The news just gets worse. Each time I turn on the radio or the television, or visit a news website, there are further horrors in the South from Katrina and her aftermath. I just read that they had to halt evacuations at the Superdome because people were shooting at the helicopters. I can only imagine how desperate people are feeling.

I made donations this morning to the American Red Cross, which I know is providing life-saving services to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Also, because I don't know if I could choose to save myself if it meant leaving Ruby behind, I made an additional donation to the Humane Society of the United States. So many animals had to be left, and the Humane Society is working to not only help rescue the animals, but also to assist their people.

Sorry I've been absent. To celebrate my renewed interest in my blog, I give you a meme, courtesy of AliThinks:

Go to Music Outfitters and enter your high school graduation year in the search box near the top left. You should find a link to a list of the top 100 music hits from that year.

Bold = the ones I liked
Underline = my favorite(s)
Strikethrough = the songs I hated
Italics = the songs I can’t remember
Untagged = no opinion


Top 100 Songs from 1988 (the year I graduated high school):

1. Faith, George Michael
2. Need You Tonight, INXS
3. Got My Mind Set On You, George Harrison
4. Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley
5. Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses
6. So Emotional, Whitney Houston
7. Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Belinda Carlisle
8. Could've Been, Tiffany
9. Hands To Heaven, Breathe
10. Roll With It, Steve Winwood
11. One More Try, George Michael
12. Wishing Well, Terence Trent d'Arby
13. Anything For You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
14. The Flame, Cheap Trick
15. Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car, Billy Ocean
16. Seasons Change, Expose
17. Is This Love, Whitesnake
18. Wild, Wild West, Escape Club
19. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def Leppard
20. I'll Always Love You, Taylor Dayne
21. Man In The Mirror, Michael Jackson
22. Shake Your Love, Debbie Gibson
23. Simply Irresistible, Robert Palmer
24. Hold On To The Nights, Richard Marx
25. Hungry Eyes, Eric Carnen
26. Shattered Dreams, Johnny Hates Jazz
27. Father Figure, George Michael
28. Naught Girls (Need Love Too), Samantha Fox
29. A Groovy Kind Of Love, Phil Collins
30. Love Bites, Def Leppard
31. Endless Summer Nights, Richard Marx
32. Foolish Beat, Debbie Gibson
33. Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Whitney Houston
34. Angel, Aerosmith
35. Hazy Shade Of Winter, Bangles
36. The Way You Make Me Feel, Michael Jackson
37. Don't Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin
38. Make Me Lose Control, Eric Carnen
39. Red Red Wine, UB40
40. She's Like The Wind, Patric Swayze
41. Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
42. Kokomo, Beach Boys
43. I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That, Elton John
44. Together Forever, Rick Astley
45. Monkey, George Michael
46. Devil Inside, INXS
47. Should've Known Better, Richard Marx
48. I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love, Chicago
49. The Loco-Motion, Kylie Minogue
50. What Have I Done To Deserve This?, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield
51. Make It Real, Jets
52. What's On Your Mind, Information Society
53. Tell It To My Heart, Taylor Dayne
54. Out Of The Blue, Debbie Gibson
55. Don't You Want Me, Jody Watley
56. Desire, U2
57. I Get Weak, Belinda Carlisle
58. Sign Your Name, Terence Trent d'Arby
59. I Want To Be Your Man, Roger
60. Girlfriend, Pebbles
61. Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson
62. 1-2-3, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
63. Mercedes Boy, Pebbles
64. Perfect World, Huey Lewis and the News
65. New Sensation, INXS
66. Catch Me (I'm Falling), Pretty Poison
67. If It Isn't Love, New Edition
68. Rocket 2 U, Jets
69. One Good Woman, Peter Cetera
70. Don't Be Cruel, Cheap Trick
71. Candle In The Wind, Elton John
72. Everything Your Heart Desires, Daryl Hall and John Oates
73. Say You Will , Foreigner
74. I Want Her, Keith Sweat
75. Pink Cadillac, Natalie Cole
76. Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
77. Electric Blue, Icehouse
78. The Valley Road, Bruce Hornsby and The Range
79. Don't Be Cruel, Bobby Brown
80. Always On My Mind, Pet Shop Boys
81. Piano In The Dark, Brenda Russell Featuring Joe Esposito
82. When It's Love, Van Halen
83. Don't Shed A Tear, Paul Carrack
84. We'll Be Together, Sting
85. I Hate Myself For Loving You, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
86. I Don't Want To Live Without You, Foreigner
87. Nite And Day, Al B. Sure
88. Don't You Know What The Night Can Do, Steve Winwood
89. One Moment In Time, Whitney Houston
90. Can't Stay Away From You, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
91. Kissing A Fool, George Michael
92. Cherry Bomb, John Cougar Mellancamp
93. I Still Believe, Brenda K. Starr
94. I Found Someone, Cher
95. Never Tear Us Apart, INXS
96. Valerie, Steve Windwood
97. Just Like Paradise, David Lee Roth
98. Nothin' But A Good Time, Poison
99. Wait, White Lion
100. Prove Your Love, Taylor Dayne

We're thinking about going camping this weekend - which can mean one of two things. Either we pack up quickly after work and leave tonight, which means "car camping" (where you park someplace and pitch the tent next to the truck, and never bother to unload the truck bed), or else we'll pack tonight and head out at 6am for someplace three hours from here....I don't know which. I don't really care, as long as there will be fishing. I haven't been in a couple of summers and am missing it. Unfortunately, this won't be a full weekend trip, I have a party that we committed to on Sunday afternoon, so we'll need to be back.

