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Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I have forgotten how to study.

I have a test tonight in my digital media class, and I wasn't too worried until last night. That's when I took out my notes and realized that yes, I've forgotten how to study.

Studying for engineering classes, something I did with regularity from 1996 until 2002, was a totally different concept. First, you are usually allowed to bring in a single sheet of paper that you can fill to your heart's content with equations and mental notes. Second, engineering exams are not about facts. Memorizing facts and dates does not work. Heck, there aren't even really any facts and dates to remember. Engineering exams are all about the process, so you study the process. You study the basics, and the problem solving process. You need to know your general equations and concepts, and know how to apply those to a variety of problems. It's all about the big picture.

My digital media class, on the other hand, is something I've not experienced since high school. I have to know dates, I have to know facts, I have to know acronyms. In short, the process of studying for this test is simply rote memorization. And apparently I don't remember how to remember.

It is a weird feeling.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Austin City Limits

Austin City Limits was one big hot and sweaty mass of humanity. And it was great, as we expected. We suffered through the heat, had our daily slushee around 5:00 -- those things do wonders to cool you down, and anxiously awaited the sunset. As the sun goes down, everything starts to seem better. It's cooler. The music is better. It gets hard to see anything in the dark except that there are bodies everywhere, and the whole experience becomes surreal.

We drove up on Friday morning and stayed with my college friends Leila and Brian. Despite the fact that they live less than 4 hours away, I hadn't seen them in two years. They moved from southwest Austin even farther out to Driftwood about a year ago, so this was the first time I'd seen their new house. Though they do live in the boonies (albeit a convenient mile from the Salt Lick), their house was beautiful. We didn't spend a lot of time there with the music festival and everything, but we did have time to play their Nintendo Wii. Extremely fun -- and a surprisingly good workout. Our arms were sore the day after playing an hour and a half of tennis, boxing, golf, bowling, and baseball.

Staying there also gave me the chance to go biking with Leila on Saturday morning. She's training for the 40-mile ride as part of the Livestrong Challenge next month, so she's been riding and spinning a lot. We drove to one of the areas that's popular with biking and rode about 17.5 miles at a leisurely 14 mph average -- and finally stopped because my front tire was losing air at a fairly rapid rate. (I haven't found the culprit yet, but I haven't actually taken the tire off yet. Will do that tonight.) It was a nice ride, though even the relatively small rolling hills of Austin did a number on this flatland cyclist. I was puffing and panting on any incline. As we finished putting the bikes back on the car, I lifted up my shirt to wipe the sweat off my face and trapped some kind of insect in there. It must have been a bee. When I lifted my shirt again in response to a stinging sensation, something fell out and there was a stinger stuck right there in my tummy flab. Ouch! I pulled it out, and the sting really hurt for a bit. The pain went away after a while, but then the itching started. It still itches like crazy. Itch itch itch.

Yesterday was Leila's birthday, so we celebrated with brunch at a restaurant downtown. The service left a little to be desired, but the food was great. Jose and I wandered around downtown Austin for a few hours after that before heading over to the final day of the festival.

ACL itself was, as previously mentioned, a blast. Favorite acts included Andy Palacios and the Garifuna Collective (a band from Belize that we discovered on Friday), Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, and The Decemberists. The worst act we saw was Regina Spektor. She's very popular right now and I'd heard her most popular song on the radio and thought it was ok -- but I hated her performance. Ugh.

We had to leave after Decemberists (though heard some of Bob Dylan while waiting in line for the buses) to head back to Houston. I drove the first half feeling fine, then proved that as soon as I hit the passenger's seat, no matter what, I fall asleep. I feel really bad for making Jose drive from 11:45 - 1:30 with no one to keep him entertained. I am no match for the passenger seat and its sleep-inducing qualities.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

There's nothing like a four day week, especially when there are two four day weeks in a row. I'm off to Austin tomorrow morning for a weekend of music at Austin City Limits. I'm trying not to think about how much I'll be sweating in the heat. The daytime can be pretty miserable. But everything is forgiven in the evening, when the sun goes down and the music goes up.

