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Monday, February 27, 2006

I´ll bet you didn´t expect

I´ll bet you didn´t expect this many blog updates from way down in South America. It just goes to show what a truly small world it has become, I guess. The Internet is everywhere, and we can´t resist using it.

We are in Santiago, finally having left Patagonia behind. I miss the mountains already, though Santiago at first glance (we have only been here for a few hours) is lovely. The weather, at least, is nicer than Buenos Aires. BA was hot and humid. Santiago is dry and cool.

We´ve had a couple days of mostly travel. Yesterday we were met in Torres Del Paine at the catamaran dock and headed down the long road to Punta Arenas. It took from 11:00 until 6:00, stopping only to get some lunch, and then for an hour at the penguin colony an hour outside of town.

This morning we had just enough time to do a little souvenir shopping in Punta Arenas (very little, since we don´t really have room to carry souvenirs), and then hopped on our flight to Santiago.

Tomorrow we see the city, and then tomorrow night we climb on an overnight flight to Atlanta. We get to Atlanta at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. or something, then finally get back to Houston at 10:30 or so on Wednesday morning.

The end of vacation is hard. Going back to my "real life" always takes some adjustment.

See everyone in Houston soon...

Saturday, February 25, 2006

I´m in the middle of

I´m in the middle of nowhere, yet they have internet. It is somehow fitting to the current state of the world. And I am an internet junkie. I couldn´t resist the call of the monitors.

Patagonia is still TOTALLY AWESOME. At the moment we are at Refugio Paine Grande in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. We expected to find a fairly bare bones building to go along with the name "refugio"...however, this place is great! It´s like a mountain lodge -- with a breath-taking view of the Cuernos del Paine, I might add -- for only $30 a night!

I am really sad that our trip is coming to an end. Tomorrow, on to Punta Arenas with a stop to see penguins, then Monday to Santiago, and Tuesday night we get on a place back to the US. I will miss Patagonia.

TONS of photos to come, of course. Everyone is making fun of me for my heavy backpack full of my "camera store´s worth of stuff" but I shall have the last laugh.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Argentinian Patagonia is awesome. El

Argentinian Patagonia is awesome. El Chalten was awesome. Fitz Roy was awesome. Ice trekking on a glacier was awesome. Today we are in El Calafate and off to ride horses and see another glacier.

Yep, awesome.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Hola from Buenos Aires! We

Hola from Buenos Aires! We are here, and did a bunch of stereotypically Buenos Aires things yesterday -- Plaza de Mayo, Casa Rosada, Cemetario Recoleta, a tango show at Cafe Tortoni, and a steak dinner. Today we head for the mountains! It is hot here in the city -- almost Houston-like in its humidity, though not quite as hot, and with a nice breeze. I'm ready to get to the cool air. And penguins. And glaciers. And mountains.

Friday, February 17, 2006

One day till Patagonia... We

One day till Patagonia...

We leave tonight. Whoa. I can't believe this trip is finally here!

The Plan
Feb 18 - Buenos Aires!
Feb 19 - fly to El Calafate, bus to El Chalten
Feb 20 - Fitz Roy dayhike!
Feb 21 - back to El Calafate, horse riding
Feb 22 - Perito Moreno glacier!
Feb 23 - bus across border to Torres del Paine national park
Feb 24 - Las Torres dayhike!
Feb 25 - Glacier Gray dayhike!
Feb 26 - bus to Punta Arenas with a stop to see penguins!
Feb 27 - fly to Santiago
Feb 28 - Santiago!
Mar 1 - home :(

I spent last night not doing my web design project. I'm going to have to ask my professor for a couple extra days. It's due on the 28th, but I should be able to turn it in on the 1st when I get back, or on the 2nd.

Instead of doing my project, I spent the evening alternately talking on the phone to all the people who apparently wanted to talk to me before I left for the end of the world -- oh woe is me for being so cool and popular ;) -- and trying not to freak out. I would put something in my backpack, and then go sit on the couch and think. Put another item in the backpack, then sit back and think. Watch some Olympics. Sit. Check email. Put another item in the backpack.

