t-minus however many hours

i'm getting scarily close to leaving for ireland. i'm definitely excited, but have that teensy bit of nervousness since it's totally new (not enough to get in the way of me having fun, though :P). i've been running around like crazy the last few days trying to get everything in order and ready to go. i think i'm pretty close but have a little last minute tweaking to do tomorrow as far as packing goes. at work, i've finally gotten chance to catch my breath this afternoon after working furiously to get things taken care of this morning. i didn't even get time for lunch today, so i'm totally starving. i decided to just skip it altogether and leave half an hour early.

i'm posting the travel plans below so it's readily available if anybody wants to check and see where i am on any given day (not that more than two people read this). i'll try to come back in one piece and hopefully will return vaguely resembling myself, perhaps just a fitter, more toned up (especially in the legs) version. i'm going to do my best to keep a reasonably detailed journal that includes the daily highlights and how much ground we covered. the idea is that we will be cycling somewhere around 30-50 miles per day. i hope i can keep up with pete!

Sunday, April 29th - Arrive in Shannon at about 10:30

Monday, April 30th - Bike from Ennis to Kinvara

Tuesday, May 1st - Bike around the Burren, stay in Kinvara

Wednesday, May 2nd - Bike from Kinvara to Doolin

Thursday, May 3rd - Bike from Doolin to Kilrush

Friday, May 4th - Bike from Kilrush to Tralee

Saturday, May 5th - Bike from Tralee to Kilarney

Sunday, May 6th - Bike from Kilarney to Kenmare

Monday, May 7th - Bike from Kenmare to Waterville

Tuesday, May 8th - Spend some time in Waterville

Wednesday, May 9th - Bike from Waterville, to Kilarney

Thursday, May 10th - Bike from Kilarney to Mallow

Friday, May 11th - Bike (or bus?) from Mallow to Cork

Saturday, May 12th - Bus from Cork to Shannon

Arrive back in Chicago at about 4:30pm Sunday, May 13th

noise pollution

i'm about to lose my mind. i am trying to concentrate and get some things done, but this morning there has been a constant flux of noisy people around my cube. it's seriously been endless. i'm blogging about it right now, since the noise is so distracting that i can't get anything done. i hate how people have no consideration. if i go talk to somebody, i'll sit and talk quietly IN their cube, not yell across somebody else's. but silly me, i'm just mindful of the fact that i don't conduct my life in a vacuum. i'm going to put my headphones on and drown it out, but i don't think i should have to do that in order to get any work done... ok here comes more people, just as the others left. ugh!

pictures

so i was sorting out the pictures on my hard drive, trying to get them organized into proper folders, and came across some pretty ones from the girls' trip to ludington last summer, so i added them to the "nature" folder on my photobucket. i put up the original and a black and white version of two different ones. i think i like the original better, though it isn't much different from the black and white due to the lighting.

fun busy weekend

i'm beat from the weekend! heath and i went to see hot fuzz on saturday night (highly recommended). then sunday included a run, a trip to the driving range, and a picnic in the park by the beach. then i went back out to evanston last night and took the train down to the cubs game. it was a little chilly, but a lot of fun. the adorable cubs stretched their loss out to 12 innings so we didn't get back up to evanston until after midnight. i was sort of a zombie at work today, but a good night's sleep tonight should have me refreshed for tomorrow. tonight i packed my bike into the hard case. seems secure, but we'll see if it gets to ireland in one piece! (fingers crossed!) i put pictures from the game up on my photobucket site. i'm probably going to make a smugmug site when i get back from ireland, but this will do for now.

my vacuum sucks

properly. finally. it had been useless for a bit (i'd rather not say how long, but too long). basically, i would push it across the floor and it would spew extra dirt/dust etc onto the carpet. it actually made things worse! so i went out to my patio and took it apart to get it figured out. (i only cut myself once in the process, so i'd say it went pretty well.) turns out there was a clog in the one tube thingy. it required that i jam a dowel into the tube with lots of force to get it free. ick. i was pretty much covered in dust, but got it back together and now it sucks again! yay me = ms. fixit!

fast food: ew

mindy pointed me to this site with pics of fast food ads versus what it looks like in reality. ucky. reminds me why i try to stay away from that stuff!

daquiries for your health

fruity cocktails are good for you! this article highlights a study in which scientists found that adding alcohol to fruit boosts its antioxidant nutrients. so good news for all the ladies and girly men* out there!

