I reciently celebrated my (ahem) 30th birthday, and in honor of the occasion we decided to get out of Dodge for the weekend. And to illustrate that I am totally ok with my geeky-ness and that I trust that you all will love me in spite of it, I will actually share with you what we did.

We went down to Dayton to the National Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB. The museum is huge, I mean really huge. Three giant hangers (something like 200,000 square feet each) and over 300 aircraft on display, plus lots of related artifacts. We spent almost 5 hours there and while we saw pretty much everything, we didn’t stop to read all the signs/exhibits, etc. I think it could be a couple day project to get through it all.

Sunday we drove over to the Ohio Renaissance Festival, which was fun, but we didn’t stay as long as we thought we might. Ren fairs are always interesting, and full of interesting characters.

Ike rudely interrupted our plans, so we left early. Whoever heard of a tropical storm in Ohio? Craziness.

Crazy weather notwithstanding, it was so nice to get out of town!

So...I lied

No pictures today because I forgot to bring my camera to the game on Saturday. Probably a good thing - the game started off well but ended poorly.

Jim and I are trying to make some plans for this weekend to celebrate my birthday, but the weather is teasing us. We may be home-bound after all.

Through the magic of facebook I was able to make contact with an Alma College alum who lives on Oahu. Sometimes it really is a small world!

My new camera baby

So I have been saving up the funds so that I could purchase a new point-and-shoot compact camera. My old Canon, as much as I loved it (and it is still working great), is only 3mp, and just not doing enough. And I love my super-zoom/SLR-wannabe Sony, but it's big and heavy, and I don't always want to lug the thing around with me, hence my search for the perfect compact camera.

After much research and debate I went with the Canon PowerShot SD870 IS. Love it! I love the wide angle lens, and it does superb in low-light situations with very little noise (so far). I've only had it for about a week, so I don't really have exciting pictures to share yet, but I will post some after this weekend.

September Already?

Yes, indeed it is. I can hardly believe that it is September (and that I will be 30 in a week)! School has started for both Jim and I. Jim is teaching two classes this semester, and I am taking two more grad classes for my MLIS degree.

I finally found a place for us to stay for a week after our arrival on Oahu. We are both hoping that it will only take us a week to find someplace to live... Anyway, since hotels on the island are very much not pet-friendly (and really expensive to boot) I decided that we needed to look at a vacation rental. After much searching for places that allow pets, we finally secured a nice condo in Waikiki through the website Vacation Rentals By Owner www.vrbo.com.

Other than that, the move process has pretty much stalled out. We can't yet start a serious apartment search because we are so far out. And because Jim won't get information on approved moving companies until December (!), we are stuck as far as progress in that area as well.