You can follow me on my Flickr stream if you're interested; I'll try to keep it updated.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

If you put together a group of four men of similar ability to run a 4 x 2-mile relay race, they might be likely to debate over who's the fastest. Put four women together, and we good-naturedly argue about who's the slowest. (I post the following because I know all four of us are able to laugh at how silly we are sometimes.)

"Woohoo, our team is registered! What order should we run in?"

"I'm not fast, but I can do 2 miles at 8:30 pace."

"Whoa, I'm slower! I can do 9-10 minute pace."

"It's funny that you guys are arguing, because I'm slowest. I'm hoping to do 10:30 pace."

"Last time I did 10:30 pace and it almost killed me. I win! I win!"

"Ok, back to the original question -- order. I'd like to go 2nd, so I can take start and finish photos for the HARRA website."

"I'd rather not go first because I've never run this race before."

"Ok, conventional wisdom says put your fastest two runners first and last, and slower two runners in the middle. How about Randi, Sarah, Jen, Margo?"

"I'm not really faster than Jen! And I'm already running 11-13 miles that morning. Let's switch those two."

"Wait, 'fastest' and 'running' are two words that are not associated with me...I don't think I should be last."

"What about Margo, Sarah, Jen, Randi?"

"I sort of wanted to go first, but I'll go last if necessary."

"If I'm the last person on the course, you guys better cheer for me."

"This is really funny! I was worried that I was going to be put on a team with a bunch of runners fired up to have a PR or place or something."

"Heck, let's just flip a coin for ALL of the spots."

We still haven't figured out our race order. Good thing we still have a week before the race.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

A Rainy Conversation

"It is so nice outside. I have to run. I must run. It is too nice to not run outside today."

"Don't run outside."

"But it's cloudy, it's cool, it's breezy. It's perfect!"

"It's drizzling."

"So?"

"It's a tropical storm."

"Oh, it won't get bad until later tonight. Come on, I wanna run outside."

"If you must. But I wish you'd run inside."

"But the weather is so NICE..."

Ten minutes later, as I climbed onto the treadmill for a solid tempo run, it occurred to me that our conversation is perhaps the best indicator of what the weather is like in Houston during the summer -- so hot and humid that a tropical storm seems like perfect weather.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

11:33 pm, April 6, 1997

A very bright high school senior named Marti stayed with me two nights ago. She was here for the President’s Scholarship weekend. Since she would be with me and all, I decided to email her a few times over the course of the week preceding the scholarship weekend. Friday arrived and I met Marti. Pretty, slim, and very polite. Over ice cream sundaes at Junior’s she asked me what I had thought she would look like. The question surprised me, as I hadn’t really thought about it at all. Sure, I had pictured myself meeting her, but I hadn’t actually sat down and thought about specifically what she would look like.

She mentioned that she and her mother had discussed what they thought a “Sarah” would look and act like. She told me three of their conclusions—I would have dark brown hair, be athletic, and rather tall. Then she said that they were wrong on two accounts. The brown hair and the height. Marti saw me as athletic.

I suppose I do look like a tomboy in many ways. I wear tennis shoes instead of clogs, jeans instead of dark brown dress pants, and avoid dressing up at most costs. I can see how an outsider looking at me could come to the conclusion that I am athletic. But I don’t feel like an athlete. When Marti asked what sports I played, I could only reply that I used to play soccer, and that I watch a lot of sports on TV. I cannot think of any answer that would be more pathetic. I want to be able to put together a better answer to the question “are you athletic?” I don’t like being pathetic.

(I think a couple commenters were confused. Note the date at the top -- I wrote this in 1997 while a sophomore at Georgia Tech, and found it while digging through my hard drive last night. I was definitely not athletic then. Ten years later, I know that I am athletic, and I like that. I don't feel pathetic anymore.)

