Don't drink and drive... or drink and sit.

My friends, sometimes there really are no words... 

You'll just have to read this one for yourself. Otherwise you would never believe me. 

Death, decay, and Scrabble?

Apparently I'm the only person who's still single... not that there's anything wrong with that (Seinfeld reference). According to this article, as the stock market goes down, popularity of online dating sites goes up. I think the stock market will have to hit rock bottom before I join, though. Something about online dating still creeps me out. But I do love how they hypothesize the reason behind the uptick to be that folks would rather save their money and "stay home to play scrabble." Hmm... is Scrabble really considered a hot date these days?

Speaking of being single... it's really okay, 99% of the time. But there's that 1% of me that's a bit scared of turning out like this lady... she was dead SIX YEARS before anybody noticed! If any of you notice that you haven't seen me in awhile, please feel free to check in and make sure I'm alive. Really. Please. 

Out of hiding

I decided to play hooky over the weekend. Instead of hanging out with my friends, or doing homework, or really doing anything I was "supposed" to do, I hid out for 24 hours and had a "Bethe Day" all to myself. It was glorious. Not necessarily exciting... I did all of those things I never do... I vacuumed underneath my bed, cleaned floorboards, organized my closet, hooked up a printer (okay, friend Kevin stopped by to do that), went to the grocery store, and I even finally bought the hardware to hang the curtains that I bought back on January 1. From Friday night (when I watched Twilight... while eating Parisian chocolates... my perfect evening) until Saturday night, I did my best to regain control of my out-of-control life. I de-stressed, recharged my batteries, and it was fantastic. Today, I was ready to face the world once again, with a new energy, a revitalized spirit, and a positive attitude.

And thanks to everyone who checked in on me to make sure I was okay. I'm absolutely fine. I love to live a life filled with adrenaline and projects and "stuff," and it only takes me a day or so to recharge my batteries for quite awhile. Oh yeah, and I'm getting a massage tomorrow night, which means I'm good for another month or two.

Today I played flag football with my friends from church and enjoyed an absolutely beautiful afternoon at the park. Have I mentioned how fantastic my church is? Really... it's pretty darn special.  

I also wanted to post a photo from my neighborhood supper club, which met last Thursday at Sister Sarah's house. At the moment I feel like my life is one long episode of Friends (except my life is G-rated)... there are a few moments in life that I wish I could bottle, or take a photo of, and freeze forever. My current group of friends are one of those... I have been inundated with cool people to hang out with, and I realize that it's an absolute blessing. Just last year I was praying fervently for God to bring me a few close friends, and instead he decided to open up the floodgates. I am so blessed. Here's a photo of just a few of the folks who came to our monthly neighborhood dinner last week.

Okay, enough rambling for one night. I'm off to tackle a 300 page book that I need to read by Thursday (does anybody know if there's a Cliffs Notes for The Razor's Edge? Because that book is B-O-R-I-N-G). Time to dust off those rusty speed reading skills.

I did it...

Well kids, I crossed over to the dark side. I joined Twitter. I didn't want to... it was totally against my will. I don't have time for yet another Web 2.0 program that will probably help me waste valuable time that I can never seem to find enough of anyway. 

But I did it for work. I'm supposed to be a social networking guru. I need to know all of the new and innovative ways to promote my organization, and doing that means I've gotta know the latest technology tools. I'm already a webmaster (times three, actually), a blogger, a Facebook user, a former MySpace junkie, and now I guess I'm a Twit. The sacrifices I make for work...

So do me a favor and look me up so I have some friends to tweet with. Because goodness knows I have no idea how to find you on there. The whole thing seems rather silly and redundant. Then again, I said that at first about Facebook, and now I think it's pure genius. 

Oh, and my professor is making us start a blog to share info with other classmates about social media junk. From what I can tell, I think we're graded based on the traffic we generate and the comments we get from readers. Which means that I may be calling in a favor and asking you to visit our silly little site to make up some random comment so you can help a girl get her A. I'll let you know soon... if you help me out, maybe I'll come wash your car or paint your living room. he he.

