Another New Place

So as many know I have moved once again. I'm proud of myself for staying in the same place for over a year! I live now in The Rose Park area of Salt Lake, not exactly the Ritz but I have 3 amazing roommates, and other than some hitches with figuring out my new bus routes I love it!

Here are a few shots of the room. Notice I am once again it a basement. :(

Juno checking out her new window spot.

Sublime with Rome Concert

This is from way back in August but I forgot to post about it. We went to the 311 concert and Sublime was opening for them. We actually ended up leaving after Sublime and missing 311 but Sublime was pretty awesome! We were in the pit literally only behind one row of people and had a great shot of the stage! I was trying to download a video but it was taking FOREVER...maybe I'll try later. :) Enjoy!

The View

I was sitting outside enjoying a little of the beautiful pre-fall weather, and trying to ward off a migraine...when I realized how hideous the view is from our back porch. There's the overpass (going over the train tracks right behind our building) seen just above the storage units from the business next door and don't forget the billboard advertising the apartments I already live in.

Beautiful. Just Beautiful.

I hope you all have some Nice weather to enjoy too!!

Classy Incidents

I had the wonderful opportunity to fly First Class for the first time coming home from NJ a week ago. I had a scheduled flight connecting from Newark to Minneapolis then to Salt Lake with a 2 1/2 hour layover. When I got to my gate in Newark though they had overbooked and asked if I would be willing to leave an hour later on a direct flight to Salt Lake. I was totally down with that, and would have been more than satisfied if that was their final offer.

They weren't done though. The lady then gave me a $7.00 food voucher and told me to go get breakfast (that was enough to get me a yummy breakfast panini) and a $200 travel voucher for Delta Airlines. When I went back to get my new boarding pass she was like "oh, and by the way I upgraded you to first class." I guess I'm better at negotiating than I thought I was! ;)

There was one problem with my upgraded seat. I was in the first row and on the isle, which meant the steward came to me first for everything. I managed well the first few times, getting myself a Coke before takeoff (in a glass cup not a plastic one) and pretzels to munch on (even though I wasn't really hungry because of the panini). After we got in the air, he asked if I would be joining them for breakfast, assuming it was free and pretending I hadn't already had a breakfast and a half I said yes.

I was next handed, via large tweezers, a warm wet rag. I wasn't sure what to do with until the guy next to me started wiping off his hands, I immediately stopped wiping my face and did the same. These were then collected and thrown away. I was then asked if I wanted eggs or cereal, I went with eggs, and a bagel or croissant, I was feeling fancy and went with the croissant. When I got my breakfast it was not just eggs and a croissant, it was a small spinach and cheese omelet, with country style hash browns, three small pieces of ham, a bowl of fruit, AND a croissant. I was eating off of nice glassware and eating with silverware, and was offered more drinks than I could possibly have had room for as I finished my second breakfast within 2 hours.

I enjoyed use of the "first class bathroom" as my bladder strained to contain all that it was given. The leg room was incredible. There were no fighting elbows or awkward head-shoulder collisions. I feel that I was able to blend in well, minus the towel incident, and enjoyed the ride. I did feel unsophisticated sitting next to a coffee drinking suit. As a people watcher I marveled at the devote Jew across the isle reading some book I assumed to be scripture throughout the flight, kissing it and putting it to his forehead each time he closed the book. I read Bossypants by Tina Fey between naps and considered doing the same.

Cat vs Sharks

Marty a cat we were watching for Bri's sister seemed very intrigued by my iPad. So I downloaded a quick shark app and watched while he enjoyed trying to chase them!

Wet Drywall and Other Clever Tales

The excitement of my week was waking up on Monday to this puddle coming from under my stove.

Hopefully you can actually see the water...I promise it's there.

This is a shot of course after I pulled off the drawer from under the stove. So I called our maintenance guy freaking out cause there was a puddle in our apartment. He said he'd be right over, and an hour later he was at the door. He was thinking it was a leak from upstairs, but after cutting a few beautiful holes in our walls and under the sink he found a small scrape on some of the plastic piping behind the sink, probably from a nail int he wrong spot when putting up the drywall.

