It is 20 degrees outside right now with freezing rain to boot. Yuck! It is days like these that I really want to leave here, temporarily move to the Caribbean where there is nice tropical weather, and just come back when it’s late spring or early summer. I hate the cold weather, specially when the roads are bad.

Brian and I actually fishtailed in Bebot on the way to Bonefish today. The curvy street inside Waterfront (a short cut that Brian likes to take) is really slick. We should have known better than to take the side roads because they do not get salted.

Anyway, it doesn’t help when you constantly get emails about last minute holiday specials — makes it really tempting to get away for the holidays. There’s actually many last minute specials going on right now. I so want to go. Winter is a yucky time of the year. I’d like to skip it altogether. It’s a shame I only have two days of vacation left. Money is pretty tight, too. There are some great deals, though. So if vacation time weren’t an issue, we’d be so outta here!

Here’s a neat gift idea! How about some pearl earrings? Purepearls.com has the best selection. They’ve got Akoya pearls, Tahitian pearls, Freshwater pearls, South Sea pearls. Just about any kind of pearls you can imagine.

They have more than just earrings, too. They have bracelets and necklaces. You name it, they’ve got it! All their pearls come with a GIA appraisal also, so you know what you’re getting.

It’s not too late to buy those last minute gifts. Pearls will sure to please her this Christmas!

It’s amazing to me that when we think of traveling, we seem to always think of traveling abroad. Some people want to visit Europe, some want to go to the Bahamas. It seems like people always think of traveling outside the US. But why? Why go outside the country when there is so much to do here? Besides that, why go through the hassle of getting a passport? Why go through the headache of customs?

Here are some ideas:

• Dinner cruise aboard the Spirit of Chicago and Segway tours of the city
• Parasailing and island adventures in the Key West
• Memphis ghost tour and haunted pub crawl
• Bayou and swamp adventures in New Orleans
• Niagara Falls
• Old Town trolley tour in Savannah

The list can literally go on and on. You can go to Trusted Tours and Attractions for even more ideas. Plus, if you sign up for their newsletter you get registered to win free tours or an iPod Nano.

There is just so much to do here. I think the next time Brian and I take a trip, we will stay in the US. I’m most interested in visiting Savannah, Georgia. I’ve never been and they have some really inexpensive tours there that are on special right now.

The Savannah Civil War Walk, Savannah Ghosts Tour, A Walk Through Midnight Tour of Savannah, and Savannah Guests and Gardens walk are all great bargains at only $13.50. They are great cheap date ideas or fillers for vacancies in your vacation itinerary.

There are also several Savannah Riverboat cruises and I’ve always wanted to do those. So next time you need a vacation, try not to look too far. There are many options right in your own backyard.

I recently had the opportunity to interview for a new position in the company that currently employs me. I was relieved to finally get through the screening process. I was very grateful for the opportunity. I was both excited and apprehensive at the same time. I hadn’t interviewed for anything in more than three years and my interview skills are not exactly magnificent.

Then I wondered if my accent is still very pronounced. Sometimes accents pose a communication barrier. I know I have had to rely on Angie sometimes to translate me to other people because the words I’ve said form totally different words and phrases to my listener. Angie is used to me so she can understand me no matter how fast I speak. She also says it is a talent that she has developed. Even when she worked at K-Mart, cashiers would ask her to assist when they received questions from foreign individuals who could and were speaking English but were difficult to understand.

I prefer to convey my message without the aid of a translator or third party so I really wanted to work on losing my accent. There wasn’t enough time before the interview, though. Besides that there were a lot of other things I needed to work on. Trust me. My accent was the least of my worries.

Regardless, accent training is something that I would like to pursue down the road. After all, I’m now an American. I should sound like one. 🙂

Johnny Depp strikes again with another dark film by Tim Burton. He’s come a long, long way from his days on 21 Jump Street. That’s for sure!

Of all the films that he has done I would have to say that Captain Jack Sparrow is my favorite character. I love the witty banter that he does throughout the movie and the perpetual drunken swagger is a riot! I saw in a behind the scenes show one time and he said that he modeled his swagger after Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. I found that funny since he played Jack’s dad in the last film! He also beats Yoda at talking in circles. For example, take this line “Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid.” He said that in one of the scenes in the first “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Captain Jack Sparrow always had the best lines!

Another great film is “Edward Scissorhands.” This dark film by Tim Burton was a masterpiece of story telling and visual stunning. It paired darkness with the holidays and opened the doors to a new genera of holiday films. In this film Johnny played a man made being that was incomplete. His creator had died before he was able to finish his hands, so instead of normal fingers he had these scissors. It was brilliant how they showed how complicated it would be to have a disfigurement or some sort of impairment and how society hates anything that is different or they don’t understand. The only down fall to the movie was that Johnny didn’t really have any lines to speak and when he did speak it was very short and usually consisted of about 3 words but he made it all up in body movement and facial expression. Tim Burton’s new film “Sweeney Todd” looks to be another Dark Holiday hit like “Edward Scissorhands” but this time we have Johnny singing and dancing in this film. The new film has that dark edge and gripping story and interwoven humor that is a trademark of Tim Burton. Looking at the previews you can tell that this story was written with Johnny Depp in mind as the lead character. There are several places you can go to see the new previews, you can visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site where you will find the trailers, film stills backgrounds and wallpapers. For you MySpace junkies you can visit Sweeney Todd on MySpace and list him as your friend. I am really looking forward to seeing this film on December 21st I think it will be one of the Holiday Hits to see.