June 2004 Archives

When I was a co-op, awards were given out at the end of every semester for good performance. You had to be nominated by your mentor, and out of six co-op tours, I only got one award; it was from the group I now work for full-time. There are various reasons that I didn't get more (mainly due to the timing differences between the normal co-op semester schedule and Georgia Tech's adherance to the quarter system), and so it never bothered me very much. But I was always a little disappointed that I didn't get a Flag Award.

There were two levels of co-op award. The higher one was a $500 bonus and a certificate; the lower was a certificate with a small American flag that had flown in space aboard the shuttle. The one award I got was the higher level, and while I appreciated the money greatly, it would have been cool to get a space-flown flag.

This afternoon in a casual awards presentation, all of my coworkers and I received a JSC Group Achievement Award for our work on the STS-107 Early Sightings Assessment Team. This is the team that investigated all the sighting reports, pictures, and video from Columbia's reentry, and produced the debris footprints and searched the radar for falling debris.

In addition, most of us who had committed considerable time to the investigation received a Spaceflight Awareness Team Award. Today I finally got a flag! On my certificate is an "Endeavour" shuttle flag that flew on STS-113, the last mission before the accident. I also got a pin that flew on the same mission.

How cool!

I don't have any solid reason for it, but Moises Alou drives me up the wall. I really hate him. Despite the fact that he is indeed a good baseball player, he gets under my skin and just generally annoys me. It bothers me that people cheer for him by going "ALOOOOOOUUUUUU" which sounds like "BOOOOOOOO." I think he's rude, and has a funny batting stance, and he's a big crybaby.

Case in point -- last night my little Adam Everett hit a ball way out into left field, whereupon Alou accidentally knocked it with his glove, sending it into the infamous Wrigley Field ivy. He glanced down for a moment before standing up and signaling for a ground rule double, despite the fact that (as validated by TV cameras and pointed out repeatedly on Sportscenter last night) THE BALL WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! Fortunately the umpires realized this, and Everett scored on a double plus two-base error. After the game, Alou even said "I didn't know the rule. I don't know any of the rules. That's why I can't manage when I retire."

Dude. He just irks me.

I was at work late last night to get some extra hours. I was feeling pretty proud of my 9.5 hour day until Carter mentioned that he'd worked 13. Well then. He wins, but on the other hand, I hope I never have to work a 13-hour day. People who work that much make me worry. Today I plan on going home at a much more reasonable hour; however, I did get in at 7:30 so that I can leave at 5 and still have 9 hours. It's all part of an effort to save a few annual leave hours here and there, since my planned vacation for the year is about two days over the limit at the moment!

I came home last night and had planned to run 6 miles, but it started to drizzle, and the idea of running in the rain didn't really appeal to me. I was going to do the elliptical, but was talked into the treadmill. As if I haven't said it before, I will remind everyone that I despise the treadmill. It makes my legs hurt and leaves my kness sore, despite all the articles I've read that says treadmill running is easier than outdoors. I knew I would never stick with it through 6 miles, so I compromised and told myself that I could only run 3 miles if I made them really count. So I did my first ever "hill" run in Houston. I warmed up, then ran 2-4 minute intervals at 5-6.5 percent grade. It was tough! Hills suck.

I also realized that walking on the treadmill with a loaded backpack at maximum grade (15 percent) would probably be a really good Longs Peak prep workout. I may try that.

Starbucks is coming out with "light" versions of their Frappuchinos, and I ended up on their website looking at the nutritional info for my 3 usual beverages. Turns out that my grande mocha frappuchino (always without whipped cream) is not as bad as I thought--290 calories, 4 grams of fat. That's not great, but not horrible either. The whipped cream is where your diet really goes downhill, and I always leave that off because I don't like it. Score. A grande cafe mocha is 300 calories, 12 grams of fat (eek). A grande cappuchino, however, is the best at only 100 calories, and no fat. Knowing that, I'm now much more likely to get a cappuchino than a mocha. And I doubt I will be having any more of those blended ones (mmm, strawberry), knowing that there are 320 calories even in the smallest, no whip order.

I wonder how they calculate nutritional information. I have always wondered. I should look it up.

And finally, after seven years of drifting along through empty space, Cassini arrives at Saturn today. How exciting!

Planning a "simple" group trip to climb Longs Peak is more complicated than I expected. It's not that there are any major issues...it's more that it's just hard to work out the nitty gritty details (like arrival times, departure times, who wants to share a tent, who wants to eat what on the trail) for eight individuals. But plans are starting to come together. We have a place (or, rather, campsite) to stay each night, and I think we will have enough of the necessary equipment (tents, etc) to go around. Next up is figuring out dates and times for everyone to buy plane tickets. Whew.

I have to go take Mom to the airport in about an hour. We went out to dinner last night with Gavin, Jen, Becca, Chris, and Ignacio, and that was nice. I think she enjoys meeting my friends, and why shouldn't she? They're all cool people. Anyway, it has been really nice having Mom here. I don't know what we did before cell phones, but now that I talk to my parents so often, I sort of forget that I only see them in person twice a year. I hadn't seen Mom since Christmas, and probably won't see her again until next Christmas. But I'm glad she came to visit. Of course, now that she's leaving I will have time to exercise, and I won't eat out every meal (I think I've gained back each of the 5 pounds I'd lost in the previous month)....but still. Moms are good.

