867-999-8212

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A Little Bit of This and That


If you've heard “Kiss Me Through The Phone” by Soulja Boy, you’ve heard that number before, 678 triple 9 8212. Its in the Chronicles of Nani iPod if you haven’t. I think it’s fantastic! If you call that number, you can sign up for call backs with messages from Soulja Boy with new music information. Awesome marketing! Imagine if you are a teenager and you get calls from an artist every day. Even if it’s just a recording, it fosters some great fan loyalty.

Unfortunately, it’s also being used for some pranks. I haven’t called the number. I like the music, but I’m a married woman in my 40s. I don’t need daily calls from a man my nieces would regard as “sexy.” But I did some internet research to find out if the number in the song was a real number. That’s when I discovered how the message call backs work. I guess you can put in a different number than the one you’re calling from, because there are people getting the calls that aren’t happy about it. One person left a complaint on one of the call reporting sites saying, in all caps, that she was insulted to be getting calls all the time from what seemed like a cult offering gay sex with soldier boys. hmm...

The video, which is awesome by the way, features Soulja Boy talking to his girlfriend, future wifey, on the phone from a card game. I was thinking, “hey! that could be me!” hehe Near the end of the video you see a middle aged white man talking to his wife from the office, working late so he’s kissing her on the phone, an older African American couple and an Asian woman on the phone, but I don’t recall they showed to whom she was talking. I love that. The video is totally inclusive. After showing the young black couple and older white couple, the last woman could be on the phone with her husband, girlfriend or even hot chat with a stranger. It’s whatever you need it to be to feel like you are represented in the video. And yes, it’s much more likely that David is the older guy calling home because he’s working late than the young guy at the poker table, but I can dream for him, right?

I think it’s sad that people are using the number to prank people, but it’s no different than all of the people in all of the area codes who called 867-5309 in the 80s asking for Jenny. Nah, this is better. If fans call the number just out of curiosity, they’ll likely be pleasantly surprised and keep the messages for themselves.



In Other News, Nani News,

I’m trying to get my end of the month stuff wrapped up. I have the new challenge written up or I Wanna Talk About Me at Scrap Bird, but I need to finish the posting bonus. I’m going to see my Dad tomorrow, Dave and Laura will be there with Tori and Rina, so Dad is planning to cook up family dinner tomorrow night. I am a total sucker for Dad’s grill-feats! Sunday is supposed to be decent train weather, but if I don’t have everything done by the time I leave tomorrow, I may need to stay home and finish. School starts Monday at 8AM, so I don’t really have lots of extra time!


Speaking of school, I got my lab program on the laptop and ready to go. I talked with tech support for the publisher of the lab disk yesterday since Vista isn’t listed as an okay OS on the DVD box. There are a few updates that I had to install and now it totally works on Vista. So, I’ll be able to do my lab work at home and not have to go back to campus to do it. YAY! Have I said how much I love Vista?

I will see my new doctor next week about my knee. That will make my very concerned brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Connecticut very happy! Ben and Ellen were both on me about getting it checked out both separately and then they teamed up on me last week! Oh, I take that as a wonderful expression of family love and a after the way it just didn’t bounce back like it usually does after we went to Boston, I’m good and ready to turn it over to a pro. Just any surgery that might need done will be done with a local anesthetic. I don’t want to be unconscious. Even if I’m loopy, I want to hear it if someone says “oops!”

Okay, lunchtime and back to wrapping up May. Hey David, I think I’m gonna have a Lean Pocket! ;)

Digitalegacies Designs Sale Paper

I hope everyone has been visiting Scrap Bird on Thursdays for the great half-off kits available with all of the fantastic personal and commercial use goodies in all of the stores. We’re growing again, even more designers! I’ll have all the blog links up soon. I’m still catching up from being gone a week!


This week, the Digitalegacies Designs offerings in the Crazy Thursdays sale are Eight Days A Week and One Step at a Time. Both are only $2.50 today only!!


But wait, there’s MORE!


Okay, that’s corny, but we’re talking a dollar sale! There are just a few days left to get any Digitalegacies Designs template set for just one dollar! That’s right, half off the Project 365 sets with four templates each and a third off the quilt-inspired Premier Templates.

Coming soon!

