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.

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.

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.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Jose's couch is much nicer than mine, with one side effect: it always makes me fall asleep. We've taken to jokingly calling it the sleepy couch, since stretching out on it seems to assure that if left alone, I will be asleep within minutes. On Saturday I spent about six hours on the sleepy couch, and I was asleep for at least three of those.

I ran 6 miles on Saturday morning with Bay Area Fit and it totally wiped me out. I fell asleep on Jose's couch while he planned his afternoon cross country flight (cancelled due to weather). Later that night after a pedicure and dinner with Becca, I fell asleep again while watching TV. Jose actually had to wake me up to watch a movie.

With all that sleep, you might think that I had a hard time falling asleep Saturday night. Not so! I slept another nine hours. It was a weekend of sleep.

Yesterday I was finally awake enough to be social, and we went sailing with Becca and Byron for the first time. There wasn't a lot of wind and it was pretty darn hot, but it was still nice to be on the water. I want to go again when the weather cools down.

Monday, August 13, 2007

As weekends go, this one was not the best.

On Friday night, Jose finally got a chance to do the long night cross country flight that he's been trying to schedule for weeks. It kept getting rescheduled due to weather, the plane being down for repair, and his instructor having to cancel. But on Friday night, the weather was finally perfect, the plane was back in working order, and his instructor was ready to go. Off they went, with Jose having told me to expect him back around 10:00.

At 9:15, he sent me a text message from Brenham, so I knew that he wouldn't be back when he had predicted. Nevertheless, I inexplicably started to worry as the clock passed 10 and kept ticking. Worrying is absurd, because I don't really think that anything is going to happen. Jose is a good, if beginning, pilot and he's very careful with his flying -- not to mention that Jeff, his instructor, has thousands of hours in the air and is arguably the best instructor in the area (from what I've heard). But I still worried, even though I knew they were ok. Jose finally called at 11:30 to say that he was on his way home.

The inane worrying kept me up later than planned, and the thought of getting up at 5:30 to meet BAF for running made me tired, so I slept in on the condition that I would get my run done before noon on the treadmill. I kept my promise to myself with a trip to Gilruth where I did 7 slow dreadmill miles while watching the little league world series followed by some HGTV. I found it absurd that on Saturday morning, the Gilruth keeps two of the seven TVs tuned to CBS and NBC -- both of whom are showing kids cartoons. Sorry, but I didn't really feel like watching Trollz, or whatever that show was. I think it was a cartoon based on those little plastic dolls with all the hair. Weird.

As I was leaving the Gilruth, I backed up too far and bumped my car into a concrete pole. GREAT. It was about 3 feet tall -- or, just short enough that I couldn't see it out the back window of my Xterra. Yes, I looked. No, I did not back up without looking. I just couldn't see the stupid pole. Despite my slow speed, it made quite a bang. I didn't want to look at it right away, so I drove home hoping that it was the bike rack that hit, and not my bumper.

No such luck. It was my bumper. It was all bumper, so the good news is that it will hopefully be easy to bang out since it didn't touch the body of the car itself. The bad news is that it needs to be fixed soon, because while the damage isn't that bad, it crinkled the bumper upward by about an inch -- which is just enough to block my trunk hatch from opening. So I can't get into the back of my car. Suck. I felt like a complete idiot.

All the body shops I called closed at 2, so I decided to just forget about it for the rest of the weekend, and I headed out to pick up my packet for the Eastside Sprint Triathlon. I love triathlons, but I have one major beef: they very rarely offer race-day packet pickup. This means that I have to drive 1.5 hours round trip the day before the event to pick up my packet, and then do the same drive the next day for the race itself. I decided to take Beltway 8 on Saturday, only to discover that part of the beltway was entirely closed with all traffic being routed onto the feeder. UGH. In addition to that, something was burning on the other side of the highway which caused all sorts of rubbernecking.

I've come to the conclusion that you cannot drive anywhere in this stupid city without getting stuck in construction-caused traffic. Which is lots of fun when it's 100 degrees outside.

The rest of Saturday was a lot better, and I got to bed at a decent hour to rest up for yesterday's Eastside Tri. I'll post a better race report later today or tomorrow, but my time for the 500 meter swim, 16 mile bike, and 2.5 mile run (the course had to be shortened because rain put the original course underwater) was 1:38:39. That was good enough for 1st place Athena (out of 3 in the category) despite the fact that my bike was only so-so and my run was my worst tri run of the season.

Sunday was looking up. I had a yummy lunch at Panera, and Jose and I spent the afternoon running errands at Best Buy and Fry's. I got a new external hard drive -- which means I can now get rid of my desktop entirely! It still works fine, so I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe see if I can get a couple hundred bucks on the swap shop... Jose finally got a printer, a refurbished Epson for half price. It does borderless prints! And they look great. I may abandon my printer (which I've had since college, though it does print good photos) in favor of using his.

I had a soccer game in the evening, which was hot and frustrating. I'm tired of losing all the team. My team is just not that good. We are a very defensive team; we lose all our games by scores of 0-3, 0-1, 0-2, etc. Our problem isn't that the other teams score. Our problem is that we never score. We end up playing defense for 90% of the game. And when you end up playing that much defense, the other team will score. It's not a matter of if, but when. When the game ended I was frustrated, sweaty, and absolutely exhausted.

I drove back to Clear Lake, ready to have a relaxing dinner with Jose. I was a mile from his apartment and talking to my mom on the phone for the first time in weeks when I noticed flashing lights a good distance behind me in my rear view mirror. I kept driving for a bit, not realizing that the flashing lights were apparently for me. I hung up with mom after telling her that "I think I'm getting pulled over." I still had no idea why. I looked at my speedometer and saw 50 miles per hour. The speed limit is 45. Was I really getting pulled over for going 5 mph over the limit?

The cop parked behind me and left her extremely bright lights shining into my mirror, forcing me to slouch down in the seat to avoid being blinded. She walked up to my window and shined her flashlight directly into my eyes, forcing me to turn my head away. At this point I'm wondering if someone in a red Xterra has kidnapped a child or something!

Nope. Apparently the police department of Clear Lake Shores -- a "city" that is about one square mile in area -- had nothing better to do last night. It turns out that for the 0.25-mile stretch of road through their pinhead of a "city," the speed limit drops to 40. I never knew that. In five years, I never knew that. So she wrote me a ticket for going 50 in a 40. Clear Lake Shores! A "city" that is so freaking tiny that I didn't even know they had a police department! When I told my coworker this morning (a League City volunteer fire captain) about it, he laughed and said "which one pulled you over -- the chick or the old guy?" The "city" has exactly two police officers. "Yeah, and pulling people over is their sole source of income," he said. In five years, I've never seen anyone pulled over on that stretch of road, so who knows -- maybe I've just been lucky. Now I'm just glad that I managed to fix my broken tail light last week. I'm sure she would've loved to give me a ticket for that too.

I was so mad. In the 3+ years I've been driving my Xterra, I have not been in a single accident or gotten pulled over. And in one weekend, I got both.

For once, I was glad to see Monday arrive.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

This morning's Orange group run was 5 miles, and it just about did me in. The humidity was absolutely brutal, and let's face it: I'm just out of shape. I keep telling myself that I'm so slow because of the weather, but I can't use that as the only excuse. I have not been consistent about exercise of late, and that's the second culprit.

We met at the absolutely ungodly hour of 5:30. Seriously, I am new to Bay Area Fit and have to know -- do they meet this early all year? The BAF Triathlon group never met at 5:30 a.m. so this was a shock. I mean, whoa. I only got about 4.5 hours of sleep, so I know that didn't help my performance either.

I ran the first two miles in 11:04 and 11:12, not bad at all. But the last three were about 12:00 per mile with lots of little walking breaks. Pathetic. By the time I got back, the group had already started stretching, which left me feeling pretty lame and left out.

The jury is still out on Bay Area Fit. Of course I like having a group to run with, but they're a bit cult-like. Not necessarily in a bad way, it's just...well, the best way to describe it is that the group is geared towards beginning runners, not people like me who have been running for years. (I did know that going in, so it was not a surprise.) The seminar this morning went over information that I already knew. That in itself is ok, but it felt a little too much like I was being lectured to like a child. "DO NOT wear cotton t-shirts! If you wear a cotton t-shirt, YOU WILL get heatstroke!" Ok, so I guess that could happen, but it's unlikely to be solely from your choice of material. You'll just be more comfortable if you don't wear cotton. If you choose to wear cotton, I think that's your choice.

Anyway, I was probably just cranky because I was tired and had a bad run. :) So we shall see. The benefit of having a large group to run with (and one that I don't have to drive into town to meet) is first and foremost. I'd hook up with the Striders free SMART program, but it's hard to justify driving all over Houston when I can run in Clear Lake. Next week calls for 6 miles. Not sure how well I'll handle it, although the meeting time is pushed back to 6:20.

In other news, after much (and I mean much, just ask Jose) debate, I bought an iPhone.

I have thoroughly read dozens of internet reviews, and feel like I know what I'm getting into. After three strikes, the fourth guy I talked to at the Apple store was able to help, as we talked for about 20 minutes about features including my one major concern -- synching with my Outlook calendar at work. (The first three Apple store employees were entirely unhelpful with the answers of "well, I'm a Mac person obviously, so I don't know about PCs..." I understand that they are Mac people, but with the number of consumers using iPods and now iPhones with PCs, you'd think they'd be more educated.)

Anyway, I believe the sync will out as I hoped, so that is good. I fully realize that the iPhone has many shortcomings, and I fully realize that it is overpriced. But I wanted it, and I could afford it, so I got it. It's pretty cool so far. I am in love with the Google Maps app in particular.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Apparently my dad and brother decided that my sim must have gone badly, since I didn't update afterwards. Unfortunately they're right. The sim sucked royally. All the evaluations meant that there were problems galore, and it was all I could do just to follow along. I certainly didn't have the spare brain power to actually add any worthwhile input.

I was really upset about it on Friday night. Logically, there was no reason to be upset. It was my first sim ever, and it was close if not at cert level. For me to do well would have been an almost inhuman feat. No one expected me to get everything right. But since I've been in the group for six months just waiting to get a sim, I felt like I should've done better. I wanted to get everything right, and I totally didn't, and I felt horrible.

That was two days ago, and I'm over it now. I'll do better next time.

Monday, July 02, 2007

It's absolutely pouring outside, and I am lucky to have made it from the car to the building without getting totally waterlogged. I haven't seen it rain this hard since...well, since yesterday morning, when we got dumped on at the Y Tri sprint triathlon in Pearland.

Is it me, or has it been ever rainier than usual this summer? I mean, we always get afternoon thunderstorms, but there have been an inordinate amount of rainy mornings in the past few months.

Actually, doing another triathlon in the rain wasn't too bad. It rained hard before the start, which was delayed about 10 minutes due to lightning, but then it stopped during my swim, and only drizzled lightly while I was biking. The wet roads made it necessary to slow to almost a crawl as I rounded the four U-turns on the bike course, but at least I didn't have to deal with the pins-and-needles feeling of raindrops hitting you as you pedal at 17 mph. No, instead, the rain came fast and hard on the run. It would have bothered me, but I decided that I'd rather run in a torrential downpour than in the heat!

Overall the tri went reasonably well. The swim was in the 50-meter pool at Independence Park in Pearland. I had mistakenly submitted a 300 yard predicted time instead of 300 meter, so at #69 out of 300, I was seeded slightly faster than my ability. The person behind me was a no-show, so there was a 20-second gap between me and the next person in the water after me. Still, two people passed me in the water. I will have to be more careful next time to avoid making that mistake again.

I haven't swum in a 50-meter pool since I was at Georgia Tech, and I have to admit I found myself waiting for the wall each length. I finished the swim in 6:42, a deceptive time since there was a 20-30 second run between leaving the pool and crossing the timing mat into transition. My actual in-the-water time was closer to 6:10, which is probably what I should've put down for my predicted time. That is under 2:00 per 100 yards, which I'm happy enough about.

The bike was a 12-miler (Garmin measured 12.25, which I think is accurate; tri distances are often a little bit off the nice round number advertised) that was pretty nice except for the four U-turns. I hate U-turns on a bike. Like I said, it didn't rain too much, but for whatever reason, I was just not feeling it. Maybe it was the 5-miler I did the day before. Maybe it was bad nutrition. Maybe it was just a bad day. I managed to push enough to average just over 17 mph, finishing the bike in 42:32, but I had hoped for 40:00 flat. One of the BAFT women was just behind me, and also competing in the Athena category. At every U-turn I could see her, and at every U-turn she was gaining on me. If the bike had been much longer, she would've caught me.

After the bike, I didn't have high hopes for the run, but somehow the rain actually helped. It was a 3-miler (Garmin measured 3.1, which matches a Google pedometer version of the route) and after some dead legs for the first half mile, I was able to settle into a comfortable pace and do the run with only two quick stops at the two water stations. (At the first one, in the middle of the downpour, I remarked that it seemed unfair that I had to stop to drink, and wondered why my body couldn't just absorb the massive quantities of liquid falling from the sky at that particular moment. I finished in 32:48 for an average of either 10:56 per mile if you go with an even 3 miles, or 10:35 if you say it was 3.1. Either way, it was under 11:00 per mile and I was happy with that.