Monday, September 10, 2007

This morning marked the fourth day in a row that my alarm has gone off no later than 6:00 a.m. I usually try to maintain one of the two weekend mornings for sleeping in, since it seems that lately I am getting up earlier on Saturday and Sunday than I do during the week. It is crazy. It is exhausting. Sim, run, bike, load checkout. Tomorrow I have no early mornings committments. Hurrah.

It was quite a weekend. I ran the Bay Area Fit 5-Miler on Saturday morning, a private race with bibs and timing and everything. I guess the point is to give those who are new to running a taste of the race experience. I had a good run -- so good that I came home and slept for another two hours! (Glorious, but not enough to make up for the total weekend sleep deficit.) I'm tired of running with 100+ people yet running alone, so when Cathy from the tri group ran up beside me after the first half mile, I decided to join her. She's in one of the half marathon groups and was doing a 5/1 run/walk, which sounded perfectly good to me. We pushed pretty hard on the running portions, and finished with an overall average of exactly 11:00 per mile. That's fast for me at this point, with all the humidity, so I was happy. I had to walk around for quite a while before I felt like I could stand still without getting dizzy. I felt a little sick all morning until I finally got some significant food in my stomach at lunchtime.

The 600 sq mi opening on Saturday night was a lot of fun. Jose and I arrived around 7:25 and found the gallery so packed that it was nearly impossible to even move! There were appetizers (I did not partake) and a free bar (I did partake; the sangria was yummy). The photos all looked awesome. I hadn't seen my photos since dropping them off to be framed, and suddenly they were there. On a gallery wall. As part of a real show. It was very cool.

After making our way slowly down the wall, it had gotten so warm and crowded that Jose and I considered taking off. But Becca and Nick were both on their way, so we stuck around until they each finally arrived so that I could show off my work. I know there were a lot of the other photographers there, but it was so crowded and loud that it seemed pointless to try to introduce myself and have any meaningful conversation. I will have to go to one of the Flickr meetups soon to meet in a quieter setting.

Yesterday I was up before the crack of dawn again to meet Buzz, Darrin and Amy for a bike ride. The planned 45 miles did not happen for reasons far too complicated to explain, but I did get in 34 miles at an average of 14.9 mph. Yes, I said 14.9 mph. Normally, this number would leave me feeling frustrated at how slow I am. And yet yesterday's bike ride was absolutely fabulous. We rode at a comfortable pace. We took two short breaks. The weather was sunny and humid, but little wind. It was just the bike ride I needed to remind me that I don't always hate biking.

Jose and I saw 3:10 to Yuma yesterday afternoon. It started a little slowly, but picked up speed quickly and the end was fantastic. Highly recommended.

Friday, September 07, 2007

600 sq mi

Houstonist.com offers up some betters views of H-town - Houston Press

A new vision of Houston, through 42 lenses - Daily Cougar (UH)

Last call to come to the opening tomorrow night! M2 Gallery in the Heights, 7:00 - 10:00. Fun and photos, what could be better?

Friday, September 07, 2007

Today I had an ascent sim. It was a good sim, but exhausting because we did so many runs. Then I had delicious sushi for lunch. Then I came back to work and realized that due to an oversight on my part (and thus my fault), I still had a couple things to do before our load checkout on Monday morning. Things that, to be fully complete, require the help of other people. So I had to ask for help at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, which made some people not happy with me. But it got done, and thus I was productive.

Does that mean I had a good day, since I got stuff done? Or a bad day, because I annoyed people in the process?

I'm not sure.

Whew. What a week. I do love four-day weeks, but this one seemed particularly busy. I have a lot to look forward to this weekend, including a 5-mile run tomorrow with Bay Area Fit, a long bike ride with Buzz on Sunday, and the 600 sq mi show opening tomorrow night!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Apple announced that they're giving a $100 credit to anyone who bought the iPhone before the price drop. To me, that is more than fair and makes me very happy, as I'd expected to get nothing.