A new quick page set will be in the store soon! The Look of Love is four quick pages, one made with each of Laura, My Blue Heaven, Because of You and Your Own Special Way, the Digitalegacies love-kits!


Just put your photos behind the png files, flatten and print! Look for the set of four pages in the store soon!


As June starts, a new DST blog train kicks off the month on the first, plus a new I Wanna Talk About Me challenge and bonus too!

You Like Purple Flowers Too?

There are some big things going on in my world right now. Some of them are exciting and some are scary! Getting ready for the wedding reception and the honeymoon at the end of August, now that’s exciting. Starting back in school, that’s a little scary, but exciting too. My knee, however, is just scary.

Best as I can tell, my knee has just always been destined to be trouble. I’m a bit of a klutz. That’s heredity. Mom was on the clumsy side too. I read an article at Scrubs, which is a website especially geared towards registered nurses, but with lots of great content for patients and people interested in the nursing profession or just some free good advice! The article was titled “How Scrubs Eased The Pain.” It’s in the First Person stories, where people write in their own stories about nursing and nurses. It’s by a Mom telling about her 9-year-old daughter’s experience in the hospital with a nurse in cheery purple floral scrubs that started a favorite color and favorite flower conversation that eased the emotional pain of a sprained ankle.

Sprained ankle. My first one was when I was 11. I had mistimed a ballet leap while choreographing a number I was going to do for the 6th grade talent show. Needless to say, I didn’t end up in the show. In the 30+ years since then, there have been a couple other sprains and a broken toe, but now the falls on my knees seem to be catching up with me! Last week, when David and I were on the various trains to get us from Providence, Rhode Island to Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, we got off on the outside platform of a subway train that was posted, after leaving the train, that the elevators were on the middle platform. Groan! My gimp knee and I started up the stairs. I always use the mantra “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” when pushing my knee a little farther. I end up sore and have to take an hour or so break before I can really walk around again, but I manage. But this time, I didn’t heal back up so much. I’m facing the fact that knee surgery might be in the future, possibly the near future!

I haven’t visited the doctor on my PPO in the less than half year I’ve had it yet and he’s not accepting new patients right now, so I had to choose a new doctor. In about a week, I’ll have the new card with my new doctor and make my first appointment. Part of me is excited about the thought that I’ll be able to walk without pain again, but that’s my Coveyish always having the end goal in mind. One thing that I know, that I can picture after reading at Scrubs, is that during the wait while I sit in an exam room alone preparing for strangers to visit, ask personal questions and probe areas that are in pain, I’ll be shaking inside of my optimistic exterior nervous! The first person I’ll see, the first stranger I’ll meet for a one on one talk, is the nurse. That nurse will be my first impression of the doctor, of his whole practice.

I’ve read some first hand accounts, questions and concerns from RNs. Looking at the site and really seeing health professionals in the “real person” sense, eases some of those nerves too. Yeah, knowing I’m a big baby when it comes to the doctor and knowing where to do my homework really does help!

There is an article with tips for nurses to answer questions about swine flu. By the way, patients have the same access to the answers too, the site is for and about nurses and anyone interested! I read a question and answer article about praying with patients and a short from a man who when asked what it was like to be a “male nurse,” replied, "The 'male' part I've got down—it’s the 'nurse' part that takes a lot of hard work!" Of course, genderism exists both ways. A nurse is a nurse, regardless of gender!

One last thing I’ll mention about this great site is that as I’m pursuing my certification in computer networking, there is also one other profession with jobs actually on the rise, healthcare. There is a demand for good nurses, even in this shaky economy. If you’re even considering a career in or career change to nursing, it’s a good place to get a feel for the personalities and practicalities that make up this important profession.

Okay, I think I’m ready to sit in that exam room and tell a stranger about my knee. When the nurse comes in to get my vitals and information for the doctor, he or she doesn’t have to be wearing bright blue scrubs with trains and baseballs on them...but boy, would that be cool!

Photoblog Wednesday

Providence, Rhode Island

The Rhode Island State House as seen from the train station

Monday Mug Shot

Boston Red Sox Fenway Park Boston, Massachusetts

There were four parks on my list, four that were the epitome of classic baseball parks that I felt I just HAD to see a game at in my lifetime. Two of them are gone and two that may never be allowed to go, but I thought that about the other two too!