I have no big plans for tonight or tomorrow, which is probably good, since I need to catch up on sleep before going to Atlanta for the weekend. Tonight I may try to run 6 miles, just to reassure myself that I haven't lost the ability to complete at 10K... Well, I mean, I know I can run it, but I'm concerned that it might take me an hour and a half... Well, ok, not that long, but a long time.

OH! I forgot to mention that while Mom and I were pulling into the parking deck at the Galleria on Saturday, Jen called with the great news that plane tickets from Houston to Lima (Peru!) for our trip dates had fallen to $625. "Buy!" I said excitedly, as if Jen needed the motivation. So buy she did, and we have tickets to Peru for August 29 through September 6.

Yay!

Biggest sign that your fantasy baseball team totally sucks: in two days, they score 20 runs, hit 9 homers, rack up 30 RBIs, steal 2 bases...and they're still in 9th place by 11.5 points.

My mom and I had a nice relaxing weekend that consisted of shopping and more shopping, which in itself was pretty strange since neither of us are big shoppers. We went to the Galleria on Saturday and walked around for a while, and went into lots of stores, but only bought anything at Eddie Bauer. I tried on tons of pairs of khaki pants (I need a new pair for work) without any luck. Either I am too picky, or my body is too oddly shaped. Probably a bit of both! We also stopped by REI to exchange some socks, and made a detour on the way home to a teacher supply store. My mom spent an hour looking at all the teacher supplies, and wished there were one of the stores in Charlotte. That night we had dinner with Becca.

Yesterday we ran some more errands around Clear Lake, including a trip to Walmart for a cool sunshade for my car, and a trip to Lowe's to get a plant to put next to my front door. Mom decided that I needed something to distinguish my apartment from all the other boring brown doors, so now I have a lovely plant in a fake clay pot. It is awesome having your mom come visit, because she buys you plants. :) We also did just a bit of geocaching, since Mom was curious to see what that was all about. We had a yummy dinner at Saltgrass and then home again, home again.

Last night after stuffing myself with Saltgrass steak, I remembered that I am running a 10K on Sunday. I haven't run a 10K since March. Yikes.

Major Astros news today, for those of you who are living in a hole: last night in the middle of the game, they traded closer Octavio Dotel and minor-league catcher John Buck to the Royals for center-fielder Carlos Beltran. (Kansas City then immediately traded Dotel to the A's for a third base prospect and a pitcher.)

Mom and Jason and I were at the game last night, and around the 5th inning, while the Astros were up to bat, I looked in the dugout and noticed that there was practically no one there. The Astros were batting, but there were only about 6 people in the dugout. Weird, I thought, and commented to Jason.

A few innings later, the announcer alerted the fans to the trade. Turns out that the dugout was empty because the players were going into the clubhouse to say goodbye to Dotel before he left for the last time.

I'm excited about the trade, and the possibilities, but also a little worried. The Astros likely won't resign Beltran at the end of the year, so basically we traded Dotel for half a year of Carlos Beltran. Astros owner Drayton McLane is channeling Steinbrenner for the year, going out and buying what he thinks he needs for the Astros to win a World Series. I don't really know if that is the best method or not. If Lidge can close games as well as he did last night (9 pitches, 8 were strikes, 2 strikeouts), then we'll be ok without Dotel.

I don't have the heart to ever be a baseball businessperson though. Dotel's leaving makes me sad. I liked him.

So that's the big Astros news and I hope it works out well for the team. In the meantime, my Mom arrived last night. Hooray for Mom!

Carter called last night to say that he'd just run for 55 minutes and would have no problem making the Peachtree distance next weekend. This is good for him, but bad for me, since I will probably be slowing him down. I can run either fast or long, but not both. :)

After the conversation though, I fell asleep and dreamed that I was running in the Peachtree with Jen O., and we started ahead of the first wave. So I kept looking behind me and seeing a pack of tall, skinny Kenyans catching up to us. They passed us in a cloud of dust, a la that Nike commercial with all the people running through the plains, and Jen and I tried to keep up, but failed miserably. And all the while, I was trying to find Carter, who for whatever reason hadn't started the race with us.

Anyway.

The rain continues here in Houston. I like thunderstorms, but this is getting ridiculous. This morning the guards had closed the front gate down to only one lane of traffic. I can only assume it was because of the rain and lightning, but it was pretty annoying because traffic was backing up on Saturn and it wasn't even 8:00 yet (and thus not quite yet the busiest part of the morning). I feel sorry for the security guys having to stand out in the rain, but they do have super rain suits, and I don't see how causing traffic to back up on the main road makes anything better.

Mom is flying in this afternoon, so I hope the thunderstorms break at least long enough for her plane to make it in without major delay. In preparation for her visit, I stayed up late last night cleaning the apartment; there's nothing like the impending arrival of a parent to put me in cleaning mode. :) The bathroom is all shiny, the carpet is freshly vacuumed, and I threw away a whole trash bag of magazines and papers that had been piling up. Piles of paper are my arch-nemesis in the world of cleaning. I attack them and win the battle, but they always come back; the war never ends. In any case, my apartment hasn't looked this good since I moved in!! Seriously. I hope I can keep it even half as clean after Mom leaves.

