My life has changed so much – and in such wonderful ways – that the original tone and usual content you found here just isn’t who I am right now. However, there’s still so much I’d like to share with those of you I’ve come to adore over the years. Expect an email from me in coming weeks with a link to the new site.

As for the Atomic Bombshell, she will not fade into oblivion just yet. In fact, I plan to relaunch this site to cover my passion for cycling. Eventually, I hope to help build a local cycling team and utilize this site as the communications hub for that group. Or who knows, maybe it can even serve to support female cyclists and related events throughout the region.

Here’s to new beginnings!

Back to my first point: the Ninja and I will finally be moving into our own little love nest. There will be plenty of work to do. After the packing and unpacking there will be painting, decorating, and eventually upgrades to the kitchen and bathroom. Fortunately, I will have plenty of extra time to take care of these things once my job ends in two weeks. Every time the economy takes a dive, marketing takes the first hit.

Which leads me to news item two: I’ll be returning to college in January, studying for a degree in Management Information Systems. Although I’ve really enjoyed the last 15 years I spent making other companies and individuals wealthy, I’ve grown weary of this roller coaster. My last layoff was after 9/11 and I’m seeing a trend. Time to make a transition.

Now that I think about it, I guess my New Year’s resolutions are all set: A new home, learning new skills, and working toward a new career. That’s plenty to bite off and chew on for a year or more! How about you? What things, great and small, do you plan to tackle in 2009?

This Week: Ten Simple Things That Make Me Happy

10. Doing helpful things for other people
9. The clean feeling just after a shower
8. Catching good sermons on KWVE
7. When things I want go on sale
6. Quiet, private, snuggle time
5. Watching movies at home
4. Baking delicious treats
3. Heart to heart talks
2. Riding my bike
1. My Ninja

This will be my third year participating in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Pacific Coast Chapter’s MS-150 Bay-to-Bay Bike Tour. The purpose of this event is to raise money to support those living with this debilitating disease, and to fund research to find a cure for MS. If your life, or that of someone you know and love, has been touched by this disease, you’ll know why events like this are such a help.

October 11th and 12th, the Ninja and I will ride our bikes from Irvine all the way down to Mission Bay in San Diego… That’s just over 100 miles! We’ll be pedaling our tails off to support the cause, and you can help without breaking a sweat – Simply sponsor my ride! I have committed to raise $400 by October 10th but haven’t made a dent in that goal yet. Please give what you can and know every bit helps!

Click here to send your tax-deductible gift. Thank you.

It’s not that the poor car did me wrong, but it just wasn’t that exciting for me to drive. Sure, it had great horsepower and tons of features, but it just wasn’t my style. Which means it was time to go car shopping again. Did some research after identifying these issues:

1. Must no longer be forced to purchase premium 91 octane gasoline. 2. Must have fuel economy of around 30 miles per gallon highway. 3. Must have a much lower overall cost of ownership than my previous vehicle. Basically, I need this new car to save me some money!

Those hybrids everybody’s crazy about help save fuel, but they’re too ugly to pay thousands over MSRP. So, I test drove a few economy cars, but nothing made me smile like the New Beetle… And when I saw the Triple White special edition, I knew the search was over.

Everybody say hello to my 4th Volkswagen… Meep meep!

Let’s start with the dumbest one first:

When I posted about The Ninja’s travel trouble, it later showed up on my Facebook automatically imported as a note. The groom of the wedding involved somehow found it there and took it very personally. After a series of emails from the groom, The Ninja was unable to clear up misconceptions, and these comments appeared here:

Wow “Bombshell”, I just got married and am so happy that I didn’t have petty “friends” like you attend (or actually your husband… you didn’t even go!) How much free time do you have that you can sit and relay the events hour-by-hour of a wedding you did not attend? Do you work?

You sound like a petulant, pathetic little girl who pined for her husband while he was away. Get a life. I feel sorry for the couple who got married, they shouldn’t have even wasted the postage to invite you. I sincerely hope they never read this and see how rude you are. You are a loser and should be ashamed of yourself.

You said that you were recently married. Are you so sure that everything was so perfect that no one has blogged about it? Maybe do some checking.

(They tried posting that a few times with different names and email addresses, and when it still didn’t show up on the public side of this blog, they boiled it down to the following in one final blow…)

You’re a cunt. Were you even there? You’re a loser and have too much time on your hands.

At least I can have some respect for that last comment, since it doesn’t blather on like their previous attempts. Regardless, it’s so lame to have all this drama over a mere expression of compassion for all my husband went through to be there for their wedding. What a disappointment.

Now, on to the next one:

When I posted the adorable Bombshell & Ninja cartoon that Dave2 from Blogography made to celebrate our wedding, someone who had previously identified herself as “the new ex” (she e-mailed me to commiserate after she broke up with my ex) left a new comment with blessings and wishes for “many curly-haired cherubs.”

Even though the mild stalking aspect creeps me out, I was appreciative of the sincere kindness in that comment. That was, until a couple days had passed, when suddenly an e-mail showed up asking me to “Please remove (their) genuinely kind comment from (my) blog.” Which just about scared the crap out of me. Why?! Did somebody threaten you?! What is the issue here?! Freaky, freaky, freaky!