Eureka! And other things...

To decompress after a long couple of days, I went for a three-mile jog around the lake near my house. I typically run there on Saturday mornings, and there's usually another runner or two, but it's never crowded. Tonight, right after work, my little trail was packed! It felt so nice and neighborly. I've become a real sucker for suburban life... I love the little Leave It To Beaver moments I get every now and then in my happy little neighborhood. --sigh--

While running tonight I had one of those Eureka moments... actually several, but just one that I'll talk about. After several weeks of stressing about what to do my final project on (to finish  my master's I have to do a final project this fall, similar to a thesis, with a committee of professors, I'll have to defend it, and it will be horribly long). The whole thing gives me a stomach ache whenever I think about it, mainly because it sounds like another boring task that will suck away all my spare time as I compile 50 pages of useless information that nobody will ever read or care about.

And I have to pick that useless topic ASAP. Like yesterday, if I want to graduate in December.

But tonight as I ran, it hit me! I know exactly what my project will be, and this one will be fun and interesting and might even involve a few celebrity encounters. Plus I'll be able to use some of the research I've already done (thank you God!) which should save me from starting from scratch. I've still got to work out a few details, but as soon as I get the needed permission from the necessary folks, you all will be the first to know! 

In the meantime, here's some stuff that I got a kick out of today... maybe you will too!

Who says research can't be fun? While working on that blogging ethics paper, I stumbled across this hilariously hateful exchange between the editor of a major-market newspaper and a very disgruntled journalism college professor, who accused the paper of plagiarizing its code of ethics... oh the irony! Anyway, it's quite entertaining to watch the exchange get more and more heated. I like to picture their little red faces, veins popping out of their necks, sweat collecting on their strained foreheads, as they conjure up an appropriate comeback to one-up the other. It's pure gold, my friends. In case it helps, Steve Smith is the editor.

Did you know AIG is going to change its name? Like maybe we won't notice and suddenly think, "Whatever happened to that AIG anyway?" Slick, AIG, very slick.

And finally, because you know I can't stand him... A-Fraud is involved in yet another scandal. Apparently Madonna may not have been his first indiscretion. Imagine that.

Stay in school, kids

Oh the irony. Tomorrow I'll be speaking to a group of UTA marketing/PR students. You know, trying to mold the minds of tomorrow's leaders. 

Which makes what I did yesterday that much more deplorable.

There's two very cute, right-out-of-college girls in some of my grad school classes. They're a bit overwhelmed (it's that part of the semester where we're all a tad bit stressed), and one emailed me and asked for advice. She was so sweet... she said I was always encouraging, and she wanted me to remind her why she was getting her master's.

But she caught me on a night when I was particularly "over" school. Probably because I spent six hours on my Friday night doing homework. Plus another two evenings last week. Tonight, I did four hours after work. More of the same tomorrow. And probably Friday night too. So when she asked me for encouragement, what she got instead was...

The truth. I told her to run away, as fast as she can, while she still has a semblance of a social life left. I told her that I was sick of missing out on fun things, new hobbies, hanging out with friends, playing in softball leagues, and altogether having a simple, laid-back life. I told her to quit and to never look back. I was joking, of course. I thought she could tell.

Sometimes people don't "get" my sense of humor.

Next thing I know I'm getting emails from both girls, telling me that they agree and they're ready to quit. Eeek! No, please don't quit grad school because of me! I don't want to be *that girl* who ruined your academic career just because I was in a particularly cantankerous mood one evening. I called my mom, and to make me feel better, she admitted that she once talked a co-worker out of going back and finishing her undergraduate degree. She told her to go play with her grandkids instead. That very day the lady withdrew from her college algebra class and never returned. Another drop-out attributed to my family. Great. People really shouldn't come to us for academic advice (ironic, since my mother is a teacher with a master's degree, married to a man who used to be a professor with two master's degrees).