I have All-Star tickets!

They came in the mail yesterday. They are big and colorful and beautiful and suitable for framing. (Seriously, there's a little note that says if you want to frame them, just take the entire sheet to the park instead of tearing off the individual tickets. I mean, I had never even thought about framing them but now I feel a strange need to do so.) And they are mine. No, you cannot have them. No, you cannot buy them from me. They are mine, and I will be sitting there with Jason and Chris in section 309 watching the Futures Game and Celebrity Softball Game on July 11, the Home Run Derby on July 12, and the All-Star Game on July 13.

Woohoo!

Went to Minute Maid last night for the fourth time in a week (though it was Jason's sixth time in a week), and finally saw the Astros win one, 5-4 over the Pirates. It was pretty exciting, with two big triples driving in most of the Astros' runs. You don't see triples very often. Neat.

The most unexpected side effect (side effect isn't quite the right wording, but oh well) of having season tickets, even the mini plan that's "only" 27 games, is that we are all getting sick of stadium food. We never have time to eat dinner at home, since we basically go straight from work to the ballpark, and the fajita wraps, nachos, hot dogs, pizza, and potatoes are starting to get really old. Last night Chris and I were lamenting the menu's lack of anything even remotely healthy. Jason and I have had a thing for ice cream lately though...

The other funny thing is that the food doesn't seem quite so expensive when you're not paying for your ticket. I mean, of course we paid for our tickets, but that money was spent back in February, and so it sort of feels like I'm constantly going to Astros games for free. And if I'm going for free, I don't feel so cheated by having to spend $4 on a Coke and $6.50 on some semblance of a meal.

Yeah. I know it doesn't make sense if you think about it, but whatever.

Wow! So many posts from me today! Anyway, Irwin was in town over the weekend and brought his really, really cool tablet PC. You just flip the screen around, and there was a plastic pen, and I got to draw fun pictures! Here are my sketches of Jo, Becca, and the classic "Jailbird Gavin."

Katie and Joel are in France for the summer, and posting pictures. This past weekend they went to Paris. Ah, Paris. Here are two pictures that I liked:

Yep. That's my future brother-in-law. What a weirdo.

I have been really good about exercising for the past couple weeks. My weight has been creeping up ever since mid-February, when I got so sick after the half marathon in Austin. I didn't exercise while I was sick, and was slow to get back into a regular schedule. When I did do something, it was a soccer game, or swimming, or bike riding--mostly bike riding, as I prepared for the MS150. I haven't been running much, and the heat this summer is getting to me more than in the past, which will make the Peachtree interesting on the 4th.

But the past couple weeks I've been really good about working out, because I want to lose the 5 pounds I've gained since February, and hopefully 5 more. Marty was tallying calories at coke break one day (he's big into weight lifting and counts his calories religiously), so I had him add mine up. By coke break, I had already had almost 1600 calories! And I hadn't eaten dinner yet! What can I say--I like food.

So. I just have to be diligent in my exercise planning to make sure it actually happens. Last night I was going to sit at home, still sore from Saturday's adventure race, but I know I won't get any exercise tonight because we're going to the baseball game. So I dragged myself to the elliptical machine for half an hour. I watched the Astros while I ellipticalled. They went down 4-0, but rallied for the 7-5 win once I was back in my apartment watching the end. It was nice to see them come from behind for the first time in what feels like forever.

The toughest part about trying to lose this 5 pounds is staying away from Jo's candy drawer in the afternoons. Mmm, candy. I have no willpower.

Jen wrote up a trip report from the Jen-Gavin-Becca trip to Colorado, and I posted it for her here. You can all go read it and join me in being jealous that they got to go hike in the mountains while I was doing a triathlon in freaking hot Austin. :)

You have my postcard wrong. Or, at the very least, you could correct it for me before putting it up for all and sundry to see (thanks, by the way, so now everyone thinks I'm a lush ;). As in fixing "greeting" to "greetings" and "mine" to "wine" (I am pretty sure, at least, that I wrote "wine" even if it looks like "mine").

Cari

Ok, to be fair, turns out that I did accidentally mistype "Greeting!" instead of "Greetings!" and the "mine" could maybe be "wine" upon closer inspection of the postcard. But still. Cari is funny. Hee hee hee.

Dude. I had been feeling sort of uninspired by the whole SpaceShipOne thing, but then it landed. And it was being towed off the runway by an ordinary pickup truck! And the pilot was sticking his arm out a tiny window and waving and giving a thumbs up! And then he just hopped out and started talking to the press! That is cool. Spaceflight gets such a reputation for being complicated that it's nice to see proof that it can be simpler, if not easier.

Anyway. Cool.

