tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80204442024-03-07T00:04:08.120-05:00VistablindUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-12371932237599187232007-05-09T09:36:00.000-04:002007-05-09T11:25:03.222-04:00The Sun is a mass of incandescent gasAs some one who grew up knowing every word to her father's Kingston Trio album and who's first cassette tape she ever bought with her own money was They Might Be Giant's "Flood". I simply had to link to this <a href="http://www.acme.com/jef/singing_science/">compilation of Folky Children's Science Songs</a>. <a href="http://www.mudslide.net/TMBG/Sounds/sunshine.wav">One</a> of which is done by TMBG, "Why does the Sun Shine?". via <a href="http://cosmicvariance.com/">Cosmic Variance</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-85109753450642048582007-05-02T09:14:00.000-04:002007-05-02T09:49:28.036-04:00Curse words and power toolsEvery week or so <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/">Cog Daily</a> surveys their readers on one topic or another and then analyses the results. A couple weeks ago they did a study that I actually participated in. It was their most popular survey to date. They took about 10 curse words and asked people to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being neutral and 10 being extremely offensive. So far they've written two results posts with the possibility of more to come:<br />(Warning: they use the bad words in the results analyses. So don't link through if you don't want to read them.)<br /><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/scienceblogs/cognitivedaily/%7E3/112528582/totally_uncensored_casual_frid.php">Results post 1</a><br /><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/scienceblogs/cognitivedaily/%7E3/113149276/how_badly_does_the_curse_word.php">Results post 2</a><br />Some of the more interesting results are the inter generational reactions to certain words as well as the gender specific reactions to gender specific bad words.<br /><br />The other neat thing on Cog daily was <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/05/david_byrne_interviews_daniel.php">this</a> post with a link to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrsNARMWujU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceblogs%2Ecom%2Fcognitivedaily%2F2007%2F05%2Fdavid%5Fbyrne%5Finterviews%5Fdaniel%2Ephp">this</a> youtube video which has guys in a workshop playing some song from Carmen on table saws, hand saws and power drills. What sets this video apart from other videos of guys in a workshop playing some classic song on table saws, hand saws and power drills, is that at one point they set up several different types of wood with different densities (therefore different pitches when cut) in a row and play a part of the melody that way. I, like the guy from Cog Daily, thought it was pretty neat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-83513986442655687292007-05-01T09:29:00.000-04:002007-05-01T11:48:36.693-04:00Too much sun and no cableAnother full and pretty weekend. I took off Friday, our two year, and Brian and I did a few errands, I made a pie and we played some Wii. We went to a very nice sushi restaurant in Vienna which re-energized our discussion of how we really need a nice little sake set, there's nothing like hot sake, to take the chill off a nice night out.<br /><br />Saturday, we got up early and went to the National Arboretum with Ev, the other Julie and the Zimmermans. I was very impressed. They have the largest Bonsai Garden I've ever seen, if I ever get my pictures off of my camera I'll put some up. The azaleas were also in full bloom and the Arboretum had a whole big hill covered in them. Unfortunately for us, this giant pink and white hill took some finding and Eric had captured the navigator seat in the car, terrible idea.<br /><br />The Arboretum has a phone number set up to hear pre-recorded lectures on what you are looking at in whichever garden you're in. Upon leaving the Herb Garden, Brian and I overheard one woman after she saw the sign, say "Oh, maybe if we go to the Visitor's Center we can get one of these cell phone thingys and listen to the tour" I kid you not.<br /><br />Brian asked Zimm if Martha, who is an excellent potter, potterer, pottist?, would like to make us a sake set. Later that evening I was on the phone with her giving a very vague description of what sort of sake set we wanted. It's very exciting to think that we'll have our own handmade set!<br /><br />Sunday, I dragged my parents out for a long hard day of scrubbing the sail boat. We were dismayed to see the boat covered in a dark film and a large red puddle in the galley were the rain water had overflowed the bilge during the winter. But much to our surprise and relief, we found that our new slip neighbors, Sue and Ron, not only own a power washer but were more than willing to let us borrow it for most of the day. Dad and I took turns experiencing the joy of actually cleaning with every wave of the nozzle. The boat is cleaner that it's been in 27 years! I'd be very surprised if my parents didn't own their own power washer within the month. My mom was probably imagining all the things that needed power washing around the house the entire ride home.<br /><br />The boat of course is where I got horribly burned. I brought sunscreen with me in my purse but hadn't put any on by the time the power washer came out, and then I completely forgot. Now, I'm attempting to stave off a bad peeling experience with aloe lotion. Does it actually help?