I was rear-ended on the way to work this morning.

We’re fine. My truck is mostly fine.

We were sitting about 4th in line at a stop light not 600 yards from my building when the light turned green and WHAM! The girl driving the Jeep behind me said she didn’t even feel her vehicle moving until she hit me.

After taking the truck into the dealership to have it checked out, we were told all that’s needed is a new bumper fascia. The bumper is scratched up and buckled but, because it was a low speed bump, thankfully the foam and general structure are fine.

It could have been a lot worse but it’s still not a great way to start the week.

Direct your attention to the sidebar and you will notice a new feature… we’ve created a travel map illustrating all the places we’ve been! Just click on the flag marking a location to see photos of our trip. Zoom and pan to your heart’s content.

The song “Monster” by The Automatic has been stuck in my head today (listen on Myspace). The chorus — what’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster? — is just really catchy. Hopefully it’ll be stuck in your head too!

free veg!

My supervisor has been bringing in bags full of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers for weeks now. Our garden is still a few weeks away…

About a week ago we started noticing some portulaca plants growing between the bricks of our patio. Here’s one that just started flowering:

As of this morning we have over 20 plants growing wild - now that is my kind of weed!

I am convinced that Eric has magical powers that enable him to get this close to insects. This is also why small children and dogs adore him, I imagine.

This morning I was using Google maps, and while there, I checked out the updated satellite imagery of South Africa. The resolution is really pretty amazing. Below I posted two screenshots that give you an overhead perspective of one part of our 2004 South Africa trip, in particular, to the coastal town of Knysna. This first pic shows the Heads, the channel between the Indian Ocean and the Knysna lagoon.

Check this photo for our view from the ground. The red arrow is pointing to Paquita’s, the restaurant where we had a leisurely lunch while watching the waves get suprisingly close. Like several feet. The satellite shot below shows the area at a lower tide…

We simply can’t wait to go back…

Before moving to North Carolina, I used to casually assume that stuff we ordered online would get to us in one piece, undamaged.

Ha! Ahhhhh! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Let’s take a look at a few items we’ve received over the last year and a half, shall we?

The fact that CompUSA sent this without any protective packaging is simply ridiculous… but because this battery backup weighs about 20 pounds, I’d like to think it fought back.

This was a sad casualty caused by UPS, although Amazon did ship us a Dyson vacuum in its original box. The guy actually apologized when he dropped this off (we were entertaining an apartment full of people at the time, so we didn’t reject it outright). We opened the box to find the “factory reconditioned” vacuum crushed in several places. The entire thing is made out of plastic, and not very strong plastic, apparently… when we returned it, Amazon had sold out of the model we wanted. I am now leary of buying another Dyson, period.

Thankfully our new Canon Rebel XT wasn’t damaged, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on UPS’ part.

We saw this sitting on our front porch when we got home from work today. That is the receipt (which is supposed to be inside the box) sitting on top. Now, I have a very hard time believing Amazon let a package leave their warehouse looking like this. If this is what two-day shipping looks like, I’m glad I cancelled my trial Amazon Prime membership. Plus, they could have used an extra two inches of tape on either side to prevent the box from opening up the moment it was thrown in the truck.

Geesh.

Kenneth Cole for $30 at TJ Maxx. I’ve already been complemented on them twice this morning. :) Also starring in this photo: my blindingly white feet and the awful carpet in my office.

We awoke this morning to pouring rain outside and while I know it makes the plants happy, it makes me want to crawl back into bed. Eric says this heavy rain is especially good for the trees, including our crepe myrtles. All the specimens around town are much thicker, but ours just have to make do with the little amount of sun they receive. I think it looks like the tree is holding numerous hot-pink pom poms!