I had a fairly uneventful weekend. On Saturday morning, Debbie and I did an adventure race at Jack Brooks Park, about halfway between here and Galveston. The race advertised itself as being beginner-friendly, but it was mostly experienced teams, and we finished only a few seconds in front of the last place team. It was about 2 miles of trail running, followed by a ~4 mile mountain bike loop, followed by maybe 1.5 miles of paddling in an inflatable canoe, followed by another mountain bike lap. The winners finished in an hour and 44 minutes; we finished in 3:27. The paddling was the hardest part, as neither Debbie or I are experienced canoe-ers, and the distance we had to paddle was longer than expected. They'd advertised it as a 30-40 minute paddle and it took us over an hour. There was also a disappointing lack of mystery challenges, which was what had made the adventure race we did last fall so much fun. I don't think we'll be doing this one again.

Yesterday I stayed home to do some cleaning, because my mom is coming to visit on Thursday. Yay! I got a lot done, despite being very sore from the race. Sitting down and standing up was evil on my quads, and my arms hurt something awful from the paddling. I hadn't expected to be so sore, but I guess the length of the race and the heat of the day really took it out of me.

Jason and Debbie went to the Astros game yesterday 4 hours early to attend FujiFilm day or something, where they got to take pictures with all the Astros. It was originally supposed to be a big group for Jason's birthday, but the game sold out before we got tickets, so that plan fell through. I thought about going (Jason and Debbie just bought single-seat tickets and ended up sitting wherever they could find), but decided against it because 1) I wanted to sleep in and 2) I actually didn't care that much about getting my picture taken with the Astros. The only thing I missed, however, was getting my picture with dopey-eared shortstop Adam Everett, who I happen to find really cute in that dorky sort of way. I always go for the dorky looking ones. Say what you will, but I think Adam is so cute. :) Fortunately, Debbie got to see him for me.

Last night we had another soccer game. I've about had it with my team. At 5:00, the scheduled start time, we had three players there. Three. We waited until 5:30, thanks to the other team being extremely patient and wanting to simply play, since we'd driven all the way to Texas City, at which point we had 8 players and could at least start the game. By the second half, we had a full team of 11, but of course we lost anyway. It's pathetic that our team can't manage to show up on time. It's pathetic that even when we play, we can't play as a group and thus we lose. I don't really know what to do, short of jumping ship and joining one of the other women's teams. Sigh. I don't play to win, really; I just play to have fun, and because I enjoy soccer. But this is getting ridiculous.

So everyone went down to lunch today and left me here. Obviously I wasn't paying attention, as I didn't realize that no one was here until about 5 minutes ago. But you'd think they would think to say "hey Sarah, let's go." Oh well. I have to pick up Katie and Fred from the airport this afternoon, so I guess I'll just eat at my desk and get the extra half hour.

So, if you're interested, there's a bunch of people out in the Mojave at this very moment trying to make spaceflight history. Fun stuff.

I love having both a sister (Katie) and a friend (Cari) living in Europe at the moment, mainly because it means that I get a lot of postcards. I adore getting postcards. I have one of those French memo board things specifically for postcards, and it's already two layers thick.

Katie's first card arrived from Cologne on Thursday, and Cari's latest postcard is from Neuschwanstein in Germany. Becca and I went there three years ago. The card made me laugh:

Dear Sarah,

Love, Cari

It has been a long week, and I'm glad it's Friday. Today turned out well. We had a meeting this afternoon with some EX and EG guys to talk about our ideas for using neural networks as an abort determiner (or determinator as some call it, but Grammar Girl maintains that determiner is the correct word) for the 2009 Mars mission. It is a cool idea, and I presented our charts on it. I'm not very good at giving the presentation yet, because I am still learning about neural nets and how we plan to use them myself, but fortunately I had a lot of backup at the meeting. And it was less of a presentation than a roundtable discussion.

Kara, our co-op from last fall, proved that neural networks could work as an abort determiner, but she was only studying a very specific case--trying to land during a severe dust storm on Mars. So this summer it is my job to broaden the scope of the project. Anyway, the end result of today's meeting is that they want us to continue developing the neural network technology and revisit the problem in a few months to see how it's doing with a broader range of Mars entry trajectories.

So. I know what I will be doing at work for a while now, and that's a good thing. As I learn more about neural networks, I realize that they are really pretty interesting, and so even though it's more code, maybe it won't be so bad. And, I get to write the code, rather than just debug endlessly.

I'm pooped. Time to go home.

It is nasty hot outside this morning. The humidity is such that it is hard to breathe, leaving me feeling suffocated by the thick and heavy air.

I walked into the office, and though the air is clearer in here, the feeling of just being stifled didn't go away. I am frustrated with work, and with tasks that are assigned to me but that I just don't understand. I lament not getting anything new to work on, and yet I can't seem to get anything done on my current projects. No wonder they don't want to assign me to anything else.

Last night I picked up Irwin from the airport, and since Debbie and I didn't go kayaking, I ended up sitting with him at the beach club watching the sailboat races and then, once Becca finished, going out to dinner with them at Mely's. It was a good night, but I'm in a weird mood, and when I got home just after 9:00, I was desperate for a run.

Let's just say that running after dinner at Mely's and one of their famously strong margaritas was not the best idea I've ever had. I made it through 5 kilometers, but slowly, and with much stomach discomfort.