My overall finish time was 1:24:45. That would've put me 12th in my age group, but was good enough for 1st place Athena. So far this year I've been 2nd, 1st, and 1st in the Athena group. The only race I didn't place in was the Half Iron, and well, those Athenas were hard core. I have to watch out or this stuff is going to go to my head. I know that placing in this category is totally dependent on who happens to show up and who happens to be willing to admit that they weigh more than 150 pounds. But I'll take it. Fastest fat girl in Houston, that's me! :)

I almost lost 1st place yesterday though. Second place was a minute behind me and third place was the Bay Area Fit woman who kept gaining on me on the bike, four minutes behind. Even more interesting: I finished 1st in the category, but did not have the fastest time in any of the splits. There were 5 Athenas. I was 2/5 in the swim and T1. I was 3/5 on the bike, T2, and run. But I was the most consistent, and therefore took the category.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

When Jose goes out of town, I have nothing to do but blog, apparently.

Over the Christmas holiday of 2003, I made a t-shirt quilt using the race t-shirts from my first 30 races. The t-shirts had begun to pile up, and a quilt was a really fun project -- not to mention a good trip down memory lane. But it's been more than three years since then, and I've amassed far more race t-shirts. I don't even know the number, as I was too scared to count.

But today I narrowed down this:

To this, maybe 20% of what I started with:

I saved the t-shirts from big events like the marathon and half marathons, and saved a few just because I like the design. But the rest are gone! If you're looking for practically new t-shirts, check your local Goodwill, because I probably provided enough for the whole city. ;)

It begs the question: what do all my other running friends do with their own mass quantities of t-shirts?

Here's an idea: races could offer "with t-shirt" and "no t-shirt" registration options! Sure, it'd be another logistical detail, but having organized a race myself, I suspect that it would not be too hard to deal with, at least for smaller races. One of the hardest parts of ordering t-shirts is guessing how many you will actually need to account for race day registrations, and while this wouldn't change, it wouldn't be any harder of a decision if you let pre-registrants opt out of getting a shirt. You'd just assume that all race day participants will get a shirt and that's the price they pay for signing up late.

Now, some people, myself included, like a nicely designed t-shirt, and if the shirt design is nice, I'm always glad to have it. But so many races have ugly t-shirts! So here's the second part: races could publish the t-shirt design in advance to help people make their t-shirt or no t-shirt decision.

Now, I know the t-shirt is a big draw for some people, so races need to offer them. But I run so many races that I'd rather have $5 off the entry fee and just not get a shirt.

Something to think about. Perhaps the Yuri's Night 5K next year will allow this option!

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Yesterday I took Mom along to BAFT's prediction run (an idea which I think they may have actually gotten from me when I told them about the similar run that BARC did two weeks ago!). The distance was 3 miles, so I predicted 32:30 -- just under 11:00 pace. Mom predicted 58 minutes for her walk time. It was humid, but thankfully the sun was hidden behind a good layer of clouds. I finished just over my prediction in 32:37 -- dang it, I took one too many quick walk breaks! Mom shattered her prediction, finishing in 51:03. She was really surprised. Maybe it was because Houston is so flat. Who knows.

We spent the rest of the day watching HGTV (Mom's favorite), doing some errands, watching The Pursuit of Happyness (good movie but you have to wait a long time for the payoff), and visiting Gavin, Jen and Carina. For the first time, Carina was actually awake when I saw her and it was very fun to watch the funny faces she was making. I held her until she got fussy, at which point Jen took her back and Carina immediately calmed down. I guess she already knows who her mom is!

Saturday, June 09, 2007

I overslept this morning and missed BAFT's 25-mile ride. I guess I was pretty worn out after the long week and the excitement of last night.

I'm so happy today. Last night I finally got to be where I wanted to be. I'm not sure I actually realized that until the engines stopped, I heard "MECO confirmed," and I slumped in my chair, letting out the breath that I swear I'd been holding for the entire eight and a half minutes since engine ignition. But I was right where I wanted to be, even if it took 5 years to get there.

I don't know if I'll stay at NASA when the shuttle stops flying, and I don't have any idea what kind of career I might have going on in another 5 years. But last night was awesome.

I arrived on console at 11:00 and though I didn't leave until almost 8:00, it felt like no more than a couple hours. The first few hours were calm. I didn't have any immediate actions since everything had already been fully checked out the day before, so I spent the time organizing my data and reviewing all of my procedures, with special attention to the particularly complicated cases. I couldn't help but think that while everything was likely to go extremely nominally, I certainly didn't want to be the weak link on the one day that something did go wrong. I got my brain up to speed and working and felt much more confident.

Around 3:00, we got the final numbers on how much oxygen and hydrogen was actually loaded into the external tank. The actual numbers are always slightly different than the predicted numbers, and I have to make some adjustments to the ARD to account for that.

An hour and a half later, there was another flurry of activity as we got the final updates to the ascent trajectory. The first stage trajectory, before the SRBs are jettisioned, actually changes based on the winds and atmosphere in Florida as measured by weather balloons. Those last-minute trajectory changes have to get into the ARD as well.

Nex thing I knew, we were coming out of the T-9:00 hold! As the countdown neared zero, my heart was pounding so hard that I could hear it in my ears. If I'd been wearing a heart rate monitor, I'm sure it would have read 120 or more. I was certain I was going to have a heart attack right then and there!

I stared at my displays, watching the numbers, making sure they all were what I expected. There was a TV right in my peripheral vision tuned to NASA TV, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the flash of the engines lighting at liftoff.

Inside my head, I was incredulous. "Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!" went my internal monologue. "This is for real! Holy crap!"

At 20 seconds, we got the indication of how the SRBs were performing via a TDEL, or time measurement between when we expect to reach a given velocity and when we actually do. Anything between -0.21 and 0.21 is nominal, and every time we saw a nominal value in the pre-flight sims, it was 0.072. It's just a peculiarity of the sim that it always shows the same number for nominal.

Yesterday that number was 0.112. For a moment, I scrambled, scanning my chart to see how our throttles would change because the SRBs were a bit hotter than expected. But wait! 0.112 is less than 0.21! It's a nominal bucket! I made my call: "Nominal bucket." The engines throttled down, and back up, and all was well except the pounding in my chest.

The SRBs separated and I made my standard checks. Our targets were good, and the OMS Assist started as scheduled. We looked at the thrust update calculation, which gives us a measure of how the shuttle is performing compared to our model of it, and it was -2, with a thrust update of -99. "Go flag -2," I called. Pound, pound, pound went my heart.

The thrust trend continued to go slightly down, and I called TRAJ to make him aware of it. We only shared a few words, but as I pointed out a minor correction to something he'd said, suddenly, something clicked inside my head.

It no longer felt like a real launch. It felt like a sim! A very nominal sim.

My heart rate slowed down immediately. I fell into my normal rhythm. And everything after that was cake.

"MECO confirmed." I sat back in my chair, let out a big breath, smiled, and turned to my mentor, who had been there the whole day as an observer, standard procedure for someone working their first flight.

"That just made everything worth it."

Monday, May 14, 2007

It was a great weekend. Saturday was full of friends and celebrations, and Sunday was time for quality relaxing with the best boy in the world.

I talked to both my parents yesterday -- to Dad first, when I called and Mom was M.I.A. and then to Mom when she walked in a half hour later, returning from the grocery store. I wished a Happy Mother's Day to my very awesome mom. Mom and Dad got back to Charlotte Saturday night after seeing Katie become their third child with a masters degree, and then watching Katie and Joel drive off into the sunset. They are headed cross-country this week; they are moving to the Seattle area. I was told there were many tears as everyone said goodbye, but that is to be expected. Moving is scary. I remember the first time I came to Houston, and how I felt as I left my dad at the bus station (yes, the bus station; crazy Dad). I was 19 years old and starting my first coop tour at JSC. I didn't know a single person in Houston. I don't think I knew a single person in Texas. It was scary.

Katie and Joel will be fine in Seattle. I plan to head out there for a visit sometime this fall.

My friend Phil got married on Saturday at a lovely church near the Galleria. His wife is Heather, a girl he met at one of the Museum of Natural Science's Mixers, Elixirs and IMAX events a two summers ago. Jeremy, the best man, recounted the meeting in detail to much laughter during his toast at the reception. I like their story, because it reminds me that there really are other normal single people out there and you never know when you might meet one of them. A few years ago, when I was single and basically always had been, I had my doubts.

The wedding ceremony was very nice, though it seemed long to my non-Catholic ways (it wasn't a full Catholic ceremony, but still took about 45 minutes). The reception was fun, with plenty of food and drinks and dancing. I haven't seen that group of friends in quite a while, even though they all live here, so it was fun to catch up on what everyone is doing. It was also fun to see some of the out-of-town people -- old coops that didn't come to JSC full-time, or who are still in grad school. It was a coop reunion!

Chris flew in from Denver and it was great to see him; we had lunch at Mediterraneo's before the wedding so that we had plenty of time to chat. His own wedding is rapidly approaching, and I'm still crossing my fingers that the 117 launch date slips a week so that I can make it to Colorado for the ceremony.

2007, more than any other year, has been the year of major life changes. All around me, people are either getting engaged, getting married or getting pregnant. I suppose we are just "at that age." I am neither engaged, nor married, nor pregnant, but I gotta say that I'm pretty happy with my life right now. Things are good.

Monday, April 30, 2007

It was a busy weekend. Fun, but busy. Isn't that my typical refrain? In a nutshell: ate at Tokyo Bowl and finished my radio (it worked the first time I turned it on!) on Friday, did a 20 mile bike/3 mile run brick, went to the International Festival and bought a bonsai, and saw the Astros actually win a game on Saturday, and shot photos at a 5K then went bowling and to Outback for Debbie's birthday yesterday.

The longer recap: Saturday's bike/run brick with Buzz, Amy, Jess, Leah, and Darren went well. I averaged about 16.5 mph on the bike and 11:00 miles on the run. It's getting hotter out there, which makes running significantly worse for me, not to mention I hadn't run since the Charlotte Half Marathon. We already had tickets to the Astros game that night, so Jose and I made a day of it by heading downtown early and checking out the International Festival. It was hot, but fun. We basically ate our way through the festival, which also gave us time to check out the art and see the Kung Fu Spectacular. Yesterday's 5K was at Bear Creek Park, a lovely location for running and taking pictures, but I must admit that I might not have so readily agreed to take pictures had I realized how far away the park was. It took me an hour to get there, and since the race started at 7, I had to leave home at 5:30. I need a weekend where I don't have to get up earlier than I do during the week!

I'm already waiting impatiently for Saturday. This weekend I have nothing on the schedule. N-o-t-h-i-n-g.

Work has been slow lately, what with the reading, reading, and more reading. My group lead got my hopes up a week ago when he said that I'd probably be able to work a sim in the next few weeks. Then we looked at the sim schedule and realized that there are only two generic rendezvous sims in the entire month of May. Since the trainee ahead of me is getting close to certification, he gets to work them both. The good news is that if he does well, he needs only three more sims and he'll be out of the training flow and I'll get in the game. The bad news is that if two rendezvous sims per month is all that's going to get scheduled, my certification is going to be slooooow in coming.

I'm impatient. I'm antsy. I'm getting slightly bored. So finding out that I probably won't get my first rendezvous sim until after 117 flies was a big downer.

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays...

Monday, April 23, 2007

It was a good weekend. I'd forgotten what it was like to have down time -- or to even be in my apartment at all -- after spending all my April weekends thus far in Galveston, Corpus, and Charlotte. Before that was my birthday, and before that was the two half marathon weekend, and before that... Yeah. I need to schedule a no-activity weekend. Unfortunately the first potential no-activity weekend isn't until May 19.

The Yuri's Night 5K went well. I got a lot of good feedback on the course and lack of hoopla, and the weather was awesome. We had some mass confusion with the t-shirts (they were late, and then for a while I thought they hadn't given us all of them because we couldn't find the youth sizes) but in the end everyone got a shirt. We also had about twice as many people show up to register on race day than I'd expected -- almost 40, instead of my anticipated 20. But in the end it turned out to be our second biggest year (out of four) and we made $1000 for the charities. Pretty cool. I'm very relieved to have it over and done and off my plate.

I spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and running a few errands. I got my car inspected and got a haircut. The salon was full of teenage girls getting fancy up-dos and curls everywhere. Yep: prom night. I never went to my own prom, but it was fun to watch the girls get ready.

Yesterday I thought about getting up early to run with BARC down in Texas City, but I was just too tired. I slept until 11:00! We then made the trek to Spring for Jen's fancy bridal shower (as opposed to the casual one we threw in the 40 degree weather). It was very nice, but far away. Far, far away. Good food. Really good punch. Tons of presents. I think Baby has enough blankets to use a different one each day of the month. Jen and Gavin are going to have to have another kid just to use all the stuff.

I played soccer last night for the first time in months and am quite sore today. I guess I'm not as young as I used to be...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

The sky was gray this morning, and the ceiling low. Lower than 1000 feet. Lower than the landing pattern at Pearland Airport. But Jose headed out for his 9:00 lesson and I went with him. He dropped me off at a good spectator spot and drove away to Jeff's hangar where the little yellow plane waited. I sat down on the deck and waited. And waited.

No one was flying. No one was taking off. I heard nary an engine. I called the automated weather service repeatedly, as the cloud deck began to rise ever so slowly. An Aero Club plane took off to do some pattern work, and the little Piper Cub, but still no yellow plane. The Aero Club plane and Piper Cub both came back, but still no little yellow plane.