I probably won't mention that part tomorrow during the Q&A session with the college kids. I'm going to put on my best smile and sweetly yet assertively tell them to stay in school. Finish your degree. And don't listen to sarcastic girls if they tell you differently. We're usually just joking.

Just one more

How many schnoodles can I have before I become the canine equivalent of the crazy cat lady?

It may be fate... a dog named Finn... just like one of my favorite Mark Twain boys, or Finny from A Separate Peace. This adorable little Schnoodle (the little guy on the bottom left of this photo) was rescued by an old college friend, and she can't find his owner. He's probably about a year old, completely potty trained, and quite cuddly. And he needs a good home. 

I don't need another dog. Harley and I have done quite well together over the past seven years. But this little ball of fur and indiscretion is just so darn cute that I may not be able to say no.  What do you think?

Flash Photography

This weekend was my good friend Tera's wedding. I am so excited for her and Lee... they're two of the nicest people I know, and they are absolutely perfect for each other!

And a shout-out to Melissa, one of my faithful readers and an old cruising buddy (and wonderful friend)!

Surreptitiously

I titled my blog Surreptitiously because until today I didn't know what that word meant. But thanks to my good friends at dictionary.com, I now know that it means secretive. It was one of my many discoveries today as I read 16 academic journal articles about blogging ethics for a research paper. 

Whew. I never knew blogging could be so complex. Honestly, all I do is crank up the old computer and start writing. I have several blogging friends who mull over their entries for days. I don't bother with that-- I just spit the words out onto the page, give it a few fast proof-reads, and then off it launches into the blogging universe, for better or worse. Occasionally I catch a mistake (as I'm sure you do too, although you're much too kind to tell me) and I'll sneak back and correct it. And apparently that's a highly unethical blogging move. I apologize to you, my 15 daily readers. I will try to be better. Although when weighing my ethical responsibilities against my hatred of type-o's, I may just have to choose to be unethical for once in my life. A girl only lives once, right?

I'm going to try to do better at linking you to cool things I read online. I'm a hard-core news junky who follows three daily newspapers, 100 blogs, all of the major television news Web sites, plus a bunch of other random stuff that comes across my desk. It's all part of the job, and one that I'm surreptitiously grateful for. I finally found a job that pays me to monitor the media. Eureka!

As I scour the news for work-related stuff, I come across all sorts of weird news stories. I'll try to let you know what those are, so you can impress your friends and win at Trivial Pursuit.

Here's my latest discoveries:

Here's a gal's ethnographic account of the 9/11 attacks in New York. She tells a good story, and I like her writing style.  

Ever wondered what a trillion dollars looks like?

If I could be a super hero, I think I would choose to be Grammar Girl. I would wear a leotard, a cape, and carry my A.P. Stylebook and a red pen. 

I love celebrity news. It makes me feel so much better about myself. Our local paper has a pretty fun entertainment blog, be it a tad snarky. But sometimes I like snarky.

I would write more, but I just discovered a renegade mosquito buzzing around my bedroom. I'm highly allergic to mosquitos--not enough to make me sick, but enough to grow giant red welps all over my skin if one pays me a visit. I'm determined to kill this sucker before it has a chance to leave me love notes all over my face while I sleep. I'm scheduled to attend a wedding tomorrow, and I would prefer not to come looking like a pepperoni pizza!

Please leave me a comment with some of your favorite sites too! I'd love to add to my collection.

Be Brave

I’m teaching the book of Esther in Sunday School. We’re following the Beth Moore series, and like everything she writes, I absolutely love it. Things that previously hid on the page suddenly awaken, and I feel like I’m living through the book. When I finish one of her series, I feel like I have known this book. Devoured it. Lived it. Cherished it. Digested it. Understood it. Known it intimately.

And it blesses me.