My sister posted the link to this 80s music quiz on her site. It is really fun to take, especially if you're a child of the 80s like me. I have to admit that I didn't do that well (end score of 69.5), but I offer two reasons: first, I didn't listen to much radio in the 80s and when I did, it was whatever easy listening station my mom had on, and second, I've never been good at calling up song lyrics without the music that goes with them. On a lot of these, I couldn't quite get the correct answer but once I scored the quiz and saw the whole line, I could immediately start humming the tune.

Just the way my brain works, I guess. Without the music, I don't remember the lyrics nearly as well.

Last night the Astros gave away the baseball game. It was incredibly frustrating to be in the stands, surrounded by the Cubs fans that seem to pop up everywhere (now I understand how people are often annoyed by the numbers of Braves fans everywhere; thank WGN and TBS for that, I guess), and watching the Astros leave twelve men on base. Dotel took the blown save, although all three of his runs were unearned due to Lance Berkman's catching error to open the ninth. The really sad part is that Wade Miller pitched great, and really deserved the win. Instead, he got a no-decision, and the Astros dropped their second game in a row to the Cubs. Hopefully they'll win tonight and tomorrow to split the series. Though I'm sure Christina and Ben are happy about the past couple days...

It took me all afternoon yesterday (not to mention multiple days a few weeks ago), but I finally pinned down part of the problem in my sim. Thank god. It doesn't exactly make me happy, because the damn thing still doesn't work entirely as it should, but at least it's a step in the right direction. As I was saying to Jen last week, it wouldn't be so bad if I were 1) writing my own code or 2) debugging my own code. But I'm 1) trying to fix someone else's code and 2) trying to debug someone else's code. From my limited experience with code, I am convinced that no two people ever think about it in exactly the same way, thus making it exasperating for me to try and interpret someone else's stuff, much less fix it.

You'd think I'd be happy to find a bug that at least two other people haven't noticed. Instead, I'm just annoyed.

And so it goes. I'm picking up Irwin from the airport tonight since Becca is sailing, and then Debbie and I are going kayaking in her Walmart inflatable kayak. If it doesn't continue to thunderstorm, that is...

We are having an unusual morning thunderstorm. There were dark clouds and lightning all around as I drove to work. Maybe the weather had something to do with my bad dream last night. It was the second bad dream I've had in three days now, which is pretty strange.

On Saturday night in the hotel in Austin, I dreamed that my parents' house burned down. I know that's a fairly common dream, but I can't say I've ever had it before. I chalked it up to the fact that we all slept horribly in that hotel room, waking up every hour or so until we were all thinking "ugh, isn't it morning yet?? I can't sleep!" If any of us had known that any of the others was having the same trouble sleeping, we would've just gotten up and had a little party or something. The room had some kind of bad karma. Seriously.

But last night I dreamed about another shuttle accident, which really freaked me out. The accident was caused when the orbiter was hit by a mattress (yes, a bed mattress) that fell out of the sky, which of course is bizarre and impossible, but when you're dreaming you don't recognize things like that. The astronauts managed to bail out and survive, while the orbiter landed intact (tank, boosters, and everything still attached) on the deck of some tall office building and teetered back and forth like a see-saw. Also bizarre, but again, didn't realize that while asleep. So I was totally freaking out, and woke up all in a tizzy, heart pounding, only to realize that it was still dark out and I was still in bed.

Whew.

After a three week break, we finally get back to our baseball season tickets with a vengeance this week. We have tickets to the Astros vs. Cubs tonight and Thursday, and vs. Angels on Saturday. And only one month until the All-Star Game!

I posted the triathlon results last night (see below). James left a comment on the entry, saying "It's funny that Laurie's run time was so good, but you still beat her by seven minutes. I guess swimmers always are favored in triathalons." It was an interesting comment, so I thought about it for a minute.

But nah. It just looks that way because I didn't show the whole story.

Triathlons don't favor any particular discipline; they favor the person who can be nearly the best in all three. For reference, take a look at the breakdown for the top three finishers yesterday. The winner (1:05:23) was 23rd in the swim, 3rd in the bike, and 2nd in the run. Second place (1:06:22) was 15th, 2nd, and 7th. Third place (1:09:41) was 14th, 6th, and 10th. It's all about having the best balance of very fast times.

Or, you can look at it this way, as Jen put it in an email: "If the swim takes ~15 minutes for a very good swimmer and the run takes about ~20 minutes for a very good runner, then the run is more important because it lasts longer. Therefore, someone who does 10% worse in the run will lose more time than the same in the swim." That argument makes sense to me, and indicates by extension that the bike may actually be the most crucial part. The winners do the swim in 12-13 minutes, the bike in 31-33 minutes, and the run in 18-20 minutes.

You can be a great swimmer (like me) but if you can't be competitive on the run, you won't win; you can be a great runner (like Laurie), but if you can't be competitive on the swim, you won't win. Laurie beat me by 11.5 minutes on the run (25:00 as opposed to my sluggish 36:31), but I beat her by 12 minutes on the swim, 5+ minutes on the bike, and about 2 minutes in the transitions. I stayed ahead of her only because I'd built a lead in the first two disciplines. If the run had been longer (say, a 10K), she would have passed me. Even my advantage from the swim and bike wouldn't have kept me ahead of her if she'd had more time to run.