Finally, around 11:00, the little yellow plane appeared! Jose and Jeff did 6 landings and then -- and then! -- the little yellow plane pulled over to the fueling station and Jeff hopped out. As we walked over to the edge of the runway, Jose taxied away. He was alone in the little yellow plane for the first time ever.

And then Jose soloed!

The little yellow plane, piloted solely by the coolest boyfriend in the world, revved its engine and took off into the still gray (but with a higher cloud deck) sky.

He made a left turn, and another, and headed back parallel to the runway.

Then the little yellow plane, piloted solely by Jose, glided to a landing on the runway. He pulled off long enough for Jeff to shake his hand and congratulate him on his first solo flight, and then he was gone again for two more landings.

"Look Ma, no instructor!"

That, my friends, is one happy pilot. :)

Monday, March 19, 2007

This morning, I did not run a half marathon. To be honest, this is a good thing, as I was much more sore today than I was yesterday. Two half marathons in two days is enough.

The weekend was filled with far more activity than just the running. Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day outside (reminding me again that March is the best month ever around here) and I took full advantage by spending the afternoon at the airport watching Jose fly a plane. I had to wait a while for the little yellow plane to finally appear, so I passed the time by borrowing the Bay Area Aero Club's picnic tables. I had been waiting for more than half an hour, long enough that I'd convinced myself that for some reason Jose and Jeff were flying a different plane that day, when the little yellow plane finally taxied out. I watched and took pictures while Jose did 9 laps around the pattern and practiced all sort of landings. It was lots of fun. I don't know if I want to learn to fly myself, but I still like watching all the planes.

After that we headed to Rice Village for dinner with Liz and Christina, who came from Chicago for a visit and brought the flu with her. I'm just glad she was feeling well enough to meet for dinner! We all conveniently forgot that it was St. Patrick's Day, which turned Rice Village into a mass of people, cars, loud music, and a horrible lack of parking -- but dinner went on and it was good to see them. Christina amuses me greatly with the way she refers to her pregnancy, and how she talks about wanting the baby but not necessarily wanting to deal with being pregnant. I think I agree with her on that one.

It was also good to have another of my college friends meet "mystery man" Jose. See, Carter told me some months ago that Jose was a mystery boyfriend. I explained that after multiple months of dating, he wasn't really a mystery. To which Carter replied that Jose has no blog, thus he is a mystery. Hmm.

Yesterday was much more relaxed; after running, I didn't do much. I did take my bike to the bike store -- again -- because the tire they sold me a couple weeks ago was faulty. The bead had started to peel off after less than 100 miles, and resulted in a "lump" on one side of the tire. They replaced it without a question. I also talked to them about my aerobars, and the guy suggested that I buy a different kind of aerobars that have some flexibility in how far you place them apart. He said that all he needs to do is replace some caps on the brake cables to make the aerobars fit. But I am skeptical. The new bars are not that different, and I just don't think there's enough space without moving or removing the brake levers.

So what should I do? Take the bike to Bay Area Schwinn and have them install the bars as recommended by the guy there yesterday? Take the bike to Tri On The Run (a much longer drive) to have them do it, as they said they could when I asked last weekend? Or just forget about aerobars entirely, considering that the race is now only 2 weeks away?

Monday, February 05, 2007

I'm not sure how I fit everything into this weekend without feeling completely stressed out, but I did. I emerged from the flurry of activity with a sore butt, but no other complications. (Sore butt to be explained momentarily.)

Jose and I headed to Corpus on Saturday and got there just after noon, with plenty of time to get ready for his friend's wedding. The wedding was nice, the reception was very short, and we followed everything up with some Guitar Hero when we got back to Jose's house. ;) That night I met three of his close friends from high school (the fourth was the one getting married) as we all hung out for a while. Yesterday it was up early again for the drive back to Houston in time for Jose to go flying. (He did 8 landings!)

While he had his head in the clouds, I hopped on my bike trainer for two hours of riding while watching TV and the first half of the Super Bowl. Now, I hadn't been on my bike in a few months until a few weeks ago, and I think I may sit a little differently while on the trainer than I would if I were actually moving. In any case, my butt hurts today. More than I ever remember it hurting before. Not the bones, but my butt muscle itself. That may be too much information,a nd I know that I'll get used to it and I just need to ride more, but geez. If I sit the wrong way today, I'm in pain!

After my bike ride, it was off to Jen and Gavin's for the second half of the Super Bowl. I watched less of the game and less of the commercials this year than I ever have before; I'm not very interested in the NFL and commercials on the whole are getting worse and worse. I did see the Garmin commercial, and liked it, but that's probably because I already like Garmin.

I had my yearly physical this afternoon but went in to the clinic this morning to get my blood drawn so I could eat again (you're supposed to fast for 12 hours prior to them taking your blood; some people don't follow that, but I do). Everything went normally -- she stuck a needle in the nice purple vein in the crook of my elbow, and took her two vials -- but 5 hours later, my arm hurts. There's a bit of a bruise, but I have no idea why it hurts. Apparently this is just my day for pains.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Someone (Bill?) had it on their blog a while ago, but just to followup: the Krispy Kreme challenge was held at NC State on Saturday. Run 2 miles from campus to the Krispy Kreme shop, eat a dozen doughnuts, run 2 miles back. The winner finished in 24:31. I must admit that I would not even attempt it. (Thanks Brian O for the link.)

Five years ago when I finished school, my mom flew out to San Francisco and we drove from there to Houston to get me situated down here permanently. Sometime after that trip, she told me that she'd been a little worried and nervous about the trip, mainly because we'd be together non-stop for a week and a half, which was something we hadn't done in years. And when I was at Tech, sometimes I was so stressed out that even my trips home and interactions with the family were less-than-relaxing. Now that my brother has come and gone, I can admit that I was actually a little worried about his visit -- for similar reasons.

I like my brother and we get along just fine, but let's be honest -- we haven't spent significant time around each other since I graduated from high school more than 10 years ago. When I left for college, he was 13. I worried that it would just be weird having him visit. What I forgot is that he's now 23, out on his own in the working world, and is an adult just like the rest of my friends and siblings.

Of course, just as the drive with mom turned out to be spectacular, I shouldn't have worried about having Brian in town for the weekend. We had a nice time hanging out and watching a lot of college basketball. I asked him yesterday what he would have done if he had gone home to D.C. for the weekend -- "mess around on the computer and watch basketball?" I wondered. "Yeah, pretty much," he replied.

On Saturday we had to go to BW3 to see the Carolina game (Brian is a two-time Carolina grad, bachelor's and master's) because despite the fact that it was nationally televised on CBS, the local station decided to show a telethon. Argh! Fortunately BW3 had it on a satellite feed of CBS and even put it up on one of the big screens for us. Awesome. That night we hung out at Gavin and Jen's and tried to play Guitar Hero on their new TV, but were thwarted because I brought a cord from my old Playstation and it didn't fit into my new Playstation. Stupid Sony.

Yesterday we had lunch with Becca at Mely's to satisfy Brian's request for Tex-Mex, and then hung out until Jose got back from Corpus just in time to ride with us to the airport. Hooray -- Jose has now met every member of my immediate family. In the end, Brian was actually a fantastic and considerate houseguest. When he did some laundry yesterday, he even washed the sheets and the towel he used! Mom and Dad take note: Brian can be civilized. :)

Monday, January 08, 2007

Pretty lazy weekend, well, except for the running. Friday night was dinner at Ichibon with Jose, Nick, Heather, Melissa and Kelly. I got a drink in a ninja cup! Very exciting. On Saturday while flipping channels, we came across a "Band of Brothers" marathon on the History Channel. Five episodes on Saturday, the remaining five on Sunday. We watched all 5 on Saturday -- couldn't turn it off. I can't believe I never watched it before. It's really quite engrossing. Hard to imagine people reacting with the same sense of duty and patriotism today. Of course, it's also hard to imagine getting into a similar type of war today. We don't fight countries anymore, we fight groups.

Anyway. Saturday night also involved a trip to Target, where we were not the only ones spending a perfectly good weekend night buying cleaning supplies -- we saw Sue and her husband in the grocery area, and Melissa and Kelly at the checkout. Pretty funny.

One of my resolutions is to lose weight, which really means my resolution is to eat less and eat better. I came across a great link via Wil that shows what 200 calories looks like. Very enlightening. It's nice to see that there are some things you can eat a lot of without suffering dire consequences.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Here are a few photos

Here are a few photos from the weekend. The rest are in the gallery. Most of 'em are from the aquarium -- I like the fishies. :)

Here's the USS Lexington, an old aircraft carrier. We didn't go onto the ship, but it was cool to look at from a distance.

This is the Harbor Bridge. I asked to drive over it just because I like bridges. Fortunately, we had to go over it to get to the aquarium anyway.

Alligators!

Seahorses are totally bizarre. If someone described one to me and I had never seen one for real, I'd think they were making it up.

Here's a blurry photo of a shark. He was moving too fast. Also, he kept eyeing me.

More alien creatures. Jellyfish are so weird.

We thought this might have been a statue -- until his eye moved.

Dolphins flipping in the air! Dolphins are the coolest. They always look happy.

Monday, November 27, 2006

According to this article, 9

According to this article, 9 out of 10 emails are spam. I can vouch for this. I came home last night to ~600 emails accumulated in four days; approximately 30 of them were legitimate emails. Yes, 95% of my email was spam, and this is after much of it had gone through a spam filter once already. Interestingly, I noticed the same trend mentioned in that article -- my spam seems to have increased ten-fold in the past few months. If any of you out there use an effective spam filter and/or can recommend one, I'm all ears.

I woke up this morning to the first gray day in a week. The weather was absolutely perfect in Corpus Christi all weekend -- sunny, breezy, not a cloud in the sky. I do think I gained about 10 pounds from all the food I ate over the last four days, but oh well. Time to add some miles to my running anyway!

Thanksgiving was great -- I ate and ate and ate, and then J and I kicked some butt at foosball. I was offense, he was defense. We made it through the entire day undefeated -- 12 wins in a row! Turns out I'm actually decent at foosball. Who knew?

On Friday I went Black Friday Shopping for the first time ever. We were at Circuit City at 5 a.m. and waited in line for two hours! Then we went to Kohl's, then Conn's, then the mall, then back to Kohl's. The only thing I bought in 7 hours of shopping was two pairs of running socks (at 40% off) and a Whataburger breakfast taco, but let's just say that everyone else spent a bit more. Getting up early wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be; in fact, it was actually kind of fun.

On Saturday I got a mini-tour of Corpus, we saw the new James Bond movie (entertaining, but too long), and we played a lot of my new favorite video game: Guitar Hero. It's like Dance Dance Revolution, but with a guitar. Yesterday we slept late and then visited the Texas State Aquarium. They even had a dolphin show, which is something I'd never actually seen before. Dolphins are the coolest.

It was a fun weekend. Having to come back to work was sucky on many, many levels.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Erin, we may need you

Erin, we may need you for the relay on Sunday; we haven't found anyone else yet. Whaddaya think?

It was a glorious three-day weekend with gloriously little to do. Friday: slept late, had breakfast taco, watched TV, saw Borat (don't waste your money), had dinner. Saturday: photo shoot with Buzz for my advertising design assignment, shooting the Run Through the Brooks 5K/10K, had lunch, watched TV, dinner at Ichibon. Sunday: slept late, went running, worked on homework, played soccer (scrimmage because the other team only had 6).

My long run yesterday wasn't really that long. I decided to take it easy after going so far last Sunday and went ~5.5 miles on the Seabrook trails -- 2.5 with Jose and 3 alone. It took me a bit under 1:02:00. My average pace with Jose was ~11:45/mile; on my own it was ~11:00/mile. I wasn't really feeling it at first, but got loosened up in the last half. Next week it's back to some distance. I may try to do my 5+ miles at the 25K relay and tack 2 more miles on at the end for a nice 7+ miler.

On Saturday I bought my third pair of Brooks Adrenaline shoes. It's a little early (my current pair has a few more miles in them) but I needed a shiny white pair to photograph for my advertising design assignment. I switched to the Brooks in February, after running in Mizunos for quite a few years. Here's where I suddenly had my epiphany:

Remember how I developed some knee pain during the last half of my marathon training in fall 2004? Remember how that knee pain continued through all of 2005? And remember how it was still bugging me at the beginning of this year? You may not remember, because it was never enough to keep me from running entirely. But it was annoying.

I haven't worn my knee brace in months. My knee hasn't been bothering me in months. Only on Saturday, after 9 months of running in the Brooks Adrenaline, did I realize that my knee pain disappearing within a few months of switching shoes was probably NOT coincidental.

Funny.

Monday, October 23, 2006

This morning I had been

This morning I had been at my desk for about 15 minutes when the phone rang. Jose's car battery was dead. What are the odds that his battery would die less than a month after mine? I drove over to his apartment and sure enough, dead dead dead. A jump start got him on his way, and after work I'll have to give him another one so he can make it to NTB while I go to class. I bought my car in April 2004 and the battery died two years and five months later. He bought his car in July 2004 and the battery died two years and four months later. This just furthers my belief that factory-installed car batteries SUCK.

Last night the news showed the clip of Robert Cheruiyot falling and banging his head hard on the pavement as he crossed the finish line to win the Chicago Marathon. He slipped on some plastic stretched across the road at the finish; the plastic was printed with the marathon logo. I was surprised enough that the marathon would have something potentially dangerous there (the weather was misty, making plastic more slippery); I was even more surprised to read what the head race referee said.