It’s tough to teach every week on the things I’m weakest at. It’s quite convenient that I’m so flawed, because it provides many good examples to my class of what NOT to do. Last week I taught on being brave. Esther, in chapter 4, does some soul searching and decides that she will risk her life to face the king and ask him to save her people. The pivotal moment, and something I have meditated on ever since… “And if I perish, I perish.”

I’m nothing like Esther. I’m a huge weenie. An old-fashioned scaredy cat. It’s quite embarrassing. I’m not much of a risk taker, and I waste tons of valuable time and energy fretting over the future, fretting over the present, fretting over the past… wondering if I will do the right thing, if I missed doing the right thing, if I even know what the right thing is. I’m my own worst enemy.

So I love this quote: “She (Esther) had to overcome herself in order to do what God had created her and positioned her to do.” – Dr. Karen Jobes, The NIV Application Commentary.

I love that, because I tend to get in my own way. I let that yucky, nagging fear slow me down. My fear that manifests itself as a stomachache. A pounding in my chest. An inability to sleep. And it’s nothing I can change on my own. Which is why I have quoted these verses over the past few weeks over and over… and over.

1 Corinthians 2:9—“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Psalm 138:8 – “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me…”

1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…”

John 10:10—“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Did you know that the most common command in the whole Bible is this?: Do not be afraid.

The Proverbs 31 woman… the same one that every Christian woman has tried to become (and that I can never seem to measure up to), was described as a wife of “noble character” (v. 10). That same Hebrew word for “noble” is also translated “valor.”  An army term that means “brave.” Heroic courage. Bold in the face of danger. So really, this verse could say, “A brave, courageous wife, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.”

I want to be brave.

Beth Moore said this: “You may be one brave decision away from the most important turn in your entire path.”

My heart may still pound. My stomach may still hurt. But I can claim these verses as truth until they start to feel that way.

Breathe

The price we pay for beauty... 

I wore an adorable new green dress to work today, and didn't realize until I sat down at my desk that the fabric around my ribcage was so tight I couldn't breathe! I also couldn't lift my arms for fear that the thin silk fabric would rip. I spent my day holding my breath, in a constant state of asthma attack. If only men could appreciate the great lengths we go to look presentable.

When I finally stumbled into my house at 9 p.m., my stiletto heels had been replaced by flip flops, my panty-hose was in my purse, my disheveled hair was in a lop-sided pony-tail and my dress was only half-zipped. Classy.

Edward Love

I discovered the official Twilight Web site while I was getting my hair done... and once I started reading, I couldn't put it down! You can imagine me sitting under the hair dryer while my hair was being, um, "cut" (aka... "blonded"--but I will never admit to it!), hovering over my iPhone, squinting to read the tiny text. 

I love this site because not only is there some juicy inside information about my favorite book, but Stephenie Meyer talks about her writing process and how she got published. I have a burning desire to write novels, and am constantly churning ideas for characters in my head. But alas, I have never jumped into the deep end and given it a whirl. Although if you look closely in my house, you'll see notes for books stashed in various drawers, hidden from view. Then again, if you look closely, you may find some other unsightly things in those drawers as well. No snooping, okay?

Fake Smile

I got a shout-out on a national PR blog today! A leading author on PR Measurement said in her blog that our paper was "one of the best of the academic + practitioner papers" at the conference! She also posted photos from our opening night mixer. And in true Bethe form, my eyes are closed! Yep, I love flattering photos posted for hundreds of people to see.

You can probably tell that I'm feigning enthusiasm. That's my fake smile. 

Here's what I was probably feeling on the inside...

(This photo was taken in Venice... right after I got caught in a rain storm with no umbrella.)

Bitter??

I've known some girls who were bitter after a break-up before, but this may be the winner...

Police: Woman Fatally Stabs Ex in Groin

By  FRANK HEI

A woman is behind bars after police said she fatally stabbed her ex-husband in the groin, Dallas police said.