In the end, I'm packed. My pack is not overflowing, but it is definitely full, enough that I plan to repack this afternoon. I'd like to have a little extra space for potential souvenirs, after all. I'm leaving work around coke break to have a couple hours to chill before the trip begins. I figure I can easily take out a pair of pants, a shirt, and maybe my travel pillow. That would free up a lot of space, especially the pillow. And I can always sleep on a sweatshirt.

I've also got to put together an address list for postcards. If you want a postcard and don't think I have your address, better get it to me today! No guarantees, but I'll do my best. Worst case, you'll probably get something from Santiago.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Gavin commented at lunch today

Gavin commented at lunch today that he's never seen me play with my hair until this week, saying "you must really be nervous." This was interesting to me since I recently told someone that it was not a nervous habit, but rather just a habit. It's one of the reasons I always consider cutting my hair back to shoulder length -- so that I stop playing with it so much, and picking at my split ends. But maybe I was wrong. In that case, I've been nervous for like three weeks running.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Sometimes, despite a long list

Sometimes, despite a long list of errands to run and things to pack, a girl's just gotta work off some excess energy and stress. I met Jason, Debbie, Curt and Sara out at the new Gilruth for a workout. They finished all the renovations over the holidays and I hadn't been out there yet. Despite my wish to be able to say something sarcastic about the "employee activities" people, I have to admit that they did a really nice job. The workout room is huge now, with tons of weight machines, and tons of ellipticals and treadmills. They have a bunch of flat screen TVs (though just ask Becca how easy -- or NOT easy -- it is to get them to change the channel) and you can plug your headphones into a receiver on each machine to listen while you run or elliptical or bike or whatever.

In short, it's a real gym now. We've caught up to the modern era.

I did half an hour on the elliptical machine while watching the end of the Tech-UNC basketball game. I must have been bad luck -- when I arrived, Tech was ahead by a few points, but UNC ended up winning by 7. Of course, in reading the game summary this morning I found out that Tech was up by 20 at one point. And they still lost. Geez. Katie and Joel were also there, and maybe the did not cheer loudly enough! I also did some of the weight machines, but without any real method behind it. I'd like to start doing some strength training to help with my running, but I am both intimidated and bored by weight machines.

I spent the rest of the evening either running last-minute errands or packing. I am about 2/3 packed, and feeling ok about things at the moment. I think my new half-camera, half-other daypack is going to work out about as well as expected -- my only complaint thus far (not having actually worn the backpack on an extended dayhike yet) is that I think the water bottle pockets on the sides are a little too small for a typical Nalgene bottle. However, my worries about needing a pack cover disappeared when I realized it has a built-in pack cover that stores in the bottom! Cool. Anyway, I made my decision -- I'm taking it instead of my old non-camera daypack. If it doesn't work well, I'll sell it when I get back.

I have just a few more things to get tonight. Moleskin for potential (and probable) blisters. A new pair of sunglasses. Some Clif bars. Yup, I'm about ready to go. Hopefully I will finish packing quickly tonight so that I have time to do my web design project! Ugh for homework that has to be done two weeks early, but hooray for vacation.

I am listening to my "calm music" today to keep me from freaking out too much. Counting Crows (the blue VH1 album), Jack Johnson, James Taylor, Mozart.

Photos of Patagonia keep popping up in the rotation on my desktop, leading me to believe that my computer somehow knows I'm going on vacation. I just minimized my windows to open up Matlab, and BAM -- there's a sunset photo of Fitz Roy. I'm going to be there looking at it for real on, like, Monday. Whoa.

Two days till Patagonia...

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I have two more nights

I have two more nights in town and a list of things to do as long as my arm. I have been all sorts of distracted lately with everything going on, and haven't even started to pack yet. Well, ok, so I've pulled out my backpack and a couple key items, but haven't started to put everything together. I was planning to take Friday afternoon off to gather my nerves and get a quick breather before the trip, but I think yesterday I stumbled into a Friday afternoon tele-meeting. Hmm. I also have to somehow finish my web design project in the next two nights. Sigh.