<br /><br />After the boat was dinner at Brian's with his and my parents and gardening until 10pm. That's right, we gardened until 10pm. It was dark.<br /><br />We also managed to cut the cable line into the house, oops! But really who buries a cable line only about 2 inches deep in the middle of a back yard? They told Brian last night that they'd come out today for an investigative look but probably won't be able to fix it for 2 weeks. Luckily, we can steal wifi from a neighbor but I'm afraid it's only movies at Brian's until it's fixed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-43356147630516787502007-04-25T10:10:00.000-04:002007-04-25T10:31:54.815-04:00Clopping alongFor those of you who some how missed <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20070424/ten-thousands-in-coconut-orchestra-beat-5f8abb3.html">this</a> record breaking event amid all of the much sadder news reported these days, the Largest Coconut Orchestra was put together on monday to play along with the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". To hear briefly what it sounds like when over 4,000 people smack coconuts together at once, listen to the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9783162&ft=1&f=1">NPR coverage</a> here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-6292867675323410872007-04-24T11:33:00.000-04:002007-04-24T11:47:20.609-04:00Soccer studyYet another <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/04/can_soccer_goalkeepers_influen.php">link</a> from <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/">Cognitive Daily</a>. If a goal keeper in soccer stands just slightly to one side of the goal there is a good chance that the kicker will aim towards the other corner. Makes sense right? Unfortunately, the keepers tend to not know which side they're on so it doesn't help them decide which way to dive when the ball is shot. What neither cog daily nor the person they're linking to for this study realize is that all the keepers teammates are often in a position to see which side the keeper is standing on just like the kicker. It shouldn't be hard to develop some sort of signal where the coach or teammates let the keeper know which side the kicker is likely to go to, thereby giving the keeper an advantage. Though perhaps the distances involved are so small and the teammates are significantly far enough away so that they too are unable to tell which side the keeper is on. Perhaps they need a tv screen on the bench to watch the zoomed live footage.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-51902609899198158172007-04-23T12:17:00.000-04:002007-04-23T12:20:49.539-04:00What a gorgeous weekend!Saturday was spent gardening in Brian’s back yard, which I’m afraid my cracked and blistered hands will never forgive me for. But it was indescribably nice to be outside and active after such a long winter.<br /><br />Saturday night we went out to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Dinner at <a href= "http://www.filomena.com/aboutus.html">Filomena’s</a>, very good and expensive food. I had the calamari, pork chops and mushroom risotto and triple chocolate mousse pie. Happily, Brian schlepped along the doggy bag to the various bars afterwards and I’m able to revisit the amazing pork chops and risotto for lunch today. I’m usually not a huge pork chop eater but the veal reduction, olive, and sweet pepper sauce was just too good to pass up.<br /><br />Sunday morning was spent having brunch with the parents and Gianluca (whose surprise visit got my parents out of a day of boat cleaning). Afterwards, we relaxed and then tackled the peach tree which is threatening a less than impressive yield this year, sigh, and my bike which was still rusting away from the salt and grime it accrued during the drive from Denver to Virginia. Then, I went back to Brian’s for potato planting and Sea Bass cooking. The mustard sauce came out very good and I recommend it if you like that sort of thing, but by all means DO NOT put wax paper in your 450-degree oven! Whoever wrote <a href="http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1915,144180-253193,00.html">this</a> recipe must have some terrible practical joking streak. There was fire and wax paper ash everywhere adding much to the excitement of cooking and possibly a little to the taste of the fish and sauce. So if you’re adventurous (and you have a sink within flaming paper tossing range of your oven) perhaps you would like to try the wax paper.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-30165487201127396202007-04-19T10:13:00.000-04:002007-04-19T10:19:49.021-04:00More evidence for smaller portions(From Cognitive Daily) Here's a <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/04/selfrefilling_bowls_an_idea_wh.php">study</a> that confirms what many have been saying for a while. The best way to diet is to put less food on your plate in the first place (also, exercise - but that's not covered here).<br /><br />Now, if only I could stop myself from ordering dishes based solely on whether or not they come with french fries.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1176131688927970202007-04-09T11:10:00.000-04:002007-04-09T11:14:48.926-04:00ArvinomicsAlso, if any of you are Wizards fans then Brian and Ev have a <a href="http://arvinomics.blogspot.com">new blog</a> up that you might be interested in. (it looks a little odd with IE especially if you're a mac user, but everyone should use Firefox anyway)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1176131403546465312007-04-09T11:03:00.000-04:002007-04-09T11:10:03.550-04:00Happy Easter!