At about 10:30 a.m. Sunday, police and medical personnel arrived at a residence on the 10800 block of Rockingham Street where they found the injured man, 46-year-old Ruben Valladarez.

Valladarez was transported to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas where he was pronounced dead.

Police arrested 40-year-old Maria DeLaRosa, Valladarez's ex-wife, in connection with his death.

Investigators said an argument between the two led to the stabbin

Over the Hill at Just 28

According to this, I'm already in trouble... Old Age Begins at 27: Study suggests we decline right after college By  R. STICKNEY

Celebrate now kids. Once you finish college, your brains start losin' 

it, according to a new study.

When you hear the world “elderly” what age comes to mind? If your answer was 90, you definitely don’t want to hear about this new study.

“Old age begins at 27” the headline reads. And no, that isn’t a typo.

Those senior moments we've heard about actually start happening shortly after the brain’s abilities peak at 22, according to researchers at theUniversity of Virginia.

The study was recently published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging. (We'd love to link to the full research, but the journal charges for its articles.)

Two thousand men and women between the ages of 18 and 60 were studied over seven years, and researchers found top performance in the puzzles and other problems the participants were asked to solve occurred in those at 22 years old.

The first age at which scores for things like reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualization started to drop, was 27 according to the Daily Mail.

Free time = silly survey

I got this from another blog I read. Just copy/paste and put in bold all the things you have done. Have fun!

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyworld

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo (actually did a trio, it was horrible!)

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (quilting)

15. Adopted a child (maybe a dog?)

16. Had food poisoning (several times… bleh!)

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (no, but I’ve seen it many times)

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train (no, but I rode one across France)

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (ages ago…)

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon (I did half of one)

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

 

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted or sketched

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine chapel in person

50. Been to the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

55. Been in a movie (no, but on tv many times)

56. Visited the Great Wall of China (I want to run the Great Wall Half Marathon!)

57. Started a company

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check -- Ooops!

68. Flown in a helicopter (I’ve been promised a ride this year)

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London (saw the guards, but in between changes)

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book (no, but I was mentioned on the acknowledgement page of a book I helped with)

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem (this is very high on my list!)

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Read the Bible

86. Visited the White House (twice!)

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (fish?)

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (no, but been there!)

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

100. Read an entire book in one day

Upgraded

Not much time to write, I'm expecting to board my flight back home any minute. But I had to let you know that I was upgraded to FIRST CLASS for my flight home! Hooray! I have never ridden first class... I hope this doesn't spoil me forever. If I had known I was going to ride home with the fancy-schmancy first class folks, I would have worn a cocktail dress or something.

Survived!

I survived my big paper presentation. I think the PhD's were so surprised that we actually wrote a paper about something REAL, and they were probably a bit distracted by my pretty 4-color hand-outs (for a PR conference, the handouts here have been decidedly bland), so they forgot to string me up by my toenails and take turns beating me up with their criticism. Instead, they asked me questions I knew how to answer and complimented us on our interesting topic and method. The editor of a well-known PR journal stayed after our presentation and told us he would like to publish our article in his journal this year! Hooray! Everything went so much better than I had expected, but I'll admit that I was this close to peeing in my pants at one point. All that worry for nothing. 

Academia

I'm at my academic research conference in Miami, and it's quite a an experience. I'm one of about five non-PhD's in a room of 100 people, which means I'm the only one who doesn't dream about T-tests and regression analysis. They want to publish a 10o-page thesis on some obscure communication theory... I want to publish silly junior high fiction. 

But it's good to be exposed to new things. This is a counter-culture of people that I never really understood before, but after listening to 24 research papers be presented today (no kidding) I have a better idea of just what it means to be an academic. And I know I'm not one of them.

Please say a little prayer for me tomorrow as it's my turn to present my research... 26 glorious pages on employee engagement, control mutuality and dialogic communication. Some of these PhD's may eat me alive, and I think they're going to enjoy it.