I have not been a very good running blogger lately. Perhas that has something to do with the fact that I have not been a good runner lately. I'd been thinking about doing the Seabrook half marathon on March 19, but I realized last night that it's not gonna happen. I could finish the distance, but not well. I haven't done a real long run since the Houston Half, and have been slacking off in a major way. Leaving the country for two weeks won't help either; granted, I won't exactly be sitting on my butt in Patagonia, but I also won't be running. So, Seabrook marathon relay it is. I'll have to find a team. Shouldn't be a problem.

Three days till Patagonia...

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Well, I had planned to

Well, I had planned to watch this morning's sim. I forgot about it until I woke up at 7:30, at which point I quickly dressed and got to work just a couple minutes at 8:00. Perfect, because even if they start to run at 8:00, liftoff isn't until 8:09! But when I walked in, everyone looked very bored. Turns out the very complicated cockpit simulator that the crew sits in was really giving people fits this morning. We waited and waited while they fixed it, then finally started around 9:20. Everything was going fine until about 4:00 into the sim, when the simulator crashed. And they came on and said "um, let's just try to get it fixed for tomorrow" and the flight director said "ok, I'd like to stop wasting the team's time anyway" and we all said "well that was a worthwhile sim." And laughed. Sean asked me if I learned a lot today by watching. I said sure, I learned that the SMS is just as dumb as the ARD!

I'm in a time crunch to get my homework done before I miss two weeks of class. I have one more textbook chapter to do, and a whole project to do. The project is to design a: "Family Album. Create a site showcasing your family and friends. Be as creative and stylistic as you wish to create a look and feel appropriate to your inner personlity. Create a minimum of 10 pages. Include a main splash page, and a unique system of links. Use a minimum of 10 different images. All images used should link to higher quality full-size image pages. Include enough professional elements to give this site an air of authority. Be sure to use enough of the advanced features during class to be challenging. Use at least one instance of advanced rollover. Consider using background images, table layouts, slices, and image maps. Have fun, be creative, and take pride in your final creation."

Sigh. It is hard to be both creative and constrained by all those requirements. I actually have no idea what I'm going to do, or I would've started it over the weekend. I'm hoping he shows us some examples in class. Anybody got any "creative" ideas?

My paper-airplane-a-day calendar has pink hearts all over it for today and says "Be Mine." Except when you actually fold the airplane, the "Be Mine" disappears into the folds. That seems dumb. Perhaps you are supposed to fly it at someone, and then if they get curious and open it up they'll see the secret "Be Mine" message.

Four days till Patagonia...

Monday, February 13, 2006

I'm still shaky from my

I'm still shaky from my sim this morning. It was the hardest I've done yet. It's a good thing they don't have me hooked up to one of those stress-measuring things, because my heart rate was through the roof. I can hear the FDO now: "Break break, stop the sim, ARD is having a heart attack!"

Things I did not do this weekend:

+ my taxes
+ clean my apartment
+ take my car for it's 15,000 mile service
+ go running
+ play soccer since the other team forfeited
+ get my car washed
+ any of my homework that I have to get done before leaving Friday

Things I did do:

+ not sleep enough on Friday and have to get up at 6 a.m. Saturday
+ sleep too much on Saturday and get up late on Sunday
+ eat out a lot
+ watch round-the-clock Olympics

So you could say it was an unproductive weekend. Or you could say it was glorious. I'll just say it was gloriously unproductive.

Five days to Patagonia...

Sunday, February 12, 2006

I heart the Olympics. If

I heart the Olympics. If I could win an Olympic medal in one of the Olympics sports, I know which sports I'd choose. Summer? Soccer or swimming. Winter? Speed skating or cross country skiing.

What sport would you choose?

Saturday, February 11, 2006

It's only a bit past

It's only a bit past 9:00 on a Saturday night and I can barely keep my eyes open. I had to get up at 6:00 this morning to shoot a race downtown. I think there is something wrong with me -- lately I have been getting up earlier on the weekends than I do on a normal weekday.

