October 2008 Archives

In Toyko! Flight was looooooong, but made bearable thanks to on-demand entertainment in each set. Think I played about 5 hours of Sudoku. Hotel is so awesome. Huge room, great views of the city, which looks like 10 Manhattans all smashed together. It`s 8:00 in the morning and I doubt I`ve been this awake at 8 in a long time. We woke up at 4 a.m. raring to go.

Off to explore!

I'm leaving the country for almost two weeks and as usual, I am slowly freaking out. Each time I prepare to go overseas, I get more and more anxious until I'm so keyed up that only getting on the plane (and thus losing control of what I can do to prepare) calms me down. I don't know why this happens, and it's certainly not based on anything rational. I always love the trip once it starts. So I'm sure Becca and Karen are laughing at me as they read this. They've traveled with me the most and are all too familiar with my pre-trip freakout.

I'm doing my best to keep it in check with over-the-top organization. I have a one-page list with all the hotels and ryokans we're staying in, along with address, phone number, website, confirmation number, and total owed. I have a packing list and am 75% packed already. I have about 5 different maps, and have started marking the location of all our hotels on it. (How did I ever go to Europe the first time without any accomodations lined up? These days I can't seem to handle that kind of uncertainty.) I have 5 different tour books, which is a completely absurd amount, but each one seems to have some bit of information that of course I feel like I must have.

Most of all, I'm freaking out about the whole "cash-based society" thing. I've been told, and read, that most places, including some hotels, don't accept credit cards. And if they do, sometimes the cards don't work. I've been told to carry as much cash as I think I'll need, but I'm not really in love with the idea of carrying the amount of cash we'll need for a 12-day trip, including accomodations. Did I mention Japan is an expensive country? And that the yen is getting stronger by the day? That's a lot of cash to carry.

I seriously need to calm down. I mean, it's Japan. Not the middle of the desert. We're talking first world, high tech, very friendly country. So I'm just being a wacko. At least I recognize this, right?

In the end, I am very excited about vacation and seeing a new country. It has been 2.5 years since I last left the U.S and it's about time I ventured into the world again. I'm not taking my laptop, and my iPhone apparently won't work (should've upgraded to the 3G version, eh?), but it being Japan and all, I feel quite confident that I'll find a computer here and there to post some quick updates.

Sayonara!

I went to this year's Wings Over Houston airshow on Sunday, along with Jose, his mom, and his brother. We arrived just as Tora Tora Tora was starting and left as the Thunderbirds were finishing their act -- about three hours of flying in all. It was surprisingly warm on the concrete under the bright sun and cloudless sky, and we didn't have any energy left to explore the static displays. But I still got some good photos of the flying, including the World War II replicas, C-17, aerobatics, and Thunderbirds.

Here are my favorites:

Happy Halloween!

I made my annual batch of owl cookies over the weekend. I usually double the recipe and make two rolls of dough, but this year I just made one since I'm going out of town halfway through the week (and before Halloween). I stretched the single roll of dough into 3 dozen cookies, but they are going fast...

I missed the Houston Half yesterday, but have been enjoying all the race reports. One of my tri friends ran a 2:13 -- a 20 minute PR for her, and two minutes faster than my own half marathon PR. She and I have always been similar in speed, with me being the slightly faster one. But she's in training for the Ironstar half ironman and obviously her dedication is paying off. I'm going to have to work hard if I want to maintain any hope of beating her in our tris next year, since she also competes with me in Athena! This is my problem -- I'm competitive (really only when I know I have a chance at an award, like in tris), yet slow, and thus far unwilling to really crack down and put in the serious effort required to get faster. At least I recognize that, even if I do nothing about it, right? Heh.

In any case, I'm sure yesterday was a beautiful morning for running! I ran almost 6 miles on Saturday morning and loved every minute of it. Warm sun, cool breeze -- it was perfect. And I felt pretty good too, despite not having covered that distance in a while. Cool weather really does wonders.

The rest of the weekend was pretty calm. I had a design project for class, as well as two other freelance projects, to finish up so I spent a lot of time on the computer. My new Mac is still set up on the dining room table, and I think those chairs are maybe not the most comfortable option for hours on end -- my back has been aching on and off for a few days. I finally finished everything up around midnight last night. Whew!

Jose's mom and brother were in town for the weekend, so we all went to the Wings Over Houston airshow yesterday. We got there right as Tora Tora Tora was starting, and left after the Thunderbirds closed the show. It was fun, and I got some good photos (coming soon), but it turned out to be surprisingly hot. The air temperature wasn't too bad, but sitting on the concrete tarmac with the sun beating down unmercilessly (not a cloud in the sky) took its toll. I had sunscreen, so I escaped unburnt -- just dehydrated. We had an early dinner after leaving, and were so dehydrated that we each gulped down three huge glasses of iced tea.

Based on the title of this entry, and considering the topic of my last post, you might expect the ensuing rant to be about how the Republican National Committee spent a huge amount of money on Sarah Palin's wardrobe, hair, and makeup.

But it's not. Not a rant, anyway.

The big hubbub is that the RNC spent $150k on Palin's clothes, and in the first two weeks of October they paid her makeup artist and hair stylist $22,800 and $10,000, respectively. That's a lot of money. In fact, it's a completely absurd amount of money, so it's not too surprising that people are stringing both her and the RNC up for it. The media, needless to say, is loving it as well.