Also say a prayer that I don't die of starvation. I'm not a picky eater... the only thing I don't eat is fish and cheesecake. Guess what they served for lunch... fish and cheesecake. Which  meant that all I got were a few bites of powdered mashed potatoes and some zucchini. By early afternoon, I started a desperate search of our hotel for anything edible. I was told by an employee that there was NOTHING for me to eat. No candy bar, no spare cookie, no hamburger at the grill... apparently I'm staying in the only hotel in America without even a vending machine. I pleaded with the gal, telling her I would pay for the food, if they could just find me SOMETHING. Maybe I looked like I was about to break down, because she eventually left and came back with a slightly-smashed nutra-grain bar. She probably dug it out of her purse. Bless her. 

Back to the adventure... I guess I'll go learn something.

Time to build a bunker

I find this story to be incredibly disturbing... anytime folks talk about over-throwing the government and creating a new rule of law, I get a bit nervous. Maybe I'm overreacting...

City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away

by Shelby Endman / CNN

(CNN) -- A floating city off the coast of San Francisco may sound like science fiction, but it could be reality in the not-too-distant future.

The Seasteading Institute has drawn up plans for a floating city off the coast of San Francisco.

The Seasteading Institute already has drawn up plans for the construction of a homestead on the Pacific Ocean.

One project engineer described the prototype as similar to a cruise ship, but from a distance the cities might look like oil-drilling platforms.

According to the plans, the floating cities would not only look different from their land-based counterparts, but they might operate differently, too.

Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who now works for the Seasteading Institute, said floating cities are the perfect places to experiment with new forms of government.

Some of the new political ideas the group is tossing around include legalizing marijuana and making intellectual property communal -- so that everyone would take ownership in art produced on the city at sea.

"The idea isn't just about getting away from rules or getting rid of rules. It's about a system that encourages experimentation with different political systems," he said.

Don't Miss

• Seasteading Institute: Info, FAQ, blog, forums

Friedman said the floating city may be built in modular pieces so that city blocks and neighborhoods can be recombined to create new urban layouts.

The idea of building cities on the sea is not new, he said, but the Seasteading Institute has come closer to realizing the goal than others.

"A lot of people over the past hundred plus years have had this idea and even specifically building cities on the ocean to try out new forms of government," he said. "But they've pretty much been totally imagined and if they did try, they totally failed."

There are several unknowns about future attempts to create floating cities, said Christian Cermelli, an engineer and architect with Marine Innovation and Technology, based in San Francisco.

Cermelli, who is part of a team of designers creating a blueprint for the first seastead, said it's unclear if construction is possible -- or what it would cost.

Still, a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three years, he said.

Friedman said seasteads are loosely based on oil rigs, but with important modifications.

"We care more about sunlight and open space, so the specifications are different," he said. "Also, oil platforms are fixed in place. We think it's important to have more modular cities. So you would build a city out of buildings that can actually be separated and rearranged."

Cermelli said the ocean cities may use technology from suspension bridges "to expand the space at sea and basically get a roomier platform."

Friedman says the idea of seasteading has met a range of reactions.

"Some people think we're crazy. A lot of people think we're crazy," he said. "Some people think terrible things could happen, others think it would be great."

About 600 people have joined the Seasteading Institute.

Some of them, like Gayle Young, say the idea is exciting partly because it's so different.

"I love the idea because it's audacious. It's big," she said. "It's about pushing frontiers." 

Soon

My friends, I promise to do better on my posts this week. I should have some spare time since I'll be spending most of my week in a hotel in MIAMI! I've been to Florida several times, but never to Miami, and you know how much I love to travel. I'll be presenting my research paper at the International Public Relations Research Conference, and in my spare time I'll probably sit in the back of the conference and stalk people on Facebook with my new iPhone while doing my best to look like I'm listening. Oh how I love traveling! And oh how I especially love FREE trips!