Monday morning, I head up to beautiful Keystone for a work conference for three days. I'll sit in sessions for most of each day, but there will be a three-hour window on Tuesday when my girlfriend and I will sneak off to the outlet stores in Dillon. Need to find some trousers for fall. While I have always loved having long legs, it's hard to find 10L* or 12L pants in the regular stores. I end up buying most of my stuff online, where long sizes are plentiful.

* okay, I'm a 12 right now, but sooooo close to a 10. I can hope - I'm working on it!

I saw a new eye doctor today - I don't wear glasses or contacts, but have started to feel like my right eye is getting a bit weaker, so I went to get checked out. I have very good vision insurance through work, and so I pulled up their list of Boulder eye doctors and picked one. Usually I would just choose a name that I liked and hope for the best, but this time I chose based on address - the new doctor is across the street from where I get my hair done, and what a coincidence(!)- I have a hair appointment today. Synchronicity.

The doc said my eyes are great, but that I am slightly far-sighted - very mildly, but said that I might be more comfortable reading at night w/ some of those drugstore magnifying glasses, at 1.50+ - coincidentally, the same glasses that I already bought and have been happily using for months. Otherwise, perfecto!

After the eye doc, I crossed the street to the salon, where I got the most beautiful color done - I have been blonde for years, but shortly before the wedding went to medium brown instead. While I like the brown and think it's more flattering, it was a little too dark and was much too "saturated" immediately after she colored it. This time, we went a shade lighter for the base and a shade lighter for highlights, and it's perfect. It's what I think must be my natural color (it's been so long, I can't remember), it looks so good against my skin. It's amazing how getting your hair done and knowing that it looks good just takes your self-confidence to a whole new level...

Welcome to Denver. Please check your physical well-being and your sense of security at the gate.

Singer Marc Cohn Shot in Denver

This afternoon is just dragging by, and I can't even go home early today, because I'm headed to the airport after work and boarding a flight to....wait for it....OMAHA! Woo hoo! For one full day! Geez. Why can't we do track days in Hawaii, or Belize, for chrissake?

It's not that bad really - at least it's not 105 degrees there, like it was earlier in the summer at a previous track day. And, it's only for one day this time, which makes it infinitely easier to wrap my mind around. Hopefully there will be a nice piece of steak at the end of the day tomorrow (because really, why else go there?).

I'm reading various accounts of all the panels, meals, drinking and so on that took place at BlogHer last week. Dooce, Fussy, finslippy, jenandtonic, Suburban Bliss and many others were there, some meeting for the first time, others getting re-acquainted. I envy them the time they spent together, that they got to meet one another and maybe recognize a kindred spirit. You don't get that very often, do you? Go read some of their stories...

My mother had a long shoot yesterday that ran into the evening, so I left work a bit early and picked up the kids. We went to see "Sky High", which was better than I expected. There was some humor geared for my generation, but a lot was there for them as well. The hero of the movie is the same age as my nephew Joey, so he at least could identify and was entertained. We followed that with dinner at Red Robin, because my friend James swears they have the best burgers in Boulder (practically) - I don't know about that, since I had the salad and in my humble opinion the Walnut Brewery holds the "best burger" claim.

When we got back to the house, somehow (while I was out of the room and therefore unavailable to referee) Alex challenged Joey to do the same workout on the bike trainer that Alex does practically every night. Since Joey can never back down from a challenge, we put Alex's biking shoes on him, popped in the training video, and made him ride - the whole 40 minute program, with the simulated hills and race and all. By the end of it, the poor kid was covered in sweat and grunting "I hate you" at Alex out of the side of his mouth. Actually, he was a good sport, and he actually finished - I was really proud of him. Then his sister said, "Dude, if you did that every night, you'd get rid of your man-boobs."

Last night, Joni and I snuck out while her twins were in the bathtub (okay, their dad was watching them!) and went to the movies. Well, the movies by way of the pub. Couldn't let a "night" out opportunity go by without a pint before the movie. Actually, I had a taste of one of the specials - a lager from Kona, Hawaii - not exactly all that I hoped it would be, so I stuck with old faithful, my Heiney. So we sat and we talked and we uncovered bizarre crossover friend-coworker weirdness, in fact it was so weird and potentially dangerous that I can't even write about it in a vague sense for fear that it'll somehow come back to haunt me. I know that's frustratingly vague, but believe me, this one could bite me in the ass.

After a drink or two and the world's smallest plate of nachos, we went to see "Must Love Dogs". Having spent many years adoring John Cusack (ever since "Better Off Dead"), I was totally willing to fork over the $8 to see it at night like a normal person, especially since the damn bargain matinee doesn't seem like much of a bargain these days, being that it's $6 (gotta save that whopping $2 (I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!) to go toward the $8 it costs for a small popcorn and small soda). I also happen to really like Diane Lane, in fact I have been told that I resemble her (on a good day) - although people seem to think I resemble a lot of other people. Anyway, the movie was "cute" - not so sappy that I am embarrassed to say that I saw it, but not SO good that I'd do the ever-annoying "You HAVE to see it" - unless you're my mother the stylist, who should see it because Diane Lane was beautifully dressed through most of the movie, and whoever picked out the jewelry for Diane and the other female leads did a ROCKIN' job. Beautiful necklaces, delicate earrings, all coordinated with the killer clothes. Of course, when you look like Ms. Lane, you can wear a burlap sack and some people will still go "ooohhh" - but she did look great.