That said, the swim does seem to be the portion that either makes or breaks the "casual" racers like me. Everyone knows how to run and learns how to ride a bike, but not everyone is taught how to swim. I also think that being in the water is scary to people who didn't grow up around water; there is an element of unpredictability about it, especially when swimming in a open water where everything is murky, you can't see the bottom, and have no black line to follow or use as a point of reference. The water makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I think swimming is a skill that you have to learn and practice, just like riding a bike. The only difference is that going to swimming lessons isn't as common as going out on the sidewalk with your dad so he can let go of the bike while you aren't looking and thus teach you how to ride.

I've done three triathlons now, and at each one you see people who look more like they're fighting the water than gliding through it. Of course, you also see people that look like they've never been on a bike before, or people (like me) who are barely shuffling along at a jog. But just as with biking and running, some people will be naturally good at swimming, and I think I'm in that lucky category of being somewhat of a natural swimmer...which, for the record, is only fair since I'm definitely not a natural runner!! :)

In any case, the fact that the swim is my strongest discipline is a bit unusual.

        Last Year   This Year
        ----------- -----------
SWIM    18:40       17:33
        (439/2374)  (276/2724)
T1      6:20        4:39
BIKE    50:41       46:19
        (1104/2374) (790/2724)
T2      2:51        2:13
RUN     38:22       36:31
        (1612/2374) (1488/2724)
        ----------- -----------
OVERALL 1:56:56     1:47:17
        (1214/2374) (807/2724)

The triathlon went very well this morning. Last night I told Laurie and Buzz that my goal was 1:50:00, and that if I was having a very good day, 1:45:00. I had hoped to go faster in the run, but forgot about how hilly the course was, and was pretty darn tired. But I improved my time on every single portion of the race, and improved my total time by almost 10 minutes. And I am ecstatic about it. :)

The triathlon series spokesperson had a mantra that she has everyone repeat as we're in the water counting down the final couple minutes until we start. With each stroke, you tell yourself: I. Am. A. Great. Swimmer! Out of 2700+ racers, my swim time was in the top 300. That is pretty darn cool.

Laurie and Buzz both did awesome as well, crossing the line in 1:54:12 and Buzz in 2:21:36. Laurie was 79th (yes, 79 out of 2724) in the run. She's crazy fast.

I looked up tonight as I was finishing my swim to see a long wandering line of wispy clouds lit by the setting sun, and glowing orange against the blue of the sky. I was done with my laps and catching my breath from going just over a mile in the water, so I sat in the pool for a moment, transfixed by the orange of the clouds, the blue of the sky, the green of the palm trees and the pink of my apartment complex.

I spent too much money today, but got a lot of things I'm looking forward to using. A sleeping bag for the Longs Peak trip is in my living room right next to a new book from Barnes and Noble. A new mountain bike is in my garage. And a couple of DVDs and a few camping supplies are on their way from online merchants. If I had a million dollars at the moment, I could probably spend it entirely on athletic and camping equipment.

I talked to Jen this afternoon, and it was oh so nice. I have never been a phone person, and with so many of my friends blogging regularly, it is all too easy to keep up with their lives remotely, but simply reading what they write. It was good to talk on the phone though. Jen is one of those friends that I can come back to and forget that it's been months since we spoke, because it is easy to talk to her. It is good to have friends like that.

It's been a good day.

I was only two years old when Ronald Reagan was elected, and only ten when he left office. I don't follow politics closely now, and I certainly didn't when I was a child. My only vivid memories of world events in the 1980s are the Challenger accident and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and I remember more about Mikhail Gorbachev than Reagan. But I suppose that each of those can be traced to President Reagan, in his speech after the loss of the astronauts, and his work to end the Cold War (despite having left office by the time the wall actually fell), and his meetings with Gorbachev while establishing a relationship with the Soviet Union.

He looked like a movie star, and according to those who knew him, put people instantly at ease with a joke or a smile. And while watching the funeral this morning, on my unexpected federal holiday, even though I never knew him and don't really remember his presidency, it was impossible not to like him.

With so many world leaders and familiar faces together in one place, I have to wonder about the person they are all there to honor, and wish that he hadn't been quite so before my time. Amid the pomp and ceremony and quiet formality that constitutes a state funeral, it was impossible not to feel sad.

I decided while on vacation that I should try to start coming to work at 8:00. That's only a half hour earlier than I usually get in, which only means getting up when the alarm goes off instead of snoozing three times, but being here at 8 means I can leave at 4:30 instead of 5. At the end of the day, that final half hour feels like an eternity.

So this week I've been very diligent about getting in by 8:00, and it really does make a difference. Yesterday I was home in time to go on a 15-mile bike ride, shower, get a pedicure with Jo, pick up Quizno's for dinner, watch some baseball, talk to Carter for a while, load his Chicago pictures into my gallery, finish my May issue of Outside, and go to bed. Wow! I managed to do all that after work!

