Darling, you look marvelous

After driving home late Friday night from our bout my Diva team mates and I got up early to make an eleven o'clock photo shoot with a local Photographer Tim Speer. He had a slasher/hack 'em up idea running through his head that he wanted to give a derby twist to. He called the Divas. So we all got dressed up and met him in an old factory.

The lighting and set up took up a lot of time but we had a blast talking and watching everything he did. Once he finishes with his touch ups and piecing together multiple pictures to form one complete view I will post an update. In the mean time here is an out-take shot during the light check.

Now those of you who know me. know that I am a big girl. I hate having my picture taken but thought this would be fun. I have also wanted to get a few derbyish pictures taken so that I could send them to my family members to show them how much fun I am having and how being a derby girl has complimented my personality. Well after the gory shoot Tim took the time out of his busy schedule to take a few individual shots for any of the girls who wanted them. I took advantage of the opportunity. All I can say is when I saw the shots just on his camera I almost cried. I have never seen myself as beautiful, but with the lighting and Tim's artful eye I saw myself as a strong, beautiful women this weekend. Once again, As soon as I have the finished product I will be sharing them with you.

Red White and Bruise.

This past Friday I was privileged to be invited to participate in what is called a red and black scrimmage. Basically girls from different roller derby leagues are invited to play in a hodge-podge game, where you are given a color to wear and that is your team. There is no guarantee you will be playing on the same side as the rest of your own team mates. There were four leagues involved in this game, The Stateline Divas were able to have seven girls play and five of us played for the Red and Fight team while two of our teamates ended up on the Black and Bruise team. The split was really well thought out, we had a good number of all positions on each team as well as a fair distribution of rookie skaters. Three of the Divas we took had never bouted before.

As with the other 2 times I have played the only time I even noticed the score was at the end of the second period when my team, the red team had managed to close the scoring gap to one point. It took us the first period to find out the stratagey that worked best for our group. In the end though the Black and brusie team skated their way to victory.

I can defintly say this game was a whole new experiance for me. I have never intened to be one of the star players, being content to simply do my job as a blocker or pivot. Friday was such a confidence builder. I had several really good blocks and hits, I was approached by many of the black team and told what a good player I was. I even had Val Capone from the Windy City Rollers (She announced for the bout) come up and tell me she hoped she didn't offend me when she made the comment that I should change my name from DD Hunter to Jammer Hunter. It was all so over whelming I am just so used to blending in I still can't get over it all.

This weekend was such a confindence booster for me in a time where I am finding myself more and more depressed everyday. This was just Friday, I will post Saturdays bright spots tomorrow when I have more time, right now it is off to bed so I can get up early for work.

The End

Well, the finish line is in sight. I was given my letter today telling me my last day of work will be April 24th. I hate to keep saying it but I knew it. When everyone said customer service would be one of the last departments to go I silently shook my head. I told only a few co-workers that once the busy holiday season was over we would be out the door. It's times like these I really hate being right.

Letting out my inner nerd

Yesterday, while I was pretty much still home bound, I was surfing the net. I came across a video snippet on MSN for The Guild. And I couldn't stop myself from sitting down and watching all of the first season and what has been posted so far of the second.

Now in the past I found Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog and fell in love with it. The creator of The Guild was the love focus of Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) I have to admit, these geeky little web shows are very entertaining. Why? I guess it's because they are so human.

Now even though I never was a gamer in the same sense as the cast of The Guild I have had friends who were and still are. Though my friends tend to do more table top games. I do however enjoy a good night of roll playing on line with various fan based worlds inspired by authors.

Even if you don't do the gaming thing stop by and watch one of the two shows linked above, you just might find yourself hooked as I did.

Back in action

This coming Friday a few of my teammates and I will be traveling to the Quad Cities (Davenport,Betendorf, Iowa, Moline, and Rock Island Illinois) to play in our first game of 2009.


So in between vacuuming the living room and mopping the kitchen I am making my jersey.
I am going to be on the red and white team playing with derby girls from the Rockford Rage, Cedar Rapids Rollergirls, and the Quad City Rollers. This is going to be such a great learning experience, not to mention a great game. I can't wait to get my skate on!

Normal temps today?

After almost a week of sub-zero temps, Northern Illinois is finally seeing what could be called normal temperatures again. With the air temp in the twenties I went out this afternoon and attempted to once again start my car. The little bugger started up on the first try. While this makes me very happy because I am no longer house bound it angers me that I had to miss out on 8 hours of work on Friday. While normally I would have no problems taking a day off work, it makes me mad that now because my car hasn't started since Wednesday morning I had to pour extra money into it to replace my frozen battery and I lost out on 18 hours of pay.

I just hope I will be able to put in some make up hours this coming week. As much as I hate my job, I do need the money. Oh, and on another note, I have decided, against my better judgment to go ahead and apply for a correctional officer position to work along side the husband. I have no idea if I will be able to pass the physical tests, but it pays almost double what I make now and they are hiring. Wish me luck.

Freeze your nose hairs

The high temp projected for today, Thursday 1/15/09 is a whopping -7 degrees. I can hardly wait. As it is we had to leave my car at work last night because at 9:30pm the sub-zero temp had sucked the life out of my battery.

At least I can say this is the first year we have had such a problem. I am just very lucky that Jake did not have to work last night and was able to come save my butt. Hopefully we will be able to get a new battery in my car tomorrow so I can go to work, practice, and get home.

May I have this Job?

Yahoo places little snippets in your inbox. Today I came across Australia Offers "Best Job in the World" I would really love to be chosen. I could really use a vacation, and the six month salary is more than the spouse and I make combined for 2 years. The only down fall would be, I don't see any roller rinks on the island.

A letter

Dear Mr President and President Elect,

I have read recently on MSNBC News that you are asking congress to release the reaming $350 billion for the bail out. While I have no qualms about releasing money to help the economy my question is, why are you giving the money to the lenders? They will only pass it out to people who will be unable to pay it back because they have lost their jobs.

Why not instead give it to the people who borrowed the money in the first place. If you were to do that the money would still get to the lenders. The tax payers who borrowed the money would use it to pay off their loans, thus giving it back to the banks. The money that is not used to pay off the debit would then be used to...oh my word, buy products, thus stimulating the economy.

So please, before you go handing out the money we were required to pay in taxes, please consider where the real help is needed. The banks would not be in the position they are in now if the working Americans had the money to pay off their loans.

Sincerely,
A soon to be out of a job tax payer.

Disappointment

This past weekend we rented the latest Narnia flick Prince Caspian I have to say I was extremely disappointed. I really enjoyed the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. I watched that and even though I knew the directors had to cut a lot out I didn't really feel it as I watched. Sad to say I could really tell that much of the story for Prince Caspian ended up on the cutting room floor. More than likely even before the movie started filming.

Just the other day I was discussing books made in to movies with a friend, we commented on how much we enjoyed the first two Harry Potter flicks and how they were so true to the stories. The first movie was so captivating it inspired me to purchase all of the books. As the third move premiered, with a different director behind the camera I started to loose my excitement. Much of the story was being left untold.

I can say the same thing about Twilight. I went to see the movie and now I want to read the series, not only because it was recommended to me by someone who follows the same authors as I, but because I want to know exactly what it is that wasn't being portrayed in the movie.

Unfortunately after the first Narnia movie I bought and tried to start reading the whole story, but it was so dry and long winded I just couldn't muddle through it.