I now have the soundtracks to all three Halo games.

I also have a corset. I procured the corset because I had a dearth of ideas for PGB pin-up outfits, and that was an obvious choice. Shortly thereafter, however, I had a flash of creative brilliance and now have like six ideas. I’m torn. :-/ I may just have to photograph all of the above, then decide which ones look best in 2-D. Speaking of which, I just have to find a photographer (or photographically-inclined friend, more realistically) now, and I’m good to go!

It’s very nice outside today, so I’m going to go enjoy it before I succumb to my sudden desire to play Halo all day…

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! It’s true, kids – the great and wonderful pinnacle of independence that was Laurel Zimmer is no more. (Okay, anyone who actually knows us as a couple knows that statement is crap. It’s so fun to make ball and chain jokes, though! I also like introducing myself as “his better half.”)

Anyway, I’ll still be blogging as LZ, so never fear, I’m not going anywhere.

Here’s pictoral proof that I actually got in a wedding dress, courtesy of Kelly Bennett Photography:

The rest are in line to be proofed soon, so I’ll probably link to those later.

Anyway, we are sitting at the Las Vegas airport – our honeymoon consisted of stays in San Diego and Las Vegas. (I know – Mike voluntarily took me to California for vacation – wtf!?) I’m a slightly darker shade of Idaho white, which is nice. We also learned that Mike doesn’t tan, he freckles, and this has led me to conclude he’s a bona fide ginger kid.

That’s pretty much all for now, I’ll have a more exciting news roundup after we’re back and settled in Moscow. Thanks to all for your well-wishes – and if I owe you an email (which is a good chunk of you), hang in there, I’ll be getting caught up as soon as possible.

This is what I look like after rocking out at Krav Maga:

I mostly had to post that because, after I took it, I realized it shows off our dry-fire practice target, and I LOLed a bit. :)

I’m a weirdo.

By that, I mean… I just had the following thought: If my last name were Wesson, I would only marry a guy with the last name Smith. How awesome would those wedding invitations be?

Scooter PR, Day 1:

I think it’s the spring fever bringing it on. Today was a beautiful day, and my first day of doing advertisement/PR for Palouse Scoots. I rode the scooter to Pullman for the first time, which was fun, but more tiring than I expected. It was a little windy, so trucking along on the scoot at 50 mph with a head and/or crosswind was pretty labor-intensive.

Girls With Guns 2008.

I heard back from the girls with guns folks, and sorry kids – I’m not going to be in the calendar this go-round. Never fear, though, because there’s never a shortage of Laurel with guns picspamming around here.

Laurel, the sales and advertising guru?

Now, the interesting thing about the calendar deal is while I was not asked to model, I was instead offered a fairly lucrative-sounding, flexible sales position. I’m going to hammer out the logistics with the RainyCrash folks, but it definitely sounds like something I’m interested in.

On that note, and on the heels of my college angst post, I keep winding up with these things falling in my lap. I mean, the Palouse Scoots position came out of the blue, and then the calendar thing. I’m starting to feel like I’m being cosmically shoved into the direction of PR/sales/advertising/something like that. I’m obviously good at it, and I obviously enjoy it, but I’m always wary of anything that might become a “career” lest it not be something I really like enough to do for 35+ years. Having said all this, I’m not tired of it yet, and it’s an option I’m very interested in exploring.

Income blogging.

Speaking of making money, I’m doing alright with the AdSense ads so far. Not like “buy a small island in the Bahamas” alright, but not too shabby for a fairly new blog with a fairly limited readership. I’ll tell you one thing – attempting to make my own blog lucrative has definitely made me stand up and take notice of advertising elsewhere. I’ve never clicked on ads before I had them myself… Now I kind of recognize it as a reciprocity thing when I visit other blogs/sites – kind of my way of “paying” the author for good content. The only bummer about the ads on my site is sometimes I see something I’m really interested in – and I can’t click my own ads! :)

And by the way… shooty weekend stuff.

Yes, I’m home on Friday night. Contrary to what I may lead you all to believe, I’m actually pretty anti-social sometimes, and I’m on one of those streaks. I am, however, itching to get out of town and shoot – which is on the slate for Sunday. I’m going to see if the pin from Daniel’s P32 fits my P3AT, since I’ve neglected to order another one from Kel-Tec yet.

