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.

tiny = cute

even this page with a mini bagel recipe (which i want to try, maybe this weekend because yeah they do look good) admits tiny = cute. they also reference the site cuteoverload.com as a supportive of this notion. that site posts pictures of super cute little animals (mostly), a large number of which are cute primarily by virtue of their tiny size.

interestingly, i've had a number of conversations with various people lately about the whole tiny = cute thing. being not tiny, it definitely resonates. now, i know that you don't have to be tiny to be cute. that is, tiny is not a pre-requisite for cuteness. (i have to believe that; otherwise me and the rest of my amazonian family are scuh-rewed as far as cuteness is concerned). but it seems that anything (or anyone) tiny has a cuteness advantage, if you will. like, if cuteness were scored on a scale of 1-100, they would get to start with an extra 30 or so points, regardless of their "actual" (i.e., non-size related) cuteness.

so, that is why my sister and i emit a disdainful sigh when we see some cute tiny girl in her cute tiny clothes. it's not that we hate these girls or dislike ourselves, it's just that we are reminded of that point disadvantage that we were born into.

but we can totally reach the top shelves in the kitchen and kick those tiny cute people's butts in volleyball, so i guess it all evens out. plus, i'd rather be hot than cute. ha!

window or balcony

saw this on design*sponge this morning. it's a thingy called bloomframe that is both a window and a balcony. pretty cool idea. i can imagine this being great to use in a tiny space. anything to let the outdoors in a little more. they can add it to existing structures... i'm thinking my bedroom could use a balcony sometimes, since i have a nice woodsy view that i don't get to enjoy as much as would be ideal.

head. ache.

i got home and was happy to get my new memory card for my camera for my trip. it holds 1700 pics at the highest resolution i have, which i think will be plenty for sure. but...

i also got a letter from my health insurance company. apparently i was in the emergency room in a hospital in rockford, il (what the?) on feb 13th (huh?). this came as quite a surprise to me. i was nowhere near rockford on feb 13th, but my insurance was billed for $3100+ of emergency room charges. so i called my insurance company and they could, of course, do nothing for me. i called the hospital's billing department and didn't get a person, so left a voicemail. i'm not exactly holding my breath on getting a call back tonight. ugh. this is one of my biggest annoyances: when i have to take time out of my day and make a bunch of efforts to try to rectify some problem that i didn't have anything to do with. hopefully it gets resolved fairly easily - i've never had to deal with something like this before so it's totally unknown territory to me. i'm hoping that it was a simple clerical error rather than some huge fraud or identify theft. (knock on wood.)

parenting styles

i came across this article on yahoo! news this morning about how college students today are more narcissistic than those of previous generations. it's not surprising, and the article goes into how technology these days encourages self-centeredness and attention-seeking, which i definitely agree with. however, i think that it's a situation where certain areas of technology have grown (youtube, etc) because of the self-centeredness, rather than the idea that is is other way around (i.e., the technology leading to narcissistic views/behaviors).

it got me thinking... from my teenage years on, i would see children in stores, restaurants, etc. walking all over their parents. the kids always got their way, and the parents were hesitant to discipline them in any way (forget about a smack them on the butt) for fear of being seen as the enemy and having to deal with an unhappy kid. not shocking that these kids have tended to develop a monstrous sense of entitlement, which i think is definitely related to what the study found in terms of current college students' beliefs about their self-importance.

when i would see permissive parenting in action (ha), i remember repeatedly thinking about how my sister and i would never have gotten away with acting like that, particularly in public. we would have been promptly removed from the setting, told that how we were acting was unacceptable, and punished in some way. we likely cried, yelled at our parents, or even told them we hated them (sorry mom and dad), but it didn't damage us. we also were not brought up in the "everybody gets a trophy" world. we experienced loss and disappointment, which, while it must be difficult for parents to see their children go through, is important to learn about. we learned that we wouldn't always get what we wanted in life and how to cope with that. we learned humility and graciousness, and to be appreciative and thankful for what we had, rather than just expecting it to be given to us.

i don't know when the shift occurred from the authoritative parenting of my childhood to the more permissive style, but it seems to have been in the mid to late 80's. i'm hoping that others in my generation see the damage that exceedingly permissive parenting does and that, as a result, there is a swing back to more authoritative styles. i see more parents able to discipline their kids, and enough research and literature has come out about how parenting that combines love and limits (example here) is what is best for kids.

i'm planning on being a very loving and supportive parent when i have kids someday, and i completely believe in allowing children to have appropriate levels of independence and their own opinions, which they should feel they can share freely. but, there will definitely be rules and limits, which will be enforced.

