tuesdays are for road rage

i'm not sure what it was this morning, but traffic was awful. i think every single road between my apartment and work is under construction. plus, people were being just stupid and going all the wrong speeds and everything. i was shaking my fist and cursing at drivers the whole way in. it probably wasn't as bad as it seemed, but i am still not feeling well, which surely contributed to my low tolerance. i almost stayed home to rest and get better today, but after my cold medicine finally kicked in 2 hours after i took it, i decided to tough it out. i do think things are moving in the right direction. i'm less foggy feeling than i have been, and my sinuses don't feel as heavy. my cough, however, has worsened, though my throat hurts less. so there's the daily update on my sickness. how very exciting, i know. i hope i'm all better by thursday for the corporate challenge and the weekend for camping.

monday tidbits

so i'm fighting off (with little success) this nasty head cold that had developed from those sniffles on friday. i've been severely congested with a sore throat (most likely secondary to sinus drainage - ewwwww), and a bit of a cough (that i think is secondary to the sore throat, thereby tertiary to sinus drainage, ewwwww, got that?). i thought i was going to DIE in the boringest meeting ever due to my discomfort this morning, so i just now ran out to buy some sudafed (not the wimpy over the counter crap, but the show- the- pharmacist- your- drivers- license- powerful- 12 hour- non- drowsy- sudafed- imitation- by- target). hopefully that kicks in soon and i can go about my day.

also my sister posted this website that you can find out what the billboard #1 song was the day you were born. mine was "le freak" by chic. awesome. at least i've heard of it. ah well, kind of a fun little distraction.

other than that, weather's a lot nicer today than for the cubs/sox game yesterday. heath and i braved the frigid temps for the first 7.5 innings. after pierzynski's grand slam, we decided that was enough and we should head for the train. it was one of our better decisions, as it was getting dark in the west and by the time we got back up to evanston and turned the game on the tv, a rain delay was in progress. apparently the heavens opened up and just duh-umped rain on the field in the top of the 9th. glad we missed that part and stayed dry. cold was bad enough; cold + soaking wet would've been miserable. dumbfounding that the weather was so great saturday (shorts and tshirts) and is great today, but when we have $$$ tickets to a ballgame, late november decides to stop by for a day. sheesh. love that chicago weather!

sniffles

how did i get the sniffles? i woke up feeling stuffy and my nose has been running all morning. what the heck? probably has something to do with the psychotic weather this week. we go from 90 degrees on monday to a frost advisory this morning. ahhhhh, chicago weather. hopefully it is nicer than expected this weekend. would be good to spend some time outdoors again without having to be completely bundled up.

i'm in the wrong industry

how simple is this? i could totally make this. it's not dissimilar from some reversible bags i sewed up for myself, jessie, and mindy several years ago. if anything, it's a less complex design! this chick that makes them wants $128 a pop for them, and it was featured on a relatively popular design/shopping blog, which means that people don't find the price unreasonable. they are just heavy cotton twill, with "cleverly" semi-matching fabrics, and couldn't have cost more than $25 for the materials, if the priciest fanciest materials were used. i'm wondering if i should start doing some sewing/textile stuff on the side and try to get stuff sold on etsy.com or something. i should try to come up with a few products/designs and give it a shot.

apple iRack

funny stuff...

the fairer sex

saw this article this evening. i didn't know this, but apparently 13 women underwent all the same tests in the 1960s as the male apollo astronauts, and were as qualified, if not better suited, to being astronauts. but being the 60s, they weren't allowed to be astronauts. amazing how recent it was that ovaries excluded you from certain career options. not that things are totally equal these days, but they're sure a lot better. reminds me of the line from last night's family guy. the tv reporter raises the questions on everybody's mind regarding lois's ability to be mayor: "...or is she just going to menstruate all over the city?"

jeans that fit

i lifted this from my cousin (2nd cousin?) wendy's myspace page. (can you tell it's very slow at work this morning?) there is a website www.zafu.com that will search for jeans that will fit your body type based on a few questions. i tried it out, and it's hard to say how accurate it is without actually going and trying on their suggestions, but definitely seems like it might be at least fairly valid. shopping for women's jeans can suck big time, so if this helps narrow the field, then hooray!

just in time for mother's day

saw this article today and thought my sister would appreciate it. it describes how becoming a mother enhances a woman's mental abilities.