One day I will actually catch up on my sleep, and then you can all stop reading about how tired I am.

The race went well for me as photographer, and seemed to go well for all the HRBers who ran -- Jen, Joe, and speedy Sam who finished 4th overall! Go Sam. A bunch of other HRBers ran either the full or half marathon down on the beach in Surfside. Early reports indicate that it went well for everyone, despite cold and windy weather and a "sandstorm" or two! Congrats especially to Holden on his half marathon PR.

Jo was in town today for hula stuff, so we got to have dinner with her. It's nice that she still makes it back to Houston on a regular basis even though she's currently living in Nacogdoches.

I'm going to be watching a lot of the Olympics this week. I am such a sucker for the Olympics. I must be the epitome of the ideal Olympic viewer -- I like the cheesy heart-warming human interest stories aimed at women and of course I actually like the sports part as well. But the best part is how we all get to become experts, for a short two weeks, in totally random sports. I mean, did you see that triple axel? And that guy on the luge hit 88 mph!

Ha ha.

On tap for tomorrow: sleeping till I can't sleep anymore, starting to pack for Patagonia (less than a week away!!!), and a soccer game.

Friday, February 10, 2006

There are rumors that last

There are rumors that last weekend's 6K cross country race was actually 6.3K. That's an extra 0.2 miles, which puts me right at a 10:00/mile average. Which is pretty fast for me and would explain why my heart rate was so high and why I was really struggling!

Friday, February 10, 2006

I just realized that the

I just realized that the last time the Olympics were on, I missed the last few days because we headed off to Peru. This year, we'll miss the last few days because we're heading off to Argentina and Chile.

I like this trend.

Friday, February 10, 2006

So, you remember that logo

So, you remember that logo I did a couple months ago for the Dragon Boat Festival? It was an extra credit project for my graphic design class. Well, a couple months went by without hearing anything, so I figured they'd chosen a different logo. Then, a couple weeks ago I got an invitation to the Dragon Boat Festival Kickoff Party last night at a bar downtown, saying that the winning logo would be announced at 8:00. I thought about going, but then forgot about it, not really wanting to drive downtown when I might lose. (Yes, I am that shallow.)

On Monday I got an email from a woman who works with the festival, saying that the judges really liked my logo and they just had a couple minor tweaks -- making the face wider, and changing the text to reflect what they really wanted it to say. I sent that to them on Tuesday night. I got another email on Wednesday asking for one more tweak to the font and wording, along with a casual "they'd also like to know more about you and your background." At this point I was feeling like I had a good shot at winning, so I decided to go to their kickoff party last night with the thought that it would be a bit annoying if they'd asked me for those tweaks and my logo didn't even win.

Anyway, the party was ok, and I'm glad I went because my logo won! Hooray! Here is the logo for this year's May festival, to be used on t-shirts and brochures and stickers and even temporary tattoos (which is my personal favorite item). :)

It was actually pretty embarassing, because they had this whole "reveal" thing where they pulled a cover off a posterboard that had my logo on it, along with the cheesy "about me" that I'd sent via email -- word for word as I'd written it in the email! And I had to stand next to it so they could take my picture. And another girl from my class was there and kept saying "oh I knew they'd pick yours!" which was flattering, but also made me uncomfortable because while I obviously think that my design was awesome, I am always suspicious when other people agree with me.

I was both embarassed and excited.

Yep, I'm a freak.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Gavin walks into my office.

Gavin walks into my office.

Gavin: "There's something in my office beeping."
Sarah: "Ok..."
Gavin: "I can't figure out what it is or where it's coming from."
Sarah: "Maybe it's coming from Josh's office."
Gavin: "Hmm."

Minutes pass. Gavin walks back in.

Gavin: "Do you have any room on your C drive?"
Sarah: "Not much. 4 gigs."
Gavin: "Can I put some stuff there temporarily?"
Sarah: "...Ok."
Gavin: "I think there's something wrong with my computer. It's beeping."
Sarah: starts to create a folder for Gavin
Gavin: beep boop
Sarah: looks at Gavin
Gavin: "That's the noise my computer is making."
Sarah: "Gavin, that's your cell phone."
Gavin: "So it is. It's never made that noise before."
Sarah: "It needs to be charged."
Gavin: looks sheepish
Sarah: "Your phone has never been low on battery before?"
Gavin: "I guess not."
Sarah: "How did you not notice that the beeping was coming from your waist?"
Gavin: "I'm going to go nurse my wounded pride now."