So I'm in a good mood. Hopefully this will end my string of bummed out, whiny blog posts.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Something about being a rendezvous trainee makes me feel extremely insecure. I worry that I'm not picking things up fast enough. I worry that I'm missing opportunities. But I don't actually do anything about it.

This morning I had planned to watch the rendezvous sim going on all day. But I overslept and by the time I got in, the star tracker pass (the first major event of the rendezvous) was already over. So I didn't go to the sim.

Then I got an email that said "Not coming?" As in, are you not coming to the sim?

And that just made me start second-guessing myself to no end. They're simming issues that I haven't seen before, so I probably should have gone. I should have gone just to listen to the discussion on the backroom loops and get an idea of how I can improve my communication. Shoulda coulda woulda.

Even now, I sit here as if I'm paralyzed. I could still go downstairs and watch. I'm sure I could still pick up some good information. And yet here I sit.

I'm losing my drive and my motivation to be proactive. Reading is getting really, really old, but generic sims that I can work as a trainee are few and far between. I am left feeling useless, frustrated, and insecure. I have been in this group for almost a year and have little to show for it.

Ah well. It's my blog. I'm allowed to vent.

Update: My Dad just called to say it's not really venting, it's just me beating myself up and that I should be ok with my decisions. He's probably right.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

So Apple had their big announcement today. Every iPod has been revamped, and they introduced the iPod Touch -- like an iPhone without the phone. They also dropped the price on an 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399. And I have to say, I'm a little annoyed.

I knew that prices would drop. But a $200 drop -- 33% -- after only two months on the market? This says two things to me:

1) They want to sell more, and realize that the price was an obstacle.
2) They could've offered it for $399 two months ago.

I bought mine one month ago. If I'd known a $200 price drop was coming, obviously I would have waited. Alternately, if they'd offered it for $399 from the get-go, I'd have bought one even earlier.

I think Apple owes me $200.

I'm not actually that upset about it. I wish I had known the huge price drop was coming, but I made my decision based on what I knew at the time, and I was satisfied with my decision at the time. And I do love my iPhone.

But it's still a little annoying.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The inside of my left elbow has been throbbing on and off since yesterday. It's actually slightly uncomfortable. Not sure what's going on there.

I haven't been writing as much about running lately, but I have been running. I thought that maybe if I didn't write much about it, I wouldn't put so much pressure on myself. Because I get really bummed out when I see my times, and they're so slow, and the heat and humidity take their toll. I'm sort of confused about what my goals are at the moment. In theory I'm training for a marathon, but I'm not sure that my head's all in it.

I mentioned this to a running friend last night, and she looked at me and said matter-of-factly "yeah, but you never like training." I thought about this a lot over the course of the evening. Do I not like training? I do train. But I complain about it. I do train. But I often procrastinate and wait until the last minute to start.

It made me start thinking about why I run in the first place. I've been doing it for more than 5 years now, so I obviously don't hate it.

Who knows, maybe I need to quit concentrating on events and just run for a while. Because ultimately, I started running to lose weight. It's helped me do that (even though I've gained some back) and there have been a lot of other benefits that came with it. Meeting people, taking up new activities, being more self-confident in general.

I've lost 2 pounds in the last couple weeks. That's not shabby.

Last night with all that swirling around in my head, I went ahead and did the BAF-prescribed 4x400 workout. Actually, I did 4x0.25-mile, which is almost the same thing. I ran the repeats pretty hard -- not 100%, but definitely 95%. For the recoveries, I walked the first 0.1 and jogged the remaining 0.15.

2:13 (3:48)
2:16 (3:46)
2:07 (3:45)
2:12 (3:48)

With a 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown, the run was an even 4 miles.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

If you've got some free time on Saturday night, have I got an event for you... This show will feature some absolutely fantastic photos of Houston, including two taken by yours truly! I'm pretty excited, as it's my first official photo show. (My two contributions are this one and this one.) If you do decide to come, definitely let me know...

Monday, September 03, 2007

Cleveland Rocks!

