hilarious

as a beginner triathlete, the start to an open water swim can be a scary prospect. this cracked me up.

i'll wait in line, thanks

ok, this is just sick. if i make it over to great america for fright fest, i'll certainly just wait in line. i like the scares and all, and it's cool to see the park all done up. the lines get annoying, but not enough to make me want to sign a waiver and eat a 2 to 3 inch cockroach. now, if i'm with people, i'll gladly let them do it and scoot in in the party of four that gets to cut in line as the reward. anybody want to go to six flags with me?

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excessive alcohol consumption contributes to poor decision making

i know, i know, not exactly a news flash, but this story just hammers it home one more time. i know pandas are cute, but trying to hug one? my favorite line from the story is this quote: "i wouldn't have jumped in if i knew what would happen." oh zhang, what did you think would happen when you jumped into a panda enclosure? they are in enclosures for a reason. poor gu gu, too, suffering the unsolicited advances of a drunk guy. disturbing that he tried to bite the panda back after it bit him... kids, don't drink (that much).

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cold case

today at work i clicked a random link to a cnn story and turns out it involed a hope college (my alma mater) student back in 1979. poor girl, i'm glad that they found out who took her, sounds like it was pretty brutal. i know where that motel is/was (not sure if it is still there or not). i wonder where on 196 that trucker found her. i take that route every time i go to visit the family up in michigan. i like that a hope film class was involved in the documentary that revived interest in the case. go hope!

community service

my employer is quite generous in that they allow us to take up to two half-days with pay to participate in community service activities. i took advantage of this last friday, spending the afternoon at fullersburg woods forest preserve in oakbrook, il.

we had a nice lunch upon arriving at noon, applied bug spray and headed into the woods. our guide, jim, pointed out poison ivy, hornet's nests, etc., then pointed at what we were to destroy. they had us lop off a bunch of brush that was being too aggressive and threatening to decrease the diversity of plantlife in the preserve. it was a lot of fun, and as far as i know, nobody got hit by the poison ivy. (i do still think that i'm immune - there is no reason i shouldn't have acquired it at some point in my childhood woods romps back in michigan - but that's not something i'm going to test and find out.)

afterwards, we had some time to wander the preserve's trails, got a little muddy, saw the old mill they have there, and walked along salt creek. it was a great afternoon out (much better than under the fluorescent sun in cube land) and it was fun to do something good for the community. actually learned quite a bit about the area, too, which was nice.

fake fun

i thought this concert ticket generator was a pretty fun little online plaything. i'm not sure how practical it is, but i definitely wanted to share it with those who hadn't seen it before since it is kind of fun to play around with. and the longer i think about it, the more cute ideas i am coming up with that this could be used for. hmm... we will have to wait and see.

too skinny to model? never thought i'd see the day

i was pleased to come across this this in the headlines this morning.

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) -- The world's first ban on overly thin models at a top-level fashion show in Madrid has caused outrage among modeling agencies and raised the prospect of restrictions at other venues.

at least some people in the fashion world are acting to combat the overly-skinny "ideal" that promotes unhealthy habits and makes even healthy thin women feel as though they are huge. hopefully this trend continues. i can't help but smile at the idea that models could be too skinny to get work. hopefully something like this can begin to encourage more realistic and healthy images of women in general, which, in my opinion, is nothing but good news.

they used BMI as an indicator (which while not a flawless measure, is better than nothing), which led to exclusion of 30% of women who had participated in the show previously. i'm curious as to what their cutoff BMI number was. i would hope that it was set at the "healthy" range bottom end (18.5), but part of me doubts it.

update: according to this article at timesonline.com, it looks like they used 18 as the cutoff point. they sent anybody with a BMI under 16 for medical treatment, which is likely a good idea. so, it is quite close to what is generally accepted as healthy. however, it is also important to keep in mind the limitations of BMI as an indicator of healthy weight (though it seems the limitations are more relevant to obesity determinations than to the skinny end of the spectrum).

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teensy little ipod

this is too cute.. holds 2gb of tunes, which is plenty for what i need on an ipod. i thought my shuffle now was small, and although i do get a little irritated by not being able to jump to a particular song, the cuteness and teensy (relatively speaking) price ($79 it seems) are calling to me...

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well i think the title of this blog says it all

i really do not need a blog. i really don't think that i have much useful info to shoare or knowledge to impart. but my sister and brother in law have one, and work is slow at the moment, and it was free..... so here i am and here this is.

i think i'll use this to just put down random thoughts and ideas and interesting things i come across from day to day. i imagine it will be heavy on my various interets, and also include random tid bits that i tend to come across. some have said i have a knack for finding random bits of cool on the internet, so i'll try to share those here.

anyway, been trying to keep busy and get outside as much as i can before winter comes and coops me up indoors. last weekend scott and i went camping at chain o' lakes state park, near the wisconsin border. spent most of the day saturday hiking, then went geocaching in the late afternoon/evening which led us to some really cool places that we wouldn't have come across otherwise (like this mansion). we had a great time, even though it did rain overnight on saturday, sending us home with a car full of wet everything for the ride back. pics here.