<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/218/451699955_08dec6dbd0.jpg?v=0"><br /><br />We had a bunch of fun doing Ukrainian Easter Eggs on Saturday. Basically involves lots of egg dye that you can't get out of your finger nails, candles and Hot wax!<br /><br />here are what professional Ukrainian Eggs are supposed to look like:<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pysanky"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e6/Eggs.jpg"></a><br /><br />I also had a great Easter dinner with Brian and his folks, along with some Wii playing, Church going, Masters watching, and more egg dyeing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161893317186476052006-10-26T15:11:00.000-04:002006-10-26T16:09:53.133-04:00I say 'tomato', you say '蕃茄'I have mixed feelings about <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6083994.stm">this</a>. On the one hand, it gives me this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I envision one of these things in the hands of the stereotypical American tourist. If you don't think these people exist, you're either one of them or you've never been outside the US. I see them getting into crazed shouting matches with the terrified Balinese hotel clerk over some jargon filled request that, in Balinese, translated to <a href="http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/How_Do_You_Translate_That/2.html">"bite the wax tadpole"</a>. I know, it's not the same thing, but it is how I envision it.<br /><br />On the other hand, it sounds amazingly cool, and extremely convenient for all of those who dream of going to far off exotic places where, strangely enough, the locals have the gall not to speak English. Also, when coupled with <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/04/teleportation.reut/index.html">this</a> recent breakthrough, it brings us two steps closer to making the world of Star Trek a reality. Trekkies all over the world, Celebrate!<br /><br />In other news, it's good to hear that the Russian Mafia is still alive and thriving. Apparently, <a href="http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/humor/korean_mammoth_grant_form_2006.html">selling frozen Mammoth ovaries</a> is quite the lucrative business.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161874959318470342006-10-26T10:19:00.000-04:002006-10-26T11:02:39.333-04:00My commute<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7130/523/1600/60070E.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7130/523/320/60070E.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Courtesy of denverpost.com traffic</span><br /><br />Usually takes me 30 minutes, today took me one hour and 15 minutes. The above picture is of the road I drove on for nearly an hour at 15-25 miles an hour. At least it's supposed to stop around noon and will probably be completely melted and the sky will be beautiful and sunny by the time I head home. Colorado weather, such variety!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161722574961260952006-10-24T16:37:00.000-04:002006-10-24T16:42:54.973-04:00Flight of the Conchords - Business TimeHere's a pick-me-up to counter act that last entry.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WGOohBytKTU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WGOohBytKTU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />Thanks Jess for pointing me towards these guys, they're hilarious!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161720394000877232006-10-24T15:33:00.000-04:002006-10-24T16:06:34.016-04:00You people make no sense!So I'd like to complain, and where better than on my very own blog?<br /><br />I was hoping to head to Virginia for the week between Christmas and New Years. I mentioned this desire to my boss today and she said that it was unlikely and that she would have to check with her boss to find out for sure. Her reason was that there would be few people in the office and that meant that I would have to stay. This makes no sense whatsoever. If I communicated directly with customers then yes, I would understand. But my job is strictly support for the sales folks, in house and out in the field, and I doubt that any of them will need me at all that week at least not as much as any other week out of the year, since they are the ones that are taking off in the first place. It's not the end of a fiscal quarter or anything. Other people do not do my job nor do I know how to do anyone else's job, so it's not like I could cover for the people who do get that week off. I really don't understand why other people in the office not being around should affect whether or not I can leave. If anything, it should make more sense for me to take off while others take off as there would be fewer people around for me to support in the first place. Argh!<br /><br />Side note: It makes me laugh that the word 'Blog' is not in the Blogger spellcheck program.