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with my day off tomorrow. I may try to round up the remaining things I need for the Longs Peak trip, which might but hopefully won't involve a trip all the way back up to REI again. Though I have been wanting to go to IKEA for a while now anyway, and that's in the same general direction, so ending up at REI for the second time in a week wouldn't be too bad. ;) Outdoors stores are beginning to wrest Target and SuperTarget from their position as "Sarah's Favorite Store Ever."

I also need to stop by Barnes & Noble to find another Flash tutorial book. I'm helping Chris create a website for his friend Cheri, a pro wheelchair racer, and there's something I want to do that I can't for the life of me figure out: loading an external website's HTML into a Flash movie. Maybe it's not possible, but I dunno.

Yeah, I'm a big blogging slacker. This week has actually been pretty busy at work, so tomorrow I'll be thinking TGIFF, meaning Thank God It's Fake Friday. Because we have Friday off. So cool. We all keep talking about plans. I think some Ronald Reagan Memorial Laying-By-The-Pool may be in order for moi.

Chris ended up joining Becca, Jason and me for the trip up to REI last night, so we all had a grand old time. Jason bought boots (the same ones he originally tried on over a month ago, which made me laugh), Becca bought a whole slew of stuff in last-minute preparation for the weekend trip to Colorado, and I bought a bike rack for my car. Actually, the bike rack came from Sun & Ski Sports, after REI was sold out of the one I originally wanted. I'm starting to really like Sun & Ski, as every time I can't find something elsewhere, I always find it there. I should really consider going to them first, I suppose.

Anyway. Sun & Ski was having a 20% off sale that included all their Yakima bike racks and accessories. I had been planning on buying a rack that was $160, but ended up buying a nicer rack that, with the discount, was still $160. It's nicer in the sense that the arms that hold the bikes fold down, as well as the rack folding out to allow you to open the back door. (The cheaper rack had arms that didn't fold). I also bought a discounted hitch lock, so now I can lock the rack to my hitch, and the bikes to the rack.

It's all very cool, and now we have the means to get three bikes and four people to Austin this weekend in a single car. Joy. Little things like bike racks make me happy.

So I had a sim this morning, and it was both good and bad. On the plus side, it was cool to have an actual reason to be in the control center, and to be doing something different. But I just don't understand all the loop lingo and displays, and was left feeling very confused for most of the time. During the fifteen minutes that I was actually important, Rich was there as well and answered half the questions. And so it goes. I'll be at the debrief tomorrow with my pretty maps.

All the flight controllers kept asking me "so, where did we land?" It's a funny question, because there is no clear answer other than "we landed in the ocean, of course." And open ocean, as far as I know, has no landmarks of note. Though to be most accurate, I guess I should say "our simulated unmanned vehicle broke into approximately a bazillion pieces, 99.9% of which landed along a 1300 nautical mile long, 65 nautical mile wide swath in the south Pacific, east of New Zealand, southeast of Samoa, and due south of French Polynesia."

Ta daa. I am Footprint Girl. All ye bow down to my knowledge of deadly pieces of spacecraft.

And if that doesn't work, I decided yesterday afternoon after a discussion on the use of the word "quote" that my other superhero alter-ego will be Grammar Girl. I'll cover the globe until I rid the world of improper speech and spelling.

Now you can all make fun of me when I type something hideously misspelled. No comments on my bizarre inability to pronounce certain words though; pronunciation is not the same as grammar. :)

Tonight: REI with Becca and Jason. Becca, Gavin and Jen decided today to randomly jet off to Colorado for our unexpected three-day weekend, and I'm mad that I can't go too. Or probably just jealous. I have the triathlon on Sunday though, which I am looking forward to, so things will be ok.

Oh yeah. Becca and I went to Galveston on Saturday to see the sandcastle competition. It was really hot, but the sandcastles were really cool. Pictures here.

The rumors are flying; it appears that we will have Friday off work as President Bush has declared it a federal holiday and day of mourning for President Reagan. An unexpected but definitely welcome vacation day!

I'm such a flake sometimes. Last week I was updating my resume, which needed serious work since the last time I looked at it was November 2001. Last night in the shower, I was thinking about working on the Technique in college. It's sort of ironic, but I realized that James was the one who got me involved in the paper in the first place when he had me write that silly article about MARTA. Next thing I knew, I was Chris's assistant, then Entertainment Chica.

...Ok, so I started this entry at 10:30 a.m. and I'm just now getting back to it. Anyway, the point I was getting to was that in updating my resume, I had the dates wrong for when I did which section editor position. It's funny how quickly I've forgotten the nitty gritty details of what I've done in the past few years.

And, as I found out in the six hours since I began this entry, we do get Friday off work. Woohoo! Free holiday! I'm a little surprised. I don't know who was the last president to die (Nixon?), but I wonder if it was also named a federal holiday. Interesting.

Anyway. This is yet another dull entry. I just haven't had the energy to write lately, and when I do have things to write about, it's complaining. And I'm tired of complaining.

My car turned 1000 miles yesterday as George and I were driving off-site to go pick up Chinese food. One month, one thousand miles. I am the epitome of the average driver. Woohoo!