In the meantime, here's a few photos from a fantastic bachelorette party this weekend. We sat on the rooftop of my favorite restaurant in the whole world and enjoyed one of the most beautiful evenings of the year.

Taylor will make it all better

It's such a downer when I write about how stressed I am because of school. I've been back in school for three years now, and juggling that, along with work and the 100 other things I try to do is simply exhausting. I'm a bit burned out. But I'm only three classes from graduating, so I will continue to plug along until I either finish, or marry an independently wealthy Baptist minister. If that happens, I'm going to QUIT school and become a "lady who lunches." Keep your fingers crossed, please.

This week was particularly stressful after I realized I will have  two 20-page papers due the same week in April, a deadline that is furiously approaching. The panic started to build up to near intolerable levels, until I found my new coping mechanism. Some people take up smoking, or drinking, or hard living.

I've taken up Taylor Swift.

On my way to and from class, when I'm having a particularly stressful day, I roll down my windows in my car and belt out Taylor Swift songs at the top of my lungs. Usually I include hand motions and fist pumps through my sunroof. For a few minutes, I forget my deadlines and become Rock Star Bethe. It's fantastic. And freeing. 

I swear I sound just like her. But just like Cinderella, whose coach turned into a pumpkin at midnight, the minute I leave my car I go back to being tone-deaf and untalented. If you want to see a show, I guess you'll have to hitch a ride!

Lines a guy should never utter

Tonight's Bachelor finale deserves a much better post... but it's late, and I'm tired, so all I can do is squeeze out a quick venting session...

Tonight's show exemplified everything I hate about certain kinds of guys (of course, not any of the ones who read THIS blog). You know the kind... the ones who feed you lines about how awesome you are, and then suddenly have a "change of heart." The following are lines uttered by Jason on tonight's show that NO guy should ever utter when in a committed relationship... because it's a cop-out.

"I have to follow my heart."

"My feelings changed."

"I can't have any regrets. Even if it hurts those around me."

"I can't help what I'm feeling."

"You're a very sweet girl... BUT..."

I can imagine hearing Mr. Bachelor saying these same things to his wife in a few years. "I'm sorry, honey, I know you didn't want me to cheat on you, but I had to follow my heart. My feelings have just changed. And I can't have regrets... even if it may hurt those around me. I just can't help what I'm feeling. You're such a fantastic girl... but... the other girl was really HOT."

Yep. I hate the Bachelor. Why did I waste my time watching this?

It's a Blur

What a weekend this was... here's my attempt at a brief wrap-up...

--I worked my favorite marathon all afternoon on Friday. It was a blast--I have grown to really love this race and the people who work it with me. I find runners to be a fascinating breed, I'm intrigued by their ability to sacrifice and push themselves harder than should be humanly possible to run 26 miles. And I love that my race is a chance for people to accomplish a goal, whatever the distance, whether it's a 5k or an ultra-marathon. Getting to work with this organization is such a cool perk of my job. I spent most of the day Friday handing out t-shirts and answering the same question over and over and over... "No, sorry, the goodie bags are for pre-registered runners only."  Back off, people. There are reasons to register early!

--I coordinated and hosted my annual work gala Saturday night. I wish I could post pictures, because it looked like an absolute dream, but I don't like to put work stuff on here. If you know me and want to see a photo, I'll email you one. Just know that it looked just like a scene out of a movie... a room that looked like a rustic old barn, covered in twinkle lights, with table centerpieces that sat 10 feet tall with lanterns and floating candles hanging from it. It was gorgeous. And I'm so glad we went western so I get to wear my comfy cowboy boots instead of my standard stilettos. Whoever thought of that (me) was a very smart person (me). 

--Today I visited an old friend in the hospital. I seem to be making too many trips to the hospital these days, but this one was particularly fun because my friend is feeling much better (she goes home tomorrow!) and I had fun friends come with me. It was a good day.