On Friday night as we sat at the gate for our flight to Ohio and waited to board the plane, Jose, Nick, Heather and I managed to offend nearly everyone in the area with the following:

"Why are we going to Cleveland again? Is there anything good about Cleveland? Oh well, at least we're getting the hell out of Texas..."

However, after an absolutely fantastic 48 hours, I'm happy and a little bit surprised to report that the song is actually true -- Cleveland does rock!

We flew in on Friday night and spent the late evening hours hanging out in the breakfast area at the Holiday Inn Express. Not the most auspicious start to the weekend, but it was all we had. Saturday morning came bright and early with a return to the breakfast area for cinnamon rolls and coffee. It turns out that not a single one of the four of us is really that much of a morning person, and we sat at breakfast for an hour trying to wake up.

We headed downtown in search of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As we arrived, we realized that the museum was right next to a small airport right on Lake Erie that happened to be hosting the Cleveland National Air Show all weekend! Very exciting. There was a balcony at the Hall of Fame where we were able to sit down and watch the aerobatic performances for a little while -- we could see the end of the runway without a problem. It was a great view.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame turned out to be really cool. I had pictured just a bunch of signed guitars, but the whole place was very well done. Someone (and probably many someones) obviously put a lot of time and effort into getting that place going, because the amount of items that they have in their collection was really impressive. Yes, there were lots of guitars, but there were also tons of other items. The red jacket that Michael Jackson wore in the "Thriller" video. A sheet of paper with Aerosmith's lyrics to "Walk This Way," along with plenty of other lyrics scrawled on paper by other musicians. Costumes from various tours and music videos -- Madonna is one skinny woman, judging from her clothes. John Lennon's report cards and doodles. Bono's first guitar. Receipts from Elvis's hotel stays. Johnny Cash's tour bus. Pieces of the plane that crashed, killing Otis Redding. Plenty of stations with headphones to listen to music, and huge displays of tour posters, CD covers, album art, and photographs.

Sadly, photos weren't allowed, but it was a great museum, and I'd highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in Cleveland. We were only able to stay for a couple hours, and we could've stayed for more. I mean, we didn't even see the actual Hall of Fame exhibit, which was a movie and multimedia presentation! But we did see the Thriller jacket, so, you know, priorities.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

We had to leave the museum a bit early because we had to find a mall. Why, you might ask, did we need to find a mall? Well, Nick managed to leave Houston with only the shoes on his feet. Which were old worn out sneakers. Which probably wouldn't have gone very well with the nice pants, dress shirt, and tie he brought to wear to the wedding. We set out on foot to find a mall called The Galleria that was a short walk away. We found the mall, but it was strangely empty for a Saturday afternoon. Most of the stores were closed, and the whole thing looked slightly abandoned. One of the few people in sight was working in an art store, and she recommended that we try Tower City Center, an 8-10 minute walk farther from where we'd left our car. It was 2:00. The wedding was at 4:00.

Off we went. We arrived at the mall, which was much more of a mall than the first place, and Nick was able to find some shoes at Payless while Jose and I went off to search for a black belt. (Jose had forgotten his, which was funny enough but paled in comparison to Nick's forgotten shoes.) The only ones we found were at Brooks Brothers, and they were $88. Needless to say, Jose went to the wedding without a belt.

We speed-walked back through downtown and got to the car at 2:40. Nick drove like a Texan and got us back to the hotel right at 3:00. We calculated that we needed to leave by 3:30 to make it to the wedding with some time to spare, and we hurried into our respective rooms to iron, primp, and get dressed. We were back in the car at 3:35 and headed to the chapel, which was about 8 miles away.

It was a nerve-wracking drive, but we knew we'd make it. It would have really sucked to have come all the way to Ohio only to miss the actual wedding ceremony. We finally turned the corner onto the chapel's street and breathed a sigh of relief. The chapel was only a quarter mile down the road, and we could see the steeple. And that's when we saw the train.