Because the walls were very wet, our apartment has been in disarray for a week now, trying to leave them open enough to air out. Thankfully the holes are in location not accessible by any of the animals! We hope they'll fix it this week. But then again that's when they told they'd be here, so we'll just hope it's fixed by August. ; )

I am also very excited to get to see family the next few weeks. I miss being close to them and getting to hang out all the time. I'll see Scott and Cassie on their way back to Rexburg and give them a place for which to rest their heads. And then the Mid and West coast part of the family the next weekend!! I'm also enjoying the warm weather we've been having here in Utah and laying out by the pool!

Life is Good.

Paint Balling Birthday

I got to go paint balling for my birthday this year. Which was incredibly fun. I managed to walk away fairly unscathed, due to my ability to hide behind not only the barricades but also other people. :)
We got to play a few games with just our group and played a few with some more experienced players. But definitely had fun all around! The guys in my group were impressed with my skills. As was I!

Now that I'm officially 22 (even though I still feel like I'm 18) I've realized how much I have grown up since high school. I have an amazing apartment, I have a job that can support me, I am almost done with my bachelors degree, I have a great support system of friends and family, and I have learned to live and make decisions for myself and not for the expectations of others. As a newly 22 year old I'm happy to say that I am happy!

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've been busy. I took a few videos today of Juno and Binx a new cat to our apartment. They have learned to get a long so well and love to fight and roll around and play together. They have even been caught grooming each other. Binx the black cat was recently shaved which is why she looks like she's wearing boots! Anyways enjoy!

Juno Training

Since I'm not home most of the time during the week, on the weekends I get to see what kind of trouble Juno gets in to while I'm normally gone. Her new favorite play place (beating out the toilet, sink, and refrigerator) is the bathtub. She loves to play in water and drink water when shes in control of how wet she gets. Without any inhibitions she jumps right through the closed curtain and knocks down the shampoo bottles, licks up any droplets left from the last shower, chews on the plastic curtain, and meows when she forgets how she got in.

Since I was home today I thought I would teach her that playing in the bath tub was probably not what she wanted to do.

I filled the tub with a couple inches of water, and closed the curtain.
I sat waiting with my camera until I heard the splash, and found this.



Juno eventually succeeded in drying herself off.
And hopefully I succeeded in teaching her not to play in the bathtub.

This is what we do..

Me: Thank you for calling discover this is Emily in Salt Lake may I have your account number please?
Lady on the phone: I don't have an account with you, I'm calling because I charged $600 on my ex-husbands discover card without him knowing. I just wanted to let you know that it was me so if he needs to press charges he can, I just don't want him to be held responsible for it.
Me: ...

In my line of work, grunt labor bottom of the food chain customer service rep, I get to see an interesting side of the human race. During the day its frustrating and I want to throw down my headset and walk out, but by the end of the day I can't help but to think back and laugh.

One of my favorite things is the things people say on the phone when they think I cant hear. Before customers get to me our automated system says "We are now transferring you to our customer service team in Utah." Right after that they're on my line and I can hear EVERYTHING they say. Their reactions to finding out their going to be talking to someone in Utah are pretty funny. Some of my favorites...

"Uuuutaaaahhhhhhh." (by far the most common too)
"Utah? That's probably why my accounts messed up."
"Where's Utah?"

My favorite call of the week though was this older lady who called in on her husbands account. When I asked for her name she gave his name, Timothy. People do this a lot because they know they're not listed on the account, but usually if I say like "I have so-and-so's account pulled up and who am I speaking with today?", they'll say oh this is his wife/or fiance/or other relation. It's my way of nicely saying its okay if you're not the account holder just don't lie to me, I'm not 80 years old but I wasn't born yesterday. This lady was adamant that her name was Timothy though. So I transferred her to the Security team who is not so nice to people pretending to be someone they're not. So satisfying.

More stories to come...