the far away aunt

i was talking with a coworker of mine yesterday about the challenges of being far enough away that i don't get to see my niece as often as i'd like to. i'm going up to michigan this weekend, so i'll get to see her for the first time since christmas. based on what my friend mentioned, i did some looking around online. basically, i should ask that my sister and her husband keep at least a few pictures of me around to point at for lucy and say my name and talk about me. that way, when i do visit, i will be familiar already and she will feel closer to me than she might otherwise given the geographic distance between us.

here's a link to an article i found and an excerpt:

Unfortunately, in the typical family today, extended family members are not always within easy visiting distance, perhaps not even in the same state or region of the country. Some of the people you wish could be close to your baby may be able to see her only rarely, when either they or you drive or fly to visit. Between visits, it is up to you to help your child remember the relatives and to help both the relatives and the child feel close to one another. Keep your relatives informed about your child's development; letters, phone calls, pictures, and video and audio tapes help. Show your child pictures of the relatives, use their names often, and tell stories about your childhood that include them.

given that i rarely settle for the minimum, i suggest taking things a step further... mindy should wear a mask of my face around lucy for a minimum of 1 hour per day, preferably during her happiest moments. i don't think any voice manipulation will be necessary, since we've been told we sound fairly alike, at least on the phone. so, mindy, get on that. i expect lucy to greet me with "hello aunt kelly" when i arrive on friday. hehe ;)

magic wallet

i could've sworn i was low on cash and that i only had a couple singles in my wallet. however, when i went to get money out for lunch today, they had miraculously transformed into fives. what a delightful discovery.

my blogging has fallen off as of late, and not because i'm any busier than usual. i just haven't found anything worth writing about. and given the fluff i usually come across, that is quite a strange situation to be in. hopefully i can find something at least moderately entertaining to post this afternoon. perhaps i'll share some of the exciting goings-on in grand rapids this weekend! hehe

unexpected

i just found out one of my coworkers passed away last weekend. i'm very much in shock. i don't know any details about what happened other than her son found her on saturday. she was such a sweet woman, a brand new grandma, and a former triathlete. she had a great sense of humor, the most hilarious stories, and i really enjoyed working with her. it's still sinking in, but as it does, i think it's going to be harder and harder to not cry. i think i'm going to go out for lunch and get some air.

drinking shoes

okay, this is a good one. uncrate featured these flip flops today that have a flask hidden in them. yes, a flask. the idea is that it allows you to sneak alcohol into pretty much anywhere. it doesn't say how much it holds, but at the risk of sounding old - what will they think of next? any guesses on the target demographic for this one?

in the feature, they mentioned another pair of reef flip flops that i think is much less "out there." these have a bottle opener built into them, so you can pop open your beers on the beach without worrying about locating or messing with a "real" bottle opener. kinda clever. good conversation starter. both types are horribly overpriced.

who's the big winner?

me!!!! i went to this body shop thing tonight, and had the best luck ever!! i won $182 worth of stuff! one full size body butter, 6 mini ones, and three big gift sets (one rose, one coconut, and one white musk - need to smell that one to see if i like it). it was a lot of fun and a good excuse to be really girly. my skin's gonna be so soft and yummy smelling! i can't wait to try this stuff out. :) i think that i have enough stuff to last me several lifetimes over, since i tend to use stuff like this really sparingly, particularly when it's nice, expensive stuff. time to slather it on!

i was embarrassed to win so much, though! i got my name drawn out for one thing, then i won some game thing for the other thing, then they called my raffle ticket for another thing ... i think i turned red when they drew my raffle number. i had just joked to the girl next to me that i would about die if my ticket was drawn. all in all a fun night! now it's time to eat dinner and go to bed.

take that riaa

not that they would acknowledge it... this article describes a study in which researchers found that music file downloading is not related to the decline in music sales. i only read the abstract, so i can't comment on the integrity of their methodology (validity, etc), but given that it is coming out of the u of c, and got published, i'd like to think they did at least a decent job.

it's interesting to see this study contradicting a notion that is generally accepted to be true and that makes logical sense (if people are downloading music, they avoid having to buy it, therefore sales decline). i'm curious as to whether this study gets any sort of larger scale publicity. i doubt it given that findings that oppose the interests of powerful/influential/$$$ groups tend to get buried, or at least delayed or ignored... *cough cough* did you know cigarettes are bad for you?!... did you know that big oil related stuffs cause environmental distress?!

it is only one study, though, and if you know how to appropriately interpret research findings, you would generally want an entire body of research before feeling comfortable making any sort of conclusive/confident statement. anyway, the riaa can easily shift their argument to focus more on the "intellectual property" aspect than the loss of revenue side of things.