i think my parents definitely brought us up right, and i hope that someday i can do the same for my kids.

decent day so far

today has started off pretty good. i'm most of the way recovered from being sick on friday and saturday, and feel rested and have a lot more energy than i did over the weekend. i also got told i look "super skinny" today, which made me feel good, though it may be mainly due to my not eating a lot over the weekend. it was definitely nice to hear either way. note to self: wear these pants more often.

the only frustrating thing right now is that there is a woman i work near who apparently thinks she works in isolation or that everybody in a 30 ft radius wants to hear her screen saver. usually she just cranks her music up way too loud so that we can all "enjoy" it (at least it's classical, so not intolerable). she just got a new screensaver, however, that has a delightful "chirping birds" sound effect. so, we all thought we were crazy hearing birds chirping, but soon figured out she was the culprit (as usual). it's like the people that leave their cell phones on super loud and leave them on their desks while away at meetings. i think the guy that does that is the same one i hear clipping his fingernails every so often.

shoe wheel

saw this on apartment therapy chicago. it's a storage wheel for your shoes, fits up to 30 pairs, and doesn't take up a lot of space. pretty cool, i thought, and probably much better than the laundry basket i pitch mine into at the end of the day. $65 at rakku designs.

addicted

yeah, i realized this morning that i'm now addicted to exercise. if i'm going to be addicted to something, at least it's something good for me. i'm to a point where if i go more than a day without doing something physical, my body gets mad at me and i feel lethargic, sick, and generally not myself -- withdrawal symptoms. i do need rest days here and there, which is fine, just not two days in a row with complete inactivity. i realize now that the source of my blah's yesterday was my relative laziness on monday and tuesday. i exercised last night and immediately felt much better, which has carried through to today. doesn't change my situation at work as far as feeling frustrated and bored, but at least it makes it more tolerable and helps me be more optimistic about making or finding some sort of change.

nikon s50c

i came across this camera this morning. it's soo cute and awesome. 7+ megapixels, all sorts of bells and whistles, it's teensy, and the coolest thing is that you can email pictures directly from the camera if you are in a wi-fi hotspot. this would be super cool for ireland if anybody is feeling insanely generous. :P it's about $350 from what i can tell.

modern + vintage

i'm obviously in the middle of browsing the design blogs i have bookmarked...

i saw this setup (from a display in a store called fresh kills featured on apartment therapy). I thought it was very cool looking, but probably a bit dark for my taste. i liked the curvy vintagey mirror in contrast with the clean lines of the modern/mid-century style couch. i tend to go for more modern designs, but really dislike the sterile look of all straight lines and minimalism. more visually interesting pieces like this mirror make a space feel more homey to me. i even think it serves to emphasize the lovely simplicity of the modern lines more than if those modern lines were surrounded and accented with more modern lines.

manly

saw this over on uncrate and thought it was cute/funny. this keychain is designed off the molecular structure of testosterone. pretty clever. struck me as appropriate given the recent exchange i had with my sister regarding manliness. while it is by definition manly, i don't think that this trumps the fundamental equation we derived (beer = man), particularly since a guy probably should not be trying to prove his manliness via a shiny keychain. also available in serotonin, with necklaces/earrings in caffeine, dopamine, acetylcholine, and estrogen. they maybe, just maybe, took this too far. i really shouldn't have dug around even that much. all sorts of nerdy stuffs on that site. at first glance too nerdy even for me, though i bet i could find something to buy.

tony blair

here is a little eye candy for my sister, who thinks tony blair is hot. i saw it and thought he looked pretty good, if a bit like an opera singer.

blah

for whatever reason, i really didn't feel like coming into work today. i think it's because things are slow, so i get quite bored. i'd rather be drowning in work at this point. something needs to change. i have my annual review with my boss tomorrow, so maybe something will come up then.

panniers

i'm torn regarding which blog this goes on. it's sort of related to training, but not for triathlon. i would say it falls more under "personal," so it's going here. i ordered my panniers for my trip to ireland. these bags will have to hold all my stuff for two weeks - eek! they come in a pair and attach to each side of a rear rack installed on the bike. they also have a shoulder strap and unhook from the rack easily, which will be nice and easy for when we have to unload for the night. i think the yellow will look way nice with the maroon bike i'm taking. they are so waterproof that they can be submerged completely underwater and your stuff will still stay dry! they weren't the cheapest panniers i found, but i figured i might as well just invest in good ones that will last a lifetime or two. ortliebs seem to get great reviews among experienced tourers. i, of course, scrounged the internet for the best deal, and wayne (www.thetouringstore.com) had the best prices by far. i got the last set of yellows in the '06 closeout "bin." he is super nice, you call the 800 number on his website to reach him. he was driving when i called, pulled over, and took my order right there on the spot. i love the mix of high tech internety stuff and low tech pen and paper order taking. i can't wait to get the bags and start really thinking about what i can and can't take along.