Just before the chapel, a train was crossing the road. We could see the steeple of the chapel just beyond the train tracks. It was so close, and yet so far. We came to a stop behind at least 10-15 cars backed up in front of us, and the fact that there were so many cars ahead of us reassured us that the train had probably been passing for a while, and would end soon. It was 3:51.

But the train kept going, and going. It was 3:54, then 3:57. The clock clicked to 3:59, and then 4:00. Panic set in.

"This is unbelievable!"
"This is the longest train in the entire world!"
"I can see the freaking steeple!"
"Melissa is going to absolutely kill us!"

At 4:01, a second train appeared. A second train. There were two sets of tracks, and while the first train continued to slowly pass, a freaking second train joined the fray. At 4:02, the first train finally ended, but the second train was still passing.

"You have got to be kidding me!"
"I cannot believe there are two trains!"
"I'm going to throw up."
"Melissa is going to kill us and then revive us, just to kill us again!"

At 4:04, the second train finally ended. We had sat in the car for the longest 13 minutes of my life watching two trains pass between us and the wedding chapel.

Jose watches the never-ending train s-l-o-w-l-y pass

We parked and ran across the street to the chapel. Thankfully, we were not the only guests stuck behind the train, as there were at least a dozen others running across the street with us, and the ushers and grandparents were gathered at the front of the chapel laughing at the absurdity of it all. They, of course, had been able to see the train as well (apparently the train passing lasted for 16 minutes all in all), and the wedding was postponed by 15 minutes to let everyone arrive.

The ceremony was lovely, and afterwards we blew bubbles as the newlyweds came out of the chapel to board a limo bus bound for the reception. Melissa's "aunt" made this amazing piece of artwork that was posted on the back of the bus, a drawing of Matt and Melissa and all sorts of things significant to them and to their lives. It was really cool.

Jose, Nick, Heather and I wandered down the street from the wedding chapel to check out a covered bridge and small park and decided that Cleveland really wasn't so bad after all. We drove to the reception past lovely houses and tall trees and green fields and started to realize why Melissa likes Ohio so much.

The reception was held at a country club. The hors d'oeuvres were tasty, dinner was fabulous, and the reception was one of the most fun that I've ever attended. The DJ did a great job on song selection (maybe Matt and Melissa helped) and everything was perfect for dancing. Maybe it was the open bar with much joked about "top shelf liquor," or maybe it was the fact that we knew we'd never see any of those people again except Melissa, Matt, Kelly and John, but we danced like crazy. We even got Jose and Nick to join the crowd! Each time any of us tried to sit down for a breather, Kelly would appear to pull us back in. At midnight, the DJs finally wound things up, but people lingered for another 20 minutes. I figure that's the sign of a good reception -- when people stay even after the music stops.

Jose and me at the reception

We didn't even get to sleep in the next morning, since we were off to Melissa's house at 11:00 for lunch with the family, bridal party, and other out of town guests. It was great, but we could only stay for an hour. From there we headed back downtown to see Indians take on the White Sox at Jacobs Field.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire weekend, and it was pure heaven sitting at the baseball game under the shade of the upper deck's awning, feeling the breeze off the lake and watching some baseball. The air show was still going on, and the Air Force Thunderbirds highlighted the show during the 8th inning of the game. We could see them in formation as they flew around downtown to do their stunts over the lakefront airport. Every so often, one of the planes would fly past such that the shadow crossed the baseball field, which was just too cool.

At one point, the crowd in the upper deck of left field started to shout and cheer. The Indians were losing 8-0 at that point and there wasn't much to cheer about, so we were confused for an instant -- and then the roar of 6 F-16s shook the stadium as they flew directly overhead, the shadows of 6 military jets streaking across the outfield grass. I'm sure it was hell on the pitchers to concentrate amidst all the engine noise, but it was awesome for the crowd.

We had such a great time in less than 48 hours that it was almost sad to have to drive from the stadium to the airport. I'm now officially sorry that I ever made fun of Cleveland.

I put a set of photos on Flickr, and you can enjoy them here as well.