*a man who consumes fruity drinks is exempt from the "girly" modifier if said fruity drinks are enjoyed while on vacation in a tropical locale

guess i'm moving

i was planning on moving at some point in the next few months, but had sort of hoped that i could go month to month on my lease to take my time finding a place, and maybe not have to move until after my triathlon... but, that's not going to happen. i got a letter this afternoon that my unit has been sold so they cannot renew my lease. i have to be out by june 30th. super. one more thing i get to deal with! guess it's a good thing i've been starting to go through all my stuff and pare down my possessions. now i have one more reason to be extra ruthless about it.

stir crazy

okay i'm going a little bonkers today. i feel like my head isn't quite on straight for some reason, and am feeling stressed out with really no good reason. i think it is partly because today has been sort of up and down. i've been beating my head against a wall all day trying to make progress on a tedious project at work. i had to scramble to get my sister a spot in the chicago marathon (see our blog here). then, it took me six tries to get through to passport services to inquire about the status of my application. it sounds like i will have it in time, since it is supposed to be mailed out today. they are even being kind enough to send via overnight shipping since it was hanging around in their system so long and i'm quickly coming up on my departure date (which is undoubtedly also contributing to my anxiety-ish-ness today). i missed lost last night, so i definitely want to try to see that online at abc.com. from the little clippits i saw as i was messing with my new skype stuff and trying to help heath get his to work, it looked like a good one.

i also have the spring cleaning bug, and not getting as much accomplished on that project last night as i'd have liked is eating at me. tonight i'm going to try to get through my living room/coat closet and my bathroom/linen closet. we'll see how it goes!

geja's cafe

last weekend, i had one of the better meals i've had in a long time. heath took me to geja's cafe, which is a fondue restaurant in chicago. we were overdue for a "real" date, and he finally had a weekend off (though there was a slight threat to that earlier in the day, phew!).

it was a very nice place, very dimly lit (no lights, only candles), and had a nice atmosphere, which was enhanced by the guitarist playing during dinner. upon being seated, we were informed that we were in the most romantic booth in the whole place, which i can't argue with. it was definitely tucked away, quiet, and cozy.

the food was great. we started with a nice bottle of wine. then out came the salads and cheese fondue (yummy). the huge platter with our dinners was next. seafood (yuck) and steak for heath, and chicken and steak for me, plus 8 different sauces and lots of veggies, all ready to be cooked in the oil. it was a lot of fun and although it didn't look like a ton of food, i was definitely full.

then dessert. flaming chocolate fondue. first you roast marshmallows in the flame from the liqueur that had been poured over the chocolate and lit on fire. then, you dip bananas, strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, cherries, and the very very best thing - poundcake - into the chocolate. it was amazingly good. we were glad we didn't arrange to do anything after dinner; we were able to just relax and felt bloated (but in a good way) for the rest of the evening.

not cheap, but definitely worth it, not that i really get to decide that since i wasn't the one paying. :P i would love to go back someday.

run, chamberlains, run

yes, another blog. my sister, cousin and i are planning on running in the 30th chicago marathon on october 7th! it will be so great to share that experience with them. my sister set up the blog for us to chit chat and talk about our training and experiences. i don't expect many people will read it other than us, but that's okay.

mindy tried her first run this morning, but despite how it went (:P), she is still excited and hopeful. hopefully the blog serves to keep us all encouraged when things aren't going as well as we'd like. can't wait to cross the finish line with them!!