i like coming across research that suggests that what we assume to be true may actually not be. it shows the value of going ahead and investigating relationships between variables, even when you are pretty sure you already know what you will find. you never know when you will be surprised and possibly motivate important changes that were not even considered before.

that being said, not all research is really that pertinent or practical or earth shattering, but it sure can be entertaining/intersting! (go ahead, click... you know you want to.) i didn't read any of them, but one title that caught my eye was daniel oppenheimer of princeton university's report: "consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly." oh you clever tigers.

michigan beer

this article in the chicago tribune this morning caught my eye. it's about a michigan brewery, bell's, that had recently yanked all his products from illinois due to conflicts with his distributor. there was even mention of new holland brewing co in the article. here is an excerpt:

While at Bell's, Bueltmann worked for years to win one of the three tap handles at the Green Mill, the storied Uptown jazz club. Bell's Amber Ale eventually replaced Bass ale and the club became the brewery's top account.

Bell, a regular at Chicago bars during his frequent trips to town, stoked his reputation by buying rounds at the Green Mill for everybody drinking his beer when he walked in the door.

Now New Holland's Mad Hatter India Pale Ale pours from the tap once held by Bell's.

now how cool is that? i had no idea that new holland had such a prestigious tap! go holland! and to think, i recently heard a couple tell a horror story of a visit to tulip town (granted, they were there with no car...on a sunday, and anybody who's been to holland knows that's a recipe for boredom). hopefully this article can serve to debunk any rumors of holland's overall uncoolness (at least on non-sundays)!

ouch!

okay, tonight on lost, they showed how locke ended up in the chair. ow ow ow! the scene where he first sat in the wheelchair made me teary. :( and... oh my my my, the ending... my jaw dropped. it's still fresh so i'm not sure what to make of it yet, but wowee! i will surely be chatting with my friends at work about it - we were all very much looking forward to this week's episode.

i don't know what i'm going to do when i'm in ireland -- i'm already dreading missing the episodes for those two weeks! do you think they show it over there?! hehe

i came across this website earlier in the week, but couldn't spend time reading it at work. i'm definitely into the show and try to figure some things out, but it's amazing how much thought people put into it! even now when i have time to focus, i get exhausted just reading people's theories on various aspects of the show, which says a lot given my tendency to overthink most things!

slow afternoon

this afternoon has been really slow at work. i'm struggling to stay busy, so i'll share a story...

yesterday afternoon i got to take our new "policy quiz." yeah. they created this pseudo-person named policy pete with his own dummy email account and little cartoony pictures of him all over the building. yesterday we all received an email from pete providing us with a power point presentation that went so far as to include "clever" (note the quotes) little things interspersed between the pages describing each of 11 policies we were to cover. ugh.

after you sit through that (and you would think that they would've given pete a better voice - oh, yes, my friend, there was audio - but i digress), you email pete to let him know you are ready for the quiz and he sends you a link to the quiz and to the policies. ugh.

then you read through the policies and answer the multiple choice questions, which (of course) have some "funny" (note the quotes again) options interspersed. oh, did i happen to mention ugh?

after submitting the quiz, you get yet another email notifying you that you will be receiving a gift. hooray. so today i got a little combination lock thingy with the company name on it. i've already managed to screw up the combination, so now i can't get it open. ugh.

overall, it seemed like a lot of effort went into this in an attempt to make it less onerous a task, but in the end, it just made it that much more unbearable... i couldn't help but feel like it was a bad day in kindergarten...

new item on my page

i found this cool little "widget" thingy to put on my blog. i was messing around with google reader and they have a feature that you can "share" things that you find on your rss feeds, and then display links to those shared items on your blogger blog. so there is a new little box on the left hand side that has links to fun/interesting stuff i've found. if you click the "read more" link, it will take you to a separate page that displays all the entries with pictures. i'll try to remember to keep it updated. enjoy!

baltimore bound

well our plane tickets for this year's girls' trip are booked. (uhh, we need to come up with a good name for this annual trip - mindy, get on it.) we'll be heading out to baltimore on july 12th to stay with aunt pam and teri through july 15th. activities are up in the air, but suggestions have included hang gliding, horseback riding, rock climbing, and who knows what else. if i recall correctly, pam and teri already got tickets for phantom of the opera, which is something i've wanted to see but have never gotten around to doing. i'm sure it's going to be lot of fun (given how great a time we all had the past 2 trips), and since mindy isn't knocked up this year (er, as far as we know... hehehe), we'll get to be a bit more adventurous!

