Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The mothership has landed....in Arkansas


I hope you are enjoying the new look for our blog. Now that we are living the American life with full time jobs and all I thought it was time to give it a more sophisticated look so you're welcome. Some of you may wonder what I mean by the "American life" and well for us it means that we have a new place with no furniture with the exception of a nice couch that was donated to our cause and a brand new Samsung flat screen, overly large, ostentatious but beautiful T.V. Yes, that's all we own. In fact, here is a picture of our living room here in Little Rock. (That box near the window is our T.V., just so you don't miss it.)


Some wonder what has gotten into us, because, in fact, before we settled here Jamey and I shunned the life of consumerism and yet the first thing we did for our townhouse was consume a rather large flat screen T.V. We bought it and we like it, even despite the fact that we don't have cable and only watch re-runs of shows we have never even heard of through a snowy screen. We are connoisseurs of film and we wanted to do it right so we bought it. Done and done. And if you've ever seen Judge Judy in HD you will never buy another regular T.V. again. She's amazing. (picture of the kitchen, very exciting.)

Just to catch up the two or three people that are reading my blog, when we returned from Central America (see posts below, we were in fact in Central America only a couple of months ago...) Jamey holed away at his parents house in Mountain Home and worked his little heart out on the Rough Guides Panama chapter. He produced some amazing work and even more amazing maps, if I do say so myself. I went to Raleigh to visit family and let Jamey work so I wouldn't be tempted to nag and bother him while he finished his writing. While in Raleigh I applied to I think a thousand jobs in San Francisco because our plan was to gracefully transition into a really large, expensive city in the western United States. As it turned out, Jamey had friends and family looking out for him and suggested his name for two very good writing jobs in Little Rock, one for ESPN outdoors and one for Heifer International. So we changed our game plan a bit and scrapped the San Fran idea once we found out that these jobs were the real deal. Jamey ended up getting both jobs but the Heifer one fell through because of funding issues, which was a real bummer. The ESPN job seemed to be the right fit for him now anyway so he accepted the job and here we are in Little Rock. As for me, I'm still looking for work but thoroughly enjoying not working and arranging and re-arranging what little furniture and knick knacks we have. (Here's another picture of our place)


After living here for only a few weeks I have realized that I desperately miss the East Coast. Well, I don't know if it has to be East but definitely the coast. I never took for granted that for the last six years or so I have lived in walking or biking distance from the ocean or Vineyard or Nantucket Sound. And now, I am landlocked and without a natural body of water to which to run from the sweltering southern heat. It's making me feel a little claustrophobic. We miss Cape Cod and we miss the Atlantic Ocean and surfing and midnight swims and digging for clams and kayaking. It is now my mission, while I have the time, to find a natural body of water in Central Arkansas. Please, suggestions are welcome.
Our tentative plans while we are in Arkansas I will list below:
1) start our own non profit advertising agency (don't steal this idea)
2) breed bloodhound puppies
3) get a book deal on a topic I can't discuss because someone would definitely steal the idea
4) join the Rodeo circuit
5) become a famous photographer
6) prepare for overseas lifestyle. We must be prepared when we are accepted into stellar graduate programs in our respective fields
7) make beautiful music (this is not a metaphor, we are really going to start a band and call it The Soggy Croutons)
And lastly, I have a trivia question that stumped us last night at our bar trivia on Tuesday nights. No googling, use only your brains people.
Q: What is a Hemicrania?