In summary, blogging sucks sometimes. It’s always better to do it anonymously and keep your online life segregated from your real world friends and family. Unfortunately, over time anonymity usually has a way of eroding. Sooner or later people find out what you’re up to. And then what do you do? Password protect? Start over? Disappear?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe just laying it all out on the table will clear up some of these problems. That, and reminding them – HEY, IT’S MY SITE – and I have an excellent array of resources at my disposal to track your visits. Yes, I can see when you’re here, for how long, what you do, where you go, when you read my feeds, and more… Just an FYI.

Happy trails, and please take the drama elsewhere.

I’ve heard travel has become quite a nightmare lately, but now we have firsthand experience to substantiate that theory. You see, the Ninja had to fly from Southern California to Rhode Island where he was expected to appear as a groomsman in a childhood friend’s wedding. As charming as that sounds, I wish we had turned them down.

Even though we are desperately low on funds since their wedding so closely followed our own, and even though we were required to pay for tuxedo rental, airfare, accommodations, and more… It still wouldn’t have been so bad. What made it terrible was this series of events:

1. Thursday 10pm Red-Eye LAX to RI w/connection in NC
2. Friday 11am Check in then attend pre-wedding events
3. Saturday 12am Return to the inn and collapse… Zzz
4. Saturday 9am Wake up and have some breakfast
5. Saturday 12pm Be showered, dressed, and ready
6. Saturday 2pm Participate in the wedding ceremony
7. Saturday 3pm No air conditioning and 90 degrees
8. Saturday 4pm Take wedding pics in the pouring rain
9. Saturday 5pm Board trolley and bus for next event
10. Saturday 6pm Arrive at Goat Island for reception
11. Sunday 12am Return to the inn to pack and rest
12. Sunday 4am Take taxi to airport for flight to JFK
13. Sunday 5am Notified of flight reschedule to 11am
14. Sunday 7am Notified of flight reschedule to 5pm
15. Sunday 8am Notified of rerouting bus to Boston
16. Sunday 11am Bus driver gets lost on the way
17. Sunday 2pm Arrive in Boston for 5pm flight
18. Sunday 5pm Flight to Salt Lake City delayed
19. Sunday 9pm Arrive in SLC too late for LAX
20. Sunday 10pm Voucher for motel from hell
21. Monday 12am Return from finding a meal
22. Monday 6am Shuttle back to the airport
23. Monday 10am FINALLY arrive at LAX
24. Monday 11am Directly to the office
25. Monday 2pm Meeting with client
26. Monday 9pm Home and sleep

If you’re counting, that means from when he woke up at 7am on Thursday morning to when he finally went to bed on Monday night, poor Jordan was awake over 100 hours while only sleeping a total of 14 hours in four nights. Furthermore, 40 hours were spent waiting for and/or being transported. In particular, the trip home took over a day.

So umm… We’ll be sticking around town for a while.

My lovely web hosting provider (iPower) moved my site to a “new and improved” server, and in the process screwed up my blog beyond all recognition. Had you noticed my site was down for a month? In the end I had to fix it myself, but half due to principle and half because I was too busy, I tried making my host fix their own mess. Bad idea!

Many weeks went by with no solution, just a few rounds of help desk ticket volleyball where they tried to blame me, and I reminded them everything was working fine before they screwed around. Lucky for all of us, I made back-ups of everything. While I’m pissed enough to switch hosts, everyone seems to have horror stories about every halfway decent hosting company, so I don’t know if I’d come out ahead.

Oh well… What matters is the Bombshell is back!

Those of you who wanted to be there but could not make it – like dear Dave II of Blogography fame, who crafted the charming Bombshell & Ninja illustration above – we know you were there in spirit. If you’re listed as a “Friend” in my Flickr contacts, expect pictures soon. XOXOX!

Honestly, I can’t imagine why anybody would put herself through the nerve-wracking insanity for anything less than her perfect mate. Once you’ve made it through the gauntlet that leads up to your wedding day, later on if things start to go awry in your marriage, I promise you’ll think back to the wedding preparations and realize that in comparison your present woes are quite manageable.

Of course, that’s if you’re not “cheating” by enlisting outside help from family or friends. Both of which I’m told generally end up being more trouble than help. Also in the category of doing more harm than good are those brick-like bridal magazines, which I am convinced serve only to fill your head full of stuff you don’t really need, to support yet another industry that preys on ignorance and insecurity.

I did as much of the work as possible on my own to keep costs down, then negotiated like crazy for everything else. Believe me, you’ll barely get the “W” in “wedding” out of your mouth before the price of everything quadruples! Our pastor claimed the average wedding runs $40 grand, but we kept it closer to one tenth that amount while trying to make it look like we forfeited the down payment on a house.

It wasn’t easy, but perhaps we pulled it off. All that hard work just to marry my best friend so we can spend more time together riding bikes and making each other laugh? Totally worth it!