Although Cheruiyot slipped before the tape, he did cross the finish line. It was a painful ending to a race in which he sprinted away from Njenga in the final stretch and finished in 2 hours, 7 minutes, 35 seconds.

"He just slipped," race referee Pat Savage said. "Luckily for him, he slipped forward."

Is he seriously implying that had Cheruiyot slipped and ended up two inches from the finish line, he would not have won the race? (The second place finisher was seconds behind.) He slipped while he was running through the finisher's tape! He slipped on something that the race put there, and that the race is responsible for. The race's decision to put down a plastic logo made the course dangerous. If Cheruiyot had finished second because of the slip, I think he'd have a serious case to file with USATF and the Chicago Marathon.

But enough of that, and on to the runners I know who ran yesterday! Congrats are in order for Erin, Lisa, Jill, Christy, and Jan, who all finished in style and hopefully did not slip at the end!

My own weekend was less exciting. I spent all of Saturday taking photos at the previously mentioned marching band competition. It was fun, though long, and though I'm scheduled to shoot another one in a few weeks, I'm not sure if I'll do any more after that. Then again, when I do the math, the money I'll earn for the six hours I spent there (and the mileage I drove) is about the same as what I make in one day during the week. So, not too bad as an occasional means of supplementing my income.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Wings Over Houston, the annual airshow they do at Ellington Field. My favorite two acts were Sean D. Tucker (an aerobatic specialist) and the Thunderbirds. The static displays were ok; yet again, I found NASA's display to be absolutely pathetic and uninspiring. The Super Guppy was in its hangar, and not on display. The 747 had flown in from Dryden, but you couldn't go inside. I got to walk through a C5 from nose to tail, get inside a helicoptor, and could've gotten in the cockpits of countless planes if I'd wanted to wait in line. But you couldn't go inside the empty NASA 747.

Sigh.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Aw, my sister and bro-in-law

Aw, my sister and bro-in-law are so cute. They went camping with Brian over the weekend. It looks like their weather was much better than ours, as it has basically been raining for more than 24 hours straight.

I'd like to think that one of the first things you'd learn in City Planning 101 is: DON'T BUILD A CITY ON A SWAMP. Alas, someone didn't listen and thus my current hometown, merely the 4th biggest city in the country, is located in an area that freaking floods every time it freaking rains hard. The news this morning was full of people who drove their cars into flooded roads and were *gasp* surprised when their car floated away. There was even a big ol' fire truck that got stuck in the water, and was being pulled out by an equally big tow truck. Ugh. I am so glad that I don't have to get on the highway to get to work.

Normally I wouldn't mind a day of rain too much, but yesterday it totally ruined my plans. The Bayou City Art Festival was this past weekend, and we weren't able to go on Saturday because of other plans. We'd been looking forward to it for weeks! At 11:00 yesterday, we decided to take a chance and drove all the way downtown (after the man on the other end of the information phone line told me that the festival was still going on), only to find that 90% of the artists were already gone or in the process of packing up. We saw a couple cool pieces, including a painting that I loved but couldn't check for prints because the booth was mostly packed up, but the whole thing was pretty underwhelming. We were bummed out for the whole drive home.

On Saturday, before the deluge, we had a throwback to our co-op days and went to Bolivar to celebrate Jen's 30th birthday. The weather was less than ideal -- overcast with a steady wind off the ocean that only grew stronger as the evening went on until by 9:00 when we left, we were huddled behind the cars in an attempt to get out of the 25+ mph sustained winds. Despite the mini-hurricane, we had a good time watching the dogs run around chasing seagulls, hitting (or attempting to hit) golf balls into the surf, grilling burgers, and giving each other airbrushed tattoos via one of Jen's birthday presents. The ferry ride was fun both ways, especially on the way over, when at least half a dozen dolphins were swimming through the waves churned up by the ferry and the wind.

On Saturday morning I went for a 15.7-mile bike ride, my first ride since triathlon season ended for me a month ago. I rode from my apartment over to UHCL, then previewed the route of yesterday's 10-miler to find out exactly where the 5-mile relay handover point was, then back home. It was a pretty windy morning, but I had a nice ride and got home just under an hour.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

I'm sitting in the Chicago

I'm sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my plane to board. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here -- sunny, cool, barely a cloud in the sky. The weekend has come and almost gone, and Christina is now a Ph.D., a Mrs. (though she is keeping her name), and today she gets a puppy. Talk about a life-changing month.

On Friday, the boys and I went to Millenium Park where we had much fun and took many photos and discovered that we had flown all the way to Chicago only to have the most fun doing things we technically could have done anywhere -- making faces in a large mirror and doing handstands in the grass.

That night we drove up to Wisconsin, and on Saturday woke up to more sunny skies, cool weather, omelets, and the official pre-wedding softball game (the first of many unique and good ideas surrounding this wedding). The softball game drew almost as many people as the wedding itself.

I can only hope that when I get married, I will be able to be as calm, poised, and not-stressed-out as Christina and Ben. The wedding was last night, outside, with a very pretty marina as a backdrop. Actually, I almost missed to ceremony because Carter, Kent and I were lost in a giant corn maze. I love Wisconsin.

Having all the events at a resort was an excellent plan on their part, since it meant that everything we needed was right there. The reception was one of the more fun that I've been to, with a six-piece band instead of a DJ. They were good, and the cameos by Ben's brother and friend (the famous Pete and J) were even better.

Christina's dress was beautiful and had a green sash. I found it very cool that there was something other than white. The bridesmaids all wore black dresses, but whatever black dress they wanted, so they were all different, which I also found very cool.

The mini college reunion was tons o' fun, even if I did have to fly all the way to Wisconsin to see Liz. (Liz lives in Houston.) James and Chrissy made it with time to spare despite a lost luggage scandal. Chris and Ray were there, and Ray and I had fun trading cameras. And of course Christina, who we didn't get to see as much as we would've liked, but hey, she was kinda busy.

Photos to come.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

The weekend is passing too

The weekend is passing too quickly.

Friday night I headed downtown for the Tour de Art run in honor of Run at Work Day. It was fun to run around dodging traffic and curbs to see some of the outdoor art hidden amongst the skyscrapers. My favorite two: Big Bubble (there's a button up on the bridge; when you press it, a bubble comes up from the bayou below) and Disappearing Gnomes.

The full photo gallery is here.

Unfortunately we had to bail on the run a little early (and miss Buzz's birthday party entirely) because my car mysteriously died! See, we drove downtown, parked the car, and got out. I noticed I'd done a crappy parking job, so I got back inside to readjust. Tried to start the car...nothing but clicking. Turn key, hear clicking.

We did the run, but as it got dark, we decided to go troubleshoot the car before my other running friends got back (they'd offered us a ride if necessary). After checking fuses and deciding that, despite the sudden onset of the problem, it must have been the battery, we got a jump start from a fellow runner and made it home. As soon as I got home and turned the car off, it died again. Apparently one of the cells of the battery just went bad, at least according to the guy at NTB who sold me a new battery yesterday.

RANDOM.

Car trouble is annoying. Though I must admit -- I would've been more worried about the whole thing if I weren't so confused about what the heck happened in the first place.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Unlike Keith, I do complain

Unlike Keith, I do complain about the heat. A lot. And it was FREAKING HOT this weekend. So hot, in fact, that simply saying it was hot doesn't really do it justice. It's too short a word. What I really want to see is something like: it was FREAKING HHHHHHHOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT yesterday. Really draw it out. It's got to be a big, long word to fully describe how I felt after doing a 30-mile bike ride in the morning, running errands all afternoon, and playing a soccer game at 5:00. We had only 9 players. The other team had a full team of 11, plus 2 subs. By the end of the game, which was called ~10 minutes early since my team had basically been reduced to walking by the heat and being down two players, my legs were shaking.

Other than that, it was a good, if busy, weekend. I was very happy to get to see Katie on Saturday night. She was tired from her week in Mexico, and looking forward to getting home and seeing Joel, but it was nice to have her in Houston for a few hours.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

It's been a really up-and-down

It's been a really up-and-down day:

Skipped Lunar Rendezvous Run after waking up at 6:30 with the afore-mentioned pounding headache. DOWN.

Went back to sleep and woke up feeling better. UP.

Adorable boyfriend left to go home for the weekend. DOWN.

Went to work to put together the entry package for Monday morning's shuttle landing. Had it done in the predicted "two hours, tops." UP.

During last-minute Q&A, Gavin pointed out something questionable on my maps. Didn't want to agree with him, but had to admit that it did look weird. Did some reprogramming that took an hour. Had no effect on the maps. DOWN.

Gavin left. I stared some more, still not satisfied. Finally figured out the problem, fixed it, sent out the package (two hours late but accurate), and left work. UP.

Redeemed myself after the morning's disappointment with a nice, slow, easy 6-mile treadmill run at 12:00/mile. UP.

Waiting for my sister to call to say that her group has arrived in Houston after driving up from Reynosa. Gonna go up to the airport and have dinner with her. UP.

So I'm on an upswing at the moment. Hurrah.

Monday, July 10, 2006

As usual, the weekend passed

As usual, the weekend passed too quickly and I find myself staring at this boring desk again. I have crammed a lot of knick knacks in my little bit of office space. Most of the time, they amuse me; today, they annoy me.

The triathlon workouts, while going well, are starting to wear me down, I think. I went for a late bike ride last night (late enough that I had to do the last 4 miles outside my apartment because it was getting too dark to be on the road) and did 20 miles in 1:16:03. That's an average of 16 mph. I was averaging 16.6 through about 15 miles, but my poor worn out legs died at the end.

Of course, a big reason for my fatigue was probably lingering effects of the Houston Urban Adventure Race that I did on Saturday with Debbie. Last year it started at 6:00 and I remember it being pretty darn hot; this year it started at 3:00 and it was downright hellish. We began with a run -- from Minute Maid Park to Teala's on West Dallas. From there we hit a nearby cemetary on Allen Parkway, then had to go all the way back downtown to the transition area. The run portion, as I determined after-the-fact (since they don't tell you the distances) was ~6.4 miles. With all our walking, it took us about 1.5 hours to finish it. It was mega-hot, and we walked a lot more than we ran.

I got much happier once we were on the bikes, and we travelled from Market Square to the intersection of South Heights Blvd and 20th Street, where we found checkpoints 3 and 4 before heading back downtown. The bike was about 10 miles total, which took us a little less than an hour.

Checkpoints 5-7 involved another ~0.75 miles of running around to the Courts building, a cathedral, and bobbing for burritos at Chipotle. Debbie and I crossed the finish line in 2:39 -- which surprisingly made us the 10th place female team! They gave prizes for 1st - 10th, so we each got a medal! My first legitimate race hardware. :)

Overall, it was a fun race, but not my favorite. The race itself is great; some of the logistics are not. We start on the field at Minute Maid Park right before an Astros game, so the start time is dictated by the game time. Still -- starting a race at 3:00 in Houston in July? Crazy.

The other problem is the downtime. The race started at 3:00, but we were required to check in no later than 12:30. Pre-race meeting at 1:00, then walk to Minute Maid, sit around for a while, enter the stadium, go onto the field, yadda yadda. Again, much of this down time is dictated by the baseball game, and their requirements for preparing ahead of time. I understand, but I don't like it. Basically, having to show up at 12:30, get set up, and sit around outside for 2.5 hours means that I'm overheated before the race even starts. Which sucks.

In the end, a race that took less than 3 hours to complete took up 9 hours of my Saturday. I think that's the part that bugs me. It seems horribly inefficient. Nevertheless, we had fun and I'll probably do it again next year.

I watched the World Cup final yesterday and was rooting for Italy, not out of any loyalty to Italy over France, but France just won it 8 years ago. Italy hadn't won since 1982. Yeah, it went to penalty kicks, which I know is a sore point for many people about the nature of the game, but it was still a good game. It sucked to see Zidane end his career with a head butt, red card, and ejection, but oh well. It was his choice to do it. He's a professional, he knows that's a red card.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

There's nothing like a three-day

There's nothing like a three-day weekend, and this one seemed to stretch on beautifully, wonderfully, forever. Long enough that I hardly remember what I did on Friday night -- oh! X-Men 3. Which was entertaining enough.

Saturday was the 5K, followed by a lazy afternoon and capped with dinner at Nick's apartment. His mom was in town and cooked, and I can never turn down her authentic Mediterranean cooking! Garlic chicken, tabouleh, mujudhra, lamb, hummus. SO YUMMY.

Sunday and Monday were made for sleeping late. Both days, I didn't even have lunch until 2:00-3:00, and enjoyed the lazy morning with coffee, reading, and TV. Jose, Becca and I saw Da Vinci Code on Sunday afternoon, and it, like X-Men, was entertaining enough. The book was better. (Duh.) There were far too many little details in the book to ever do a thorough job with the movie, so everything on screen just felt rushed.

I spent the rest of the weekend spending money (hooray for sales, I got a new shirt at Kohl's for $3.60! $3.60!), browsing the bookstore, and reading. All in all, it was fantastic.

Exercise plans for the week are a bit up in the air, since I'm flying to LA tomorrow evening for two days of meetings at JPL. But I plan to run 3 miles tonight, and maybe do a 5K in the Pasadena (Cali, not Texas) area on Saturday morning.

Monday, May 15, 2006

It was a strange weekend,

It was a strange weekend, with brief periods of intense activity followed by long naps, and capped with a slow, gray, lazy Sunday.

