On Sunday night, the 14th named storm of the season came into being. This is landmark because the storm's name when it became a tropical storm is Noel, my name. It's even pronounced correctly by reporters as they talk about it on the news. If only the doctors office people would listen to them and not call me No-el all the time. Yes, I get given a hard time at Christmas, especially moreso since I started dating my fellow "Christmas ornament ", but still. I'm likely to be a Christmas ornament, Holly's trim, but whatever people want to do, it's ok with me.

So this mornin I felt empowerd that I was, according to the National Weather Service, "hugging Cubas norther n coast". I'm forecast to strengthen tomorrow to near hurricane strength, but darnit, I shouldn't become formidable before turning into the Atlantic and being extratropical. I still find it nteresting that the NWS is naming storms with all of these crazy names. Humberto? Noel? I've never met many of either of these names, and I know for a fact that Hurricane Noel existed in 1996 because I remember talking about it with my first girlfriend, Amber, in tenth grade back in Arizona. If I remember, it was in the Pacific. No, I lied, it was in 1995, and it was in the Atlantic. According to Wikkipedia, linked here, I've been named three times, in 1995, 2001, and now. I've only met two other Noels in my 28 year existence, and they've had three Noels before. I feel special

Today, I've been working on the presentation for the East Tennessee Economic Council on Friday, and my Oak Ridge National Labs presentation on Monday. These are going to stress me out, but I should do ok, hopefully. I'm sture I will yammer about it as the week goes on.

I'm also working on this project for a refinery, and it stresses me out, mostly because I have no freaking clue what I'm doing. I'm sure I will figure it out, I always do, but getting there is the difficult thing.

This weekend was fun. On Saturday, Holly and I went to this really tasty hamburger place in Knoxville called Littons (I'm spelling it wrong I'm sure). As hamburgers go, they were amazing, and I'm not exactly sure what makes them that way, but they were. After that, we went and looked at really intricately carved statues in this civil war era cemetery in town. I know that these statues are not unique to Knoxville, but I'd never been shown how intricate they are, and how long it must have taken to carve by hand. The thing that amazed me most was that the letters and inscriptions were not actually inscribed on the stone, but stuck out from the surface. So to do this, the carver would ahve to had to remove all of the stone to a flat surface, and leave the letters in relief. Very cool, and fun. This weekend, I'm going to visit her family where she lives. It will be fun, and I'll be ok, I swear I will :P.

And that's about what's going on here. I should get back to doing work. More soon.