Pirates!

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Well, I couldn't wait until tomorrow to see it, so I went after work and got my ticket for the 7 o'clock show thinking it was a quarter til 7. Dang military time! Turns out I had an hour to kill. So I bought a butt-load of snacks, wandered around Target and then headed to the theatre. When I got there, there were a million people waiting in line - I laughed and walked in with my snacks falling out of my pockets.

So, the movie gets off to a weird start, and continues to be weird throughout the whole three hours - but I digress. Right before they make it to Shipwreck Cove, the screen goes blank and strobe lights begin to flash, and we are instructed to leave the theatre.

Here's where it gets awkward.

Have you ever noticed that -nobody- goes to the theatre by themselves...except me. I really don't mind seeing movies by myself - you get to pick the time, the snacks, and the movie..no downside..until there's a fire alarm. So, I stood by myself in the parking lot behind the theatre awkwardly until my bladder and I decided to head over to the facilities at a nearby Subway.

After the fire engines came and decided it was just a faulty detector, we were all ushered back into the theatre where we sat and waited for a while. Two managers came in to tell us that we can come back some time and see another movie for free, and to keep waiting for them to get the power back on in the control rooms to start the movie again.

So, now I've seen Pirates (with a short intermission). I stopped trying to figure things out about halfway through and just kind of went with flow - it made the experience a lot better - I even assumed that it was a plot twist that Orlando Bloom was a pirate pretending to be a very bad (yet very attractive) actor.

I give it five peg legs and recommend it so long as you don't have terribly high expectations going in to it.

On a side note - seeing my husband for one day every ten years would definitely be a deal breaker.


Any thoughts on what I should see with my free movie pass? Shrek 3?

You can be a big pig too - oi!

Measures almost 9.5 feet and weighs over 1o5o lbs! The world is going to be taken over by enormous hogzillas.

DNR/Americorp Training Days

Well, I'm finally back from training. I left Sunday from Davenport, grabbed some clothes in Ames, and got a ride down to a service project all by 1pm. We planted some native prairie plants and cleared out some invasives all while it was 90 degrees. Then we rode down to Springbrook State Park in my ride's air conditioningless car - so much sweat!

We had dinner followed by a campfire and s'mores! The place reminded me a bit of camp - a lot of hippy/naturalists, food provided, no tvs or technology, and the beds are terribly uncomfortable. But it was nice to be surrounded by people who definitely agreed that squids are awesome!

We had a lot of long days. We had breakfast at 7am then our training would begin at 8. We had everything from talks about being good citizens, to what other Americorps programs are available, to talking to a panel of DNR employees (including the Director of all of DNR!), to conflict resolution. Most of these were relatively boring. Then at night we did interpretation training. All the interpreters (about 10) would meet in the basement classroom and learn how to be effective at our jobs this summer and got training for taking our tests to become Certified Interpretive Guides. So, we had an open book multiple choice test, we had to fill out an outline for our program, and we had to deliver a 10 minute program on whatever we wanted. I couldn't think of topic so I was staring outside and brainstorming, and I was looking at the lawn..so I did my program on grass. I got an 98% on my program, but I won't find out my other scores for a while - I have to get 80% on everything to get certified...and I'm pretty sure that'll happen. So, I'm pretty excited I'll be able to put that on my resume.

Today, we left training at 4pm, and tomorrow we start working in our parks! I'm excited and nervous.

Well, I should unpack, do some research on my park and regroup for tomorrow. I have some crisis management that I have to do because I forgot a very important thing at training that I was suppose to hang up in the park and do interpretation about. So, it seems I'm starting off on a very bad foot. Oh bother.

Wish me luck!

One Lucky Girl

I was looking through my pictures on my computer, and I came across these. I was at this wonderful place less than 6 months ago with my family (and Captain Ron).