skype

i got a webcam and skype now, so hopefully i can have a few little web conferences with my niece so she learns to know who i am as she grows up. :)

good vs evil football table

football, foosball, whateva. this is hilarious. features good vs evil characters, painstakingly hand detailed. good players include santa claus, God, and mary poppins. evil ones include lucifer, jack the ripper, and hitler. only 20 being made total, and it'll cost ya! $28,600!!! (found on ucnrate)

tree shower

saw this on apartment therapy new york. it's an outdoor shower. one of the "branches" is a shower head, the others can be used to hang towels, etc. pretty clever idea. but ouch - $2600. i bet i could make one for less. somebody get me a garden hose and a step ladder...

noodling

yeah so my one meeting for the day just got cancelled, which leaves me free to find all kinds of weird stuff on the internet. such as, noodling for catfish. i'd never heard of this and i will never ever ever try it. these nutjobs try to catch catfish with their bare hands.read this article (from cabela's ... shocking) to see what i'm talking about - it goes into some detail about the technique and risks. my friend just came by and said he saw something about noodling on "dirty jobs" or something on the discovery channel, so maybe it's not as much of a find as i originally thought...

i enjoy fishing, but diving in murky water and trying to find random holes to stick my hands into to see what i find (and hope against hope that it's a catfish) ... well, that just doesn't sound like fun. plus i like my fingers.

kurt vonnegut

died yesterday. i have only read two of his books (cat's cradle and slaughterhouse five), but i very much enjoyed them. (though it's been so long, i can barely remember them.) i found some quotes of his that i enjoyed and thought i'd post them:

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. (Cat's Cradle)

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.(Breakfast of Champions)

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. (Hocus Pocus)

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. (Mother Night)

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. (Sirens of Titan)

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber. (Slaughterhouse Five)

practicing packing

i did a little practicing with my packing last night. it forced me to finally decide what specific clothes to bring. i made some adjustments to my original plan. i'm bringing some tights after all because i could use them both for running and on the bike. knowing me, i'll likely be cold in the mornings and i can just wear the tights over my bike shorts and take them off if i get too warm. i feel a little nervous only bringing one "normal" outfit, but am hoping i can find a simple skirt to put on over my bike shorts, too. american apparel has one i want to check out when i'm in evanston this weekend. i also wanted to see if i could get another general wear top, like this one from rei, since it would be versatile.

i was able to easily fit everything in my panniers and also everything including my panniers into a suitcase, so i should be fine even with the added few items. i'm planning on carrying my backpack on the plane and then just leaving that behind with my suitcase and bike case when we head out on our bikes.

late easter egg hunt

i found my camera battery charger. it was behind the vertical blinds next to my sliding door. undoubtedly the work of at least one of the cats. i have no idea what possessed me to look back there, but it was the first "random" place i checked after checking the likely landing spots for this particular item. hurrah. now i'll be able to take an insane number of pictures in ireland!

something else i don't need

yeah, so heath's comment on my last post made sense. i could just bring audiobooks to ireland. but, alas, i only have an ipod shuffle, so am not able to browse my files and would have to rely on my little device to randomly take me to an audiobook (fat chance). of course, i decided to go looking for a new device to buy. i didn't buy anything, but came across the iriver clix (2nd generation). it is suh-leeeeeek. the first generation one looks alright, but is a bit brick-ish compared to this slimmer updated version. currently the 4gb is the biggest, but i read somewhere that an 8gb model is coming out soon. it plays video, can do picture slideshows, flash games, has an fm tuner and recorder, and also happens to play mp3s. from what i can tell, this trumps the ipods (blasphemy!) since the 4gb nano doesn't do all that and they are at the same $200 price point. now as much as i would like to get this for ireland, i just can't justify spending the money right now (*sniff sniff*). maybe someday down the road. as an addon, they sell a charger/fm thingy that plugs into your car and plays over any fm radio frequency. now that would be awesome for car rides, etc.