But here's the thing. While I disagree with Sarah Palin on pretty much every major issue, I have a feeling I'd probably like her as a person. She seems friendly, reasonably well-spoken (certain interviews aside), and able to laugh at herself. And I think it's totally unfair to criticize the wardrobe, makeup and hair expenses. If the RNC chooses to spend their money in that manner, it's fine by me.

Because here's the part where all of the media and critics start to sound like hypocrites. Does everyone remember all the attention Hillary got for her outfits while she was running in the primaries? I read numerous articles that analyzed her dress (usually poking fun at her pantsuits), her hair, her makeup, and her overall appearance. Did I read any articles about Obama's suits, or McCain's shoes? Nope.

There is a huge, huge double standard in politics (and in most pursuits) that puts a lot of unfair weight on a woman's appearance. Men simply don't receive the same scrutiny that women do over their hair, their clothes, their glasses.

Sarah Palin is the only woman involved in the race. And the RNC spent a crapload of money to make her look good. If they hadn't spent that money, I'm willing to bet that we'd be hearing about how Sarah Palin needs a better haircut, or how her glasses make her look 80 years old, or how that jacket she wore at such-and-such speech made her look lumpy.

She'd be criticized either way. So why not look good?

Since I'll be out of the country on election day, I took advantage of early voting and yesterday afternoon, I cast my ballot for Senator Barack Obama as President of the United State.

Here's why:

I believe that health care should be available and affordable to all Americans. Taxing existing health care in favor of giving everyone a flat credit is not sufficient. People like me who receive good healthcare via their employer should get to keep it. People who aren't provided with insurance by their employer, and people who currently are denied it for various reasons, should have a way to get it at a reasonable price.

I believe that we should leave Iraq quickly, yet responsibly. I don't know what "victory in Iraq" means, and I'm not convinced that it actually exists. We went there for the wrong reasons, and are still there out of stubborn disregard to facts. Let's help Iraq get back on its feet. And then let's leave.

I believe that women should have the right to choose.

I believe that same-sex marriage should be legal.

I believe that every American is entitled to a good education. That means taking action to address crappy schools, working to recruit and retain good teachers, and making college more affordable.

I believe that while drilling offshore and in Alaska might help us, "drill, baby, drill" is only a band-aid on a much larger problem. We need to quit paying lip service to alternative energy and seriously begin investigating and using it.

I believe that we should address the problem of illegal immigration, but there is no reason to start deporting people left and right. Those who have been in the U.S. for years and built healthy lives here should be given a path to legality.

I believe that talking to other countries, even those we don't like and those that don't like us, is a good thing. I don't care if there are preconditions. Simply talking to someone does not validate their actions, and talking to countries like Iran and North Korea does not mean that we support their oppressive regimes and tactics. It just means that we want to talk. Talking is good.

I believe that it is ok to "spread the wealth." The single mom making $30,000 a year needs a tax cut. Bill Gates doesn't. Heck, I don't. If I have to pay more in taxes to ensure that a poor family has healthcare, I am 100% ok with that.

The last eight years have not been great. I believe that a country that elects Barack Obama is a country that wakes up on November 5 as fundamentally different nation. And I hope I get the chance to see what that nation could do to turn things around.

Last night I discovered that I accidentally stole $600 worth of software.

Um, oops?

See, a few weeks ago I bought the educational version of Adobe's Creative Suite -- needing to upgrade this software was part of the decision that led to me getting a Mac. Only I thoughtlessly ordered the Windows version of the software, a fact that I did not realize until I'd opened the package and was about to install the software. Thankfully, the seller, an academic software sales website that I've bought from before, was very understanding and told me they would take it back despite the missing shrink wrap, since I hadn't actually installed it and used the serial number. So two weeks ago I grabbed the package and put it in the mail. The refund came through a few days ago, and all was well.

Until I was cleaning off the coffee table last night and picked up a stack of magazines and papers to put away. And underneath that stack was the smaller CD case that had been inside the software package's outer box. And inside that CD case were 5 CDs containing all the Adobe programs, plus serial numbers.

Apparently I returned the outer packaging, but not the software itself. I never checked inside the box -- I just mailed it away. And apparently the software company didn't actually open the package when they got it back!

So I've been refunded the money for something I didn't return. Obviously I will return it (though I'm a bit worried that it will confuse them and somehow they'll charge me again), but my ditziness made me laugh.

I came across this interesting issue that came up at the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco last weekend. Arien O'Connell, a 24-year old teacher from New York, ran the fastest time of 2:55:11. However, she was not declared the winner of the race because she did not start with the elite runners. The elites began the race 20 minutes earlier than the rest of the field, and the fastest elise finish in 3:06.

Nike changed their mind this morning and declared O'Connell the winner.

Let the gun time vs. chip time debate begin...

Last night as I was working on the outline for the big digital media law project I have due at the end of the semester (the outline itself is due today), the TV was playing idly in the background. Jay Leno was on, and one of his guests caught my attention so much that I stopped working and went over to the couch to watch the segment.

It was this guy, Zack Hample, who has collected more than 3,000 baseballs. He says he's caught a baseball -- "caught" meaning in batting practice, tossed by a fielder, or a homerun itself -- at every single game he's been to since 1993. (I think he's about 30 years old now, so he started catching 'em young.) That is a crapload of baseballs!

He always goes to batting practice, and while there, he's got all sorts of tricks that he uses when trying to convince players to toss him a ball (since, as he said, he's at a disadvantage because he's not 1) a kid or 2) a hot girl). He wears two hats so that he can put on the hat of the player he's trying to talk to. He's learned how to say "toss me a ball" in like 25 languages -- Spanish, Japanese, etc.

Once the game starts, he's got an uncanny ability to predict where the balls will go based on who's hitting and who's pitching. He goes to that spot and waits for it. They had clips on the show last night of him catching balls in back-to-back games at Yankee Stadium last month and the announcers noticed that it was the same guy -- thanks to his standard ball-catching victory dance.

He keeps a list of all the balls he's caught each season, with gameballs noted in parenthesis. In 2008 alone, he caught 13 gameballs -- and I'm pretty sure that means 13 home runs. Across the major leagues, the average number of home runs per game hovers pretty close to 1, so the fact that this guy is able to catch home runs with any sort of consistency is amazing to me.

Crazy.

Last Friday they held a 2.6-mile cross country here at work in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. It was originally scheduled for the week that Hurricane Ike came through, but postponing it until now gave them time to clean up the tree debris -- and for cooler weather to come in! Around 60 people showed up to participate, and it was pretty fun. The course left a lot to be desired -- it wound around the "public" part of the Gilruth Center and looped back on itself about a million times in order to actually get 2+ miles into the small area -- but it was a good experience. I rarely run cross country, and I always forget how much more difficult it is than running on concrete or asphalt!

The twisty, turny course

I started off fast, but was quickly breathing hard thanks to the extra effort. The course was mostly grass and dirt and pretty flat, but there were a couple ditches to jump over and one section of very rough dirt where every time my foot landed, it was at a different angle. I walked for a minute because I was worried I would twist an ankle. The last half mile was on asphalt, so I was able to speed up there and finish strong in a total of 28:11.

I haven't gone running since then and it's driving me a little crazy. I skipped Saturday on purpose, but then Sunday just got away from me. I forgot that it's getting dark so much earlier now, and didn't get home until it was already completely dark -- and I try to minimize the amount of running in the dark that I do. Yesterday I left the house at 7:30 and didn't get home until 9:30, and today and tomorrow will be more of the same. At this rate, I won't be able to run until Thursday, which is just not acceptable. I've got to squeeze in a run somewhere, especially because when I'm busy, I need the stress relief! Or I could pull out my bike trainer, which is the best option for late at night. I haven't figured out a good place to set it up in my new apartment, although there is certainly more room than I used to have! I need to get the combination to the complex workout room so I can get in there after hours. It looks like they have a decent treadmill.

Ah, the woes of working out when winter comes and the days get shorter. Why must nice running weather correspond with less daylight?

It is tough to work full-time, take on a few design projects on the side, and then try to take two classes on top of that -- and still find time to work out and relax. I don't mean to whine; I just aim to remind myself to quit biting off so much to chew.

A weekend that beautiful should not be allowed to be that short.

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather and headed downtown to the Bayou City Art Festival on Saturday afternoon. This is the third year I've been, and each year has been with Jose. I'm glad that we both enjoy creative endeavors, and admiring the works of others. It is a lot of fun to wander around the booths and point out what we like -- and what we hate. While our tastes are a bit different, they're very compatible, so we like a lot of the same things.

I made two purchases. One is a print from artist and illustrator Geoffrey Harris. I remember seeing his booth and admiring his colorful artwork last year, so when I saw him again, I decided to splurge on a print. I had trouble deciding between three different ones that I liked -- two with a robot theme and one with a transportation (by air, by sea, by space) theme. In the end, I decided on this one, which I hung above the fireplace.

I love both the subject matter and the colors. I am happy just looking at it, and the robots make me laugh. Jose and I talked to the artist for a while about why he does what he does. He used to be a software engineer or IT guy, and finally gave that up to become an artist. He collects vintage tin toys -- robots, rockets, and other sci-fi related things. He also does a series of baseball paintings as well that are really neat. He even talked about how particular he is, coming from a technical background, and how he likes to make sure all his lines are straight, etc, etc. Ha! I can totally appreciate that kind of attention to detail, since I obsess about the same kind of things in my own projects.

In any case, you should check out his website. He has at least a half dozen other prints that I'd love to have, if only I had the wallspace.

The other purchase was a necklace from Vinosus Jewelry. I always look at the jewelry booths at shows like this, and Vinosus was one of only two jewelers who made me stop for more than a cursory glance. I'll have to take a photo and post it, because the necklace I bought isn't on their site (sadly, none of their jewelry is really pictured; what is it about artists not having great websites??).

Note: I never finished my trip report about our Alaska vacation back in July/August, and since I'm going to Japan in two weeks and will have a whole other trip to write about after that, I figured it's now or never. Here's part 1 and part 2, with the final part 4 to come within the week.

After spending our first three days in Anchorage and Seward, it was time to head for the interior of Alaska and a destination that has been on my wish list for quite some time: Denali National Park and Preserve. When we originally were planning the trip, we'd decided to forego renting a car so we bought tickets on the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage to the train station right inside the entrance to Denali. In the end, since we rented a car for the first few days, it actually would have been cheaper to rent the car for the entire week than it was to take the train. But no matter -- the train was a blast, and worth every penny.

The train runs from Anchorage to Fairbanks and vice versa, and they run one train each way each day. We hopped on in Anchorage for the 8:40 am departure and settled in. There are two classes of tickets available -- standard class and Goldstar. The latter is their version of first class, which puts you in a car with huge windows that curve into the roof, gives you free (non-alcoholic) drinks for the entire 7+ hour trip, and gives you easy access to a dining car located right underneath you. The last thing they mention on their list of amenities, almost as if it's an afterthought, is an outdoor viewing deck located at the back of the car.

Let me tell you -- that outdoor viewing deck was awesome! Despite the fact that it could get chilly with the wind rushing past as the train chugged towards the national park, we probably spent 75% of our 8-hour ride outside on that deck. The common refrain from all the locals and tour guides was that any given visitor to Alaska has about a 50/50 chance of seeing Mt. McKinley (aka Denali) -- and a much smaller chance of seeing the mountain in its entirety, from base to peak. The summer weather there is surprisingly dreary, and though we'd heard that ahead of time and were prepared, I would have been one very unhappy camper if I'd never gotten to actually lay eyes on the tallest mountain in North America.

Fortunately, we lucked out and the day we took the train, it was absolutely gorgeous. There were a lot of clouds still in the sky as we pulled out of Anchorage, but they began to clear by the time we reached Wasilla. (Little did we know that Wasilla would soon become a household town name. Ah, Sarah Palin.) The train chugged on, and I kept sneaking peeks to the north, hoping to see some sign of Denali. For some reason, I didn't want to appear too eager, but I was dying to see some sign of a snow-capped peak. Finally, I glanced out the window and there it was! A tiny peak visible above a ridge that blocked any real view. That had to be it. The tour guide soon confirmed it and pointed it out to the rest of the people in our car, but I was frustrated by the ridge blocking the rest of it from sight. Still, Jose and I headed back outside to the viewing deck and that's where we were when finally, the train rounded a bend and we found ourselves looking at the confluence of the Talkeetna, Chulitna, and Susitna Rivers -- and at Denali in all its glory.

I just about fell off the train I was so excited (ok, I didn't almost fall off the train; but I was bouncing up and down like a kid). The train slowed down to allow for plenty of oohing, aahing, and photo-taking. It was so awesome. I couldn't believe our luck in getting such a beautiful day and such great views of the entire Alaska range, from base to summit!

Shortly afterward, the train stopped in Talkeetna, one of only two stops on the route to the national park. We hopped off the train long enough to stretch our legs. I think I'm still grinning from seeing the mountain, though we couldn't see it from the town. In fact, we didn't get many more views since the train route began turning away in order to run around the eastern edge of the range.

The other fun part of the train ride was spotting wildlife. We saw a black bear at one point -- he ran along the tracks for a moment before darting into the woods, so I didn't get a very good look at him. But we did see this eagle chilling out in the middle of the river.

The train pulled into the station at Denali National Park around 4:00 in the afternoon and were met by the shuttle from Denali Cabins, where we stayed for the next three nights. Though the cabins were tiny and a bit far from the main park entrance, they were very comfortable and there was a shuttle that ran every hour. All things considered, the cabins were clean and affordable, and I'd stay there again. After dropping our stuff, we grabbed the shuttle back to the main park entrance, which is known as "Glitter Gulch" due to the small but concentrated area of stores and restaurants. The term led me to imagine lots of neon and tacky stores, but it really wasn't too bad. We had dinner at the Salmon Bake, which was pricey but delicious.

After dinner, we had a bit of time to kill before the shuttle back to the cabins, so we walked down to a bridge over the Nenana River to check out the view. We had plans to go whitewater rafting on that river two days later, and we saw some rafts go by while we stood there.

The next day we woke up bright and early to catch our bus for the day-long "Denali Adventure Tour." There are a lot of outfits that offer tours like this. You get on a school bus (I have no idea why it's a school bus, but there are tons of school buses in and around the park) that carries you all the way down the main park road, which is about 90 miles long. It takes the whole day -- we left at 7 a.m. and returned 12 hours later. The day was as opposite from the day before as could be. Where we had had brilliantly clear skies and could see for miles on the train, when we actually took the bus into the park the clouds were thick and low. It rained on and off. Thankfully, the tour was still worthwhile -- though I won't deny that it would have been better if we'd been able to see farther.

The bus driver was part driver, part tour guide, and he was really great. We stopped every hour or so for a bathroom break, and he'd pull a big cooler of hot water out of the back, along with a box of snacks and cookies. We'd all make tea or hot chocolate and stand around chatting for a few minutes before continuing on our way. The first major stop was Polychrome Pass. It was still early in the day and the clouds hadn't settled in like they would in the afternoon, so we were able to get a decent view of the mountains and the colors that give the area its name.

The weather also didn't prevent us from seeing some wildlife. The "Big 5" land mammals to see in Alaska are gray wolves, caribou, moose, dall sheep, and grizzly bears -- and we saw all but one by the end of the day. We never saw a wolf, but they are notoriously elusive so it would have been a big deal to spot one. We saw sheep, moose, and caribou like these at multiple points, but we had to wait until the end of the day to see a grizzly bear. I didn't get a photo because he was too far away, but the view through Jose's binoculars was awesome as the bear ran along the bank of a river -- but safely far away from where we were standing!

When we reached the end of the road, we had lunch at the Denali Backcountry Lodge. It was pretty standard fare, and by this point the clouds had really settled in and visibility sucked. The cloud ceiling was probably 500 feet or less. But we ate and had time to wander around the lodge area, including this little bridge, before getting back on the bus for the return trip.

On the return leg, we stopped at a National Park Service visitor center that we had skipped on the way in. They had some caribou antlers on the ground outside that we played around with, and then we found these dall sheep horns inside. They were really heavy!!

The rest of the bus trip could have been really disappointing, since the clouds were down to ground level at times and all we could see was white. But our driver/tour guide was really awesome, and kept up a litany of stories and facts about the national park and its history, as well as a history of the many attempts at summitting Mt. McKinley.

My favorite was the story of the Sourdoughs, a group of 4 local Alaskans who decided to try to become the first to make it to the top of the mountain after a few failed attempts by others. In 1910, with no mountaineering experience, they spent 3 months on the mountain. On summit day, they set out for the top with a bag of donuts, a thermos of hot cocoa, and a 14-foot spruce pole. They made it to the North Summit, which is slightly lower than the true summit, and planted the pole there as a mark of their success. No one believed them. Four random guys with no climbing experience? But in 1913 when the first team of climbers made it to the true summit, they checked out the North Summit with binoculars and guess what they saw? The pole that the Sourdoughs had left!

Crazy.

By the time we got back to the cabins, we were ready to be off the bus, but I had no regrets about taking the tour, even though the weather was so bad.

With the tour done, the next day was reserved for whitewater rafting on the Nenana River. Jose had never been whitewater rafting before, but I've been a few times -- once in Colorado, once in Peru, and a couple times in North Carolina. However, I had certainly never been in water that cold. Adding to that was the fact that Alaska had a very wet summer, even by their standards, and the river was flowing high and fast. We spent an hour getting ready to go, which included putting on a drysuit. I'd never worn one, but it turns out they go over all your clothes. Good thing too -- it was cold outside even before you factor in the temperature of the water. Underneath that dry suit I'm wearing a long sleeve tech shirt, light fleece, heavier fleece, tights, pants, and two pairs of socks! And all that turned out to be just the right amount.

We went down to the bank of the river to get in the raft. Some people in our group had chosen to go oar rafting -- where they just sat there and the guide rowed through the rapids with two big oars. Jose and I didn't want any of that sissy stuff, so of course we went with the paddle rafting. We had 8 people in the raft -- two of us, a Russian couple from Germany (confusing, eh?), and four guides. Yes, four guides. The river was running so high and so fast that we needed a full raft of 8 people in order to make it down, and the river is apparently such a blast when it's high and fast that the other guides like to come along just for fun. The lead guide asked me if Jose and I wanted to go in front. I was ok, but Jose hesitated, unsure of what it would be like since he'd never been rafting before. We hemmed and hawed for a moment before finally decided to go up front.

As we went through the first very small rapid, the shock of the cold water hitting our faces was intense. For a moment, we regretted our decision to sit up front and thought about switching, but before we could decide, the next rapid was upon us. We were up front and there to stay, but we really got into it. It was so awesome. We ended up buying a photo of our raft going through one of the bigger rapids and it is hilarious -- Jose is gritting his teeth and looking angry as he powers through the rapids, while I have a huge stupid grin on my face. Every time I got socked in the face by a wave of icy cold water, I just started giggling. I couldn't help it.

The river was running so fast that we covered the 8 miles downriver in a short hour -- and it usually takes anywhere from 1.5-2 according to the guides. So it was definitely a fun and adventurous trip. The drysuits worked amazingly well. There must have been a hole in one of the feet of my suit, because when we got out I realized my foot was soaked and numb. But fortunately I had two dry socks on the other foot! We celebrated our daring river run with another dinner at the Salmon Bake. It was just that yummy.

The next day we were set to catch the train back to Anchorage, but it didn't leave until the early afternoon. We took advantage of our final morning to explore some of the main visitor's center at the park entrance, which is right next to the train station. On a whim, we went to see the sled dog demo, which turned out to be really cool. Denali is the only national park with a sled dog team (not really surprising there, I suppose) and summer is their "off-season." We got to see the kennels, pet some of the dogs, and see them get hooked up to a sled and pull a ranger around a track. They were really fast. Very impressive. I wanted to take one home with me.

The park has volunteers that come over every day in the summer to walk and run the dogs to keep them in shape. They're bred specifically to be a good sled dog -- they look for features like small paws (which are better for running in the snow, contrary to what I would have guessed), big fluffy tails (to cover their noses from the cold when they sleep), and furry ears (to keep warm). I asked the ranger how cold it can get before the dogs have to stop, and he said that the human will succumb to the cold long before the dog does. In fact, their ideal running temperature is about -20 degrees. Minus 20! "Yep," said the ranger, "if you're out here on a -20 degree day, you'll see these guys just itching to run like crazy."

Finally it was time to catch the train and head back to Anchorage. We'd gotten tickets for the regular economy class, but after experiencing first class on the way up, we were spoiled. We upgraded to Goldstar again, just for the outdoor viewing deck! And again, it was totally worth it. The weather wasn't quite as great as the train ride up a few days earlier, but the views were still beautiful.

Here's the full set of photos from our days in Denali:

On Friday, my shiny new iMac arrived in the mail. Joy! (I joked on Twitter that I bought it because I was bored during last Tuesday's presidential debate, but that's not actually true -- well, not the part that I bought it because I was bored, anyway.) I spent the rest of the weekend playing with it and generally ogling how pretty it is, how simple it is, how easy it is to use, and how freaking awesome the bright 24" display is. Though it will eventually have a permanent home on my desk in the study, it's currently sitting front and center on my dining room table!

It is awesome.

Until my laptop gives out, I'll be a dual Mac-PC person, using my Dell laptop when I need something portable but doing all my graphics and web work -- which for the past three years has been done on my laptop -- on the iMac.

My switch to Mac is something that I've been thinking about for a long, long time. Though I have been using Apple products for years -- starting at Georgia Tech when I was an editor for the school newspaper; all our layout work was done on a Mac -- I've remained hesitant to switch despite my affinity for Apple's simplicity and attention to user interface.

One reason is that I'm more comfortable with Windows. I've used it through enough versions of the OS that, for the most part, I know how to do everything I need to do, from setting up peripherals to changing system settings. But that was only a minor reason. After all, I'm certainly competent enough to learn my way around the Mac OS. (Not to mention that I've been using and enjoying other Apple products like the iPod and then iPhone.)

No, the single major reason I hadn't switched up to this point was software. I own plenty of costly software, most notably the entire Adobe Creative Suite which I use on a daily basis, and each is a Windows edition. Sure, I know that Macs now have the ability to run Windows, both from startup via BootCamp and as an "OS within an OS" using third party virtualization packages. But if all I'm ever going to do with my Mac is boot it up with Windows then really, what's the point? I saw absolutely no advantage in buying a Mac if all I planned to do was run a bunch of PC applications.

But my laptop is getting older and this semester as I started working with InDesign as part of my desktop publishing class, it quickly became apparent that the laptop was quickly losing the ability to keep up with my work. I added more memory a few months ago, but that didn't make much of a difference. Also, doing a lot of design and graphics work on a 15" screen pretty much sucks. I'm constantly squinting or pulling the laptop closer to my face to really inspect things at a fine level, and while it was workable, after three years it was certainly getting old. Then there was the fact that my class was using Adobe CS3, and then the company announced CS4...and suddenly it was the right time for me to upgrade to the newest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Since Macromedia was bought by Adobe, upgrading the suite also got me the newest versions of Dreamweaver and Flash.

So my hardware is getting creaky, and it's time to update my software so...enter Apple.

Once I decided to finally make the jump, I thought long and hard about which model would best suit my needs. At first, I planned to simply replace my laptop with something comparable like the 15" Macbook Pro (note that these decisions were all thought about prior to Tuesday's Apple announcement that they are overhauling their laptop line). But this was hard to justify. If my reason for getting a new computer was power for graphics, it made more sense to get a desktop which would 1) have more processing power and 2) allow for a much larger display.

So a desktop, then, is what I wanted. I next checked out the Mac Pro line, which looks amazing. But at $2299 for the most bare bones (single processor) version -- and that price doesn't include a monitor, which is one thing I definitely wanted to improve if I was going to buy a new computer -- there's just no way I could justify the price involved in getting one of the Pro machines.

Finally I came back to the iMac line. I'd thought about them at the beginning, impressed by the 24" iMacs that the UHCL computer lab recently bought for the graphics classroom, but I hesitated because they are all-in-one. Everything's enclosed along with the monitor. Like iPods and iPhones, an iMac's innards are difficult to access. What if I need to upgrade something? But as I thought about this, I realized that in all the years I've owned computers, there are only two things I've ever upgraded myself: hard drives and memory. The top-of-the-line iMac comes with a 500 GB hard drive, which is more than enough space. My current backup drive is only 500 GB and holds every single file I deem important with room to spare, and external hard drives are so cheap these days that even if I find that the 500 GB internal drive is full a couple years down the road, it won't be a problem to move data elsewhere. (I mean, my laptop only has a 40 GB drive. 40! I basically live on external drives at the moment.) That left memory, which is the one thing on the iMac that is easily upgradable via a slot on the bottom of the machine.

So iMac it would be. I checked out the educational discounts and was planning to go that route (I'm going to cry when I finish my digital media master's next year and lose that discount), but then Irwin suggested I check out the refurbished models as well. Bingo! I was able to get the current top-of-the-line iMac at a $300 discount, which put it right in the price range of what I'd pay for a laptop anyway.

Decision made. iMac bought.

And it is awesome so far.

After running my half of the 10-Miler relay (see previous blog entry) on Sunday, I immediately headed home to shower and head to the airport in Pearland. I didn't even go past the race finish line, so though I was there and ran, I never saw anybody or got a chance to socialize. But there are other races, and I had stuff to do! Jose, Becca and I met up with another guy from their flying club and his friends and flew down to Mustang Beach and Port Aransas for the afternoon. What's a 3-4 hour drive is only 1.5 hours by air!

It was a really beautiful flight and reminded me that even though a lot of Texas is ugly from the ground, it's pretty from the air. We flew southeast to Freeport before turning to fly right along the beach the rest of the way. Jose flew the outbound leg and Becca flew us back home.

I sat in the back both ways, which is nice and roomy but the bad part is that it's hard to see out the front window. I still managed to take a bunch of photos out the side windows though, and passed my camera up to the co-pilot for a few good shots.We saw boats sailing up the intercoastal waterway...

...and lots of the cool swampy coastline and barrier islands that lie between the bays and the gulf. The beaches looked pretty trashy from the air, a sign of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. A lot of the beach is remote and uninhabited, so I doubt it'll ever really get cleaned up. The ocean will eventually wash the stuff away again, I suppose.

We flew over a remote lighthouse on Matagorda Island, and came up on an old rusted shipwreck as we got closer to Port Aransas.

We arrived shortly and landed at Mustang Beach airport. There were only a couple other planes there, but they had a nice little office area that was air conditioned and had bathrooms and was accessible 24 hours a day (which is more than you can say for Pearland).

Port Aransas has a trolley that runs around the island, so we hopped on and for the bargain price of $0.25, we rode the 2 miles into town and had lunch at a typical, tacky beach restaurant called Moby Dick's. The shrimp po boy was pretty good, and I gulped gallons of liquid -- I was so dehydrated after running in the morning and then flying in the heat of the day. (Those little planes don't have air conditioning, in case you were wondering. They vent air into the cabin from the outside, which helps, but it's still warm.) Becca made friends with a local pirate, and we hung out in the mouth of a giant shark across the street.

After lunch we took a stroll along the beach. However, we are all retarded and despite the fact that we knew we were going to the beach, none of us thought to 1) bring a towel or 2) wear a swimsuit, so although the water felt great, we couldn't swim. Next time we will definitely come prepared.

Soon it was time to return, so we walked back to catch the trolley -- but the trolley was a few minutes early, and we saw it drive by when we were still a quarter mile down the road. Becca tried in vain to hitch a ride from one of the many people driving golf carts around town, but they all claimed that their time was up and they had to return their carts. Hmph. It was getting late and we hoped to get back to Pearland before sunset, so we just started walking down the highway towards the airport. Two miles later, we arrived back at the plane. Just another part of the adventure...

It was sort of hazy out over the gulf as we flew back, and you couldn't even see the horizon -- it just transitioned from sea to sky.

All in all, it was a very fun day and I hope we do it again sometime. Bonus: I never felt even a tiny bit airsick! I think maybe my brain is starting to get used to the idea of flying in a small plane...

Here's the full set of photos:

Photo courtesy volunteer extraordinaire Joe

It's called the 10-Miler, but I only ran 5 miles. I know, I know, a bit misleading to call this blog entry my 10-Miler race report, but you'll survive. Debbie ran the other 5 as part of our nameless relay team and we both rocked it pretty dang hard, all things considered.

Hurricane Ike really threw off my training schedule, and after the Hi Fi Tri was cancelled, there wasn't anything pressing for which to get back on the horse. I've been running, but more for fun than anything else -- easy 3-4 milers around the neighborhood, and run/walks with Jose. At best, I thought I could cover my 5 miles at 11:00 pace. Realistically, I figured I'd reach Debbie after more like 57-58 minutes.

When the starting gun sounded, I managed to keep myself reined in and started at a reasonable pace. I've been doing a lot of run/walks lately, but I wanted to try to run as much as possible. The first mile passed in 10:39, and the second followed in 10:43 -- no walking at all to that point, so I was feeling happy. Right as I reached the first water station at mile 2, I noticed my friend Cathy running in front of me. She had just started to walk, so I asked what she was doing. She and her friend Holly were doing a 5/1, so I decided I'd fall in with them for a bit. I ended up running miles 3 and 4 with them, and clocked 11:05 for each of those miles.

BARC was manning the mile 4 water station, where Joe snapped the above photo as I walked by mixing a cup of water with a cup of Gatorade. I can't drink and run at the same time, so I guess I was walking there, but that was the last walking I did. I still felt good and strong, so I ran the last mile to the handoff point in 10:37. Total time for my 5 miles was 54:09, and I handed the timing chip off to Debbie for the second half of the race.

Debbie ran a great second half of just under 50 minutes, so our team finished in 1:43:57. Two years ago when we ran as a relay, we finished in 2nd(?) place among female teams, more by virtue of lack of teams than anything else. No such luck this year, but we still had fun. I was a bad relay team member and didn't even see Debbie finish -- I had to head for home immediately after finishing my leg to get ready to go flying with Jose and Becca (which will follow in its own blog post).

I'm very happy with my run. It's just what I need to get myself moving into the longer distances as I prepare for the Houston Half Marathon in January.

Apollo-era Mission Control

Yesterday I worked my first sim ever in the "front room" of Mission Control. I've spent more than two years as a back room flight controller, both for ascent and for rendezvous, but this was the first time I've ever truly been in the hot seat. I was in charge of the entire rendezvous team, and I was the one talking to the Flight Director and making sure the shuttle was going where it needed to go. And I was SO FREAKING NERVOUS.

The sim went well. Because it was my first one, I had one of the guys from my office sitting with me (every flight controller in my office is certified for the front room except me), and the instructors who scripted what kind of failures we'd have took it easy on me. We had a couple problems that had impacts to our rendezvous, but nothing that prevented us from docking with the space station safely and even on time. Nevertheless, I was tense and on the edge of my seat the entire sim -- all 8 hours of it.

When I got home, the adrenaline hadn't quite worn off, so Jose and I went out to get some celebratory ice cream. We had to go to 4 places before we finally found someone that would sell me a milkshake at 10:45 p.m., but it was worth it. However, by the time I got home the excitement of the sim had worn off and I was instantly exhausted. After being in a constant state of high tension since 1:00 p.m., I just crashed. Last night I slept better than I have in weeks.

An unrelated-to-actual-flight-control but still-very-important part of being in the front room is that I am now responsible for bringing snacks for the back room (and for the FDOs like Becca who need to just bring their own dang food instead of sniping ours, but that's another story). Since the sim didn't start until 2:00, breakfast food like kolaches or donuts was out. So I dutifully headed to Randall's on my way in to work and picked up a box of mini muffins and a box of cookies. The cookies were on sale, extremely chocolately, and looked good enough but about halfway through the sim, one of the guys in my backroom called and said "no one else wants to tell you this, but they're all nodding in agreement: these cookies suck."

What?! I was horrified. Here I am, in my very first sim, where the least I could do was bring good food for the people supporting me in the back room -- and the cookies I brought sucked. But how bad could they really be? Discussion of the sucky cookies continued throughout the sim. At one point, Becca's backseater (she's new to the rendezvous flow and had someone sitting with her as well) wandered into the back room, inspected the ingredient list, and announced that the cookies had no flour in them. Apparently they were gluten-free or something. But still -- were they really that bad?

At the end of the sim, one of my back room people said that while everyone complained about them, they still ate them, and there was only one cookie left. "Perfect," I said, "I'll come eat the last one." So I wandered back, picked up a cookie and bit into it.

They were HORRIBLE. I mean, the taste was ok, but they were so dense and hard to chew that any semblance of flavor was negated by the effort it took to simply chew and swallow this cookie. At one point, I bite into it and had to come away empty-mouthed -- I couldn't even bit through the thing!

Worst. Cookies. Ever.

After my blog post last week about the importance of registering to vote, I'm sure you'll all find it ironic and amusing that I realized on Saturday that my own voter registration is no longer valid! Sure, I'm registered to vote in Harris County, but as of last month I now live in Galveston County. And I'd already changed my driver's license so the state knows all about it. Turns out I needed to re-register in Galveston County to be eligible and the deadline is today! I walked into the county annex just before 9:00 to find a huge line going out the door of the tax assessor's office. Fortunately, I only waited in that line for about 2 minutes before spotting a small sign on the desk of one of the clerks -- turns out that guy was doing only voter registration, and he had no line! (Everyone else was there for car registration, etc.) Two minutes later, I was successfully re-registered.

Moral of the story: make sure you're registered, and that your registration is current. You've got until the end of today if you're in Texas!

I stayed up way too late last night watching the VP debate, then watching post-debate analysis, then working on a poster design assignment, and then deciding around midnight that it was somehow a good time to start looking for hotels in Tokyo and Kyoto. (It is a good time in the sense that we'll be there in less than a month, but not so good in the sense that it was already midnight!)

When my brother Brian was little, he was the only kid I knew who would put himself to bed. We'd all be watching TV or reading or something, and suddenly we'd realize Brian was gone. Then we'd find him asleep in his bed. I've always thought that was a good little skill to have -- and one that I obviously did not inherit. I can be incredibly tired and I'll still find something to do that keeps me up. It makes no sense.

As for the debate, I will just say what I have heard others say lately: I wouldn't want Sarah Palin on my local school board, much less as Vice President of my country.

So. Anyway.

Becca, Jen and Jose planned an outing for the weekend. They each reserved a plane and we're all going to fly down to Mustang Island (just north of Corpus Christi) tomorrow to have lunch and hang out on the beach for a few hours. It's far enough south that they didn't get any damage from Hurricane Ike. Becca, Byron and another guy in one plane, Jen, Gavin, Carina and another girl in one plane, and Jose and me in the final plane. We could actually take one more person but I guess no one else was interested. However, the plane that Jose reserved is having some kind of issue with its master switch (which I think controls all the electrical gear in the plane?) so we might not get to go. Argh!

Watch the video. Make sure you're registered. Then go vote. I don't even care who you vote for. Seriously. Sure, I hope that you vote for the same guy as me, but if you don't, we can still be friends.

(I realized tonight that I will be in Japan on Election Day! Yikes! Must investigate both early voting and absentee ballots and figure out which I need to do.)

Does anyone really understand how much $700 billion really is? I don't. I mean, I can read the stats and even calculate for myself a metric that helps me understand -- $700 billion is more than NASA has spent over its entire 50-year lifetime (a total of just under $600 billion according to Wikipedia) -- but that amount of money is basically impossible to comprehend. It's like trying to really conceptualize the age of the solar system or the distance to the nearest star.

I am not a financial expert, nor do I really understand what's going on with our economy at the moment. I know that a dollar will now only buy 0.73 Euros, while it was practically 1-to-1 when I first went to Europe in 2001, but I haven't been to Europe lately. I know that my retirement fund has been level or falling over the past year, but I'm not really concerned since it's going to be quite a while before I'm ready to draw from it.

I guess my point is that on the surface, the current economic upheaval doesn't seem to affect me. I don't own a home, my car is paid off, and I pay my credit card bill in full each month. The only debt to my name is the final $3000 of my college loans, and it's at a very low interest rate.

I know that I'm very lucky to be in this position. I'm employed by the federal government, so my job is very stable. I get paid a good salary, especially considering that I don't yet have any children or other family members to support. I have enough money left over each month to make significant contributions to both a non-retirement investment account and to an easily-accessible "emergency" fund that I've yet to need. I get decent health benefits, I rarely get sick, and everyone in my family is very healthy as well.

Yeah, I'm lucky. But there are a lot of people out there who aren't so lucky. And those people are going to really feel the effect of our imploding economy, if they haven't already. If a $700 billion bailout bill is what we need to start turning things around, fine. Do it. Spend it. But when it doesn't pass the first time, and then appears poised to pass the second time -- after having billions of dollars in assorted tax cuts added as "sweeteners" -- I start to wonder what the hell Congress is doing.

Isn't it time they got over the finger-pointing and name-calling -- not to mention quit taking recess when they need to be leading -- and actually DID SOMETHING??

When I type "nasa.gov" into my browser, it gives me a security warning and asks if I am sure I want to visit nasa.gov. I find this quite amusing, given that, oh, I work for NASA and am trying to get to the site at work. Sigh. In any case...

Happy 50th Birthday to NASA! The agency officially began operations on October 1, 1958 after President Eisenhower created it months earlier via the National Aeronautics and Space Act. The rest is history.