I am not a nap person. Oddly, this is not to imply that I don't like naps; I do. I love lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon dozing and feeling like everything is right with the world. But I rarely do it because mid-day naps leave me feeling so groggy.

This weekend felt like four days. Four weird, groggy days. All my activity of the past few months caught up with me, and I crashed. I crashed hard.

I crashed on Friday night, after the MOD party and a low-key dinner, and was asleep by 10:30. I was up at 7:00 the next morning for the Summer Kickoff 5K, but afterwards I showered and crashed again for a two-hour nap. I didn't get up until lunchtime.

Saturday was spent watching the Astros lose and then dropping by Nick's housewarming party. He just moved to a nice studio apartment up in town on Alabama. Nick, being who he is, was all atwitter at being able to throw a party. (Yes, atwitter is the proper word to describe him.) Of course, I crashed again that night as soon as I got home.

I was up early -- 6:15 -- yet again yesterday to drive to La Marque to take some photos at the Webster Duathlon. I tried to stay awake while getting eaten alive by mosquitos, at least until it became so breezy that all the bugs were blown away. I was home shortly after 10, at which point I crashed again and slept for an hour and a half.

At this point in the weekend, I'm pretty sure J had decided that he's dating a narcoleptic, but oh -- I wasn't not done yet! After a late lunch and a matinee movie, I spaced out at the grocery store and leave one bag of groceries at the checkout and didn't realize this until half an hour later. Then, as my encore, I fell asleep halfway through The Big Lebowski and have only hazy memories of how I got from the couch to the bed.

The kicker? I'm still tired today!

It is absolutely gorgeous outside today and I can't go running because I'll be at work until 10:00. Boo.

Monday, May 01, 2006

What time is it? What

What time is it? What day is it?

The thought of fully recapping my weekend exhausts me, so here it is in bullet form.

+ Friday night. Dinner in Kemah. Not as crowded as I'd feared. Rented movies. Too tired to watch them.

+ Saturday morning. Ran a 5K with Debbie. It was a sketchy one, but turned out to be official. Only ~15 people there, all Team-in-Training except us, I think. The blow-your-mind part? Debbie and I finished first and second. In 35:25 and 35:30; she out-sprinted me. We got medals for finishing first and second in our slowest times ever. I'm suspicious. Google pedometer says we ran 3.25 miles, not 3.1. Makes more sense now.

+ Oh -- as I was driving to the race, saw Keith running down NASA Parkway with two girls. Considered yelling out the window at him. Didn't though. Hi Keith!

+ Saturday afternoon. Lunch was samples of tens of different kinds of chili at the JSC Chili Cookoff. What happened to chili with beans and vegetables?? Turns out that the rules stated "no beans," which explains why all the chilis were really more like versions of beef stew. Weird. And all the teams were giving out free jello shots. Also weird.

+ Carter called. He got a new car!

+ Saturday night. Birthday party for Debbie who turned 27. Met at Curt's, painted our faces (ok, just Jason and I painted our faces), and marched the half mile to Debbie's house carrying lit tiki torches. Alarmed many neighbors and heard at least one mumble "well that's something different." Surprised Debbie, then cooked shish-ka-bobs on the grill and Cari clogged her sink. But then unclogged it.

+ Sunday morning. Woke up way too early to drive over to Braeswood to take photos with Holden at the first ever Stepping Stones 5K/10K. Was harassed by Steeeve, who used the PA system to publicly ask where Jose was. (Am thinking Jose is going to regret dating a girl who blogs and has a fairly large contingent that actually reads her blog.)

+ Sunday afternoon. Drove downtown for the second time in 6 hours to have lunch with Jo at Empire Cafe. Wish Jo still lived here. She is fun.

+ Sunday night. Soccer game. Hot hot hot. We lost. One girl butt-bumped me, fell down, then acted upset when the ref didn't call a foul. HA HA -- He saw you do the butt bump, chica.

+ Thought about watching the movies we rented on Friday and didn't watch. Still too tired. Fell asleep before 11:00.

+ In the few hours between all that, I did homework. Still have a bunch left to do. So, so glad that tomorrow is the last day of class.

I am far too busy for my own good and feeling rather guilty about neglecting the boyfriend. And suddenly, sadly, it is Monday.

Monday, April 03, 2006

On the first day of

On the first day of my new ability to work a 9/80 schedule, the score is:

Comfy bed - 1
Sarah - 0

I got in at 9:00. I'm thinking I probably won't be taking next Friday off. This 9/80 thing will take some adjustment.

Yesterday was a lovely Sunday that passed far too quickly. The day began as all good days should -- with me lying in bed until noon. I got up to eat a bagel (side note: I am going to be eating bagels for at least the next month, as there were four bags left over from the race on Saturday), and was lounging around when I decided it was time to open the blinds. At this point, I shrieked very loudly because THE ALLIGATOR WAS TOTALLY BACK! Like I saw in November. Maybe the very same!

Of course I took pictures again, and Jose was also an eyewitness, so 1) I am not crazy and 2) I am not Photoshopping this thing into my photo. Later, when Jose mentioned that the alligator had disappeared, I looked out and spotted him swimming around menacingly. Eek!

Though if he keeps on hanging out around here, I suppose I'll have to give him a name and start throwing him small animals or something. ;) Ally Gator. You know. Something totally cheesy.

Yesterday afternoon I got to talk to Kent-ola for a while, and then headed over to Gavin and Jen's to work on a slideshow of Patagonia photos that we're presenting tomorrow at lunchtime. Some of our coworkers like to live vicariously through us and our exotic travels, so a slideshow is the least we can do. ;)

Last night I headed out into a perfect April evening to see the first-ever Major League Soccer game in Houston -- the Dynamo vs. the Colorado Rapids. The home team won 5-2 behind Brian Ching's four goals. Wow! It was a lot of fun, despite feeling like I had been thrust into a stadium full of 10-year-olds in soccer uniforms. I even randomly ran into Jessica in the parking lot afterwards. She asked me where my camera was, and I sadly explained that I hadn't brought it because I didn't think they'd let me take it in (like the Toyota Center); of course, once we were there, there was a guy sitting a couple rows over shooting with the exact same setup that I would've brought. Next time I'm taking the big lens!

Tonight: OPENING NIGHT for the Astros! Wooooooo! I've been waiting for today since October!!

Monday, March 06, 2006

I got back from Patagonia

I got back from Patagonia and was forced to hit the ground running. I am still playing catch-up with email (apologies if I owe you an answer for something and haven't gotten back to you yet), homework (why why why did I not drop the web design class?), sleep, and life in general. I'm going out of town for 24 hours this week, leaving on Thursday night to go to JPL for a meeting on Friday, and coming back Friday night. Before that, there are multiple going-away festivities for Chris, who's moving to Denver (sadness, but at least I'll have someone to visit in Denver). This weekend is the RRCA Convention. With luck, I'll catch up before we go to Tahoe at the end of the month for skiing.

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I really don't know when life got so busy.

The weather was lovely on Friday so Matt had the brilliant idea of heading to Kemah for happy hour. After that I went bowling for the first time in...gosh, I don't know, maybe two or three years? I got 106 in the first game, beating everyone I was with. Then I got 99 in the second game, losing to everyone I was with. Apparently everyone else actually improved with beer.

Gilruth soccer has started up again so I had a game bright and early at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Miraculous, I actually played better with a lack of sleep. At one point I ended up playing midfield and was thiiiiis close to scoring my first goal (ever?) when I headed the ball off a corner kick. Unfortunately their goalie was really good and caught it. But I impressed everybody with my header. Yay. :)

Saturday evening was spent at the first going-away dinner for Chris followed by a trip to Boondoggle's, where I sat at the table attempting to make conversation until about 11:00, at which point I was so tired that I was literally falling asleep at the table. I'm not kidding. I think at one point I must've said something completely bizarre to Nacho in my very tired state, because I sort of woke up and realized he was giving me a very strange look in response to whatever I'd just said. Yep. Falling asleep sitting at the table. So I went home, at which point I didn't take out my contacts, didn't brush my teeth, didn't even turn on the lights, just put on pajamas and collapsed into bed.

Yesterday morning I headed to Bath Junkie for Sonia's bridal shower. She and Paul are getting married the same weekend as Andrew and Sari, so unfortunately I can't make their wedding, but at least I made the bridal shower. Then last night it was time for another soccer game (and more bruises), followed by watching the Oscars while attempting to do homework.

And another busy week lies ahead.

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.

Monday, November 14, 2005

I had a thoroughly enjoyable

I had a thoroughly enjoyable long Veteran's Day weekend with Carter visiting, but alas, he is now winging his way back to Atlanta until another three years pass and I convince him again that Texas is worth visiting. Or at least that I am worth visiting. ;)

When he arrived on Thursday night his suitcase threw up all over my living room floor. It sort of annoyed me all weekend, his stuff everywhere. Of course, now I am sort of annoyed that his stuff is not everywhere. Such is life. I love having visitors.

In between hockey games, multiple episodes of Firefly, and miscellaneous athletic activities (running and soccer), we relaxed and enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather. Or, rather, Carter enjoyed the warm weather while I complained about the humidity. Yesterday was HOT. After the 8.4K race in the morning, and getting a bit overheated there, I didn't cool down all freaking day.

This tends to happen to me after hot races -- I just seem to stay hot all day. I was hot at the race. I was hot sitting at Starbucks afterwards while waiting for Carter to get out of the morning service at Lakewood Church (I know, random). I was hot when we went flying with Becca (granted, the plane has no air, but still). I was hot playing soccer, even though I barely ran at all because the other team was so bad. I was hot when I went to bed last night and had to trade in my standard t-shirt for a tank top. When I woke up this morning, after turning the a/c down to 70 degrees but still wearing afore-mentioned tank top, I was finally cold. Ahhhhhh, glorious cold.

And yep, you heard it, yesterday Becca took Carter and me flying and there are photos in the gallery. It was fun, and we didn't die. :)

Monday, November 07, 2005

Yet again, the weekend was

Yet again, the weekend was too short.

On Friday afternoon I stopped by On The Run to pick up my packet for the 10K on Saturday morning. As I waited (the store was very crowded), I overheard the race director mention to someone else that they didn't have anyone to take photos. I couldn't help myself and piped up: "I take photos. I could do it for you."

And that's how I ended up taking photos Saturday morning instead of running the 10K like I'd planned. However, before anyone tsk-tsks me about ditching yet another run, I should point out that I wore running clothes and shoes and once the race was over, I ran the course on my own! I only did one loop, so I only did a 5K instead of the planned 10K, but that was more because I didn't have enough time for the whole six miles. It was a tough 5K. The sun was beating down, and it was icky humid. I ran it in a "leisurely" 35:36, and chased the truck picking up cones at the end.

OH! One thing was different -- I wore my new running shoes that I'd gotten Friday afternoon at the store. I looked back at my running notes and realized I hadn't had new shoes since February. Yikes! So I got re-sized and tried on four different shoes. After a couple years of running in the Mizuno Alchemy, I decided to shake things up and bought a pair of Brooks. They feel lighter on my feet than my old Alchemys, and while I still had leg pain during my Saturday run, it wasn't as bad. Hurrah.

It was hot this weekend. I know, I know, it is odd for me to be saying it was hot when it was "only" 85 degrees out. But last night after soccer, my hair was wet enough that I felt like I'd taken a shower. And when it's November, and you just had a week of glorious coolness after a long, sticky summer....well, a return of heat and humidity is unwelcome. I had to turn my air conditioning on for a bit just to de-humidify. Sigh.

Yesterday we went to see Wicked at the Hobby Center. Jen had been anxiously awaiting the day for months, and I had to laugh as she bounced in her seat as the lights went down. As for me, well, I thought it was pretty good. I hadn't listened to any of the music before, and some of it didn't interest me. But there were three or four good songs, and the story was interesting. The first act was far superior to the second, I think just because it's funnier. I was very impressed with the two lead actresses -- they were very good singers and they were "only" the understudies. (Sunday afternoon is understudy afternoon, apparently.)

Just before the musical, however, I discovered some very sad news. My point-n-shoot camera has finally bitten the dust. Died. Kaput. I opened the cover and no lens popped out. I tried to look at the photos and nothing. I changed the battery and tried again. Nothing. I shook it. And that's when I heard the tiny rattle of something loose inside. Sadness. Of course I'd been expecting the thing to die for months. It's been dropped many times, and a few months ago the zoom started acting flaky. Putting the battery in required a quick shove-and-shut-battery-compartment-door or else it'd pop back out again. The case is all dented and scratched. But it lasted through all that...only to die randomly on a Sunday.

Of course the silver lining is that now I get to buy a new camera. Hee hee.

I have a ton of things to get done this week before Carter comes to visit on Thursday including, in no particular order, grocery shopping, cleaning, and my next graphic design project (the children's book illustration). I'm also backseating two sims this week, which knocks out a good portion of Tuesday and Thurdsay evening. But I get Friday off work! Thank you, veterans.

Monday, October 24, 2005

It was 47 degrees outside

It was 47 degrees outside when I got up this morning. What kind of weather is this, and where did the heat go? NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING. It was awesome. I am actually wearing a long sleeve shirt, and actually needed a light jacket. Amazing.

It was a crazy busy weekend, and it will be a crazy busy week. Here's the recap (as blog-readers who hate "I did this, and this, then this" entries grumble and mutter)...