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161284401289303962006-10-19T14:48:00.000-04:002006-10-19T15:00:01.310-04:00That's a negativeGentlemen, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15319430/site/newsweek/">this</a> is why it takes women so long to buy clothes. Negative sizes, good grief! But the big problem is every time we want to buy a new pair of pants we have to bring at least two pairs of every style we're looking at into the changing room with us. I was just as excited as anyone else would be when I could fit into a '2' after the marathon, but I would have no problem converting to a 14 if I could cut down on my changing room time by half. Today in women's fashion, sizes mean absolutely nothing. I find it incredibly frustrating that any man can go into a store and find exactly the size of pants that he wants, buy it, and walk out, while women have to spend an hour trying 2-3 sizes of each of 5 different styles. Please, stop the insanity!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161188324017258942006-10-18T11:49:00.000-04:002006-10-18T12:18:44.173-04:00Malarky and bunkumThese predictions about <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6057734.stm">human species divergence</a> are just plain ridiculous. I mean does anyone actually believe this stuff? <br /><br /><a href="http://johnhawks.net/weblog/">John Hawks</a> passes on this quote by Asimov:<br /><blockquote>The Relativity of Wrong (Doubleday, 1988): "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."</blockquote><br />And writes a <a href="http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/future/curry_morlock_future_2006.html">rather strong entry</a> about Dr. Oliver Curry's predictions of humanity's future. Though I don't necessarily think that mankind has managed to fully evade those things that make natural selection work, I do think that many of his points are right on. I mean, I enjoyed <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0812505042&id=fTQhA56xtM0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=time+machine">The Time Machine</a></span> by H.G. Wells as much as any other sci/fi novel loving nerd, but to think that something like that would actually happen is a bit silly. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Time Machine</span> should be read as a commentary on 19th century culture and society not as a prediction of 31st century reality.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161103298935028102006-10-17T12:24:00.000-04:002006-10-17T12:41:38.953-04:00Missing: 1 SeasonIt's snowing outside! Ok, so it's not accumulating, but seriously, what happened to the Fall?<br /><br />Fall is my favorite season and Colorado has managed to completely skip over it this year. I heard all sorts of gushing over the beautiful yellow-gold that the Aspens turn every year in the mountains. But an early snow in September managed to strip them all of their leaves only about a week after they'd turned. So when I was up in the mountains this weekend, there was not a yellow tree in sight.<br /><br />In case you're curious about Aspens, whole communities of them are apparently technically the same organism, they are all genetically the same and share a common root system. Possibly the largest and oldest organism on earth, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_%28Quaking_Aspen%29">Pando</a>, is one such colony of Aspens in Utah.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1161017342180165612006-10-16T12:35:00.000-04:002006-10-16T12:49:02.196-04:00It's all in the gearI bought new skis! Here's a picture of the model, Atomic Metron 8 (doesn't that sound like a character from Transformers?):<br /><img src="http://www.sierratradingpost.com/eccStoreFront/stp/product_images/71693/F_71693_1.jpg" width= "50%"><br />Aren't they pretty? Unfortunately, I now have to wait until the middle of November to try them out. But I believe I got a great deal on them and according to the guy that sold them to me, they are very much like the K2 Burnin Luv's I demoed and fell in love with last year. Watch out Mary Jane, here I come!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1160769087458752292006-10-13T14:45:00.000-04:002006-10-13T15:51:27.553-04:00I Vant to Suck Your BloodSo some random things:<br /><br />I went to a friend's wedding last weekend and had a great time, lots of drinking, lots of dancing, an ingenious idea to play in the hotel pool at 1:00 am which was foiled by our growling stomachs, followed by the longest trip to a 7-Eleven ever, the worst pre-wrapped tuna sandwich and subsequent passing out on an incredibly comfortable hotel mattress. A thoroughly enjoyable wedding.<br /><br />I'm incredibly excited about <a href="http://wii.nintendo.com/">Wii</a>. And have spent most of my morning watching <a href="http://us.wii.com/">videos of people trying out the new controllers</a>. I know I know I'm a huge nerd but what else would you expect from someone who was recently told she was the only girl he'd ever seen reading a Star Wars novel by random-software-guy-on-the-plane.<br /><br /><a href="http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/behavior/non-primate/elephant_aggression_rhinos_2006.html">Here</a> is one of the weirder and more disturbing things I've read about recently. Sometimes life is indeed stranger than fiction.<br /><br />I seem to constantly be in training at work, in the last month I've had roughly 2.5 weeks of training. It's nice to know this stuff I guess but it would have been nicer had I gotten it 6 months earlier.