July 2004 Archives

Yesterday I went for a trim, but instead I got a hair cut. All total I lost 4+ inches. While it looked cute, I freaked somewhat as I'm not use to my hair being so short. So I made an appointment to get micro mini braids. So that's what I did today. I spent 8 hours in a chair, getting my hair done. I like the look so perhaps I'll keep it for awhile and here's hoping it doesn't take too long for my real hair to grow back. I already miss being able to put my hair in an afro puff.

Are you ready for some football? Ok, maybe it's a bit early, do I so love me some Michigan Wolverines football!

Michigan Ranked Seventh in Preseason Coaches Poll

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The University of Michigan football team will begin its 125th season ranked No. 7 in the preseason ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll, which was released today (Friday, July 30). The Wolverines, who received 1,128 points in the national coaches poll, begin the year in exactly the same spot that they finished the 2003 season.

I know that men find it difficult to deal with a stubborn woman but I can't help myself. I'm in survival mode. When a difficult discussion comes along, often what I hear is criticism of who I am and what I know to be true. That may not really be the case, but that's how I perceive things. So I get defensive and shut down. So here's hoping that you know who will be patient with me.

I am not a fan of Rev. Al Sharpton, but I have to give the man props for his speech last night. He stated eloquently the reason why most black people are Democrats. Below is the pertinent excerpt:

Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question.

You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule.

That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres.

We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.

Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of good men (inaudible) soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us.

This vote can't be bargained away.

This vote can't be given away.

Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read my lips: Our vote is not for sale.

Damn! Can I get an amen?!!!! To read the full text of speech, click below.

I keep having dreams about being in school. So decided to do some research on what this might mean. Below is what I found in dreams dictionary at sleeps.com.

Education If you dream you are in a school you will soon have the desire to better yourself with a higher education or job training of one kind or the other. To dream you are attending college shows that your desire for education will set you apart from the rest and denotes that you will have a successful life.

Ok, I do have the desire to better myself but not sure I want to go back to school for a graduate degree. Hopefully it a premonition to some sort of job training. I am so ready for a change.

Barack Obama's speech tonight is the best I've heard so far at the Democratic National Convention. Over and over again he electrified the audience and the passion displayed for a united America brought tears to my eyes. So it warms my heart to know that he has a really good chance to becoming the junior Senator from Illinois -- my current home state. GO OBAMA!!!

I watched the CNN coverage of the Democratic convention last night and really enjoyed the speech given by former President Clinton. I know some of you don’t care for the man, but he is perhaps one of the best political orators. Now can't wait to hear Ted Kennedy tonight. Sure he is a relic of the past, but he too is a great orator. Perhaps one of my favorite political speeches of all time was Senator Kennedy's consession speech at the 1980 Democratic Convention. Below is an excerpt:

Well, things worked out a little different from the way I thought, but let me tell you, I still love New York.

My fellow Democrats and my fellow Americans, I have come here tonight not to argue as a candidate but to affirm a cause. I'm asking you--I am asking you to renew the commitment of the Democratic Party to economic justice.

I am asking you to renew our commitment to a fair and lasting prosperity that can put America back to work.

This is the cause that brought me into the campaign and that sustained me for nine months across 100,000 miles in 40 different states. We had our losses, but the pain of our defeats is far, far less than the pain of the people that I have met.

We have learned that it is important to take issues seriously, but never to take ourselves too seriously.

The serious issue before us tonight is the cause for which the Democratic Party has stood in its finest hours, the cause that keeps our Party young and makes it, in the second century of its age, the largest political party in this republic and the longest lasting political party on this planet.

Our cause has been, since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the cause of the common man and the common woman.

Our commitment has been, since the days of Andrew Jackson, to all those he called "the humble members of society--the farmers, mechanics, and laborers." On this foundation we have defined our values, refined our policies and refreshed our faith.

Now I take the unusual step of carrying the cause and the commitment of my campaign personally to our national convention. I speak out of a deep sense of urgency about the anguish and anxiety I have seen across America.

I speak out of a deep belief in the ideals of the Democratic Party, and in the potential of that Party and of a President to make a difference. And I speak out of a deep trust in our capacity to proceed with boldness and a common vision that will feel and heal the suffering of our time and the divisions of our Party.

...

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

According to recent Newsweek article, for $13,000 plus a $500 annual storage fee, women can now freeze their eggs for later use at a company called Extend Fertility. Sure it's a bit expensive and not 100% guaranteed, but it's still worthy of consideration as so many women like myself are choosing to delay starting a family.

If you decide to go to the hospital when a family member is giving birth, time your arrival based on how far along the mother to be is in labor. Getting there too early and you'll be forced to wait around for hours on end. More importantly, be sure to bring a book or lots of magazines. It helps to make the wait more bearable. And oh yeah, don't forgot your camera. I know my family really enjoyed the pictures I emailed to them on Saturday afternoon.