Friday night I did something I hadn't done in 10 years -- I went to a high school football game. An acquaintance from the photo forum shoots high school games in this area for the newspaper, and he invited me out to the Clear Creek-Galveston Ball game to practice shooting ball sports. I do so much running and triathlon photography, but I've done very little football/baseball/soccer shooting. It was Creek's homecoming, but Ball is one of the top teams in the district and they won by a score of A LOT to A LITTLE. (Seriously, it was 50-something to 14 when I left at the end of the 3rd quarter.)

The first thing I realized was that football photography is not as easy as I thought! I never have any trouble following the ball when I can see the whole field and all the players, but I discovered that when watching the game through the narrow view of the camera lens, I kept getting faked out by the fakes! They'd pretend to pass the ball, and I'd follow the guy running with his arms crossed -- but no ball. Geez. By the second and third quarters, I was doing much better and could actually follow the play. I need practice, practice, practice.

In the end, I took about 200 shots and had to immediately throw out about half of them for being out-of-focus or not actually capturing any action because I hit the shutter too late. I did get 10-15 good keepers though. I was happy, and hope to be able to go out to another game and practice more. Anything to build up a small portfolio would be good...you never know when I might need it, right?

After getting home from that game I stayed up way too late watching a couple episodes of Firefly and surfing the web, and then slept until noon on Saturday. It was glorious, except when I got up and realized what a nice day it was outside, I felt sort of guilty for wasting half of it in bed. But not that guilty.

I ran a few errands and even stopped by Oshman's in hopes of getting an Astros NLCS Champions t-shirt. After hearing the news about long lines on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I figured things would have calmed down by the weekend. Not so. I walked into the store around 1:00 to see a line of at least 100 people stretching all the way across the shoe section and into the women's clothing section. I'll have to get a t-shirt some other time, as I was really ready to stand in line.

I had a soccer game at 3:30 where we suffered a frustrating defeat, then had just enough time to go home and shower before picking up Chik-Fil-A and heading to Chris's to watch Game 1 of the World Series while working on homework. The White Sox didn't beat the Astros; the Astros beat the Astros. How many chances to score did they blow? Crap. Blah. Crap.

Yesterday morning I was up at 8:00 (8:00! on a Sunday!) to make owl cookie dough, otherwise known as playing domestic goddess for one of the two times per year I do that. (The other is Thanksgiving.) Now I just have to find the time to actually bake the cookies. I headed out at 10:15 headed for the Ironstar Half Ironman Triathlon at Lake Conroe. I was supposed to be there at 11:30 to take photos of the second half of the race.

This is the part where I say that I would have been there on time if I had just followed the map. But I, with my fabulous sense of direction, decided that I could outsmart the map and take a shortcut.

Bad idea.

Next thing I know, I'm pseudo-lost in the middle of the Sam Houston National Forest and end up circling all of Lake Conroe before I finally get back to where I'm supposed to be -- at 12:15. Yep, 45 minutes late. Final score: Map 1, Sarah 0.

I shot runners finishing until 3:00 and pondered the idea of attempting a Half Ironman someday myself. If I trained properly, I figure I could pull it off in 7.5-8 hours...

I got back to Clear Lake with just enough time to run by the T-Mobile store to pick up a new phone -- the ultra-cool Motorola Razr. Woo! It'd been so long since I upgraded phones through them that I was able to get a pretty good deal, better than I could've gotten on ebay, and only had to sign a 1-year contract instead of 2-year. The camera is way better than the one on my old phone, and the Razr is really thin so it will fit in my pocket perfectly...just in time for the World Series tomorrow night!

(I'd be lying if I didn't say that the World Series was a big reason I decided to get a new camera phone immediately. I don't know if I will be able to carry my point-n-shoot while I'm doing the runner job, but I'm sure they'll let me carry my cell phone.)

I had a soccer game at 6:00 and we totally killed the other team, which was a nice change of pace from our normal losses. My women's team has recruited a group of 5 high school girls and they are awesome -- great footwork, great passing, great shooting ability, and they have the endurance to run for freaking ever. I barely broke a sweat!

I headed straight from the soccer game to Chris's for Game 2. My feelings can be summed up as this: "They're pinch hitting Vizcaino? Vizcaino?? He sucks! Why not Palmeiro, or Lamb? Vizcaino??" Vizcaino hits a 2-RBI liner into left field. "I LOVE VIZCAINO!" Lidge comes in. "Lidge is gonna shut 'em down tonight. No demons, baby." Lidge gives up a game-winning home run to a guy that hit exactly ZERO home runs in the regular season. "Well @$%#!"

The worst part? Both of those games were totally winnable for the 'Stros. GRR. At least they're coming home to Houston.

I got home after the game and spent another 2 hours working on homework. I'm still not quite finished; I might actually have to leave a bit early today to finish. I've just been so busy lately. And it's not getting any better this week: class tonight, World Series games Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then going to DC for the weekend on Friday...

Monday, October 03, 2005

Ah, the weekend. It was

Ah, the weekend. It was full.

Friday night was the long-awaited (for some) and the awaited-for-a-mere-week (for others, including me) opening night of Serenity, and it didn't disappoint. Without giving away too many spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, here are my reactions: I can't believe so-and-so died! It's about damn time so-and-so hooked up! And of course, the multitude of great dialog: "I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar." "This is the captain, we have a little problem with our entry sequence so we may experience some slight turbulence and then explode." "Explode? I don't wanna explode!" "Did the primary buffer panel just fall off my gorram space ship for no apparent reason?" "The hell with this, I'm gonna live!" "No one's saying that. No one but Jayne is saying that." "You were watching? You see us fight? Trap."

I don't see it coming back as a TV show, which is disappointing. If it does come back, I'll jump for joy, but I just don't see it, especially after certain developments. Too much happened in the movie, too many huge world-changing events. It'd be tough to go back to the day-in day-out gritty jobs that made the TV show so entertaining. And then there's the whole pace of TV versus the movies -- as a TV show, there's enough time week in and week out to develop each of the characters and grow to empathize with them in ways that you can't do in a 2-hour feature film. While the movie is entertaining enough, I think, for people who have never seen the TV show, there are also a lot of little things happening that mean so much more if you've already watched 14 episodes worth of character development. The heart of the show, even though it was short-lived, wasn't the sci-fi part or the western part or the guns or the spaceship. The heart of the show was the characters, and how they formed their own little family.

Still, there are so many unanswered questions about the story that hopefully, at the least, there'll be sequels or prequels. 'Cause I'm totally in love with the doctor. Even though I missed his geeky vests from the TV show. (It works out surprisingly well that Cari wants Mal, Becca wants Wash, and I want Simon. Hey, one for each of us, and no arguing!)

Saturday afternoon was another soccer game in sweltering conditions which we lost terribly. Not very fun. Saturday night we all had dinner at Mely's since Jo was in town for the Aloha Fest.

Yesterday was another scorcher outside. I spent the morning shooting the Space City 10-Miler, where I finally had the pleasure of meeting Jon and Waverly and Holden for the first time, and Edwin for the second (they are some of the self-annointed Houston Running Bloggers). I think I saw Lisa as she ran past, but the heat took it's toll and she had to leave before I finished up with photos and got to the finish line.

I am greatly enjoying the fact that I'm starting to meet more and more area runners. And I recognize at least twice as many as I actually know -- I see the same people again and again through my camera lens each time I shoot a race. In fact, I think I've been enjoying the photography aspect so much that I've forgotten that it's also fun to run them. I must've been at least somewhat inspired though, because I did find time to go for a run -- on the treadmill, how masochistic of me -- last night between the Astros game and another showing of Serenity (for Becca's benefit, who as it turns out had already seen it, meaning I stayed up late for no good reason, well for a good reason, but still, I was tired when I had to get to work at 7:30 this morning, ok, runon sentence).

Anyway. I ran for 40 minutes, again doing the 5 minutes running, 30 seconds walking pattern, and covered another 3.4 miles. Slow. But I'll make 10K on the 16th somehow. :)

Monday, September 19, 2005

The other note from this

The other note from this weekend is that the Astros swept the Brewers! Woo! We went to the game on Friday night and saw Jeff Bagwell single in the winning run -- after months of surgery, rehab, and not playing, that had to feel good for him.

Now, with apologies to those Pittsburgh fans, here's hoping the Astros can grab 3-4 more wins from the Pirates this week!

Monday, September 12, 2005

Ah, another weekend that was

Ah, another weekend that was over too soon. I stayed in on Friday night to chill and recover from a hectic week of traveling and work, and to go to bed early because I had to get up at 5 a.m. Saturday to drive to Lake Jackson to shoot a relay triathlon.

I had never seen a relay triathlon before, and it was pretty interesting. There is a swim, bike, and two run segments, and it's done in the following order: swim, run, run, bike. I don't quite understand why the order is changed (from the standard swim-bike-run), nor do I understand why there are two running segments but still only one swim and one bike. It seems to me that a relay triathlon should just be 3 people doing the standard three segments. But it was still interesting, and fun to shoot.

I didn't even mind driving to Lake Jackson -- it's only an hour and change from Clear Lake, and I enjoyed getting out of the city and into the Texas countryside. The only downer was that it rained on and off all morning, so I was pretty damp by the time I climbed back into the car to come home. I did manage to protect my camera from the elements by creating a makeshift camera rain jacket out of a plastic bag that had been spending time in my trunk. (Or whatever you call the back of an Xterra. It's not really a trunk, I guess.) Maybe it's time to order a "real" rain cover for my camera. I'm probably lucky I made it this long without having to shoot a race in the rain.

After getting home and taking a 2-hour nap (and waking up extremely groggy -- this is why I am anti-nap), I headed to our first Gilruth soccer game of the season in which we had no subs, played in the rain, and got completely slaughtered by the best team in the league. Sigh. I am really out of shape for soccer. It's good to be playing again but frustrating to know that it'll be at least a month or two before I really get back in game shape.

Saturday night Jo was in town so we all went to dinner at Mely's to hear her stories of flight attendent training and waiting to be called for duty. It was good to see her. After that I went down the road to Chris's to watch the second half of the UT-OSU game with the guys (Chris, Edgar, Ron, Randy, Phil, Phil's girlfriend Heather, and Nacho). Since UT won, the mood was happy at the end of the game.

I spent almost all of yesterday watching baseball and working on homework for my graphic design class. Our typographic picture is due today, and here's what I finally came up with: my running shoe made out of running-related words and sentences.

I think it came out pretty well. I'm nervous because I'm not sure if it's exactly what the professor was looking for. Well, scratch that, I know it fits the assignment, but I guess I'm just not confident in how "good" it is. I like it, but then again, I have no experience taking this kind of class. Tonight we will all talk for a couple minutes about why we chose to do what we did, and how we did it, so I guess I'll see what everyone else came up with and figure out whether mine is indeed good or not!

(Side note: I just learned an interesting fact about the internet. My blog was not displaying the picture when it was in CMYK color. I had to convert to RGB. I did not know that.)

And finally, if you like my photoblog, check out Scene From My Life, where I'm the featured photographer this week.

Sunday, July 31, 2005

It's always a bit of

It's always a bit of a letdown when a visitor leaves. Though I must admit to slight relief each time my apartment becomes my own again, the feeling of emptiness is stronger.

Kent is the embodiment of the ideal houseguest. He cleans up after himself more than I do, and is always agreeable. He's happy to nap, to watch TV, to play games, and just to hang out all weekend. We had a great time, and I was sorry to have to leave him at the airport this afternoon. (An event made worse by the fact that I went straight from saying goodbye to Kent to spending what turned into four hours at the office. In the end, Gavin helped solved my scripting problem and my sims were -- cross your fingers -- running happily when I left.)

So let's see. Friday night we had "family dinner" at Mely's and then went back to Becca for two games of Settlers. Kent, Becca, Tiffany and I played; Tiffany and Becca were the winners. Towards the end of the night, Cari came home with food galore, and I ate taco soup and guacamole despite the fact that we'd just had a huge Mely's dinner. Ah well.

On Saturday Kent and I were planning on hitting IHOP for breakfast when Jen called and invited us to join her and Gavin at...IHOP! You can't plan it better than that, so the four of us enjoyed the many flavored syrups for a late breakfast. Kent and I stopped by Target to pick up a few last minute things for the Houston Urban Adventure Race. Around 2, Gavin, Michelle and Debbie came over and we loaded all four of our bikes onto the back of the Xterra (so rugged!). I left Kent to fend for himself (he went out to dinner and the movies with Becca) and headed downtown for the adventure race. It was really fun!

We started at 6:00 on the field (or, on the track just past the Astros dugout) at Minute Maid Park, where I stood mere feet from Adam Everett and got very excited about it. There were 10 checkpoints during the race, all around the downtown area. We began by running 3.5 miles from the ballpark to Hermann Park. From the map, I'd estimated this was only going to be 2-2.5 miles, and was feeling very dumb for being so slow. Of course it didn't help that it was a zillion degrees outside. (Seriously, it was SO hot.)

After finding out post-race that the distance was more than 3.5 miles, I don't feel quite so bad about how awful I was feeling. I was seriously overheating to the point where I got goose-bumps and felt nauseous, but Gavin and I perservered and even met up with Debbie and Michelle again. We got through checkpoints 1 and 2 at Hermann Park at about 50 minutes into the race and then caught the Metro (you could run or take the Metro -- everyone took the train) back downtown to checkpoint 3 at the Aquarium. From there we headed the few blocks back to the transition area and hopped on our mountain bikes.