freaked me out

i am soo tired this morning. i got hardly any sleep because i had this series of weird scary dreams that kept waking me up. they were all variations on a theme. somebody/something was trying to get at me and either pull me somewhere or keep me from moving/going somewhere. the one i had the hardest time getting back to sleep from was where i was pinned down and unable to get up. i woke up and still felt like i was pinned down, unable to move, and then all of a sudden the "weight" released and i was okay. it was the weirdest sensation. i think it was sleep paralysis, so a fairly normal phenomenon (and actually quite interesting), but it still freaked me out big time. i'd never experienced it before, and i couldn't help but think it was some spooky ghost living in my apartment - eek!

breathe...breathe...

april 17 isn't all that close to april 28, right? that's 11 days. that's a ton of time, right?

i checked the status of my passport application today, and the estimate is that i should receive my passport "on or around" april 17. my flight to ireland is on april 28. that's pretty close if you ask me. i'm glad i got the application in the mail as soon as i did, but i wonder if they bumped me back a bit to get to people who were travelling sooner. maybe they are being conservative in their estimate, too, and things are going out a little more quickly than that. i have to admit my heart rate went up a little at the thought of it not being safely in my possession well before my trip. i'm sure it will be okay, but i want it now...

of all the years to decide to renew my passport (which i could have done at any time in the past three or so years), i pick the time that passport applications are probably at their peak due to the new rules requiring passports for flights to mexico, canada, and all those other places. whoops! at least i'll have it handy for all those impromtu trips to exotic lands that i'm sure to be taking. har har.

hang a picture perfectly

came across this via notmartha. it shows you a quick and easy way to get a picture to hang exactly where you want it. (click the image to go to the page with verbal directions if you prefer reading to pictures.) i feel sort of foolish after seeing this and can't imagine why i didn't think of it before. my approach up until now (i'm ashamed to say) has been largely based on trial and error. (i know - how very scientific/mathematical of me...) anyway, thought i'd share so others don't have to have "mistake" holes hidden behind the pictures on their walls. never again!! (incoming attempt to redeem myself - at least sort of...) i did use a similar technique for the arrangement of mirrors on my living room wall, though the nail hole piece was irrelevant as i used the 3m command strip thingys to hang them.

the alps

i saw an article this morning about the movie "the alps," which would be cool to see. it chronicles the story of several climbers, including john harlin, who is attempting to clime the face of the eiger, the mountain that took his father's life approximately 40 years ago. from the pictures, it looks like the scenery would be amazing, and i always enjoy this sort of documentary. it's being shown in imax, which would definitely up the wow factor. hopefully it comes to the imax near my place!

record cuff bracelet

saw this on better living through design. it's a cuff bracelet made from records recovered from landfills (ick for whoever has that job). so it's vinyl (duh!) and rhodium (shiny!). i like how it's pretty simple and sleek looking. $55 here (which has a lot of other cute stuff, if i recall correctly). i don't really wear bracelets that much, though. too bad, since this is a cute one.

led emoticon thingy

you can finally let other drivers know what you think of them. this led emoticon thing that mounts in your rear window is the first thing of its nature that i've seen, even though technology that could support it has been around for some time. you can have it display either a smiley face, frowny face, "thanks," "back off," or "idiot" (though i'm not sure what those last 3 look like). i wonder how much road rage will result from people getting a little click happy with the "idiot" function. they do make a point of noting that it might be illegal in some states. i'm thinking it could be useful to mount it somewhere by my cube at work to send coworkers messages as they walk by... ($30, found on uncrate). (that thinkgeek.com website has lots of fun nerdy things, i've spent time there before.)

disturbing

so, i was checking the news after lunch and there was a link to a story about yet another animal born with two faces (even freakier pic attached to that story). ick. this one is a pig and it's being hailed as a sign of fertility in china. weird. it makes me sad to see these poor freakish mutant animals (very sympathetic description, no?). there have been several of them in the past few months. i'm hoping that we only keep seeing these stories because information, including pictures is much more easily and quickly dispersed via the internet than in previous mediums, rather than there being some big surge in frequency that this sort of thing is happening (including the seven legged intersex deer that some dude in wisconsin hit with his truck then ate - yum ... *sigh*). signs of the apocalypse?

craving

random: i've got a sweet tooth today... i walked past a box of candy bars that somebody is selling for their kid's soccer team or something and saw a snickers bar. i usually don't like those that much, but wowee did it sound good. i held back for now, but might go back past there after lunch, particularly since i'm gonna be good and go swim for half an hour at noon... mmm caramel, nougat, and peanuts...