I don't really like morning radio shows. I wake up to one, but it's not for the content as much as it's for the fact that I know the often-grating voices of the DJs will wake me up. They're occasionally funny, and I like some of the games they play...but on the whole, I'd rather just hit snooze repeatedly. This morning, however, I listened to the morning show for an entire half hour while I laid in bed dozing. They had this improv comedian on who does impressions, and he was freaking amazing! Maybe it seemed even better because it was radio, and I couldn't see his face...but he was incredibly good. His George W. Bush was dead on, as was his Jack Nicholson, Jeff Goldblum, John Madden, and Adam Sandler. He did Paulie Shore, Robin Williams, Terry Bradshow, Ted Koppel, Bill Clinton, Kermit the Frog...I mean, I can't even remember all the different voices he did. And he switched between them so fast that it sounded like all these people were literally in the radio booth having a conversation. And he was funny too!

I came to work and had to look the guy up. Gavin heard him on a different radio station this morning, so apparently he was making the rounds. His name is Frank Caliento and he's in Houston for three shows. We may go see him on Sunday. I'm telling you, he was good.

Anyway. That's my randomness of the day. Dude was hilarious.

Nick showed me something yesterday that's sort of put me in a "career goals" tailspin. Yes, more than I was already in.

Rich said I should be a sportswriter. That would be awesome. A baseball writer. Or, I should get a job in the marketing department for a baseball team. Or, I should be a travel writer. There are so many awesome jobs I would love to do, that I'm totally not qualified for with an engineering degree!

Sigh.

So following the endless blog chain (you know, my friend's blog links to their friend's blog which links to their friend's blog), I came across this very funny summary of the movie Troy. Don't read it if you don't want to know the entire story, but then again, since it's all based on The Iliad anyway, hopefully you already know the story. In any case, it's funny. See:

PARIS: Hey, bro! Look what I have on board ship!
HECTOR: Is it a picnic lunch? Dear God! That's not a picnic lunch! Take it back! Also fetch a picnic lunch.
PARIS: I will go back with her and be killed!
HECTOR: Because there's no way my father would declare war on Menelaus for killing his son. I can't let you do that, RETARD.
PARIS: *looks pretty. and yet stupid. and yet, pretty.*
HECTOR: I'll take you two back to my dad. We can imprison you and send her back, and Troy will be saved.
PRIAM: Sons! And my new daughter!
HECTOR: Being retarded clearly runs in the family. Damn it.

And:

PARIS AND MENELAUS: *fightfightfight*
PARIS: *snivels and clings to Hector's feet* But I'm too preeeetty and retarded to die!
ALL THE TROJANS: Oh my Zeus, this is so embarrassing we think we might die.
PRIAM: His mother said we should send him to a special needs school. But I thought if we just sent him to an English boarding school, which is where he got the accent, he'd be fine!
HELEN: *facepalm*
ANDROMACHE: Ahahahahaha my husband rules and your lover drools. Ahahahahahahahaha!
HECTOR: Let go, Paris! Please! You're embarrassing us all? Come on, dude, you're getting snot on my sandal.
PARIS: Wah!
MENELAUS: You left me for this?
EVERYONE: Dude, it wasn't his sword she was interested in. It was like, his bow. He's really good with a bow.

So yeah. I love the Internet. What did we do before it existed? What did we do before cell phones existed? And (what the hell) ICQ? I've realized that I am firmly anti-technology only until I decide to get a piece of the previously despised technology. Then I love it.

So how bad is this: in looking through all the photos I took this past weekend in Chicago, I realized I have not a single picture of Christina. I only took pictures of the baseball games and at the top of the Hancock building, and thus I only have pictures of myself, Carter, Rich and Steve. I have a picture of Izzy the cat, but not of Izzy's owner. How bizarre, how bizarre.

In any case, I posted quite a few pictures for everyone to see. Here are a few of my favorites:

Chicago, from the top of the Hancock building
Comiskey, I mean, US Cellular Field
Frank Thomas, literally a split second away from hitting a double
Me at Wrigley Field
Milwaukee's racing sausages
Miller Park

Chicago was fun. It was excellent to see Christina, and meet Ben (who I liked a lot), and hang out with Carter, and go to three baseball games that were played despite the thunderstorms and their disappearing/reappearing act. I loved the city, of course, as much as I love all old cities with narrow streets and public transit. I love Christina's purple living room, and blue bedroom, and green hallway, and I think I may do some painting of my own soon.

It was an excellent weekend that ended annoyingly with a 4-hour delay at O'Hare. Our plane had "mechanical difficulties" and we were eventually rebooked on a United flight to Houston that left at 2:50 p.m. (Our original flight was supposed to leave at 11 a.m.) Oddly, it wasn't the lateness that annoyed me as much as the fact that there was no way to have known about the lateness ahead of time. If only I could've said from the beginning, "rebook me on the 5:00 flight and I'll go spend the day in Chicago." There was a lot downtown that I still wanted to see.

We got off the plane to hot, humid, hazy air. And again, I asked myself why I live here. And again, I didn't really have a great answer. It is so depressing to be back at work today, and I can't wait until my next vacation.