Checkpoints 4, 5 and 6 were all biking north of downtown. In all we covered about 10 miles by bike, and then headed back to the transition area. The final four checkpoints were all downtown, and required about 2 miles of running through the city streets beneath the skyscrapers as dusk settled. This third portion, right downtown, was the most fun portion of the race. The sun had gone down so it was ever-so-slightly cooler and running wasn't quite as exhausting. Also, there were people all over the place since the Astros game had just ended and everyone was heading out for the night.

After hitting the final checkpoint we ran back to the transition area to the finish line, all four of us crossing in about 3:07. (The winning team did it in 1:47 or something.) The race was a lot of fun and I'm glad we did it. It would have been better if the heat weren't so bad, but I survived.

It was 11:00 by the time we got back to Clear Lake, so Becca dropped Kent off and we vegged on the couch watching the end of the Les Miserables movie before crashing.

Today was a lazy day. We watched the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on HBO this morning, then met Becca for lunch at Jason's Deli. After that we invited ourselves over to Gavin and Jen's house where we played two more games of Settlers (Kent and I each won one) while Jen got ready for work (she's on the 3-midnight Mission Control shift).

From there I had to take Kent to the airport. As I was just getting to the guard gate at work, he called and said his flight was delayed by an hour. Grr! We should have checked before we left, then he wouldn't have had to sit at the airport. I went ahead in to work though, and saw Rich's car in the parking lot as well. This AIAA conference is driving us all crazy in our own ways.

I was annoyed at myself that in the end I had to call Gavin for help getting my sims running, but he is a sim genius and all, and saved me days of time, so that's good. And I was productive on a couple other things, so it wasn't all wasted time. In a very odd way, it is sort of nice to be in the office when no one else is around. No distractions, but the bigger deal for me is perhaps that there is no one around for me to complain to...forcing me to just sit there and figure it out. That may sound silly, but I think there is some truth to it.

Now it is off to bed (visitors make me tired...in a good way!). Tomorrow morning I have to go downtown for jury duty. Cross your fingers that I am NOT selected, because I have way too much to do at work this week.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Another week, another busy weekend!

Another week, another busy weekend! The drum corps show (or, as Brian heard it when I said it the next day, the "drunk horse" show) was a lot of fun on Friday night, even if Jen, Kay and I were faced with the realization that we are now old. Seriously, the crowd was mostly high school marching bands, so we felt slightly out of place. But the show was fun. The best in my opinion was Santa Clara Vanguard. Their music included a couple bits of a piece called Russian Christmas Music which is one of my favorite pieces we ever played in concert band, and their marching was insane -- they formed all sorts of shapes like a hammer and sickle, "USSR", "CCCP", and "1917". They basically never stopped moving. That is tough to do, to continue to play well and sound good while constantly running around the field.

On Saturday I ended up taking my time getting on the road to Austin. I woke up around 9:30 and took care of a few things, showered, and watched the Tour de France time trial before finally hitting the road around 12:30. The drive to Austin is 3-3.5 hours, but it never feels like it takes that long. For some reason, it is a really enjoyable drive to me. Puffy clouds and all.

I rolled up to Brian and Leila's a little after 3:30 and we headed to Baja Fresh for a quick early dinner before their wine and cheese party. Now, about this party... First of all, their circle of friends take their parties seriously. If we had a wine and cheese party down here, this is how it would go:

1. Becca announces a wine and cheese party. Parties are always at Becca's house. It starts at 7:00.
2. She doesn't spend the week before cleaning her house or shopping obsessively, because that's not what we do.
3. At 8:30 or so, we all finally show up, very fashionably late.
4. Some people bring wine, some people bring cheese, some people bring nothing. Jo brings Smirnoff Ice, and Nick brings Kraft singles.
5. We sniff the cheeses suspiciously.
6. Depending on the crowd we start either a) lamenting our sucky love lives, b) watching tivoed versions of the Daily Show, c) laughing at Apache's limp, d) telling Tiffany that she should break up with Nick, or e) playing Settlers.
7. We all get tired at an absurdly early hour and go home.

Leila and Brian's party, on the other hand, was actually like a planned coordinated event! People showed up with 20 minutes of the designated starting time. They actually brought fancy wine and fancy cheeses. They mingled. Leila and Brian had been cleaning for a week. Everyone was paired up in couples and talking about their houses and dogs and kids. No one talked about pumas or robot deer. In short, it was a party unlike anything my social circle would ever have, and as a result, I felt a bit out of place.

It was fun though, and I tasted lots of interesting cheeses and drank a lot of good wine and had fun chatting with some of Leila and Brian's friends. We slept in late yesterday and then had brunch at Y Bar. I had fruit waffles and hashbrowns and they were both yummy. I got back on the road to Houston around 2:30, since I had to be home in time for a soccer game at 7:00 last night.

In other random news, I am going to be quoted in an article in the Denver Post about Longs Peak! When I got home on Friday, I had an email from a writer at the Denver Post. He is doing a story about the Keyhole route, which is about to become non-technical for the first time in 20 months. In looking around for first-hand stories, he came across my trip report from a year ago, and contacted me to ask some questions. He said I'd be perfect for his story; I think he was looking for someone who'd tried to do the route recently that ended up turning back because of the conditions, and I fit the bill. So random, and cool, and I will post the link to the article when it is published!

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Now that I feel alive

Now that I feel alive again, I feel prepared to give a recap of my weekend...or at least what I remember of it when not about to fall asleep!

Friday night was uneventful, and Saturday morning was occupied by the 3+ mile run from hell (read back a couple entries for the full description of the torture of running in Houston in July). I ran a few errands Saturday afternoon, including finally buying a new camera bag because I have most definitely outgrown my old one. The new bag is not that great, but it was all I could find; Wolf Camera has crappy selection but they were the only store nearby that carried bags big enough for an SLR plus 4 lenses plus accessories. Best Buy, Fry's, and Target only had small bags. I should have ordered something online, but online it's harder to tell exactly how big the bag is and how your things will fit, not to mention that I needed the bag for Sunday.

Saturday evening was spent at Pooja's bridal shower -- dinner at Angelo's followed by the coolest bridal shower I've ever been to! It was held at Bath Junkie, a store over near the mall that I'd seen but never entered. I'd assumed that it was just another Bath and Body Works type place, but it turned out to be much cooler! They have all sorts of products -- lotions, bath salts, shower gels, shampoo, soap, etc -- and you can select your scent (or combine different scents to make something even nicer), mix it up, and then select your color! So you could make lotion that smells like lavender, but is, say, bright green instead of light purple if you wanted to match a bright green bathroom or just wanted something crazy. (As a side note, the store also had hilarious rubber duckies in the form of celebrities and historical figures.)

As part of the shower, we each got to make our own bath salts and lotion. I chose a scent that was a blend of jeweled citrus, honeysuckle and rain (I am writing that down so that I remember if I want to have it made again), and made my bath salts bright blue and the lotion orange. Fun was had by all, even Becca who, despite professing to hate silly bridal shower games, secretly must enjoy them because she certainly plays them with vigor. I won the "Best TP Accessory" contest when I made Pooja a braided bracelet out of toilet paper. Woot!

From there, it was home to wait for Chris to arrive from Galveston to pick me up to head to Dallas. He'd originally hoped to get to me around 11:45; he actually arrived at almost 1:30. He'd been doing a wedding that turned chaotic, and then had to help a couple guys with a flat tire when he stopped for gas. So, at 1:30 a.m., we were on our way. I valiantly stayed awake until about 4:30, at which point my eyes started drooping and I just couldn't keep myself from dozing. Chris, thankfully, was fine.

We arrived at the hotel at 5:30 a.m. and slept for exactly one hour, getting back up at 6:30 to drive the short distance to the triathlon, meet up with Karen and Sheila, and do the race. It was HOT and HUMID but still fun. The swimming shots turned out pretty bad because they were coming out of the water with the sun directly behind them (horribly backlit) but my biking and running shots came out well I thought. By 10:30 we were done and by 11:30 Chris and I were back on the road to Houston. We stopped for lunch at McDonald's, but by 2:30 I was back to drooping eyes. Chris, miraculously, was wide awake. In the end, my slight worry about spending eight hours in a car with a guy I'd spent all of 15 minutes talking to previously (because I'm not a huge fan of making small talk with strangers) turned out to be needless. When I managed to stay awake, we chatted about photography, music, sports, life, and all sorts of stuff. Photography is his full-time business, and it's always interesting to hear about what that entails, since doing it full-time is a pipe dream for me. Not ever going to happen, of course, but pipe dream...

I got home at 4:30, downloaded all my photos from the flash cards, organized them, and then started uploading to my server. I then had to go play a soccer game! I made it through the game and even played decently for someone who was exhausted and hadn't played soccer in almost two months but we lost. We always lose. It's depressing.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

It was a pretty quiet

It was a pretty quiet weekend for me, despite it being a holiday and all. Friday night I hit the movie theater with a group including Cari's very cute Scottish friend Doug to see Bewitched. I didn't actually like it all that much. It had a few good lines, but on the whole, something about it bugged me. Nicole Kidman was too cute (though I did like her cute wardrobe), and Will Ferrell was too...something.

Saturday I did zilch. Nada. Nothing. I slept till 11, worked out, watched the first stage of the Tour de France. I did leave home to go by Barnes and Noble, then returned to sit around on my duff for the evening. It was lovely.

Sunday I spent most of the day repeating Saturday (zilch, nada, nothing, Tour de France) until evening, when I joined everyone for dinner at Carrabba's and a showing of War of the Worlds. Dude. It was scary. Not like "BOO, gotcha" with things jumping out at you, but scary in the just plain seriously scary way. (If that makes any sense at all.) I had trouble sleeping on Sunday night, partly because I went to bed late and was worried I wouldn't wake up in time on Monday morning, but partly because I was freaked out by the movie! It was good. And scary.

Yesterday morning I was up bright and early to shoot the Run Wild 5K over near the Galleria. It was freaking hot. It has been so hot the past month, and there has been no rain. June was the driest June in the past 70 years or something. It is SO hot. I want it to just pour down rain, not because I think the rain would actually cool things off, but just to give a respite from the oppressive heat. After almost two hours of photographing the racers and post-race party, I was as sweaty and nasty as I'd have been if I'd run the race myself.

I had a lot of fun shooting the race, as usual, except that my 75-300 lens acted up again. This is the second time that the autofocus has gone on the fritz while shooting a race, and I still have not pinpointed the reason why. The first time it happened was in April, when I was using my 10D and the 10D battery grip. I never used the battery grip again, and never again had the AF problem.

Cut to yesterday. I now own the 20D, and used the 20D with the lens without a problem a month ago at a triathlon. Yesterday I used the 20D with 20D battery grip for the first time, and the lens AF went out again. Would not autofocus under any circumstances. I got rid of the battery grip and changed to the less ideal 28-135 lens, and shot the rest of the race with that. When I got home, I put the 75-300 back on and voila, AF was back and working as expected.

I really can't figure out what's going on. The best I can figure is that somehow the 75-300 lens does not work well when using the battery grip. Now this would seem to indicate that somehow the battery grip contacts are not meeting exactly right such that the shutter will trip but the AF will not. I'm clueless. I have no idea what's going on. It makes me mad that I can't seem to successfully use the battery grip, because it certainly makes shooting vertically a lot more comfortable.

In any case, the lens works. It works perfectly. Except when I'm using the battery grip. Ugh.

Anyway. After shooting the race I came home to cool down in the loveliness of my air-conditioned apartment, then met Jason for the Independence Day showdown between the Astros and Padres. The Astros won 4-1 on a complete game from Oswalt and a 3-run homer from Biggio. Jason and I also sat in Rich's season seats, since Rich wasn't there, and thoroughly enjoyed them. They're right behind the plate in the upper deck. Very nice.

Last night I went over to the Becca household for a cookout and fireworks, only the cooking lasted too long and we missed the fireworks. Oh well. We heard all about Gavin and Jen's trip to Hawaii (so jealous) and watched poor Apache limp around on three legs. Apache was funny and yet pathetic; when I walked into the house she hobbled around to find something to fetch -- she wants to play fetch despite the fact that she has a torn ACL! Becca always said that dog would kill herself if it meant playing fetch, and apparently that's not far from the truth.

Monday, June 13, 2005

If I don't get to

If I don't get to go to the AIAA conference to present my paper, I am going to be SERIOUSLY UPSET. That's all I have to say about that for the moment.

I already mentioned Saturday's baseball game, so I guess I'll give the rest of the weekend summary. Friday night a bunch of us finally checked out a new dinner theater in the area. They've taken out every other row of seats and put in tables and given the waiters room to walk past with food and drinks. We saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which was entertaining and amusing, but went to the 10:15 show so it was far past dinnertime. I ordered a coke float as dessert, and it was sadly lacking in ice cream. Oh well. We'll have to check out the actual dinner food sometime. Before the movie, I went over to Seabrook to experiment with taking photos of the fireworks. It turned out pretty well, as you can see if you check my photoblog today. ;)

Yesterday was a day full of photography! I left my apartment at 5:45 a.m., returned at 11:00, left again at 1:30, and didn't get home until past 10:00. I am tired today as a result. First, I drove way the hell over to Sugar Land to shoot the Tejas Triathlon (sprint distance -- half mile swim, 13 mile bike, 5K run). The race started at 7:00, so I needed to get there by 6:30, which meant leaving at the afore-mentioned 5:45. I shot swimmers coming out of the water, and runners, and then some post-race party stuff and earned enough to buy the battery grip for my 20D. Yay!