Doug is silently laughing from his desk next to mine as Gavin leaves the room.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Happy Birthday Mom! :) Yesterday

Happy Birthday Mom! :)

Yesterday I had grand plans to leave work at 4:45 and go running on the Gilruth trail for the first time this year. At 4:30, I was starting to mentally shut down. By 4:40 I was starting to shut down my computer and gather my things. That's when Gavin walked in and said "hey Sarah, do you have a minute to talk with Rich and me about the neural net?" Sure, of course I do.

Next thing I know, it's 6:00 and getting dark, and I still had to go to Wolf Camera, and I didn't even get home until 7:30 and I was tired. But that antsy, anxious feeling remained, and I decided that the only way to get rid of it was to go for a run, even if the time and darkness now meant running laps around my little street.

So: 3.25 miles, 34:02, 10:28/mile, average heart rate 185. I didn't push myself too hard, but hard enough to settle myself down for the night. Which, I then was up too late yet again for the umpteenth time because I have overcommitted myself.

I am tired.

The Winter Olympics start tomorrow. I didn't even realize!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

It's official. I am a

It's official. I am a freak, and freak out about stupid things. I'm not saying this with any real expectation of changing; after all, I've had almost 28 years to pick up these mental blocks. I'm just stating it for future record, so that no one can accuse of me of not at least realizing one of my faults, even if I seem helpless to change it.

I watched the sim this morning. Marc was working it. He got easier cases than I did on Monday night; of course, it probably just seemed that way because I wasn't actually in the hot seat. If I'd been working, I doubt I would've come up with the answers as quickly. Something about nerves. Every time I go to a sim, as the clock counts down to launch on the first run, my heart starts pounding and my hands go all clammy. We might as well be launching for real instead of just in the computer!

Ah, but that is exactly the point.

I am already ready for the weekend. It has been a weird week. I can't shake an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it is so annoying.

Nick posted archives of his old Page du Jour entries that he did while he lived in France, and I just had fun reliving the week that I was there and made him translate large blocks of text into French when he was really tired already. :) My week started on January 18, 2003.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

My first website for my

My first website for my web design class: here. It's pretty dull. It's not how I would do an image gallery. And the images, in my opinion, are too big. There are still enough people out there with small monitors that I think 800 pixels is too wide. BUT those were the parameters of the assignment: splash page, 3x3 grid, and individual image pages with 800 pixel wide images.

Sigh.

After class last week, I'd decided to drop. It's not worth the money I've spent for it. But I missed the deadline to drop without a penalty. So now I have to figure out what the penalty is, and whether I'm willing to suffer it.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

My sim last night was

My sim last night was crazy. The first two runs were easy for me, but hard for the FDO (that's my "boss" in the control center). The second two runs were crazy for me.

I realized that if you've been reading my blog for a while and hear me talk about work, you've been hearing me talk about "sims" for four years. What I may not have made clear is that there are two different kinds of sims.

First, there are the trajectory sims that I run on my computer to do my analysis of various things. These are usually Fortran simulations. You give 'em your initial conditions, they model your vehicle flying from up in the sky down to somewhere on the ground, or at least somewhere above the ground far enough to pop out your parachute. Sometimes that ground is on the Earth, sometimes it's on Mars. These are also the kind of sims I run when I'm making the infamous debris footprints.

I've been running that kind of sim for the entire time I've worked here. This is also the kind of sim that has the ability to drive me absolutely crazy because they never work right the first time. UGH.