<br /><br />Also, yet another blood donation story. I went to donate blood at the same place, this time they had a lovely old Australian movie playing with Tom Selleck and that <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000624/">chick from Just Shoot Me</a> aka Kit Deluca, called "Quigley Down Under". As I sat waiting to get my finger pricked, I listened to the woman, responsible for the shark frenzy containing movie of the last blood drive, excitedly tell one of the blood drawers that the next movie on the schedule was the original Dracula. I couldn't help myself, I laughed and asked the two if perhaps that particular movie was in poor taste for a blood drive. The woman looked at me like I'd just asked her why anyone in their right mind would want to put ketchup on french fries. Then she laughed and said "Well, we do sometimes call the folks that take the blood, vampires." She then nodded like that statement had fully resolved the issue. I laughed and went off to the other room to get my blood sucked by a very nice 21 year-old vampire, fervently wishing that I would still be there when Dracula came on so I could watch the people's faces as they walked in to give blood.<br /><br />Unfortunately, my Vampire seemed to have less experience than the one I had the last time. She chose to forgo the absorbent shield, which had seemed to unnecessary before, and this time my bursting blood vessels would not be held back. As I looked away and felt the needle go in, the Vampire let out a gasping cry. I looked back and there was blood everywhere! Well not really, but there was a large line of it on my arm and a couple drops on my pants. The Vampire seemed very embarrassed by the whole thing so I joked and told her that I needed to get the pants dry cleaned anyway, which I did. That seemed to make her feel a little better and she glanced at my rapidly filling bag and told me that by the time she was done cleaning up I'd already have the thing filled. The rest of the process went smoothly and you'll all be happy to hear that the dry cleaners were able to completely remove the stains, though I think in the future I'll be sure to ask for a splatter shield.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1159213207195996852006-09-25T14:55:00.000-04:002006-09-25T15:40:07.310-04:00The evening I spent at prisonIs anybody still out there?<br /><br />Been doing lots of traveling back and forth between DC and Denver. Also, things have been really busy here at work and as many of you might know, I almost never write from anywhere but work.<br /><br />Happy Birthday to Brian! (Saturday) In celebration of his b-day, I went to prison! Excellent!<br /><br />On Saturday, I spent the morning at Judo, the afternoon at K and T's making Hatch Chili casseroles and corking wine bottles, and the evening at a 15 year-old's birthday party playing quarters with prison guards. I'm afraid the explanation doesn't make it any less weird.<br /><br />Janelle a girl in my Judo club turned 15. She happens to be a daughter of a prison guard and lives with her family in guard housing at the prison. She is also home-schooled, and therefore seems to have few friends her own age and the party consisted mostly of family, prison guards, and fellow judo players like myself. Her family got permission to have the party at the banquet hall on prison grounds. As most of the party was over 21 there was plenty of liquor and beer to be had.<br /><br />After about an hour of eating drinking and socializing, Jerr decided that it was the perfect place for a Beer Pong tournament, however, there were no ping pong balls to be found and we eventually settled on Quarters. Who knew that the game of quarters would be so wonderful at bringing Judoka and Prison Guards together? It really was a sight to be seen. One of the guards whom we affectionately called Uncle Tom, seemed to think I was an amazing quarters player and would repeatedly say things like "one hit wonder", "she's dangerous", and "You have way too much time on your hands" whenever it was my turn to flip the quarter. I found out later that his wife and children left him there because they couldn't pry him away from the quarters table, he had to get a ride home with someone else.<br /><br />Finally, it was about 9:30 and they had to clean up the hall and kick us out. I realized that I must not have done as well at quarters as Uncle Tom thought, because there was no way I was going to drive myself home at that time. I got permission to leave my car at the prison overnight and rode with Bianca back to Jerr's place where the adorable dog spilt my Jack and Coke all over me and we watched a British Transexual stand-up comedian until we passed out.<br /><br />The night reminds me vaguely of the time a Chicago-native and I taught an entire bar full of Australians how to play flip cup. I love drinking games!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1156197842286483122006-08-21T17:19:00.000-04:002006-08-21T18:06:43.443-04:00The gremlin on my planeSo, I haven't been writing any blog entries for a while but I haven't been reading any blogs for a while either. Well, it made sense in my head. Things are going good for me out here in Colorado. I've been full time (before I was considered a temp) here for almost 2 months now and will finally see some extra money from my pay check this Friday. My AC-free apartment is finally cooling down. I made it through a Judo BBQ at Jerr's without puking. I ran almost 9 miles on Saturday in preparation for the annual VA Beach Half Marathon on Sept 3rd (one day after mine and Becca's birthday). And the pain in my ass intern at work is finally leaving!! His last day is Friday, and I couldn't be more excited.