of course i like this

it's a 10" bowl made from recycled bicycle chains (cleaned up of course). $88 is a bit steep, but it's a pretty cool idea. (via uncrate. again.)

error

my job is pretty good for the most part. last friday, though, i was facing some junky report issues. i woke up at 6am saturday with an idea of what might be going on, tested it out today, and sure enough. so i'm re-running the reports in a way that will work around the issue i identified. i'm running the last version that i need to run and it keeps errorring (is that a word?) out. so close... sooooo close... ugh. so, now as i am trying to figure out how to work around this, i decided to blog about it, complete with lovely screenshot.

hey, how about that... i actually do work while i'm at work :P

cool doormat

saw this featured on uncrate this morning. the doormat reads "come in" as they arrive and "go away" as they leave. very clever. no price listed.

50 days till ireland!

i realized today that i leave for my ireland trip in exactly 50 days. i'm definitely excited, but also kind of apprehensive. my passport is in the process of being processed, and should arrive in plenty of time. i'm a little nervous about keeping up with pete on the biking so i'm putting in as much time on the bike during the week as i can manage. should be easier to ride more, too, as the weather improves. i'm also stocking up on all the stuff i'm going to need, and am getting close to being done buying all that stuff (thankfully). we will definitely be stopping to see the cliffs of moher (pictured below) while we are there. feel free to start being very jealous! i'll try to not fall off when i'm there.

best simpsons ever

i got home and had to delay my shower (yeah, gross, i know) because the macgyver simpsons was on! best episode ever. it even has great stargate references. what more could you ask for?! the other story is the power plant outsourcing to india, but c'mon who cares about that.

a clip i found on youtube is below. enjoy the small sample of this animated deliciousness, complete with subtitles.

here

saw this on better living through design. it is a wall hook made of painted mdf. (the designer named it "here.") thought it was cute. it's simple, unobtrusive, yet functional. there was no price listed, but i'm sure it's not cheap. definitely a potential diy, but might be hard to get it to look as nice.

damn interesting

this is a site that i try to check in on every once in a while. they post stories about various topics, but most often related to scientific-y type stuff. a lot of it goes back to military or cold war goings-on, and is usually quite fun to read. a lot of time the comments people post are entertaining as well. i just laughed a few times at the comments for the most recent post about big holes the soviets dug in the 60's and 70's.

pain in the neck

ow. i did something to my neck and it is really bothering me. i don't know if i slept on it wrong or what, but it started sunday with a mild tight/"needs to crack" feeling in the left side. now it's getting worse and worse. my range of motion is even limited. :( it feels like something is pinching back there and i'm having a hard time tilting and turning my head in either direction. if it doesn't go away soon, i'll be heading to the doctor. i think it's more than just a sore or pulled muscle since it keeps getting worse and stretching it doesn't seem to be helping. ow.

perpetual kid

i stumbled across the perpetual kid site today and am going click happy. it had some of the cutest, cleverest little thingies i've seen in a while. the past few days, i've been feeling a bit discouraged since the design pages i typically visit have been disappointing me. but, i'm happy once again. i can't possibly post everything wonderful from this site here, so i'll just post the first thing i came across. (and, no, i have NO idea how i got there, so don't even bother asking.)

ice mice ice cube tray. you can make ice cubes shaped like little mice. they even suggest holding the tail to stir your drink with the mouse, and they point out that it will "cool down your drinks much better than a real mouse would." see why i love this site?! plus everything i came across was super affordable (for example, the ice mice tray is $4.99). this could be an excellent source for gifts when you haven't got a clue what to get somebody. definitely worth clicking around.

cute cute jerseys

i now love castelli. i came across their line of bike stuff today, and it's so cute! here is a sample of some of my favorite jerseys. pricey, though. the "heart" one on the far left is $110. yikes! there are bigger pics on the website.

bubble building

this had got to be one of the coolest looking buildings ever. it is china's national swim center, being built for the beijing olympics in 2008. it is made of some sort of lightweight and transparent teflon material, so it will diffuse light into the facility and act as sort of a large greenhouse, as well. there are some other really cool pictures of it here and also if you visit the design firm's site here and poke around a bit (welcome, projects, international). apparently it only appears to be a random pattern of bubbles, but is actually mathematically based on organic cell arrangements and the natural structural formation of soap bubbles - how very nerdy cool! found on inhabitat, where they also observe one of the things i love most about the building: the connection between the form of the exterior and the use/function the building will serve.