But recently I have begun to train for a backroom position in the control center. I work an ascent position for the shuttle, meaning my job lasts a short but heart-stopping 10-minute period (plus or minus a minute or two depending on what's going on) and then I'm done. This training involves not running sims, but working sims. In this case, the sim is of the shuttle during launch, and there's a group of people who throw malfunctions into the sim, and we as flight controllers deal with them. I'm not putting in any inputs, and I'm not doing analysis. We're pretending that the shuttle is actually launching, and dealing with the problems that crop up; we're simulating a launch. A normal ascent sim is 4 hours long. Since ascent is so short, this means that we usually have time to simulate 4 launches, which is what I mean when I refer to different runs.

I've been working that kind of sim for almost two months now. They make my brain feel like mush at the end, but they are very, very fun.

Monday, February 06, 2006

I just got my invitation

I just got my invitation to Andrew and Sari's wedding. It's on April 9 in good ol' North Carolina. Yay!

Monday, February 06, 2006

For all you Super Mario

For all you Super Mario Brothers music lovers.

Monday, February 06, 2006

On our way home from

On our way home from the 6K on Saturday, I remarked to Gavin that my arms were sore and I couldn't figure out why. I hadn't lifted anything heavy, done any pushups, and we haven't been to the rock gym in months (and won't ever anymore now that it moved way out to Katy -- sadness). Yet my arms, and specifically my biceps, hurt.

Finally on Saturday afternoon I figured it out. The playground. From lunch on Friday, when we took our Quizno's to the park. And we went to the playground. And tried the monkey bars, and had to pull ourselves up a tunnel with our arms because we were too big to crawl up it normally.

My arms were sore because we went to the playground. I laughed pretty hard when I figured it out.

On Saturday I finally checked out the much-hyped Basquiat exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. There are billboards for it all over town, and my graphic design / web design professor had emailed us twice to encourage us to go see his work. I guess I don't have much of an appreciation for modern art, because I left still not understanding what makes Basquiat's scribblings worthy of a huge museum exhibit. Is it because he died young? (Drug overdose at age 27.) Is it because he happened to know the right people? (In his case, Andy Warhol.) They're interesting, sure, but so are a lot of people's scribblings. This painting of a trumpet player was my favorite; most of the others I was pretty indifferent to.

There were a lot of random drawings that reminded me of 10th grade, when I covered my textbooks with brown papers and used to doodle on them during class. At the end of the year I had a book cover with every spare inch filled with doodles and random thoughts. That's what Basquiat's drawings reminded me of.

Anyway. I obviously am art-ignorant. I generally find modern art annoying and think that the artists must take themselves way too seriously to produce some of their random stuff. There was one piece that consisted of red, white, and blue lollipops piled in a corner. Lollipops thrown in a corner? That's art? Oh, it was interactive as well -- you were invited to take a lollipop. Judging from the number of lollipops remaining, most people declined the offer.

The museum had a disappointingly small exhibit of photographs (ok, I give you, it's a fine art museum not a photography museum). It did have some cool paintings and sculpture as well.

I think my interest in art could be described as: I like realistic things. Paintings generally impress me most when they look like photographs. Now that's not always the case, but more often than not. Sculpture is cool. I like etchings and pencil drawings for the most part as well. Photographs are awesome.

Then again, I'm an engineer, not an artist. It's probably not meant for me. ;)

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Rick is audio-blogging today as

Rick is audio-blogging today as he runs the Rocky Raccoon 100-Miler with Dalton. The race started at 6 a.m. and their goal, according to Jon, is to finish sometime between 6 a.m. and noon tomorrow. Best of luck to both of them!!

In the meantime, I ran the Buffalo Wallow 6K cross-country race this morning. Gavin came along as well, so that was nice. I finished in 39:06 and Gavin finished right around 29:00. I saw a bunch of people there and met a few more. The On The Run team took 4 of the top 11 spots, with 1, 2, 4, and Sam finishing in 11th place. I officially met Joe, and finally met the infamous Steve who's been sending me emails about the RRCA website all these months. ;)

It is so much fun to go to races now that I know so many people out there. It really gets my weekend off to a great start.

