I'm not one to be overly political but I will say this: I am thrilled to be alive today to witness this great achievement. CNN just predicted that Barack Obama will become the first African American president of the United States.

Watching the crowds responding to the news is exhilarating. I honestly think I'm going to get a little teary.

Scratch that - I AM teary.

Twitter has pretty much been crushed by the updates. I'm calling it a night.

D and I are finally taking a vacation. We've been together nearly 9 years and this is only the 3rd trip we've ever taken and I'm not sure it really qualifies as a vacation but, it should be fun. I've taken tomorrow off which gives us a nice 4 day long weekend. We're driving out to Newport, Oregon tomorrow morning, spending 2 nights and then stopping over somewhere in Seattle on Sunday night. I'm *very* excited and plan to take loads of pictures. Not to worry, I'll be posting everything along the way!

In other unrelated news, a few weeks ago I mentioned that I'd done my film presentation and that I thought it went well. Yesterday I got back the paper that went with the presentation and I nearly fell off my chair. Not only did I get a perfect score on the presentation, I also nailed the essay with an A+. That was exciting but not nearly as exciting as this next bit. The prof has asked that I fix up the 'rough spots' and give him a clean copy for his files and he's suggested that I look at submitting it for publication in an online film journal out of the University of Victoria.

WOW. WOW. WOW.

This is the greatest thing that ever could have happened. I don't want to get ahead of myself but it would be AWESOME to be published in a film journal.

Because I'm not around tomorrow, I'm posting the KFF a day early. I hope you all enjoy. Good weekend to everyone and an extra good one for my BC buddies who get a long weekend!

I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you how wonderful it was to have as many days off as working days. It was SOOOO nice to have Monday off to revive yourself from the weekend.

Friday was excellent. D and I headed for the border just after 9AM. We had a short 20 minute wait in which I nearly gave myself a hernia. D started thinking up reasons why they wouldn't let us accross and the whole time I'm FREAKING OUT to the point I tell him to shut the fuck up (something I NEVER say to him) because he was giving me a major stomack ache. It occured to me when we reached stateside that the boarder guard had tried to screw me up and I didn't even notice. He asked me if I was Spanish and I said no and then he asked me how long I'd been in Canada. I didn't think anything of it at the time but when I was putting my ID away I noticed that all of that information was on my card. Tricky little bugger! He was just doing his job but I thought that was rather interesting....Another cool thing was that as soon as we crossed into Washington both D and I got text messages on our phone saying "Welcome to the USA! Your service is now being provided by Verizon Wireless" That was kinda cool. As for the shopping itself, it was frustrating and really unsuccessful. I couldn't find the plus size clothing in most places until I finally saw a sign in Spanish that cleared it all up. Hello?? How come none of the shops say Plus Sizes? The only one was Walmart. Go figure. Either way, I hit all the shops: Ross, Macy's, Kohl, TJ Max, Walmat, Target, KMart and whatever else was in the mall at Bellis Fair. I managed to find a wicked pair of rain shoes at Ross for $10 which was a steal of a deal. A nice dress top at TJ Max for $5 and some very nice pants at Walmart of all places. D and I brought back a whole bunch of other stuff including tons of pop (D LOVES his cherry pepsi), boxes of Capri Sun juice (they were 3 for $5!!!) and 1L bottles of Arizona Ice Tea (the best ice tea in the world as far as I'm concerned). On the way back I managed to convince D to hit Jack in the Box for dinner because I wanted to try the sourdough burger. It was yummy and I can now say I've to Jack in the Box. I just LOVE their commercials. See? They work for some morons people.

Saturday, D took me to the casino. We both put down $40 on the blackjack table. D was out in 20 mins but I played for nearly 3 hours and managed to make back his money and a little extra. In the end, I walked away from the table with $125 bucks which wasn't too bad considering it was a losing table. The guy next to me dropped $500 in 20 minutes and then walked away. Bad day for him! This is worth mentioning because I'm a very very bad gambler - and a nervous one to boot. As much as I love to play blackjack with D's uncle and to occasionally watch D, I never muster up the guts to play for myself but I had this bug and I WANTED to play so I did. Worked in my favour!

Sunday...I can't remember what I did Sunday so I'll skip it.

Monday was a relaxing with the GF's at the mall. OMG. If anyone else tells me there's 40 some odd days left to Christmas I'm going to strangle them. I don't want to think about it yet OK? OK??? Good.

Because I missed Friday's KFF and since I've spent an enormous amount of time recounting my adventures to the great US of A, here's a nice picture to get your mind off things on a Tuesday morning: