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Friday, August 29, 2003

enchanting weekend plans

softball last night did not go well. despite our team playing perfectly fine defense, we found ourselves unable to get more than a smattering of hits, and against a team where everyone could find the holes. i swear, i've never played a team in coed rec softball that could hit as well as this one; they need to move over to coed competitive! then we wouldn't have to play them. ;)

my apartment still looks like a disaster area, even though it's slowly improving. i could have everything organized and put away if i had one full day, but alas, it's not meant to be. this evening after work, becca, jen and i are heading to enchanted rock (west of austin) for a labor day weekend camping trip. gavin will join us tomorrow, and we'll all come back on monday. it should be fun, though hopefully not too hot. the weather is calling for a chance of thunderstorms, which could cool things off more, however...note to self: make sure i have the rain cover for my tent!

enchanted rock is basically a big granite rock in the ground, like a smaller version of stone mountain in georgia. i always wanted to go (it seemed like there was a trip there every co-op tour) but i've never managed to make it over there until now. tomorrow we'll climb to the top and explore the cave and maybe watch some people rock climb on the back side, as well as hike the trails in the park. then sunday we'll either do more in enchanted rock, or drive to one of the nearby state parks for swimming or more hiking. i'll probably head back to houston monday morning so that i can do some labor day climbing at the rock gym and then to the cookout with the gang that evening.

enh. one day i'll finish unpacking. minor detail.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

i love sweden in the springtime, i love sweden in the fall...

Ikea brings swarm of shoppers to East Palo Alto / 90 officers direct traffic at opening of Swedish-design home store

"Such is the cult following of Ikea that it sparks temporary mayhem everywhere it opens. A similar scene played out at the Emeryville store, the Bay Area's first Ikea, which opened in 2000.

Shoppers speak of a trip to Ikea as if it were as fun as Disneyland, as inspiring as church and as enticing as a candy store."

Thursday, August 28, 2003

just 5 more minutes

i've been having one of those weeks where it's impossible for me to get to work before 8:30 (or, yesterday and today, 8:45) no matter what my intentions. i have just been a big ol snooze-button-hitting sleepyhead. but it's ok, since i was here last night until 7:00. i get in these moods where i start on something and get on a roll, and don't want to quit until i reach a good stopping point. that happened last night.

last night i attempted to sift through more of my crap in an attempt to make my apartment more comfy and less cluttered. i'm having some success; i just need more time. i also tried to install my ceiling fan light for the second time, and was unsuccessful again. i am feeling totally incompetant that i can't install a ceiling fan light, especially since i took it down in the old apartment and saw how it was connected!! there must be something i'm missing, but i can't figure out what. there are two wires coming from the fan labeled "for light." one is blue and one is white. there are two wires on the light fixture. one is black and one is white. i connected white to white and blue to black, and i get nothing. i wonder if maybe it's not possible to hook up a light twice?? but that makes no sense. i can't figure it out.

my ankle is finally starting to look a bit more normal. it's still swollen, but i can tell it's going down. this is good, since i plan on hiking up to the top of enchanted rock this weekend. gavin, jen, becca and i are going camping there.

i just realized that it's been almost an entire year since becca, karen and i were cavorting around on the great scotland road trip. that was fun. but with that anniversary coming up, and the recent conversation about wish list destinations, i am feeling the need to leave the country again. it's a good thing that the trip to greece is only a month and a half away!

i have nothing interesting to say today. i have been sitting here for an hour trying to come up with an entertaining story, but nada. sorry.

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

so long, farewell, 803

so becca tells me this morning that ikea is adding 300,000 square feet to their houston store. ah. i am in heaven. i love ikea. in stockholm, there is an ikea store that is 600,000 square feet. yet another reason to go to sweden. :)

well, mars has made its closest approach and is now receding from the earth again, but if you haven't done it yet, you should go outside tonight and find it. mars is so obviously something closer than a star; it's brilliantly orange these days. i can't help but stare at it every evening and wish i had brought the telescope from home. my grandmother gave my family a telescope years ago, and for a while it sat in my parents' room with a blanket over it. i used to take it out in the backyard occasionally to look at the moon, and i vaguely remember dad setting it up to look at jupiter once. but now it's in the box in the attic, i think. maybe i'll snag it when i'm home for christmas.

it always makes me feel good to see stories about things like this in the news. combined with the release of the columbia accident report, space is all over the place, and though much of the coverage of nasa is bad, a part of me still thinks that any coverage is better than none. but the mars stuff makes me happy. astronomy so often gets completely ignored by the media; it's nice to see them making the public away that there are other worlds than these.

i skipped out on volleyball last night citing a swollen ankle. it's still swollen today, and i'm starting to worry, as i've never had anything stay swollen for this long. but george the amateur doctor tells me it's ok, and to just keep icing it. it was hurting more last night after i finished moving all my stuff from the old apartment (no comments from the peanut gallery on the irony of skipping volleyball, and yet still moving stuff up and down stairs), but this morning it seems to be a little less swollen. i am starting to be able to see my ankle bone again.

as of 8:00 last night, i am completely moved out of my old apartment. i took the last couple loads over to the new place, then went back to vacuum the floor and wipe down the counters. i pulled all the nails out of the wall, took down the hooks i'd put up, and took down the ceiling fan lights i'd bought.

i took one last look around, and said "goodbye 803. i hope someone else enjoys you as much as i did." then i walked downstairs and locked the door.

my new apartment is nice. extremely cluttered at the moment, as i haven't finished unpacking, but nice. i'm impatiently waiting for the dsl to come on (which apparently can take up to 10 days from the time they turn the phone line on, which i don't really understand but it seems like they should be able to do it faster). and i can't figure out how to reconnect my ceiling fan lights, despite having observed how they were connected in the old place. sigh.

time to ice my ankle.

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

CAIB report

The CAIB (Columbia Accident Investigation Board) has released their report on the STS-107 accident and if you're interested, it can be viewed or downloaded at their website.

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

dirt me

The STS-107 accident investigation report will be released in about 45 minutes. Once we've all had a chance to read it, or at least skim it (as the report plus appendices tops out around 1000 pages, I've heard), I'm sure it will be the pervasive theme at work for a while. We all know it will have some harsh things to say about NASA; this is to be expected. But our more imminent concern is what it will say about conducting entry risk studies, as that is where our expertise lies. So it should be interesting, to say the least.

Matt lent me a CD of an Austin-based band called Damesviolet. He saw them here in Houston on Saturday night, but I didn't go because I was still moving. Anyway, they are pretty good, I'm enjoying their CD.

My fantasy team (the "All-Star" one) keeps inching up on Ron's team, but I can't quite surpass him. We're currently in first and second, him with 67 points and me with 66.5. Randy is a (very) distant third with 46.5 points. It's a little strange because in the past two years, Randy has won the league, with Ron in second, and me in third. This year Randy's team just hasn't performed like he expected them to, I guess. But anyway. It would be awesome if I won, but I don't think I'm going to be able to pull ahead of Ron (though on the plus side, there's no way Randy will catch me). I'm winning all the pitching categories except strikeouts, and he's winning all the hitting categories except stolen bases. The problem is that I don't think there's any way my team will outperform his team enough for me to pull ahead of him in any categories; if anything, he's likely to pull ahead of me in a category.

But second place certainly ain't bad. We have 8 people in the league, and only one of them is a girl. And yet the girl is in second place. Ha HA! :)

I went rock climbing last night, which, as George scolded me this morning, was probably not the best idea considering that my ankle is still swollen from twisting it on Sunday. In fact, it's still swollen today. Ugh. Yesterday I went to the clinic after lunch to ask them for an ice pack, which turned into a half hour ordeal. In order to get an ice pack, I had to see a nurse, who then said I had to see a doctor. Then, to get an ace bandage and ice pack, I had to go through the whole warm-up rigamarole of the doctor listening to my heartbeat, listening to me breath, taking my temperature, taking my blood pressure (which is excellent; perhaps I should start eating more salt), asking if I smoke, and asking if I'm pregnant. Sigh. Finally I got an ice pack, but it was a one-time-use deal, so this morning I stopped at Eckerds to buy the kind you can refreeze. It's in the freezer as I type, so that's that. Hopefully the swelling will go down today.

Rock climbing was a lot of fun, even though I was taking it easy. I guess I am destined to get some sort of scrape every week; the first week it was my knee, then my elbow, and last night I left with a nice 2-inch rope burn on my right forearm. Becca came for the first time last night too, and she did awesome for her first time. I was so proud. Now if only we can get her to trust the rope a little more; despite the fact that it caught her when she fell, she still said she doesn't quite trust it. She's weird.

At the end of the night we played a bouldering version of Simon Says, and today my fingers hurt. Whew. The amazing thing about climbing is that after only three weeks, I noticed last night that I actually have triceps! Ha. I've always been able to feel some faint semblance of a bicep in my arms when I flex, but now I might actually be developing triceps! Amazing. ;) Anyway, the bouldering was tough stuff, but that's what will help me get better--working on my finger strength and general upper body strength. I can't do a chin-up. I have a feeling that once I can do a chin-up, it will open a whole new world of climbing. ;)

Monday, August 25, 2003

525,600 minutes

yesterday as i was carrying two big 14-gallon tupperware bins full of kitchen stuff down the stairs, i thought i'd reached the bottom. unfortunately, i was wrong; there was one more step. i missed it, and as a result, wrenched my ankle something wicked. it was a truly becca-inspired moment (which i say only because i know it will make her go "hey!" in mock anger). anyway.

becca actually happened to be helping me move at the time, and peered through the cutout in the wall of my old apartment to inquire about my well-being, as i sat in a heap on the floor clutching my ankle. i replied that it wasn't broken or anything ("oh good, you're not going into shock," she said, before disappearing back into the rest of the apartment), and then i got up and hobbled over to the new apartment. i moved a few more loads of stuff before realizing that my ankle did actually hurt, at which point i sat down and iced it.

i guess i didn't ice it long enough, as later last night it swelled a bit, and is still swollen today. in fact, it has a nice throbbing/slightly numb feeling today. i think maybe i slightly sprained it. this does not bode well for rock climbing tonight. stupid ankle.

other than that, however, i'm almost done moving. i put off moving the hanging clothes from my closet last night after hurting the stupid ankle, so i have to either do that tonight, or recruit someone else to do it for me. then i have to move my computer. then pull the nails out of the wall, take down the curtain rods, take out the hooks in the bathroom, and rescue the ceiling fan light fixtures that i bought. maybe an hour of work, total. then everything will be out of the old place.

i am liking my new apartment ok. saturday night when everyone came over to watch "so i married an axe murderer" and the help me move, rich and stephanie both walked in and said something along the lines of "wow, this apartment is awesome!" ugh. that is not what a girl wants to hear when she is moving out of that apartment and into a smaller one. i was sad on saturday night. but yesterday went well, and as i start to get things settled and organized in the new place, i am finding that there are some things i like better. i miss the space of my old place, and the big window. but the power lines are farther away from the new place, and the balcony is slightly bigger, and more open, and thus more comfortable. i like the little study area i have set up in what is otherwise the dining room. and the kitchen in my new place is much more efficiently laid out, and i have actually have more cabinet space than i used to.

i didn't officially work out this weekend, as in i didn't run, or swim, or bike, or go to the exercise room. but with all the moving, and stair climbing, and lifting boxes, i think i managed. my arms and legs are a little sore today.

it was really hot this weekend.

lately i have realized a few nice things about having been in one place for more than a year now. it's very calming to me to think that i have seen all the seasons change (insert sarcastic comment about how houston only has two seasons--hot and hotter). but seriously. it is nice to think that i moved here in the middle of the summer, watched the weather cool and the days darken as fall deepened into winter. i was sad at the lack of sunshine through december and january, and enjoyed watching the days get longer as spring approached. the weather got warmer, but may and june were pleasant, and even july wasn't that bad. i didn't find it uncomfortably hot until this month, and now, with september around the corner, i can look forward to cooling, and evenings on the balcony. fall is my favorite season, and it's approaching again.

i dunno. that's not a very good explanation, but last night as i was lying in bed, i decided that being in one place for more than a year wasn't that bad after all.

Saturday, August 23, 2003

on the move

i'm typing these words while lying on my stomach, legs stretched out behind me, on the floor of my study. or what used to be my study. in any case, i'm sure this position is completely ergonomically incorrect.

i guess i'm living in my new apartment now. i still have the keys to this one, and there are still things here--i have yet to move all the clothes from my closet, or move all the dishes from my kitchen--but there isn't an ounce of furniture in here anymore. within the span of an hour or so, it all got moved over to the new place, with much help from matt, stephanie, rich, gavin, jen, becca, and betsy. the boys did a lot of the heavy lifting, including the couch (which went out a lot easier than it came in, it seemed) and the dresser and the bed. tonight, i moved all the bathroom stuff and shower curtain over, so i won't even be using the bathroom here anymore.

i don't actually have to be completely out of this apartment until next sunday. but i'm leaving town on friday, and didn't want to move during the week. tomorrow i hope to move everything else over to the new place. it's mostly clothes and dishes left, so it shouldn't take too long, and becca even said she'd come back over to help. payback for doing her floor last weekend. :)

i am sort of sad to be moving. my new apartment is fine, and a part of me is excited about the change. but another part is sad. and disappointed. the new place is smaller. two of my bookshelves had to go in a closet because there isn't enough space. they'll be just as useful in the closet, but still... my living room is more cramped now, with not nearly as much floor space, and no perfect place for the papasan. there's no way to arrange the living room so that the tv faces the kitchen either, so no more watching baseball across the bar while i leisurely make my dinner.

but it will be ok. it will take some getting used to, but it will be ok.

Friday, August 22, 2003

come josephine in my flying machine going up she goes, up she goes /
balance yourself like a bird on a beam in the air she goes, there she goes...

In my typical groggy morning haze, as I laid in bed hitting the snooze button, I thought to myself "Hmm. Wait a sec. There was some reason I wanted to actually get up at 7:00 today. What was it? Hmm. Gosh, what was it? Geez. Oh, I can't remember, I'll just hit the snooze again."

And that is why I didn't remember (until I walked outside) that this is my favorite day of the entire year to drive to work. Why? Because it's the Friday before the last full weekend in August, which means it's the beginning of the Ballunar Festival! It doesn't officially begin until tonight, but this morning is what you could call the "warm up flight," when all the hot air balloons take off for an early morning jaunt around Clear Lake. Thus, despite forgetting to get up early enough to watch them filling and launching, I still walked out of my apartment to the sight of dozens of brightly colored hot air balloons gliding overhead in perfect quiet, save for the occasional burst from the burner.

They looked so beautiful in the morning sky as they floated over towards Friendswood. I pulled over on the side of the road just before I got to work to take some pictures, and waved at the pilots gliding overhead. Some were higher than others, in fact, one balloon accidentally came down in the middle of the road(!) before its momentum carried it off the pavement and into the field beside the middle school.

Becca is volunteering on a chase crew for one of the balloons; I will be so incredibly jealous if she gets to go for a ride. I've always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon. But alas, I'm moving this weekend and couldn't commit to a chase crew. Hopefully I'll be able to do it next year.

I remember this morning last year. Carter was visiting and was asleep on my couch, and Nick picked me up for work, because he hadn't left for France yet. We drove down the road in his convertible with the top down, and me snapping pictures as fast as I could. I couldn't help myself and called my apartment to wake up Carter, and tell him to look out the window. I don't know if he looked. I don't think he was nearly as excited as I was, not to mention he was half asleep. But that was fun. When I get excited, I have a hard time keeping it in.

Ah, my favorite day. Coming to work beneath a sky filled with balloons just makes me happy. This is going to be a great day. :)

(In fact, I won't even get too upset over last night's game, except to say: Damn the Braves bullpen. Damn them.)

Thursday, August 21, 2003

sleepiness

The Cubs won the game last night, much to Rich's satisfaction. Ah well. It was still an enjoyable outing at the ballpark, and fortunately, the Braves weren't on TV last night so I couldn't stay up late watching that game. Damn the Giants and their walk-off home runs.

I slept...well, not badly, but weirdly last night. I remember waking up in the middle of the night sweating, despite the fact that I turn my A/C down to about 76 degrees at night. In my grogginess, I got up, walked into the living room, pulled my Georgia Tech blanket out from the end table, and laid down on the couch. This all seemed perfectly normal to my sleep-fogged brain. Next thing I know, it's 4:30 in the morning, and I'm still awkwardly positioned on the couch. So I get up and go back to my bedroom and sleep till my alarm goes off.

I guess in retrospect, it's not that weird, but it feels really weird. I've never done anything like that before.

I need to work out. I haven't been running in a week, and haven't done anything remotely active since climbing on Monday. Despite the fact that I'm not getting enough sleep this week due to all the evening plans, I think a lack of exercising is the more prominent cause of my grogginess. Well, at the least, moving this weekend will provide a lot of activity. I only have two more nights in my current apartment before all the furniture goes over to the new place. It'll be a few more days after that until I'm completely moved out of the old and into the new, but I figure when the furniture gets moved, I go with it. This move is weird. I haven't really spent much time thinking about it, which is a lot different from previous moves. Then again, this time I'm only moving 100 feet. Nothing will change except the layout of my apartment.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

that ball's outta here

Turns out we had a bye in volleyball last night, so I ended up going to the Astros-Cubs game with Jason and Debbie. Jason scored 3 tickets from someone he works with. Tonight I'm going after Rich turned in unused season tickets for extra seats. I don't really know why everyone suddenly has extra baseball tickets, especially for this series against the Cubs since it's ripe with playoff implications. And thus should theoretically be harder to get tickets to. But I guess since it's in the middle of the week and all... Anyway. I really can't complain, as I'm getting two nights of baseball in a row, and that's always a good thing, even if it does leave me sleepy the next day.

Last night I came home from the game and had planned to go directly to bed, but I ended up turning on the Braves-Giants game. The score was 2-2 when I turned it on, but Javy promptly hit a 2-run homer to put the Braves ahead. Hooray! Then Ortiz gave up a homer. Uh oh. Then Hodges came in from the bullpen and ended up wild-pitching a run in. Tie game, 4-4, on to extra innings. The Braves couldn't score in the top of the 10th, and wouldn't you know it, first up for the Giants in the bottom was one Mr. Barry Bonds. Facing Ray King. Ugh. Whyyyyyy is Ray King still even pitching? I hate him. Every time I see the bullpen give away a game, it always seems to be King on the mound. Him, or Hernandez. Ugh.

Anyway, I'm sure you can all guess what happened. King pitches to Bonds, Bonds swings, and hits a monster home run into McCovey Cove. Game over.

Sigh. At least Bonds is on my fantasy team. But I'd rather the Braves had won.

This morning I am all enamored with materials science after reading an article about man-made diamonds that Christina linked to. It was extremely interesting. Combine this with the blurb I read in Outside magazine last night about all the cool outdoors-y things you could make a career out of with a materials science degree, and I'm now entertaining flighty thoughts of a total career change. ;)

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

there went the bride

I guess it's just not a good rock climbing night if I don't come away scraped. Either that, or I just had a bad Monday. Yesterday morning I cut my finger while slicing a tomato. Then last night I scraped my elbow falling off a past-vertical wall, and later pinched my finger in a carabiner. Today, I'm sporting three bandaids. Mmm.

The server's back up, so you can now view the photos I posted from James and Chrissy's wedding. Chris posted some of his pictures too.

I realize that I never actually said anything here about my trips last week. The AIAA conference (which I mention first because it was definitely the more boring of the two halves of my vacation) was interesting, and Becca's and my tag-team presentation of our DPS jettison design paper went well. In fact, our session chair even nominated us for best paper of the conference! The award won't be announced until later, and we probably won't win, but it was still exciting to find out we'd been nominated.

But the wedding was, of course, the highlight of the weekend. Carter gave a nice summary of events on his journal a week ago, so I won't repeat what he's already written for me (I am such a mooch!), but everything about the wedding was lovely. Friday afternoon was lunch at Mellow Mushroom, followed by trips to see where the church and reception hall were, followed by amusement in the hotel room as Natasha tried to figure out how to iron her bridesmaid dress without melting it.

Friday evening was the rehearsal, followed by dinner at Maggiano's. Good lord, the food was so good. Especially the salmon. Mmm. Anyway, the restaurant was perfect for such an event; they had a second floor that consisted only of private party rooms, each with space for 30ish people and with a small (but fully stocked) bar. The bartender amused me the entire night. At one point, Claire (James's very cool and very hilarious sister) and I were standing at the bar talking when the bartender turned to us and said "you look like you could use a couple shots." We gaped at him for a moment. Then there was a moment of wondering whether it was appropriate to do shots at a rehearsal dinner. Looking at each other and shrugging our shoulders, Claire and I said "well, ok." So the bartender made a random pink concoction, and wouldn't tell us what it was until we'd downed them.

They were actually really good, and thankfully not too strong. Turned out it was vodka, peach schnapps, cranberry juice, and pineapple juice. In what proportions, I have no idea.

Saturday we awoke bright and early, showered, I put on my new dress, and Carter and Kent were looking really snazzy in their tuxedos. We were at the church by 8:30, where the boys joined the other groomsmen, and I began my job as go-to girl. I adjusted tuxedo vests. I pinned flowers on the boys. I drove rose petals over to the reception hall. I fetched people when needed. At 10:30, I started greeting people like a madwoman. I was on a roll!

One of the fun things about the wedding is that I got to see so many people I hadn't seen in a long time, people who aren't close friends, but who I still enjoy talking to. But of course the highlight was watching James and Chrissy get married. When the groomsmen had taken their places, James walked in with a huge smile on his face. Now, James is a guy who always has a huge smile, but the one he wore during the ceremony was even bigger, I swear. Chrissy looked absolutely beautiful in her dress, and as she was walking down the aisle, she had a smile big enough to match the one on James's face. They both looked happier than I've ever seen them; it was awesome. I love weddings.

After the ceremony, Christina and Sara and I skedaddled to the rehearsal hall, where we again greeted all the guests and then got down to some serious post-wedding partying. As James was so fond of pointing out, there was an open bar. ;) But more importantly, there was good food, and lots of dancing, and really good champagne for the toasts. The reception hall, though unassuming from the outside, was actually really nice on the inside, and the decorations were cool. The entire ceiling was covered in white christmas lights, like stars. Very nice.

Anyway. That is the 15-minute summary of the wedding. Now someone else needs to get engaged and plan a wedding for next summer so I can keep my streak going. It's been four years now...

Monday, August 18, 2003

is this an end piece or a start piece?

Monday is here way too quickly. I spent the entire weekend (literally, to the tune of 3 hours Friday night, 13 hours Saturday, and 6 hours yesterday) at Becca's house helping put down her new laminate flooring in the living room. I guess since I was the one bugging her to go ahead and replace the carpet, it's only fair that I help out. :)

With assistance from Rich, Matt, Jen, and Gavin, we had as many as 6 people working at any given time. Friday night we tore up the carpet, padding, and wooden carpet tack boards around the edge of the room. For most of Saturday afternoon, Becca and I painted quarter round and attempted to sand down the concrete around the fireplace (which is a bit higher than the rest of the floor) with varying degrees of success. When we decided the floor was level enough, we took a break at Gavin and Jen's to let the dust settle. Seriously, there was so much dust I'll probably be coughing it up for weeks.

Anyway, it was around this time, maybe 5:00 or so, that Rich and Matt showed up after their morning of windsurfing to help out. They quickly deduced that we should start on the opposite side of the room from where Becca and I had been planning to start (a correct decision, as we later agreed), and voila, we started laying the floor. After 4 rows, we broke for dinner and margaritas at Mely's, where Gavin and Jen joined us, and after that all 6 of us returned to the house. We laid more floor until we were at the fireplace, at which point it was almost 1 a.m. and we were all sleepy.

Yesterday Rich and I showed up around noon and started laying the final rows of flooring while Becca gave the quarter round another coat of paint. Gavin and Jen showed up an hour or so later, and we began working on the final 4 rows of floor. These rows probably took as long as the rest of the floor combined, simply because it involved so many cuts to fit around the fireplace tile, the built-in bookshelves, and the door to Becca's bedroom. After that, we put down some of the molding, and some of the quarter round. I had to leave for soccer practice, so I don't know how much more got done last night, but regardless...

The floor looks really good. And I am feeling all Trading Spaces-ish and workshop-y and industrious. The coolest part was that each of us had our little area that we were good at. Rich and Matt were experts at measuring and cutting. Jen trumped everyone by measuring and cutting the most complicated piece of all, the board leading into Becca's bedroom. I was the best at quickly locking the boards together with a minimum of effort, and the consultant on how to make the seams look not merely random, but psuedo-random (i.e. appearing random, but actually designed with a purpose). A pseudo-random pattern, I can assure you, looks better than completely random. :)

Anyway. I'm sure Becca will take some pictures of it and post them somewhere so you can all see the fruit of our labor.

Other than the floor, I did nothing this weekend. With the few remaining weekend hours I had last night after a hot and sparsely attended soccer practice (the women's league season starts september 7), I vacuumed my apartment and vegged out to the Phillies-Cardinals game.

I need a weekend of nothing; I feel like I've been going constantly for a month, even though it's only been a week and a half. But alas, it's not meant to happen. Tonight is rock climbing, tomorrow is volleyball. Wednesday is the Astros-Cubs game, Thursday is softball, Friday is packing, and Saturday and Sunday are moving into my new apartment. Whew. After that, it's settling in, followed by a Labor Day trip to Enchanted Rock. Before I know it, it will be September. September already! Geez.

Friday, August 15, 2003

of switched fish and broken water heaters

(The server that is currently hosting the wedding pictures that I linked to yesterday is down. I don't know why, but I'll try to remember to mention when it comes back up.)

So there's the western power grid, the eastern power grid, and the Texas power grid. Texas has its own grid! Ah, I love Texas. No blackouts for us; we can secede without fear of power loss at any ol' time. Go Texas.

Yesterday was very strange. It began with an early morning thunderstorm that woke me up, and when I fell back asleep I dreamed that I was climbing Mt. Everest (which my brain morphed into a tower a la the Tower of Isengard on the Lord of the Rings movie poster, except made of ice and snow). So here I was on a completely vertical Mt. Everest, wearing my crampons and clutching my ice ax. With me on the climb were Harry Potter, Ron, Hermione, and...Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Very random.

(Oh! completely unrelated side note: in Austin on Wednesday, as we were finishing our lunch at Kerbey Lane, a girl walked by wearing a Trogdor the Burninator t-shirt. It was awesome. Anyway, back to yesterday's craziness.)

So after I finished climbing Mt. Everest with Ahhhnold and woke up, I came to work, only to realize I'd forgotten my dentist appointment, yadda yadda. Went to the dentist, came back, and hurrah, the computer man was here to take away my old crappy computer and give me a lovely new black Dell, with speakers. I've been waiting for my computer refresh for months now; little did I know it would be such an ordeal.

I had 6.5 gigabytes of data on my old hard drive that needed to be transferred to my new drive, but instead of being able to simply connect the two drives and transfer things efficiently, my old computer had to transfer everything to a small portable drive. This took five hours. At 5:30, the thing finally finished, and the tech guy and I finally went home.

Ugh. At least I have a new computer.

In the meantime, however, while my computer was being otherwise occupied transferring the entire contents of the hard drive, I got a call from my apartment complex saying my hot water heater had busted, I would have no hot water until tomorrow, and that Javier the maintainence man had discovered the problem after seeing water leak out of my garage, where the water heater is located.

There were multiple problems with this assessment. One, my water heater is not in my garage; it's in my apartment in the utility closet next to the kitchen. I knew this, and feared that I would come home to soaked carpet. Two... ok, well maybe there was only one problem with the assessment, but it was a major one.

Anyway. I came home. Inspected the garage. No sign of water having soaked the cardboard boxes in the back of my garage. Went into my apartment. No sign of water anywhere, not the kitchen or the carpet. Try the hot water. The faucet sputters and does nothing, so indeed, I have no hot water. Hmm. Go downstairs to the empty apartment below me, which has been left open for me to shower. Aha! The carpet was wet next to that utility closet, which is directly under mine. Aha! The garage to that apartment is open.

Deduction: my water heater broke, leaking water into the apartment below mine, and leaking out of a pipe that resulted in water coming out of the garage next to mine.

Anyway. I showered at debbie's, which was fine because I needed to go pick up Viggo the fish anyway. I walk in, look at Viggo, and notice that he has turned blue in the week since I've seen him. Blue? I ask Debbie what happened to Viggo, and she smiles beguilingly and says "Oh, he's blue! He missed you so much that he turned blue!" But where's the real Viggo, I wonder? Suddenly, a horrible thought occurs to me.

"Did he die?!?" I ask. Debbie looks at me. "Oh no, he died!!!" I cry. "The post-traumatic stress from me accidently dumping him down the drain has killed him!"

Debbie couldn't keep it up any longer. She revealed Viggo, happily swimming in a new tank in her bedroom. The blue fish is named Vtot (pronounced vee-tote), and since Debbie didn't know what she was going to do with him, I have adopted him and can now put their tanks next to each other and watch them attempt to fight. Viggo the red and Vtot the blue. Or if you prefer, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.

(As a finale to this rambling and late-in-the-day entry, I guess I have to explain the blue fish's name. Viggo (the red), which I pronounce vee-go, sounds to Debbie like Vgo, which is an orbital mechanics term for the velocity to go in an engine burn. To keep with the theme, she named the blue fish Vtot, which is the term for total velocity change. I am surrounded by dorks.)

Thursday, August 14, 2003

home is where the knick knacks are

I was supposed to go to the dentist this morning at 8:20, and I totally, completely forgot. Oops. Fortunately, they have another opening at 10:50. Thus, this entry will be short, and I'll have to update sporadically over the next few days.

I was only gone for 6 days, but I was so busy that coming home yesterday felt incredibly good. As much as I love vacations, there is still something nice about coming home. As I just wrote elsewhere, my apartment misses me when I'm gone. When I come home, it needs me to air out the stuffiness from turning the a/c up, the quietness from having been empty, the darkness from the blinds having been closed, the neatness of the bed having been made. I know the saying "home is where the heart is," and it's a good saying, but for me it goes something more like "home is where my stuff is." Houston is not home. Neither is texas. But my apartment is like my sanctuary. It's my space; I do what I want, make a mess if I want, answer to no one, and feel guilty about nothing. And thus, it is home.

Last night I got in a good workout for the first time in a week--a 5k run on the treadmill, the last 20 minutes of which were spent talking to a random guy who walked in and wanted to ask me about the apartment complex. Turns out he's just moved down here from minnesota, and is taking an industrial engineering faculty position at the University of Houston (he's just graduated from University of Minnesota, he can't be more than 29 or 30). We talked for a while, and I did my best to sell him on the luxuries of Las Palmas. Anyway. It was random, but it made my run go by very quickly. That makes me want to find someone who runs the same pace as me, who would want to run regularly; this is something I always thought I didn't want. Weird.

I must be off to the dentist, so I'll update with details of the vacation later.

Thursday, August 07, 2003

all my bags are packed / i'm ready to go

Last night I went over to the workout room to run on the treadmill (it's still too damn hot to run outdoors). I had just hopped on to the treadmill and was starting it up when a woman walked in and got on the other treadmill next to me. We chatted for a while, and watched the end of the Yankees-Rangers game. She got off, did a few weights, and started to leave.

That's when it happened. It finally happened!

She looked back at me as she was walking out and said "Have a nice evening...I wish I were in half as good shape as you!" Oh man, that made me feel so good. I've always been the out-of-shape, unfit one. It was so cool to have someone express the opinion that I am in pretty good shape. I mean, my friends have told me this, but it somehow means more coming from a complete stranger. Not that my friends' opinions don't matter, just that it sounds better coming from someone who has no vested interest in making you happy.

Anyway. Even though I still have a long way to go before I'm running marathons or climbing mountains, her off-handed comment totally made my night.

I'm off to Atlanta today for the James and Chrissy wedding weekend extravaganza. I'll be there until Sunday night, when I fly from Atlanta straight to Austin. I'll be in Austin with Becca for Monday and Tuesday attending the AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference and presenting our DPS Jettison Design paper. I'll be back in Houston next Wednesday around lunchtime.

So those are the plans, and now... the wild blue yonder awaits.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

it's alright, it's alright / we are landing this ship soon / it's alright, it's alright / no more trips around the moon

It was brought to my attention yesterday, albeit unintentionally, that this is the first time I've been in the same place for a year since I was in high school. I am also told that this is normal. Doesn't help me from feeling restless though. Maybe moving to a different apartment will cure that, or at least help.

Even before yesterday, I have been missing California something fierce. A friend from Stanford sent around the link to a 20-minute "highlight video" he made. It showed so many of the crazy things that went on during the 9 months I was there, and made me picture college as a magical place where classes are a minor thing stuck in between surfing, biking, parties, headstands in the study lounge and men in catwoman costumes.

Ah.

I can't think of much to say today. Hmm. Let's see.

Yesterday afternoon I made a really cool map showing footprints along an entry trajectory all the way from EI to KSC. It was pretty cool looking, and as always, I am a big fan of cool looking maps and graphs.

The dress I bought on Saturday is a size smaller than anything I've bought since I was like 14 years old. Obviously Talbots sizes their dresses bigger than any other store, but it still made me feel good.

My arms still ache from climbing on Monday, but today it is a good ache, a friendly ache, a "grr, I'm gonna be rock solid someday" ache. Unfortunately, I'll still be out of town next Monday, but I'm already looking forward to the Monday after that, and more climbing.

I'll also miss softball this week. Sad. I need to recover from last time's dismal hitting performance.

I need to get outta dodge.

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

climb on

Last night I went to the rock gym with Betsy, Buzz, Fred, Nick, and Steph. I'd been to this rock gym before, but couldn't remember how long it had been. When I got my name sticker, I discovered that I last visited on June 6, 1998. Five freaking years ago. Geez. So it was a rough night, and this morning my arms still feel all wiggly and weak. Dang.

In any case, it was a lot of fun, and I plan on joining the group regularly for Monday night climbing sessions. I gotta get better, as last night even Betsy was showing me up by climbing harder routes than I could manage. ;) Buzz was kicking my butt too, but that doesn't count, seeing as how Buzz has the upper body strengh of 5 of me put together.

See, me, I have absolutely zero upper body strength. I can't even do a single chin-up. And as if to rub it in, Joe (the guy who was working the desk last night) heard me comment on this, and responded by doing multiple chin-ups from various locations such as the door frame, and hanging from a tiny little grip by two fingers. Then he did a one-armed push-up on the floor. Bastard. (Though Buzz totally showed him up by doing a one-armed pushup with one arm, then immediately switching and doing another with the other arm. Buzz rules. I would be scared to meet her in a dark alley.)

Anyway. At least I have something to work on. The most difficult route I climbed last night was a 5.8, which is really not hard at all, and makes me sound like a huge wuss. Next week I hope to finish a 5.9. We shall see.

Oh, my aching arms. This is almost as bad as the day after surfing. :)

Monday, August 04, 2003

and you / you keep on waiting / for the sun to come around

last night i told nick i was going to atlanta on thursday. "wow, you haven't been there in forever," he said sarcastically.

i am looking forward to the weekend. despite the fact that i was just in atlanta a month ago, i am already again feeling the need to get away, the need for a mini-vacation. to forget about work and moving and money for a few days.

ah. i let the little things stress me out.

yesterday was pretty relaxing. i watched baseball while eating cheesecake factory leftovers. i picked becca up at the airport, which was unfortunate because i had to drive all that way, but it wasn't so bad when i turned the stereo up, and now i have someone who owes me a ride to hobby on thursday. i ran, on the treadmill because of the heat, and more slowly than usual because i was tired. but i ran for 40 minutes, which is a good long run, and especially miraculous because i really hate the treadmill and can usually only stand to stay on for 20 minutes max before abandoning it for something else. i much prefer to run outside, but it was just too hot.

after running i came home, talked to nick, and looked through the entire new ikea catalog. (side note: this morning on the radio, the winner of a name-that-movie contest won everything on a random page of the new catalog. the random page turned out to be page 49, which consisted of an entire living room's worth of furniture. i am so jealous. not because i need the furniture, but simply because i adore ikea.)

such is my life.

i am sunburned. sheesh. good thing i bought some aloe gel the last time. damn my fair skin.

Saturday, August 02, 2003

code name ginger

yesterday i got to ride a segway. you know, one of those fancy two-wheeled gyro-controlled scooters. ginger. IT. whatever they were calling it before anyone knew what it was.

anyway, turns out that a guy in my apartment complex has one, and i happened to come home from work at the same time he was riding around the parking lot. i followed him, pulled up beside him in my car, and started asking him questions. ("hi, i'm sarah in 803." "hi, i'm mike in 1301.") he bought it 3 weeks ago, and he is one of 6 people in houston that owns one ("we have a little club," he explained). apparently there's a segway store opening soon, but when i commented that i'd have to go see if they gave test rides, he offered to let me ride his. of course i jumped at the chance.

standing on it felt sort of weird at first, but if you just stand still and level the thing will balance you perfectly. all you have to do is lean forward, and you move forward. lean forward a little farther, and you move forward faster. lean back, and you move back. twist the control on the handlebar and you turn in tight little circles. you don't even have to be moving to turn--the darn thing has zero turning radius and can spin on a dime. the top speed is controlled by which magnetic key you use to turn it on.

it was so cool. if only i had $5000 to blow, i'd buy one. ("i rewired the atm at the food emporium to provide an honorarium to anyone with the code...") ah well.

when dubya tried to ride his segway, he fell off simply because he forgot to turn it on.

figures.

today was lovely. spent some time by the pool, made myself enchiladas for lunch. spent 6 hours with cari at the mall on the oh-so-crowded tax-free weekend, and had dinner with her at my favorite restaurant ever.

cheesecake. mmm.

Friday, August 01, 2003

hot off the presses

our work is trickling into the news again. there were articles in the houston chroncle and orlando sentinel today, as well as one in yesterday's florida today. i recommend the orlando sentinel article, as it contains the most educated information.

yesterday i went to another very interesting meeting. i never would have guessed that the workings of upper management (at least when it comes to issues that i have a role in) are so fascinating. it makes me want to work my way up to that point. sort of.

last night i did a bit of shopping, but didn't have much luck. i am in search of something to wear to james and chrissy's wedding, and am sort of at a loss as to what to get. i've never been to a wedding that i haven't had my dress picked out for me (i.e. as a member of the wedding party) except for ron and buzz's back in april. but i think their wedding was much more casual than this one will be. i have no idea what i need to wear; i only know that i probably don't own something currently, since 99% of my clothes are either for normal use or work use, and the other 1% are formal dresses that would be too fancy for a wedding. hmm.

i wish there were good movies coming out this weekend. i feel like i haven't seen nearly enough good movies lately. i guess that is to be expected in the summer. time to retreat to my video and dvd collection.

jen is going to yosemite this weekend to climb half dome. ahh, half dome. i have such fond memories of my trip there, and would love to go do it again someday. in the meantime, i'm just here in houston trying to get into even better shape. actually, it has been a great week of workouts. sunday i swam, monday i biked. tuesday and wednesday nights were busy, but last night i ellipticalled. if i go running tomorrow, i'll have a grand slam.

i do love that on any given day i can swim, bike, run, or elliptical (which is sort of like running, but different, so i count it differently). it keeps my workouts interesting. and variety is the spice of life.