super clearance

i'm so proud of my bargain radar. i went over to rei (i could spend hours there) at lunch today to check out some panniers and other accessories for my trip to ireland in april/may, and came back with some good finds. i found some cycling shorts that i had been eyeing online. they were on sale online (and i'd link them but i can't find them on the website), but were on "super-clearance" at the store. originally $55, but i got the black pair for $20ish and the blue pair for $15ish. yes, i bought both colors. when you find a deal like that, you gotta buy both. they are mountain bike type shorts so they have the chamois and compression shorts underneath a baggier short. they will be nice for ireland since i probably won't feel like being in tighty shorts in every town we visit. they might even look good with my new cannondale cycling shirts i got for $10 (marked down from $60, yes i'm bragging here) from nashbar. also got a cutesy knit ski cap (also on super clearance).

cleverest

saw a great vanity plate today in the parking garage at work on my way in from lunch. it just said "my plate." kudos on your cleverness, whoever you are. stuff like that just makes me smile.

hey oh!

snowy snowy here in chicagoland today. the plows can't keep up and the drive in to work took me 3x what it normally does. on a positive note, we get to get out early so we can hopefully have a bit of an easier commute home. i'm supposed to drive up to swimming practice at 7:30 tonight, but unless something changes significantly, i don't think i'll be going. not worth the horrid drive. i'll swim on my own tomorrow or something.

robot valentines

saw these today on notmartha. thought it was too cute to not post. you can just download the adobe file and print them off yourself. the designs are simple and clever. from whirr.

bike chain bottle opener

how cute! the bottle opener handle is made out of a recycled (and cleaned haha) bike chain. the one pictured is their special valentine's day version, but they have regular ones all the time. from elsewares.

eternal embrace

i'm blogging like a nut today, i know...
i saw this picture and how perfect as we approach valentine's day, though i suppose it is a bit morbid. these hugging skeletons were found on an archaeological dig in italy. they are trying to figure out how long they have been buried and how old they were when they died. it is a very unique finding and the pictures are pretty amazing.

note to self

next time i need a flexible curtain solution, this is definitely the ticket. it is a telescoping rod system that goes floor to ceiling with an adjustable arm that you can hang a panel on. this way, there is no drilling, no holes, no worrying about where or how to mount hardware. it's not super cheap, but isn't outrageous, especially considering the flexibility. this could be used to divide up a room as well, though you would likely need to purchase several. overall, a very clever idea. found on better living through design.

help me raise money

if you have been following my other blog at all, you know that i am going to be raising money for the leukemia and lymphoma socity as a participant with team in training. links and info are available on my other blog. my fundraising page is set up now, and i wanted to post the link here. if you are able to post the link on a blog, or in your email signature or in some other way pass the information along so i can try to make my fundraising goal. the earlier i make it, the better! thanks!

phil is a liar

so much for early spring. we are getting snowed on here today, they said 3 inches, but it's going to be more and the commute tonight is going to be no fun. not nearly as much as the other side of the lake, but enough to clog the tollways and send cars into other cars. oh joy. and i have to go back out at 6:30 to attend a clinic/meeting thing. hopefully my car and i will both make it back in one chilly piece.

duh bears

it's a sad cold day in chicago. not only has it been negative a million degrees that past few days, but the bears had a horrible sad depressing game yesterday in miami. there are no words. you all know what happened, so i don't need to go into any detail about dropped snaps, bad throws, etc etc etc, but needless to say it was a long drive home. um, yeah not much else to say. i do like peyton manning, though, so it was good to see him win. only wish it hadn't been against the bears.

ireland

i'm so excited! i just got approval from my boss to take two weeks off at the end of april - beginning of may to go to ireland. my friend and i will by cycling the irish countryside, staying in hostels and bed and breakfasts, eating and drinking at pubs and just enjoying ourselves. i've never been overseas before and ireland has always been in my top 5 places i'd like to visit, so needless to say, i'm ecstatic. i kept trying to convince myself to go ahead with it, and finally a coworker was like, "stop trying to sell yourself on it. just go." i'm so glad for the opportunity and am already thinking about what to pack. i'll need to pack light since i'll be carrying everything on my bike with me!

update: tickets bought! flying out on april 28th and returning may 13th. window seats each way. sorry i won't be around for your birthday, mindy, but i'm counting on a souvenir making up for it!