work.

Della dog is doing great. Liquid got a dog a little while ago. She is a golden retriever mix named Keeda who is really cute, smart and cuddly. We have 3 piglets at home now too.. one of them is ours (I named it Jesu - or heezy) and the other two (Ozzie and Harriet) are our friends pigs. They are pets for the summer if ya get my drift. Cute as buttons!

I’m cooking dinner right now - veggie tortilla soup, pumpkin flax quickbread and a chicken.

The weather is really warming up and I am excited beyond words. I am starting to get my garden beds ready for planting. I will do lots of flowers and tomatoes this year but keep the zucchini and cucumbers to a minimum because they did not do well last year due to some sort of beetles that we have.

I’m officially tired of trying to keep up my ‘96 Honda Accord so I will fix it up one more time and sell it. For now I get to drive Liquid’s colorful Civic while he sports his monster truck.

I did not wear green today because we celebrated St. Patty’s day down in Springfield with Stubby, Tori and friends which was a blast. It is one of my favorite holidays. (:

Posted on: March 17th, 2009 Snowboarding In Vail

I realize that I didn’t make a post about the end of the Colorado vacation so this is it.

I LEARNED TO SNOWBOARD IN VAIL!

It was awesome. I’m really proud of myself for it. I couldn’t ski anymore by the end of the week because my ski boots were hurting my shins so bad. I bought a used pair of Vans snowboard boots and used Liquid’s spare snowboard (as pictured). I fell a lot and sprained my wrist but I didn’t break my neck or anybody else’s for that matter. It was easier for me to go down the intermediate trails than the beginner ones because they were steeper which made it easier to carve and there were less people on them to worry about. I will definitely do it again!

Posted on: February 26th, 2009 NOM NOM NOM - Mountains!

This is me in Vail!

I forgot my camera’s battery charger at home and so there aren’t so many pics of this vacation. Oops. I did take some pics with a disposable camera and will get more of those.. otherwise Liquid’s G1 takes decent pics (as seen above).

We’ve been sleeping in the truck the whole time at different scenic rest areas. It is VERY comfy/cozy. I actually much prefer it over hotels. We go shower every other day at the recreation center in Dillon for a small fee. We can go back any time today and use their hot tubs!

Here’s my overview so far of what’s happened:

We started out our trip outside of Colorado Springs at Matt and Crystal’s. Then drove out to the mountains on Sunday when (apparently) everyone else was leaving the area because the freeway was backed up for more miles than one would think. On Monday morning we found a used equipment store so I bought boots and skis. Liquid bought another snowboard. Cheap. My boots don’t fit well so my shins hurt really bad but I’ve been skiing through it anyways.

Monday - Copper Mountain. Liquid’s brother Matt, wife Crystal, their son (Liam) and Crystal’s sister (Amber) joined us in the afternoon. Liquid and I got lift tickets and I gave mine to Matt so he could go down once with Liquid on his extra snowboard. Unfortunately I don’t think that worked too well, Liquid accidentally took him down the intermediate runs when he should have done the easy ones! I only went a couple times (but that’s still how many miles?) and the last run was so awesome… I played around in a huge half pipe. The snow there was pretty thick. In the evening we found a mexican restaurant in Frisco, El Toreo, and had a really good time.. We stayed there over an hour after they closed. There are awesome people all over here - it’s very easy to make friends!

Tuesday - Breckenridge. Mardi Gras! It was pretty snowy up on the mountain which made it hard to see. We spent most of our time skiing off the beaten path, through the trees. That’s totally “the best”. We rode hard for about 3 hours straight. After that we caught a small Mardi Gras parade on Main Street and had a really good meal at Whale’s Tail. Later in the evening we met up with Alyssa and friends at a lodge.

Wednesday - Vail. At first glance, first ski down, it didn’t seem that special. Then we took some paths down and around to some other lifts and it was very impressive! 360 degrees of skiing heaven. Twisty paths. Long, long runs. Very nice trees to ski through with super thick snow. The groomed runs were pretty icy though, and it was very windy. All of that changes on a daily basis. The terrain of Vail is awesome. The views are breathtaking. ETC. ETC. I think the last run we did took us almost 45 minutes but we did go pretty slow at times. We were on the slopes and taking breaks in the coffee shops up there from 12 - 5. Then we put our gear back in the truck and went back up and went tubing. That was extremely fast and potentially lethal. ^_^ You can ride the gondola up for free without ski equipment after 2pm, so we are going to go back there to do that later today because last night we sat at a bar and talked to the bartender about a graphics idea he had so we’re actually hackin’ that out right now while at this coffee shop. We’ll show it to him and go ski biking tonight instead of tubing.

I’m going to take a break from chillin’ and walk around the streets of Frisco in the sunshine.
This is the life.

Posted on: February 20th, 2009 On The Road Again — COLORADO #2

This afternoon Liquid and I will be driving out to Colorado. I live for this.

Posted on: February 16th, 2009 The Lonely Island

In My Pants & I’m On A Boat. … hahaha..