The first was Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan. I cut those teeth that actually chewed baseball card wax pack bubble gum on games at Tiger Stadium. I saw many games there and even worked there for two seasons while was finishing my degree.

The other stadium that’s now gone is the original Yankee Stadium. I saw the Yankees beat the Red Sox and then lose to the A’s a few days later in June 2006.

The remaining truly classic parks are Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, home of the Cubs and Fenway Park in Boston. In 1995-97, Wrigley was practically my home field. “The gang” and I made many day trips for games and even a few weekenders. The Cubs were also Mom’s favorite team, so she was always ready for a road trip! Fenway is home to the Boston Red Sox, David’s number one team. I pretty much knew that I was definitely going to make it to Fenway one day!

That “one day” was last Wednesday! What a great game to choose! The Red Sox beat up the Toronto Blue Jays in a game that featured 5 Boston home runs including 2 from Jason Varitek and finally the first this year form the team’s slumping slugger, Big Papi, David Ortiz. Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury also tied the league record for unassisted putouts with 12. If you’re a Red Sox fan, it was an incredible game and wearing the hat and earrings I’d purchased on Yawkey Way before the game, I was definitely dressed the part of a happy fan!

Our seats were in the section with classic seats that dated back to 1936. The average human butt was smaller then and the average human legs were never as long as David’s, so they weren’t the mot comfortable seats. In fact, they are said to be the smallest seats and rows in baseball, but it was neat to sit in that piece of history for the game. The whole experience was a classic, historic. Yawkey Way, the street the park is on, is closed prior to game time for shopping, partying and generally soaking up the whole baseball experience. Inside Fenway the feel is similar to Wrigley in that you feel the history hugging you from every direction.

David got dinner for us. He brought me back a bottle of Poland Spring water, the answer to how a Coke contracted ballpark gets around the licensing agreement with Aqua Fina as the official bottled water of Major League Baseball, they sell SPRING water rather than PURIFIED water. Yeesh, huh? The water was to wash down a couple of Fenway Franks! The renown hot-dogs of the east are half price for the first hour after the gates open! Ben, David’s brother, had a seat a section over, which enabled us to have the good view behind home plate we had instead of nosebleed or standing room seats, joined us in our section before the game started so we had ballpark dinner together. I can now say that I’ve had the well-known signature dogs of each coast, having tried Dodger Dogs in Los Angeles in 2000. Guess that makes me a nationwide snouts-n-tails connoisseur!

But in all of the great points of history and the exciting blow out for the home team, the most impressive, the most enchanting part of Fenway Park is Red Sox Nation, the fans. I’ve never been to a game with more loyal and supportive fans! Although I suspect that it might be different when the rival Yankees are in town, there weren’t boos at the beginning of the game when the opposing team was announced, casual indifference, but no displays of poor sportsmanship from the crowd. That’s not a display of a lack of enthusiasm because the crowd erupted in cheering support as the beloved home players were announced. I’ve seen televised games where former players who left the organization on good terms were cheered when announced and even when they batted. Imagine, the crowd cheering mild approval when the opposing team gets a hit because “he used to be one of ours.” Once you’ve played in Boston, you really do have fans for life unless YOU spoil that relationship.

My skin just goose bumped when David Ortiz came to the plate. In most cities when one of your big boppers, the designated hitter, the man paid the big bucks to be the home run hitter hasn’t gone yard yet for the year in late May, the fans are speaking ill, calling for his head on the trading block, even booing at the announcement of his name. Red Sox fans joined in loud in applause and stared chanting in unison “Let’s go Papi!” In the 5th inning when he finally broke that dry spell and the ball sailed out of the park, the crowd just went nuts. You’d have thought the game had just been won! The cheering didn’t stop until Ortiz had come back out of the dugout for a curtain call.

The whole Fenway experience was just awesome from the festival atmosphere on Yawkey Way, to the Fenway Franks, to the historic seats, but what really makes it is the great baseball fans that make up Red Sox Nation. The people who loved and supported their team through 86 years of bad luck, curses and empty World Series hopes, deserve to see their beloved team win every time they play, well, every time except when they play the Tigers.

While I did cheer for them in the playoffs before we met, Boston is my second American League team by way of loving them along with David. After seeing a game in Boston, I have to say I’m very proud to have married into Red Sox Nation!