I've been on baby sitting duty since yesterday afternoon and let me say that it's a lot of work to keep a 3 year old entertained and happy. Granted my niece is pretty well behaved, but it's still somewhat overwhelming to have such a small person in your face with so much energy. With that in mind, thank God for the Disney Channel and Nickeloden. Yeah I know too much TV is not good, but it does provide a welcome break.

Congratulations go out to my younger sister and her husband who had a healthy, 9lb 3oz baby boy earlier this evening.

Being in a small conference room for 2 days with 10 other people is not my idea of a good time. Particularly, when management failed to build in official breaks into the session. I'm all for training and team bonding, but come on. On a separate matter, in business when you don’t get what you want, it’s not good for a man or a woman for that matter to act like a scorned lover. It’s so unbecoming.

If you are a graduate of the University of Michigan, consider joining inCircle. It's Michigan's version of Friendster. I myself have already joined up and can't wait for the network to grow larger as I know it will be a great way for me to reconnect with old friends as well as make new ones for personal and professional development. Oh yeah! It paids to be a life member of the alumni association.

inCircle is a private social network exclusively for University of Michigan’s more than 420,000 alumni. A complimentary service to members of the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, inCircle is designed to help you tap into one of the greatest resources available to you/your network of Wolverine friends and friends-of-friends.

Before going on my 10 mile power walk on Sunday, I went to go see Fahrenheit 9/11. As much as already been written about the movie, I won't spend time writing a review. What I will say is that if you live in these United States of America and have the right to vote, shame on you if you don't exercise that right this coming November.

If you want to torture yourself, or burn lots of calories in a short period of time, take a spinning class. But be forewarned, that everything is going to hurt like hell the next day. Damn!

And oh yeah, another way to tortune yourself is to get on the scale every time you go to the bathroom. So frustating. I feel like I'm loosing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over again. Double Damn!

Screaming out loud! My weblog is being flooded with spam and the more I delete, the more they keep coming. Blocking IP addresses is a joke. ARRRRHHHHHHH! Guess I'm going to have to figure out how to install Jay Allen's blacklist plug-in. Does anyone out there want to help me? I'm clueless.

Thank goodness for rain. Had it not rained last night, I would have gone on a leisurely walk to Navy Pier and would have missed my surprise visit from Racquetball Guy. Even though he had to be in Florida on Saturday morning, he flew to Chicago from St. Thomas. I thought he might come home at some point during the weekend, but I thought it might be Saturday vs. Friday night. In any event, we had a lovely time hanging out. We even went to see I, Robot which was pretty fun. So can't wait for all his travels to be over. We email and talk every night on the phone, but its tough having him so far away for such long periods of time. But hey, he gets mega bonus points for making the extra effort to come see me.

This land is your land, this land is my land. Enjoy!

Trying not to stress out or worse yet get depressed as I'll be 34 in less than 30 days. When I was younger I couldn't wait for every birthday. Then once I hit 30, each new birthday has become confirmation that I'm not so young anymore. That I need to start worrying about this or that. Or start getting tested for this or that. I don't want to get older. Not that I want to be the same age for same years on end. If only there was a way to age without really aging.

According to a recent newsweek article, while more books are being published each year, Americans are reading less and less for pleasure. More shocking is what they quote from a recent government report. It says: "at the current rate of loss, literary reading as a leisure activity will virtually disappear in half a century." I'd like to think that's an overstatement, but there is probably some truth in that. Hey, I myself am finding it difficult to achieve goal of reading at least 2 books a month. I even quit my bookclub. In the past year, I'd only gone about 2-3 times and so decided to give up membership to someone who would hopefully be more committed. Maybe I need to look into some sort of device to listen to books as I work out, ride the bus, etc. I've resisted the urge for a long time as there is nothing like having a good book on hand and turning the pages, but I'm not even doing that anymore. So does anyone have any recommendations on what I should consider buying? Can I listen to a book on an IPod? Hmmm! Maybe I should go do some research.

Pep talk to self: Remember, when one door closes, a new one is sure to open soon. More importantly, do not cry or stress over things beyond your control. Finally, if it was meant to be, it will be. Ok, moving right along.....

If you've sent email to my barzey.com email address and I have not yet answered, there is a strong possibility that it got lost, well deleted. My inbox is constantly overflowing with spam that I just go in and delete everything. With that said, if you want to send me private email, please send to my AOL account. It’s my first and last name joined together at AOL dot com.

I started running again and my whole body hurts. Yet I can't wait to go out again, even though I know its slow going. It's easy to spot me on the trail as I'm the one that everyone is passing up. Seriously, I couldn't be doing more than a 10 minute mile. But hey, it's a start. It would be great if I could run on my lunch break since I work from home most days, but it's so hot now that it's really not a good idea. I left the house today at around 4pm and ran the 2 miles down to chess pavillion past North Avenue Beach and by the time I got there, I had nothing left. So much for me running all the way to Navy Pier. The hot sun zapped everything out of me. So I ended up walking most of the way back. My goal is to run at least every other day. Here's hoping that I stick to my commitment. I know I'll feel better plus it will help me lose weight.