Tired, overwhelmed women often feel as if having a baby causes their minds to turn to mush. Not so. In her book, The Mommy Brain, Katherine Ellison cites research showing motherhood makes women smarter and more mentally agile.

don't know if it's true or not, but it was pretty interesting and i thought i'd pass it along.

at least i didn't wait until tomorrow...

i went to target today to buy mother's day cards. ugh. it was a freakin zoo. there was this little boy basically flailing around on the ground in front of the display where i was standing. the woman next to me didn't seem to be noticing. i finally said to her, "is this your kid? i don't want to step on him." and she said that, yes, it was her son, and then said that maybe if i stepped on him, he'd learn not to be flailing on the ground like that.

...

uh... so, her parenting approach (gotta love the irony of her being in front of the mother's day cards) is for strangers to indirectly teach her brat kid lessons, so that she doesn't have to actively discipline him? right. the second i would've stepped on that kid's ankle, the woman would have been completely on my case for hurting her precious little angel. i was so shocked by her statement that i lost all focus on finding a card (not that i had any anyway trying to not step on her kid). so i relocated to another picked over section to search for cards that weren't too lame. finally had success, but needed to take an advil when i got back to work (partly due to inexplicably awful traffic today).

i've seen "passive" parenting before and been annoyed by it, but this was a new twist - a parent coming out and basically saying that she was indeed not actively parenting and was actually hoping that a stranger would step in to motivate a change in her child's behavior. wow.

random

i was looking at something related to grand rapids, mi today online and came across the official flag. i know it is meant to represent the calder sculpture and the grand river, but i can't help but think it looks sort of like a scary demented pacman.

what the hot?

i'm roasting! it's like 80 degrees right now and i'm sweltering in my apartment. what's up with that? i'm starting to go through and organize my clothes right now, including (ugh) sweaters, so it's going to get worse before it gets better for me tonight. i emptied my dresser drawers onto my bedroom floor, so it's a disaster in there at the moment. it will force me to go through everything, though, so it's an effective, if unruly, approach!

i'm back

back from ireland a bit early. due to a reaggravation of a hamstring injury and some problems with my bike, i headed home earlier than planned. i was also getting homesick, so it was good to get back. unfortunately, i'm also back at work, and i feel like i'm in office space...somebody has a case of the tuesdays... this woman in the cube next to mine is droning on a phone call and it's this weird combination of putting me to sleep and giving me a headache. where's my itunes? ok, that's better.

i managed to post my pictures on photobucket for the time being, but bear with me as they are pretty much out of order and not all clearly labeled. i also failed to rotate them all so they are oriented the same way, but most of them should be fine to check out.

everybody is so sad to see me back at work, and they feel bad that i had to cut the trip short, but i'm really okay with it. i still got to see a lot of really cool stuff and had a good time while i was there, so no need to feel like i missed half my trip or anything. coming home was the right decision. i would've been in pain and frustrated with my bike if i had stayed this week, too.

now that i'm back, i need to start really getting ready to move and going through all my stuff, throwing out/selling/giving away stuff i don't need or use. i also need to prime my walls back to white before i move out. rather than waiting until the last minute to take care of that stuff, i'm going to kind of spread it out over a couple weeks, maybe painting a couple nights a week, taking care of one room or so at a time. that should make it a lot more tolerable.

there is also a bunch of stuff to look forward to, as well, over the next several weeks. a couple of cubs game, a kane county cougars game, camping in warren dunes over memorial day, the corporate challenge, possibly a show or two at ravinia and probably some other things i'm forgetting.

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.

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.