My race went well. It was the first cross-country race I'd ever done, and it was certainly harder than a normal road race even though by cross-country standards it was an easy course (or so I was told). The Master's Men started at 8:00, so the three-loop course had already been trodden three times before the women's race started at 8:45 -- and it was pretty muddy in parts.

At 8:45, the gun went off and the herd of women started running! The funniest moment was about a tenth of a mile into the race as the course narrowed to go between two lines of trees just before climbing one of the two steep hills. There was a mud pit right at the bottom of the hill, and many of the women immediately slowed to gingerly step around the mud as best as they could, with many girly complaints of "ew!" and "yuck!" I had to laugh. It's a cross country race! And after the rain of last week, yeah, we were going to get a little muddy.

I made it up the steep hill and around the top end of the course. We ran along Allen Parkway just for a moment before diving back down a steep hill to pass the start line (and spectators) and go under Montrose. The second steep hill was climbing from the park back up to Allen Parkway, where we then ran flat to the other end of the loop. At that point we turned and headed back downhill into the park, and weaved past trees and up and down small hills, back under Montrose, and past the start/finish line to begin another loop.

I was feeling good on the first loop and ran up both steep inclines. I passed the clock in ~12:30 for my first loop. The loop had to have been ~1.25 miles, so I was on 10:00 pace or so. I was happy, but was also starting to feel pretty tired and I knew I wouldn't be able to maintain that over two more loops.

I walked up both steep portions of the second loop, which seemed to leave me just as tired as if I'd run them. They were seriously steep! I came around the second loop to see the clock reading ~25:30. 12:30 for the first lap, 13:00 for the second. Right as I began my third loop, the winning woman finished the race. I was thiiiiiis close to getting lapped. ;)

The third lap was, of course, the worst. I walked up both inclines again, and took an additional walking break towards the other end of the loop. It was cold this morning (below 50) and so I'd worn a long sleeve shirt. The start/finish line was mostly in the shade, so it seemed like the right thing to do. But the majority of course was in the sun, and once I started running it was a little hot and I wished I'd worn short sleeves!

As we turned the final corner and headed back towards the start/finish for the final time, I decided to try to catch up to 4-5 women who were strung out one-by-one a little in front of me. I'd been running with them pretty solidly until my last little walk break, and I didn't want to fade at the end. I set my sights on the last woman in the line, and managed to pass her with maybe 0.2 miles to go. I never caught any of the others, but I closed the gap and the group of 5-6 of us all finished within 10-20 seconds of each other.

All in all, my time was 39:06, or right at 10:30/mile for the 6K (3.72 mile) course. I slowed down by about 30 seconds each loop -- 12:30, 13:00, and 13:30 or so. My average heart rate was a very high 194 -- I'm not lying when I said I was really struggling out there with the hills and the sun. It was definitely one of the toughest races I've run, but I'm glad I was able to push myself to a good finish.

p.s. There's a photo of me in the Striders photo album. Yep, as a result of helping Steve out with the RRCA Convention webpage, I am now a Houston Strider as well as a Running Blogger. :) A month ago I didn't belong to any running clubs; now I'm in two!

Friday, February 03, 2006

We had the most awesome

We had the most awesome lunch break today -- a stop at Quizno's, followed by lunch at the park, following by the playground. We swung on the swings, slid down the slide, and generally acted like kids. The guys threw the football, and I made a new friend in the 3-year-old who was also at the playground wanting to swing. It was lovely and perfect and it's sad that I'm now back at my desk.

I made cookies last night. They were slice-n-bake, left over from when Carter was here a couple months ago and randomly bought slice-n-bake at the store. But we never baked them, and they were coming up on their "use or freeze by" date. So I made them. And I still don't understand why people use pre-packaged cookie dough. I mean, I get the fact that it's easier and less messy and takes less time. But homemade cookies taste so much better! If you're going to make cookies, you might as well go all out.