If you read the rumors on gossiplist, you’d think that everyone in Hollywood is unfaithful, has some weird fetish or is gay.

So as I'm sure some of you have noticed, my blog entries have been somewhat delayed. Truth be told, my heart is not really in it, but I'm not sure I'm ready to give up quite yet. Part of me wants to take a break for at least a month, but the other part of me says that I should keep going because on an average day, I really don't spend more than 15-20 minutes writing a new entry. Plus it's good to continue documenting my thoughts as it will be useful someday when I write my autobiography. The real challenge though is that I find myself doing a lot of self censorship. It's one thing to talk publicly about what I'm doing or thinking. It's a whole other ball game when other interested parties be they be family, friends or even coworkers get in the picture. For example, someone who small remain nameless recently told me that most of my entries re my younger sister are negative. They even suggested I go back and do a bit of editing as if she ever read what I wrote she would be upset. Well of the 1000 post I've entered here, only about 10 mention her and if the truth hurts, so be it. I'm not doing any editing of past entries. But clearly I'm thinking about future entries. Its one thing to be critical of self but to be critical of others is a whole other ball game. Particularly since the stories told here are only from my point of view. Either way, I'm experiencing blogger burnout. But I'm trudge on, with the hopes that I'll get inspired again. In the mean time, here's hoping that all those crazy blog spammers will go away. They are really driving me crazy.

For all you people out there who keep talking about how young Senator John Edwards is, please note that he is 51 years old. In my book, if you've lived more than half a century, you no longer fit into the young category. Sure he looks young and may even be young at heart, but the guy is old and more than meets the age requirement for Vice President/President of these United States. So let’s move on and talk about more important things like his record in the Senate.

Big Brother is back on the air. Goodness why does CBS even bother. It is by far the most boring reality show I've ever seen. Granted this year seems to have a few more twists which should make things somewhat more interesting, but I doubt it will help. Maybe if they had more time to edit and let the stories develop instead of broadcasting 3 times a week, things might be a bit more exciting. Then again, maybe not! This show like most on during the summer just sucks and I need to find more thing to do with my free time than lay around watching bad TV.

I was cursing the fact that watching television in the summer time totally sucks because of all the repeat programming and bad reality shows -- when I clicked over to CBS and saw that it was the season premiere of The Amazing Race - Season 5. Beyond Survivor, it is by far best reality show on the air. Here you have 11 teams of two people who are somehow related to one another trying to race across the globe with the end prize being $1 million dollars. So can't wait for future episodes. Looks like they have some interesting characters on the show this season.

I was suppose to go to a parade yesterday, but I was so upset that my younger sister kept me waiting for 45plus minutes when she lives 5 minutes away from the train stop, that I stormed off and just went back home. I needed to get my head together as Racquetball Guy would be in town for about 36hours and I wanted to shake all negative thoughts from my head. This was not an easy task since this was the second day in a row that my sister kept me waiting. Oh well! By the time Racquetball Guy showed up I was in a better mood. We were suppose to go see Siperman 2, but we postponed until the next day. Then this morning, I had the most delicious cinnamon rolls at Ann Sathers. Totally blew by low carb diet, but they were to die for! Later we went to the movies to see Siperman 2 which was a lot better than I expected. In fact, I agree with most critics who indicate that it's better than the first one. One thing that surprised me was the Siperman was unmasked. So wondering, was this done in the comics? Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter. The story line as well as special effects all came together to make a great movie.

Nothing annoys me more than agreeing to meet someone at a specific time and have them show up 45 minutes late. Now I could understand 5, 10 or even 15 minutes. But 45 minutes late, and that's just plain disrespectful. I just can't deal with these sorts of people. They drive me crazy!!!

My younger sister, who is due to give birth to her second child in a matter of weeks, is saying she won't ask for the epidural this time. Trying to change her mind but in that I have not had any children, I have no moral authority. So interested in hearing from recent mothers who had their babies the natural way. Perhaps I’ll come around to her line of thinking.

Team bonding took me to the Taste of Chicago again. Went there around 2pm and I pretty much stuck to the Gourmet tent. Mostly because it was hotter than hell and the restaurant today was Morton's Steakhouse. So I sampled the lamp chops and sipped on a few glasses on wine. After that, a few of us decided to head to someplace that offered air conditioning. So we started at the W Hotel on Adams Street however after sharing one bottle of wine, we left as it was too dark. We then headed to the other W Hotel on Lakeshore Drive. There we went up to the Whiskey Sky Bar which has a sweeping view of the city. There we stayed into the wee hours of the night.

Arrh, where does the time go. It's been 19 months since I started this blog and with this entry, I've made exactly 1000 posts. Wow!