On that note, I’m off to figure out what in the hell smells like a dryer sheet in here, because it’s giving me allergies.

ETA:

Almost forgot – it annoys the everliving piss out of me that my last name is Zimmer, because when AdSense can’t figure out what else to advertise, it winds up advertising rooms in German-speaking country. Yes, my last name means “room.” Exciting, no? I need to figure out some way to block that, because I highly doubt German rooming houses are going to bring in the big bucks around here.

Utah’s love-hate relationship with alcohol:

So far, I’ve learned:
- A fifth of Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka and a six-pack of Guinness Extra Stout cost the same price.
- The only alcohol available at the grocery store is beer, and only if it’s 4% or less.
- They do, however, sell a microbrew called “Polygamy Porter,” with the slogan “Why have just one?” – it’s pretty good, too! (This is only funny to people who know anything about Mormonism… But the microbrews come in a case of 12 called the “Quorum of Twelve.” Bwahaha.)

Photography/modeling:

Yesterday Kelly, the three kids, and I went all over hell’s half acre doing photo shoots. Theoretically we’ll be doing more of the same today. I was really happy with how they turned out – here are the three that have been proofed so far:

Horses:

I’m trying to befriend one of the fillies they have here at the house; she’ll be up for sale sooner or later and I’m considering the logistics of acquiring her… or a horse in general. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like any of the treats I’ve offered up, and otherwise thinks I should stay out of her bubble.

Now for the important stuff – GUNS!

I need more time with my pistols. A lot more time with my pistols. I went out with my cousin’s husband and their nine year old daughter – the accompanying arsenal was as follows:
- BB gun :)
- Ruger 10/22
- Some fashion of .223, I didn’t look too closely
- Springfield XD-40 Sub-Compact
- Kel-Tec P3AT
- Beretta 92
I fired all but the .223. My after-action conclusions are a) I want a 10/22, because they’re just too much fun, b) I need more time with my pistols… a lot more time, and c) I shot approximately twice as well with the 9mm than I did with my .40. What does the last one mean to me? I need to get my ass to the range more and put in more time with my .40, as well as improve my sighting. I have been hitting consistently low, so after modifying my sight a little bit I started to hit a little too high – but better. It’s going to require some fine-tuning. Now, as much as I like .40 as a home/self-defense round, I can definitely understand the draw towards 9mm for competition shooting.

However, this is me we’re talking about, and I think pistol comps will come long after rifle comps. :)

Suppressors… Okay, what you really care about: Girls with guns!

Kit over at KiloIndiaTango.com has an impressive video up at this post demonstrating the difference between a suppressed vs. unsuppressed handgun.

I want.

Kit also posted the following video, which coupled with my already intense spring fever makes me want to be at the range. NOW. I’m thinking I need to convince Mike to ditch his classes tomorrow (I mean, he only has like two anyway! *whine*) and take me out shooting… Besides, I need to break in the Kel-Tec… And the Remington… And… I WANNA GO!

Andrew Heringer at Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands

Thanks to Chad over at Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands for running reader recommendation week and allowing me to write a post about my friend Andrew’s music. Because nobody should be deprived of such great stuff, here’s a link where you can give Andrew a listen. Check out Chad’s blog, too!

Modeling… is this where I go anorexic?

Kidding, eww. I was actually reading a Marie Claire at the tattoo parlor yesterday (yeah, I know, oxymoron much? It was all they had to read other than the flash binders…) and was highly disturbed by many of the fashion models. I’m far from being a fat chick, and that’s not jealousy talking – I would not want to look like that. Eat a cheeseburger, will you?!

Anyway, I digress. I got an email back from the folks at RainyCrash (the Girls and Guns 2008 calendar people) and it sounds promising! Well okay, it doesn’t sound like anything yet. They thanked me for applying, said it will be a while before they make any decisions, but (this is the good part) said I had the most spirit out of anyone who applied and they also like my firearms experience. Funny… that’s the same thing my World of Warcraft guild said when I applied – and hey, I got in there! Though they were more impressed with my skill points than… Okay, I’m going to stop now, before I completely nerd this out.