vel's journaly thing

Tonight I got my best game ever, a 219! My previous high game was a 203. I actually started the game with four strikes in a row, and very nearly got the fifth one as well. I also got a double in the tenth frame. The whole game would have been clean if it weren't for one split in one of the middle frames. Oh well! Also, I have a new mantra for getting strikes, since it seemed to work a lot of the time: "C'mon, Schwartz!" You all know Spaceballs, right? ;)

I have no bowling-related icons...hmm...

I managed a new all-time best score for me in bowling tonight, breaking the elusive 200 barrier! My previous high game was a 197, but tonight I got a 203. Go me! I had another first for me in order to get it, five strikes in a row. =D Plus a double in the tenth frame, so seven strikes in all.

So yeah, woohoo! Just wanted to mark the occasion, as it's not likely to happen again for a long time! Would be nice if it did at the bowling tournament I'm in on Saturday...

Tonight at bowling I bowled a clean game! =) That means I had all spares and strikes, no misses. I don't think I've ever actually done it before. I ended up scoring 185, which is pretty darn good for me considering my average is 139 and my highest game ever is a 197.

Thursday morning Jennie and Jani had to go pick up the car they're renting to haul people around in for the next few days. The rental place described it as a "bus," but it's barely bigger than a minivan and only seats 9, including the driver.

Anyway after they came back with the car we headed out to Helsinki (by train) for some bowling action. There's a new bowling alley Jani wanted to go to on the 5th floor of a mall, so we went to try it out. I like that you rent the lane by the hour, not pay per game per person, so you can bowl as many games as you want to within an hour if you're fast enough. There were just the three of us, so we managed to get in two games. Obviously I didn't bring my bowling stuff with me to Finland, so I had to make do with a house ball and shoes. I hate house balls because if the span fits, then the finger holes are waaaay to big and I can barely hold on to the ball. Such was the case with the 13 pound ball I chose, but by the second I did sort of figure out how to bowl somewhat normally even though I had to hang on for dear life.

The first game was terrible. I got an 84, Jani had 96, and I think Jennie had 65 or something like that. There was one funny moment where Jennie slipped or skidded or something during her approach and she swung around hopping doing a little dance; it's a good thing she didn't let go of the ball! The next game was better, although the machine screwed up a couple of times; we didn't bother with wasting time to fix scores, though. It gave Jennie a spare when she hit 9 and Jani a strike when he only hit 7. It never gave me anything! =P But I did a lot better that time around and even had a double! My final score was 139, which is not bad at all for me considering my average is 120. I think Jani and Jennie had something like 100 and 81.

Next was lunch. On our way down to the food court I wanted to swing by the pet store and see if they had any intersting Finnish animals, but there wasn't much there. They had the usual assortment of aquarium fish and some lizards/snakes/frogs/turtles. I want an aquarium again. What is nice about pet stores here is because so many people ride horses, they all have riding clothes and equipment in them; you don't have to find a specialty store or make a trip to a really big PetSmart to find horse stuff like you would at home.

Anyway for lunch we ate Turkish fast food at a place called Chilli where they serve kebab. What kind of meat is kebab? We think it's lamb. It's sliced meat served with lettuce and tomato and ranch dressing and hot sauce (that isn't hot) and chili peppers (I left those out!). It's pretty good, although I thought it was kind of unusual tasting.

By this time it was time to head back to Järvenpää to get the car and head off to the airport to pick up Jennie's herd family and Cindra (cinderfox) and Erin (mommyofbuddy). There were loooots of people, but thankfully most of them were shuttled to the hotel by their tour bus (a lot of Jennie's family is doing a tour of Europe after the wedding), so the only people who went to the hotel with us in our "bus" were Cindra, Erin, and one aunt and uncle.

At the hotel it took some time to get Jennie's family settled in. She had to check all the tuxedos to see if anything needed pressing. Most of them looked fine, there were just a few things that had gotten wrinkled, so we set off for Helsinki again to take them to the dry cleaner there. Cindra and Erin came with us to see a bit of the city, and after dropping off the clothes the five of us had dinner there at Rosso, the restaurant I first had lunch at when I got here (although it had been a different one back in Järvenpää). The food was yummy, although the bread at this Helsinki one wasn't as good as the bread I'd had at the first one.

By then it was pretty late (around 10pm) and we headed back from Helsinki to the hotel in Järvenpää. Cindra and Erin went to their room to get some sleep, while Jennie and Jani (and me, since I have to go where they go!) met with Jennie's cousin Margaret, the wedding coordinator, to go over the details of the next two days. Now, I don't know anything about weddings, and I think I learned more about planning them last night than I ever really cared to know. Reviewing the schedules for two days took something like two hours! It was 12:30am before they were done and we could go back home; all I can say is YIKES. And I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Okay, the puppy's name is officially Sequoia because we're sick of trying to come up with anything better. She's getting much better about sleeping quietly through the night, but she still yipes and whines horribly when she's awake during the day and no one is around to play with her. She also has even more toys now since any one toy only seems to keep her interested for a day or two.

I dropped my Tuesday night class, so now I'm down to only two night classes on Mondays and Thursdays. Yay! That class was SO lame; it was called Communication & Culture and most of the people in there were kids majoring in Communications. I had zero interest in it and it involved a lot of annoying reading, not to mention having to stay at school at night for yet another 3 hours in a row. Anyway, I've dropped it and instead I signed up for a class at the community college I'll be working at. The class? Japanese Animation *g* Three hours of watching anime every Monday; I think I can handle that... ^_~

Yesterday was bowling and I did quite well for me. For the last few weeks I've been sucking; my ball won't go where I want it to and I haven't been able to figure out why. It's like the way I bowled changed completely over the space of a week or two. Then last night my thumbnail broke off on my first practice ball, and suddenly I could bowl normally again! For three weeks I've been bowling like crap all because of one stupid nail. Well now I know I have to keep them cut short.

Tonight the fire alarm went off during my night class. I wonder if it was a prank or something, because the alarm went off in the same building on Monday night as well. That thing is freaking LOUD. At least it was kind of nice to get out of that boring class for a few minutes; I keep almost falling asleep in there. Then when I was walking to the parking structure, I saw something rustling under a bush. I figured it was a cat (there's an orange tabby I've seen a few times around campus) and stopped to look at it. Well what should scurry out from under the bush but a huge possom! In the middle of downtown San Jose! It ran over to a building and sniffed around, looking for a way in, then it crawled through this little opening near the bottom of the wall. Weird.