euros and snow

getting closer and closer to leaving for ireland (17 days to be exact), and i'm trying to wrap up the last few loose ends before the trip. i braved the stupid ridiculous awful sleety snowy crappy weather to go to the bank and order my euros today. i think i got enough. i plan on paying for a number of things on credit so that i'm not carrying around a ton of cash. pete is supplying me with a list of the places we will be going and contact numbers for places we will likely be staying, so that people back home will be able to know where we are and hopefully reach us without too much difficulty, should they need to. he will also have his cell phone (which works internationally) and his blackberry (which i can borrow for email whenever i want to), so i should be able to stay in touch enough. there are also internet cafes so maybe i can even blog once or twice while i'm there! i still need to pick up a plug adapter and a journal. i'm thinking of bringing a book or two if i have room... any suggestions?

sharing/wallpaper

there is a bunch of stuff i added recently to my shared items. i really like the most recent one, which is wallpaper that looks like old scrap wood. sounds kind of weird, but take a look. i typically hate wallpaper, but it would be fun to put that on one of those walls that is just boring. it would definitely bring some faux texture and subtle colors into the room. i didn't bother checking the price. it's "probably a lot." anyway, that's all stuff that i used to blog about, but don't need to now. :)

update: i just checked the website for the wallpaper. the price is 199 euros (per baan van 9 meter). i'm not expert in translating dutch, but i'm guessing that comes to about $265 for a 30 foot roll. yikes. maybe if i had a super duper narrow wall... or am i just that clueless about wallpaper costs?

sidebar: i've found on my design pages that there has recently been a ton of cool stuff coming out of the netherlands and/or done by dutch designers. guess i was just born into good taste. ha!

what i don't have...

...brute strength. i'm trying to loosen the seat off of the seatpost from my non-road bike to put on the road bike i'm bringing to ireland. either of the other seats (saddles) i have will be too uncomfy to ride on for that many hours on that many consecutive days. there is a stupid little bolt that i just cannot get out. i've almost pulled muscles trying. i've put dents in my palms and even tried standing on the allen wrench to put more pressure on it to get it loose. no luck. grrrrrr. i'm going to price other saddles while i rest my hands. it might be worth it just to spring for a better one anyhow.

the awful truth

here are some pictures of me with my niece, lucy, when i was up in michigan last weekend for a little 6 months-old celebration. i thought about reversing the order of the pictures so it looked like i soothed her crying instead of the other way around. in actuality, she was fine for about 30 seconds, then inexplicably burst into tears. she was sleepy and fussy, so i blame it on that and not that i had just told her all about how the pressure to be thin will destroy her self-esteem over time and she'll never feel as comfortable in a bikini as she did earlier that day...

inland north

my friend forwarded this to me. take the quiz here when you have a minute. mine is pretty accurate. let me know what you get. :)

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

tooth tech

whoo hoo. two posts before noon!

saw this article about how scientists are trying to make a drug dispensing system that goes in your mouth. the idea is to get it small enough that medications would be released from a fake tooth. i'd never heard of anything like this before, but i can see the value of it, since studies show people have a hard time taking their medications on time. if it were on a time release right in your mouth, you wouldn't even have to think about it. the article says you would have to take the tooth out to have it refilled (i wouldn't want to be that pharmacist). i wonder about taste, too. pretty interesting. if you don't have a fake tooth already, would they take out a real tooth to put in the drug dealer tooth?

we feel fine

finally something worth blogging about! i think this is a really fascinating project. they describe it better than i could, so here is a blurb:

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day.

it's pretty cool to click through. you basically go to the webpage and open the applet. from there you can click on the various parts and see individual sentences that people have written, or pictures, or look at distributions of the feelings based on mood, gender, geography, etc. the website also has information on the project itself and the various pieces of the applet.

it's a really interesting project. for how impersonal the internet can be or seem to be, this really humanizes it. you can click on any dot in "madness" and catch a glimpse into that person's life. what a creative way to bring it all together. it's very likely that things i have written have been pulled into the database. it's kind of like the post secret blog, but more granular, if that makes sense. some are a lot deeper than others, some are dirty, some are funny, some are sad. definitely worth checking out.