1) On Monday I went to the George Washington Birthday Parade in Old Town Alexandria. It was the first time I’ve ever been able to walk to a parade directly from my house, so that was nice. (Instead of having to arrive early and search for a place to park, I just left my apartment about ten minutes before everything started.) The parade itself was very…parade-y. There were fire trucks, police cars, waving town officials, people dressed up in period costumes, a few llamas (yes, llamas). However, the afternoon was absolutely gorgeous (like 70 degrees), so it was nice just being outside. (Note: This fulfills #55 on my 101 Things list: Go to a parade or street fair.)
2) Last night my roommate and I went to the Kennedy Center to see a performance by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. It was awesome. I’d never been to the Kennedy Center before, so that in itself was nice to see, but the dancers? Wow. Their strength, and their flexibility – and their bodies – were amazing.
3) I’ve been using Yahoo! Mail as my primary email address for about nine years. A few years ago when I was living in California with my aunt and uncle, they had Verizon as their internet provider and I was able to add my Yahoo username to their account access. The access had continued this way for the past few years, so I’d forgotten how nice it was to have premium Yahoo access (meaning advertisement-free). My aunt mentioned a few months ago that she was going to cancel her Verizon account and go to a different provider, but I didn’t give it a thought until a few days ago – when my Yahoo mail reverted back to the free, basic version. Now there’s a big banner ad at the top of the page, and another strip of ads going down the right side of the page. It’s just a lot…busier.
I have a Gmail account that I could use, but literally all of my electronic notifications come to my Yahoo address, so it would be a big pain to switch everything over. (And also, when I experimented last year with using my Gmail account as the one that receives all incoming comments from my website, there were tons of comments – all of them coming from different people, with different email addresses – that were automatically grouped together in the same “conversation” since the subject line was the same. I couldn’t file them away individually, blah-blah-blah. If anyone knows how to get around that, or if Gmail has improved since then, let me know.)
12 Comments
I went back to yahoo after using Gmail for a few years. (Technically I still use Gmail, but Yahoo is my main email provider.) It’s not as problem free as everyone makes it out to be.
No, Gmail is still like that, but I love it. Keeps things more streamlined. If I can’t find something, the search feature is a gem.
I am a HUGE Alvin Ailey fan! I’ve seen them every December (their NYC performance season) since I moved to NY in 2004. There is no other dance troupe like them; I am moved every time I watch a performance. I also grew up next door to one of the dancers (Hope Boykin) in Durham, NC. To see her dance in an Ailey show today in NY is somewhat of a surreal experience!
Glad you went & enjoyed it!
For a small fee (it’s $10 or $20 per year) you can get an address at a place like pobox.com (there are others too), and tell it what address to forward your mail to. That becomes the address you give to people. Then if you want to change email addresses, you can do it at any time, and everyone just keeps using your pobox.com address (or whatever).
It’s not what everyone would want, but it’s cheaper than getting your own domain, and it’s a reasonable solution for someone whose email address might change now and then.
Alvin Ailey studios here in NY is one of the places I take classes. I’m jealous – they’ve been out on tour so I haven’t had the chance to see them yet!
I can’t figure gmail out either. I have an account but I don’t use it much.
Monday was a great day to be outside! That is pretty cool that you could walk to the parade.
Gmail took me a long time to get used to but I eventually have and I love it. It’s hard for me to use work email, in fact.
It sounds like you are doing well Zandria. Just thought I would drop by and see what you had been up to.
Malia
Thanks for visiting my blog. If you like In Defense of Food, check out The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. I lived in Old Town for a few years. Your blog brings back a lot of good memories:)
Yeah, the whole grouped conversation thing has gotten me into trouble a few times. (I think I’m replying to one person, but I’ve somehow replied to everyone… you can imagine.) I’m sticking with gmail for my primary for now, but I still have my yahoo in case I get sick of it!
My emails are all so screwed up it is unbelievable. You know what would be incredibly useful is some kind of software that would automatically extract name and email address from emails. I really would like a database, for example of all my blog readers (taken from comments) but there is just no way I can type it in manually for each and every comment. Sigh. Any suggestions? I really need database software too I think.
The ads on Yahoo kind of bug me, too. Especially the flashing ones, or the ones that move around. The dancing figures ads are the most distracting of all.
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[...] a Sisters-Only Getaway with both of my two beautiful sisters 55. Go to a parade or street fair (2/18/08) 56. Attend a comedy show (9/1/07) 57. Attend a non-mandatory lecture or seminar (3/1/08) 58. [...]