<br /><br />For those of you who haven't been listening to my endless complaints for the last couple of months I'll give you an update. The online database program that I'm primarily responsible for is getting a complete refresh with a go-live date of October 1st. The refresh, however is spearheaded by the IT department. I'm in the Sales Operations department and therefore have no authority over the little twit they hired to work on the refresh this summer. I have no idea where they found this kid but he's a complete idiot. I might be inclined to give him a little leniency since he had absolutely no training on the database before getting pushed into this project, but I started only a couple weeks before him and was in the same boat. Come on buddy, it's not that hard to figure out! IT's first mistake was hiring this simpering lost cause, but their second mistake was giving the fool System Administrator privileges! For what he's supposed to be doing he does need the privileges but they never should have put a college intern in this position. Over the last couple months he's managed to:<br /><br /><ul><li>Completely delete an important field in the database forcing me to repopulate it and correct every single report that uses it, thus making me miss that nights soccer game</li><br /><li>Delete several slides for an online training course that took me almost half a day to create</li><br /><li>Screw up all the online training content that he was responsible for, so that I had to review everything and get him to fix it</li><br /><li>Create lots of useless lists then call several meetings to discuss them</li></ul><br /><br />The worst part is that he's such a scam artist, it takes people a while to discover his ineptitude. I was just about fuming when I got out of a meeting with several people that had never met the kid before and kept deferring to him for answers instead of me about stuff I work with everyday. I know he has no idea what he's talking about, but they had no clue. I think that the real reason is that I look my age while this 20 year old, looks about 30. <br /><br />Those of you who know me might be shocked at my vehemence and use of the word 'twit'. Not to worry I haven't shown any outward signs of my displeasure to this poor clueless numbskull. But I will probably jump for joy when I leave work this Friday and realize that his productivity level will move up to 0% from his current average of -20%.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1155132571494354212006-08-09T09:25:00.000-04:002006-08-09T10:09:31.600-04:00And Brian has to learn many more namesI flew back east this last weekend and drove up to Long Island for a family reunion. We had a great time. My aunt and uncle's house is pretty amazing with a tennis court and pool. We got a lot of mileage out of that pool as it was incredibly hot the whole weekend. The house was big but there were about 40 of us there so Brian and I ended up in a tent in the back yard. The major draw back of the tent was the fact that we couldn't sleep past about 8 o'clock when the sun would heat the tent to unbearable temperatures. The best part about the weekend was the meals. Every night a different family would be in charge of dinner for 40 and breakfast the next morning. Every meal was wonderful. I really have to start eating better when I'm at home, first step, go to the grocery store.<br /><br />We all got blue "Hadley Reunion" t-shirts and had our individual pictures taken in the back yard by the chicken coup. My cousin Kirstie will now stitch all of us together in one big happy family photograph, technology at work my friends. I can't wait to see the result.<br /><br />Brian and I then drove back down to Northern Virginia on Saturday night after dinner since we were afraid of what the Sunday traffic would look like. We had a relaxing Sunday, with lunch at Jaipur (an amazing Indian restaurant in Fairfax, which you should all try) and dinner at my parents house. We also saw Talladega Nights, which was funny but lacked the great supporting characters that Anchorman had. I was so exhausted from the weekend that I managed to sleep the entire plane ride home, which I haven't done since I was about 10.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1153837255493561132006-07-25T10:13:00.000-04:002006-07-25T10:20:55.566-04:00Another jewel via Dienekes'The <a href="http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2006/07/hungry-men-like-chubby-women.html">answer</a> to poor female body image is found! Starve your men!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1153406373014153682006-07-20T09:46:00.000-04:002006-07-20T10:39:33.103-04:00Please, watch the sharks while we take your bloodSo yesterday I gave blood for the first time since I went to Scotland. Because I'd been in Scotland for 6 months, I was barred from giving blood until recently when they relaxed the restrictions. You see, as far as I know, scientists have yet to discover a way to screen blood for the presence of mad cow disease. Therefore, anyone who'd been in the UK for over 6 months in the last 20 or so years was considered possibly tainted. They changed this last year to anyone there for a certain amount of time before 1996, and since I was there in 2002-03, I'm free to bleed for the Red Cross once again. <br /><br />So when the building across the street from us announced that they were having a blood drive and that our company was invited to donate, I signed up. I kinda like giving blood it makes me feel like I'm doing something nice for others and of course, it gives me a certain feeling of pride when I see the blood letters reaction to my gigantic veins. That's right, I have huge veins. Just ask Jamie, a friend of mine who is at the moment a traveling nurse in Cali. She's mentioned several times how easy it would be to stick a needle in my prominent blood vessels, often while in a public place, making other people in the room either laugh or appear very nervous.