Spot the Iguana

You won't even believe it's there unless you really look for it.













So next time you get that eery feeling that you're being watched..... it's AN IGUANA!

Nature: Burger King Style!

The mosquitos are bad, giant buzzards are everywhere and there is an endangered crocodile in the lake. Welcome to the natural habitat around Ben's new workplace.

I've been moved to a new office in Palmetto Bay that used to be the old Burger King headquarters as part of the expansion that my company is doing . I found some giant ovens that they used to cook "test" burgers in. I also heard that everyone there used to just eat free burger king burgers all day long! (probably an exaggeration for story-telling effect, but still VERY cool!)

Anyway, the nature around this new building is amazing. I think the lake is connected underground to Biscayne Bay so it's entirely saltwater. Yet there is a suspicious alligator-looking animal swimming around in there. Alligators only live in freshwater though so I'm pretty sure it's an endangered American crocodile. Only about 1000 in all of the US apparently.

Enough of the jabber - here are some more pics:



Lot's of Ibis birds having a party... most likely feasting on the remains of old burgers in the grass.

DodgeBall

So I just discovered this video is not real after all and was officially debunked at snopes.com. Even so, I was totally blown away when I saw it so I hope you enjoy it!

Metar Bar mitzva

Today we went to Metar's bar mitzva. This is the first one I've ever been to. Being a Baptist girl, I know nothing about bar mitzva's. Here's what I learned... that "bar mitzva" means son of the covenant. For girls the term is "bat mitzva" and it means daughter of the covenant. Basically the whole ceremony centers on the coming of age for the boy in this case, to take on the responsibility for living the laws of the Torah. Also, now in the synogogue he can read the Torah. Whether you have the party or not, if you are of the Jewish faith, once you turn 13 you are bar mitzvahed.



This is Metar making his "I am a man speech". He was nervous, but he did great.


















Here are the men hearing the Torah. The women all congregated at the back seperate from the men. I found out I wasn't supposed to take this picture! Woops!














Barreth men being goofy... actually just Ben being goofy.

Thanksgiving

These are some of my favorite photos from yesterday. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my father-in-law's house in Aventura. There were many people there, many of them from Israel. This first photo is of a friend named Eli... he's funny.







Then Ben and I in front of the sunset!













Then Ben's dad giving the annual "pilgrim speech". (notice the keepa on his head)














Then we have Ben's dad and Luz cutting the turkey. She's from Peru and so cute!
















These are the Barreth men... from left: Jake, Ray, John and My sweet Benny.













This is Ilana's daughter Slil, with her baby, Roy. He's soooo cute














This is Ben's dad joking about cooking the dog, Minnie.

Animals in womb

An elephant in the womb

Thanksgiving Eve

Just when you thought hedgehogs don't have Thanksgiving dinners... I have the picture to prove it! Voila! By the way, I believe they are making apple pies. It CRACKS me up!

Barstools

Funny barstools. No disrespect intended, just thought it was funny.

Things I find funny

These are some pictures that I thought were worthy of sharing. Number one, you know you drink way to much wine if you can make a Christmas tree out of the bottles. Number two... sometimes I feel like holidays just are one after another! By the way... today is both my mother-in-law's birthday and also my brothers birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! This upcoming week we are going to have Thanksgiving and also we are going to go to our first Barmitzvah! (look for the pictures in posts to come)

For Beki

Well... one of my loyal readers, Beki, has requested an update. Although life feels pretty regular, I thought of something to talk about. Being a music teacher and rehearsing Christmas music all the time makes you get Christmas fever early. So... Ben and I have been Christmas shopping for our families online and have been signing away our riches at the door to the UPS man. Tonight we went to CVS and got some wrapping paper and tape. I started wrapping some presents and we "put up our Christmas tree"... which means we plugged in our tree that is always there strung with lights. I know it's sort of redneck (how did we ever get that name?), but I like the ease of just plugging in our Christmas tree every year and then just simply unplugging it and waiting. Anyway... I made Ben take a shot with our Christmas tree and wrapped presents. He is doing his famous "Razamataz" pose. In fact, when I showed him the picture after taking it he said, "Razamataz"... whatever that is! Isn't he the cutest? See the boxes in the background? Those are my presents that have been delivered, but I'm not allowed to look in there. Last year I went by the grocery stores and got free Christmas tree branches just to get the smell in the house. Maybe I'll do that again this year and just live with my own version of the Christmas tree.

Random Feats of Destruction

What happens to a hard drive when it dies? I hear people asking me this question all the time... actually I don't, but just bear with me for storytelling effect here.


At my company, when hard drives die and go to that big motherboard in the sky, we beat them until they cry like a dachsund eating a hot dog.... just to make sure that the data is completely irrecoverable.

FYI: The goggles are for my protection, not just to show off my studly good looks.



















The problem with this technique is that hard drives can be tough little blighters. We had to bash them with a small sledgehammer for several minutes before they opened up. Then we salvaged the super-powerful neodynium magnets for our fridge and made sure the shiny drive platters had a few final dents in for good measure.

Here's the finished product: Two irreversibly damaged hard drive platters. You can also see the needle from one of the drives. Incredible engineering!

In case you haven't seen enough pictures of Ben-cho Libre yet...

Nacho Libre costume plus scooter equals fun! On my way home from work that day I even had a guy in a van shouting out calling me superman. Ahhhhh, good times!

Our Anniversary

It is our three year wedding anniversary today. It has been a wonderful three years for us. Because of our responsibilties on Wednesday nights at church, we went out last night. First of all, Ben got me a present of garnet earrings. I had a pair of garnet earrings that Ben bought for me in St. Thomas when we were on a cruise. I was very sad that somehow I lost one of those earrings. They were sentimental to me. So, these were meant to replace those that I lost one of. What a wonderful guy right? He also took me to the Red Fish Grill out on Matheson Hammocks. I'd never been to the restaurant, but the food was excellent and then we took a walk around the little lagoon they have there. From there you can see the Miami skyline and you are surrounded by water... very nice. It was the place where Ben and I had our first kiss too, so it was really nice. I was overwhelmed with the thought that he put into the whole thing. I love Benny!

Beethoven

Tonight I have a concert at Florida International University. I went there for my master's degree in voice. We are singing Ludwig van Beethoven's (1770-1827) 9th symphony. It's official name is "Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125", but most of you know it for the "Ode to Joy" tune. When I decided to sing it with this choir, I had no idea what I was getting into really. I've never sung this particular piece. Of course I've heard "joyful, joyful we adore thee", but this is 10 times more difficult. By the end of it, the sopranos feel like squeaking chiwawas! This piece is very popular, so popular that in 2003 someone bought an original manuscript of it for 3.3 million dollars! What is truly remarkable is that Beethoven composed it when he was completely deaf.

Here are some interesting Beethoven facts:

His father was an alcoholic and his first music teacher. His father would often come home after a night of drinking and drag Beethoven out of bed for him to play piano for him. His mom died when Beethoven was 18. Tragic!

Beethoven started to go deaf when we was 28. I've heard some theories that he was going deaf because of his father's abuse.

Beethoven didn't get along well with others. He never married, although he wanted to. Marriage was a complicated issue back then it seems. He had very unusual behavior such as wearing dirty clothes, but washing all the time too. AHH!