I have a relatively low-key weekend planned after a very hectic January. Today is Mike's 23rd birthday (he's our co-op) so we're going out for dinner. People are going to a movie afterward but I'll probably head home because I'm not interested in seeing Underworld 2, and I'm going to get up early tomorrow to run the Buffalo Wallow 6K. On Sunday I plan to do a whole lot of nothing, at least until 5:00 when I either have a soccer game or will be going to Rich's Super Bowl party.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

On tonight's premiere of Survivor:

On tonight's premiere of Survivor:

"We trust each other. In that case, I have a secret to tell you. I retired from NASA, but while I was working for NASA, I did more than just work on the space shuttle. I flew on the space shuttle."

I can't decide if the astronaut is getting voted off as soon as possible, or if he's there until the end. Seems like it's an either/or proposition. It can't possibly remain a secret for long, and then? Either they like having an astronaut on their team...or they don't.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

My desktop computer has been

My desktop computer has been crawling under the strain of Adobe CS2. Sigh. Memory hog. When I ordered the computer almost a year and a half ago, I only got 512MB of RAM. What was I thinking? Tonight, in under an hour, I:

• Started Photoshop & Dreamweaver
• Got annoyed with its slowness
• Opened up my computer
• Checked to see what kind of RAM was in there and how many slots I had (SDRAM, PC3200, two slots filled with 2 x 256MB)
• Cursed that I'd not gotten one 512MB instead of 2x256
• Went to Fry's
• Bought one stick, 1GB
• Came home
• Pulled out the 2x256
• Stuck in the 1GB
• Restarted the computer

Voila. Despite the recent wireless issues (which appear to have been solved momentarily by changing the channel on the router), I'm feeling all computer-saavy again, and for less than $100! Now what do I do with the old memory??

Yes, I know how incredibly easy it is to add RAM. Don't burst my bubble.

Though I am wondering what to do when the day comes that my laptop needs more...

Thursday, February 02, 2006

I learned a lot in

I learned a lot in the sim this morning, and I wasn't even working it. I was just observing! And, actually, it'd probably be more accurate to say that I haven't figured out a couple things yet, but once I do I will have learned a lot from watching.

It is 81 degrees today. 81. I wore a long sleeve shirt, and was warm when we went out for coke break. They are putting ice on azaleas to trick them into thinking it is still winter; they are supposed to bloom for a festival in March, but are blooming at the beginning of February. Seriously. Ice on the azaleas.

My brain is so fried.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Ever wondered what something hurtling

Ever wondered what something hurtling towards the Earth at more than 25,000 miles per hour looks like? Well, a bit like this!

(It's a cool Stardust reentry video.)

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Today's word of the day

Today's word of the day is awesome.

abulia • \ay-BOO-lee-uh\ • noun
: abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions

As in, "Sarah seems to be suffering from from abulia -- she just can't decide what to give up in order to, you know, get enough sleep to be at work at a reasonable hour."

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

I ran last night. Yay!

I ran last night. Yay!

3.25 miles
33:something (I forget)
10:21/mile (but I remember the pace)
189 average heart rate

I must get back to running regularly. Not running much since the Half is symptomatic of the fact that my life seems to have become an explosion of activity. I am doing too much, and not sleeping enough. This morning I hit the snooze button for an hour and a half. Yes, one and a half hours. Absurd. So I got to work at 9:15, which means I'll have to stay late, which means I'll probably go to bed late again, and the vicious cycle repeats itself.

Must. Get. Back. On. Somewhat. Normal. Schedule!

My head feels really weird today. Dizzy-like. It makes it hard to concentrate.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

I need help from you

I need help from you computer people out there. The problem? Wireless internet.

I go home in the evening, turn on my laptop, it picks up my wireless signal and all is well. I start to putter around on the computer, eat dinner, watch TV, whatever. After a couple hours, BAM, my laptop loses the wireless signal! And nothing I do brings it back -- not clicking "repair connection", not restarting the computer, not deactivating the wireless card and then reactivating it.

My desktop is still connected, so it's not the internet connection itself. It's got to be either the router, or my laptop. Making matters more confusing is the fact that after dropping the connection, my laptop continues to see my network, even displaying it in the "available wireless networks" window. But when I click connect and put in the key, it thinks for a while and then just cuts off again. It never reconnects.

What do I do? This happens regularly, on an almost nightly basis.