<br /><br />Anyway, so I arrive at the conference room and they begin to ask me all sorts of questions like, "Have you traveled in a malarial area in the last year?", "Have you taken drugs by needle not prescribed by a doctor?", "Have you ever had sex with a man who has had sexual relations with another man?" and so on... In both the survey/snack room and the blood room they were showing on large projector screens a video from BBC and the Discovery Channel about life in the sea. There were pretty pictures of parrot fish and sea turtles. I had a lovely conversation with one of the volunteers about scuba diving in Australia, all in all, very relaxing. Until the shark segment. One man walked into the room, ready to get stabbed in the arm, looked up and immediately went pale at the sight of a shark feeding frenzy blown up to cover almost the entire wall opposite him. Possibly not the best choice in movies for a blood drive. <br /><br />Once a blood bed had opened up for me I was called into the other room. My blood pressure was taken, things were taped to my arm and I was given a stress ball to squeeze. The woman was just about ready to stick me when she looked at my huge vein, paused, and then brought out a sheet of the same material they make your bib out of at the dentists office. She put it between my shirt an my arm and told me it was in case my blood squirted out. How weird is that? I've never heard of blood escaping while the nurse takes it from your arm. At first I thought does my vein look like it's about to explode? Then, as I turned my head so as not to see the needle pierce my skin, I wondered if maybe she was just terribly incompetent and soon my blood would be everywhere. Thankfully, she was not incompetent and there was no blood squirtage during the entire donating process. As I sat there squeezing my stress ball every 3-5 seconds I realized why I had had to wait so long for a bed to open up. The beds on either side of me were occupied by people still recovering from their own blood letting ordeal. They were being feed plenty of juice and were asked if they were feeling alright every minute or so. Both ladies looked quite the worse for wear. Fortunately, another consequence of my massive veins is that I tend to fill their puny blood bags very quickly and was having my elbow pressure wrapped and walking out the door in no time, feeling slightly light headed and wondering if it would affect me any more since I was now living in a less oxygen rich atmosphere.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1153147668747302542006-07-17T10:03:00.000-04:002006-07-17T10:47:52.313-04:00I'm MeltingDenver hit another record high yesterday at 106 degrees and I don't have air conditioning. Rick saved me on Saturday by organizing an impromptu camping trip in the nice cool mountains. However, I was back in my sweltering apartment on Sunday afternoon debating whether or not getting drunk by myself at a bar at 2 in the afternoon simply to be in an air-conditioned place was a wise decision. It was so hot that the power company apparently had to institute rolling blackouts simply to cope with the power used by everyone's AC's. Even the Body Worlds exhibit was forced to close for an hour or so while the museum was hit by one of these blackouts. <br /><br />This morning it was already 76 degrees out at 6 am when I got up. I couldn't wait to get to work where its always freezing no matter what the temperature is outside. One of the interesting ways that Coloradians deal with the heat are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_cooler">swamp coolers</a>. I'd never heard of these things till I moved out here since they probably wouldn't work so well in a place as humid as Northern Virginia. But apparently they work wonderfully in semi-arid Colorado. Basically, it's a machine that sits on top of your house and sprays cool water down through a fan which vaporizes it. These use much less electricity than a normal AC and many people out here swear by them. <br /><br />I'm hoping that next weekend isn't as bad as this last weekend, but if it is you'll probably be able to find me at the gay coffee shop down the street taking advantage of their free wifi and AC. Either that or taking a cold cold shower.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8020444.post-1152632988510301722006-07-11T11:06:00.000-04:002006-07-11T14:59:05.373-04:00Redstripe is beer. Hooray Beer!Brian was out here all last week, yay. Unfortunately, it rained almost every day he was here! Denver has been in drought mode for 5 years and it decides to rain the whole week he's here! But hey at least neither of us got sick, I figure things are looking up :)<br /><br />There was much soccer watching as the World Cup was in it's last week so we caught most of the games at The Park (a bar around the corner from me) where the beer flowed, Hooray Beer! We had to watch the last game at the airport as Brian's flight home was scheduled to leave in the middle of it. His flight ended up getting cancelled which was sort of good because he got to watch the whole game live and I got him for a whole extra day, but bad because he ended up having to spend 6 hours at the airport and miss a day of work. <br /><br />Anyway, on Sunday and Monday last week we went camping in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was gorgeous except for the crazy lightning/rain/hail storms which seemed to hit every afternoon. We hiked nearly 10 miles in on the first day and stayed at Lost Lake which to our surprise was completely infested with mosquitoes. <br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/67/187281999_a6c53dd6f2.jpg" width="50%"><br />We hadn't prepared for that at all and so had no bug repellent and ended up hiding in our tent whenever we were at the campsite. Monday morning we explored the area around Lost Lake and attempted to scale Icefield Pass but ended up turning back halfway up. This was probably the smartest thing we did all day, however, since soon after one of the above mentioned freak storms set in and we were later informed that the pass is pretty dangerous this time of year without an ice-axe and cramp-ons. Afterwards we had to book it back to the campsite since it was starting to lightning and we were far away from any sort of forest shelter. <br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/60/187281998_7ac859cc0e.jpg?v=0" width="50%"><br />After waiting out the rain in the tent once again there was a lull and we heard a voice outside wondering if anyone was around. Turns out it was a Park Ranger and we were camping in the wrong spot, oops. Apparently, I had completely not paid any attention to the name on the backcountry pass and had assumed we were meant to be at Lost Lake when in fact we were supposed to be about a mile down at Lost Meadow. He asked a whole ton of questions and the whole time I'm hoping he doesn't see the bottle of 151 in the tent and that our bear bag wasn't quite high enough in the tree (it was impossible to find a sturdy and high enough branch in the wimpy trees near our tent). <br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/63/187282000_432e1187e3_m.jpg" width="50%"><br />Eventually, he decided not to fine us the $50 for camping in the wrong spot and not to tell Colorado DMV that I'd moved to denver in the winter and still hadn't registered my car or gotten a colorado license. He said we were free to stay at Lost Lake that night as long as it was ok with the two guys that were supposed to be there, then he disappeared back into the woods. Since it was only 3 o'clock or so and we didn't particularly like the idea of camping 5 ft. away from two random guys we decided to break camp and head down to Lost Meadow. <br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/78/187282001_899f48a85e.jpg?v=0" width="70%"><br />But when we got there about half an hour later we were feeling really good and weren't looking forward to another hard packed dirt night or the early morning march out so we could catch the 1 o'clock soccer game at a bar in Denver. So in our infinite wisdom we decided to make the long trek back to the car. This was a great idea until the last mile or so when my feet decided that it was way past time to stop hiking. Fifteen miles in one day is a lot. That night was slept like the dead.<br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/55/187284764_ba42285398.jpg?v=0" width="50%"><br />The next day was 4th of July and we had tickets to see the Colorado Rapids play the New England Revolution at Mile High. Unfortunately, it also was the night of the worst downpour I'd ever seen in Colorado. They had to hold the game for over a half an hour during the first half because of the lightning. Luckily, we decided to move early on and got pretty good seats in a sheltered area.<br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/70/187282002_029b902a97.jpg?v=0" width="50%"><br />The fans were great though and occupied themselves by performing "the wave" during most of the delay. The best part about the game was the halftime show, I've never been so entertained at half-time. At DC United games they often have little kids play short sided games on the field, the Rapids had a short sided game played by a bunch of random Mascots! It was hilarious, mostly because the field was so wet that they were constantly slipping all over the place and completely missing the ball.<br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/75/187284766_a40b7d82ab.jpg?v=0" width="100%"><br />Ok, so maybe you had to be there.<br /><br />After the game was a very pretty fireworks display accompanied by, I think, every song that ever had the word 'America' in it.<br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/49/187284769_f3fd61d8e9.jpg?v=0" width="50%"><br />The rest of the week was fairly relaxing. It rained so we spent a lot of the time inside. We caught the midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean on Thursday night, which was great. We saw Superman Returns which we enjoyed despite all you movie snobs and your scathing reviews (you know who you are). Lighten up, I don't see how anyone who's grown up on the original movies could have expected more than what they got. As far as I'm concerned the Superman myth has never been internally consistent and has always merely been an excuse to show off Superman's ability to lift lots of heavy objects and pine over Lois Lane. Personally, I went to see a guy that looks a lot like Christopher Reeve repeatedly save people in an action-packed two hours. The only real downside was the guy sitting behind us who repeatedly whispered the words "that's superman's son" even after the fact had been made painfully obvious to everyone over the age of 4.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0