Yesterday afternoon I took a casual photo class on studio lighting, how to set it up, and how to use it. It was being taught by a local photographer who also participates in the online Texas photo forum that I frequent, and it was pretty cheap, so I figured: why not? After my first attempt at portraits a few weeks ago, I could use the help. It was a pretty good class that lasted 8 hours (three longer than scheduled, at our request), but I had a few mixed feelings. First of all, it was a class, and since I tend to learn by doing, especially when it comes to photography, the first half of the class was all sort of "in one ear, out the other" for me. I didn't really start to see what he was talking about until we actually set up some lights and had a model posing and starting taking photos.

If anything, I probably could have used an even more basic class, covering things like "this is a strobe, this is a hot lamp, this is how you use them" and I definitely could have used a more "this is how to pose people, this is what looks good, these are the things to watch out for" class. In the end, it was educational if a bit frustrating (and if it left me feeling pretty dumb), and it was worth the time. I even got a couple good shots that I'll post over the next few days on the photoblog.

I guess the biggest thing for me personally is that I'm not sure if portrait/studio photography is something I'm interested in. I don't really think it is, except on a limited basis. (Sports photography is my current pipe dream, and sports photography is, yeah, pretty much nothing like portrait photography.) I found myself losing interest in how to set up the lights, and thinking "enh, I'll just wait until they set them up, and then I'll have fun actually taking the shots!" I wanted to shoot, not set up. Personal preference, I guess.

Monday, June 06, 2005

DAMMIT. I just had a

DAMMIT. I just had a whole entry written and lost it. Stupid backspace serving as "back" button.

GRRRRRRR.

I mentioned last week that I have started getting a fair amount of comment spam, to the tune of maybe a dozen a day. More on my photoblog than here, but still. Last night I finally got around to correctly installing MT-Blackist. (I say "correctly installing" because I tried once before but used the old installation instructions with the new version and it didn't work. Oops.) MT-Blacklist is a Movable Type plugin that blocks comment spam and it is awesome. In little more than 12 hours, it has already blocked 8 comment spams! Hooray.

On to the weekend recap. Friday night was the "Management Shuffle" party after work. There was a smaller crowd that left earlier, a departure from the usual work party modus operandi, though it probably has something to do with the fact that the party wasn't announced until like Wednesday or something. We all left around 7:30 for dinner (Mexican) at Anita's. I hadn't been there in at least a year. It was pretty good; I had shrimp enchiladas and a margarita and both were ok. Not fantastic, but not bad.

Saturday morning was the hot and humid 5K, and Saturday evening a bunch of us celebrated Paul's birthday at Putt-Putt. Imagine our amusement when Sonia, who had told Paul they were going out to a nice restaurant, walked up with Paul, dressed in a nice shirt and tie and blindfolded. Needless to say, he was not expecting Putt-Putt. We all played a round and then decided that it was absolutely necessary that all 14 of us play a round of bumper boats. It turns out that you get a lot wetter doing bumper boats than one would think, probably because we're heavier than little kids and thus displace more water. By the time I got out of my boat I was soaked and dripping water everywhere. I dried out a little while hitting a few balls at the batting cages with Debbie and Cari while the rest played Laser Tag, then stopped by the apartment to change into drier clothes before dinner at Angelo's.

I came home and started the US-Costa Rica World Cup qualifier that I'd Tivoed. I love Tivo! Landon Donovan scored two goals, Kasey Keller made at least three amazing saves, and Brian McBride nabbed a rebound at the end of the game to make it a 3-0 win for the USA. I celebrated by going to bed immediately and sleeping for 12 hours. I don't know what's with my insane sleeping habits lately, but I must be catching up for something.

Yesterday went by quickly, which usually happens when I sleep until noon. I went geocaching with Debbie and we found six caches in 2.5 hours -- talk about efficiency! I don't think we spent more than 30 seconds looking for any of them, though one was quite tricky and I likely never would have found it without Debbie. She knows all the tricks though, and spotted it immediately. It was hot out, but not too bad.

I followed geocaching with a trip to get a pedicure with Becca. This pedicure place is not so good at keeping people who walk in together next to each other, or even on the same schedule, so I didn't really get to talk to Becca since that would have involved shouting across the room. Instead, I read Elle Girl, a version of Elle aimed at teenagers. It was very entertaining, both in subject matter (such as: "Name Your iPOD. Instead of 'Where's my iPod?' doesn't 'Mom, have you seen Bob?' sound better?") and in writing style ("for reals" and "We don't mention basics like jeans and Converse because, well, obviously."). There was even an interview with Captain Oats (Seth's toy horse on the O.C.) and a featured t-shirt emblazoned with "If Found, Please Return Me To Orlando Bloom".

It was very amusing.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

George is back from his

George is back from his two-week trip to Taiwan. Yay! I like having George around, plus he brought me presents: a package containing fourteen tiny plastic models of spacecraft and airplanes, made in Taiwan, of course. Very cool. He said he had a good time -- he re-met family that he hadn't seen in 20 years. Taiwan apparently is very business-oriented. No trees or pretty green space in the city, just buildings and businesses. But outside the city he said it was prettier. And hot and humid. Just like Houston.

I had a lovely Memorial Day weekend that, of course, wasn't long enough. Friday night we all had dinner at Chili's, and I was in bed at a reasonable hour because I got up at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to meet Debbie and head downtown to Minute Maid Park for the Astros Race for the Pennant 5K. Debbie was running and I was photographing...with a beautiful rented 70-200 f/2.8 lens that I really want to buy but it's too expensive at the moment. Especially because after this weekend, I was motivated to upgrade my camera. (No comments from the peanut gallery!) Anyway, I have ordered a 20D to replace my 10D, because after two months of shooting races, and with no end in sight since I'm really enjoying it, I need a faster camera. My new 20D will be here this week!

The 10D is just a bit too slow on the write speed and buffer size. Before I was even halfway through the race, the camera had slowed down to the point where I could only take one shot per ~1.5 seconds. I still got a lot of shots, but I missed a lot too. Too slow for race photography. So I've bought a new camera, and will be selling my 10D. I've already sold some old equipment I had to make up the price difference (I got rid of the 10D battery grip and the enlarger that I never used on eBay, and am trying to sell my AE-1P). If anyone is interested in buying it, leave a comment. Otherwise, on to eBay it goes.

So let's see. I spent the rest of Saturday running a few errands and watching baseball. Saturday night I headed over to Gavin and Jen's for Chinese food, a game of Settlers, and watching Pirates of the Caribbean (can I say again how much Johnny Depp cracks me up in that movie?). I was exhausted by the time I got home at 11:30, having been up since 6, and ended up sleeping from midnight straight through to noon on Sunday. It was glorious.

I dragged myself out of bed to watch some baseball and work out on the elliptical machine before going over to Debbie's to help her paint her front door. Somehow I have become the painting expert. :) We had fun, and now the door is sparkling white again. A bit later I headed over to the Becca/Cari/Nick household for pizza and to see Tiffany's adorable chihuahua puppy. While there, we had one of the more spectacular thunderstorms in recent memory pass through; on my way home, the lightning was coming so fast and frequently that it felt like daytime. Anyway, Tiff got her dog a month ago, but I didn't see her then so this was the first time I met Chloe.

Chloe is SO cute. It made me want a dog all over again, and made me very sad to think of Leo. All last week I thought of calling the Humane Society to check on Leo and see if he was adopted, but I'm too embarassed to actually do it.

Yesterday I celebrated Memorial Day by sleeping another 10 hours (yep, 22 hours of sleep in two nights, it was beautiful) before heading out on a round of errands. I was looking for silver sandals for the wedding, and found red sandals instead. So I bought them, but the search for silver continues. Let's see, I also got a bunch of random stuff at Target, a new basket for my bathroom, a new fuzzy bath mat, and two leafy plants from Lowe's for my balcony. I almost bought a little plant stand at Pier 1 to make my balcony decor complete, but I couldn't justify the expense. Ah well.

Yesterday afternoon we had a Memorial Day picnic that moved to Debbie's house instead of the park because of the threat of rain. The rain never materialized, but I'm sure it would have if we'd actually gone to the park. Tiffany brought Chloe, of course:

And I still thought she was adorable. We sat around on the deck because the weather was a bit cooler after Sunday's thunderstorms. Finally, it was home again and bed.

All in all, it was a lovely long weekend, even though I didn't accomplish half of what I wanted to. But since most of my plans involved cleaning up my wreck of an apartment, it's not the end of the world...

Monday, May 23, 2005

The weekend was long. A

The weekend was long. A little stressful. A little relaxing.

Friday we played in the annual work golf tournament. I still wasn't feeling great but went anyway. I played with Matt, Jake, and Ray and fortunately Matt and Jake can both really drive the ball. I made a slight contribution to the team in my putting, which got better and better as the day went on. When the handicap was calculated, we actually ended up tied for second place, but a hole-to-hole comparison tie-breaker pushed us into third. We won $10 -- as a team -- so I got a lovely $2.50. Ah well, I certainly don't play for the money!

After golf, we all enjoyed burgers and chips in the golf cart shed (which allowed us to finally get in the shade, nice because it was hot outside) and then Gavin, Jen, Jake, Jo, Rich and I met up at the Cinemark for an afternoon showing of Revenge of the Sith. I'm not one of those people who analyzes movies to death, but somehow I ended up doing just that with with Carter yesterday. I thought it was an ok movie at first -- better than Episodes I and II but with a lot of similar flaws in directing and acting -- but after talking to Carter about it and discussing how a person now views Episode IV differently...well, I think I like Episode III more now that I'm a couple days removed.

While in the theater, I wasn't really buying it. Anakin's quick change -- "I know what I'm doing is wrong, and you're creepy and ugly and evil incarnate and now you want me to become your apprentice and slaughter a bunch of people...hmm, well, sure, ok, why not!" -- wasn't all that believable to me, and instead of seeming dark and evil-prone, he just seemed pouty.

But while watching it, despite knowing that of course he's going to become Darth Vader, I still found myself caring about him and wishing he'd change his mind. So, that's interesting, and a sign of decent movie-making I think.

Saturday was a rough day. I have thought a lot about what happened with Leo, and everything I come up with sounds to me like I'm making excuses. I guess the best way to summarize is that while I like dogs, I do not want to be a dog owner. Not right now. Maybe never. I really, really wanted to be, but I guess I'm not. Unfortunately, I don't think I could have figured that out without having actually gotten Leo, without having actually gotten a dog that was mine. I had reservations about owning a dog, and about Leo in particular, and I thought that once I got him home I'd change my mind. I cried on my way to the Humane Society. I cried on my way home. I cried when I had to tell the first person that I didn't have him anymore. I really, really wanted to be a dog person. I'm sad and sorry that I'm not.

I decided to take him back Saturday morning in hopes that he might be adopted over the weekend. My emotional turmoil over that, combined with a general feeling of aimlessness being home on the weekend (not having gone out of town, not having extensive plans like Yuri's Night or race photography) for the first time basically since Easter, left me antsy all day. I didn't know what to do with myself. I walked circles around my apartment. I cleaned. I watched way too much TV.

Yesterday was better. I ran a few errands, watched some baseball (how long, seriously, will the Astros continue to waste good pitching? Roy Oswalt gave up only 2 runs, yet lost because the Astros didn't scores any), and played soccer last night for the first time in a month and a half. Being out of shape and recovering from being sick left me pretty slow and lethargic, but my team managed to win 2-1 for our first (and probably only) win of the season. Finally. The team we played last night only had one win, so we really needed to take the opportunity to get in the W column against them.

My teammate lost her chihuahua. The incredibly tiny chihuahua that is so cute that he's what made me start thinking about a dog in the first place. A week ago, she and her husband left him in the backyard for the first time ever, because there was an electrical smell in the house, and went out for dinner. The 2+ pound dog escaped. He wasn't wearing a collar, because he didn't like collars, and because tags were heavy on his little body. They put up over 200 signs, but haven't heard anything.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Wake up in Charlotte at

Wake up in Charlotte at 5 a.m. (4 a.m. Houston time), to the airport, get on a plane, land in Houston, drive to work. When I do all that and have been at my desk for an hour and it's still not even 10:30, my brain starts to get muddled. Was it really just this morning that I was at home? Was it really just two hours ago that I was getting off the airplane?

I had a lovely weekend at home in good ol' North Carolina, and all members of my family now officially are college graduates. Hooray, we're edjimacated!

Saturday night we went to the Sigma Chi graduation party (because Brian is a Sigma Chi, of course) at the Carolina Inn. It was a little strange, mostly because there was no official program, a 15-minute slideshow of pictures I probably wouldn't have shown my parents, hors d'oeuvres but no actual dinner, and bartenders who were annoyed because people wanted water. But it was nice to have the family together.

We all split up for the night -- Katie and Joel at Aunt Nancy's, Brian at his place, and the rest of us with Grandmother -- then met up again yesterday morning to take the shuttle to the stadium. The traffic was bad and the bus planning wasn't great, but we got there just in the nick of time to see Brian march in.

The UNC graduation ceremony was short and sweet, in direct contrast to the long GT ceremony. (To each school it's own, I suppose.) All the undergrads wore Carolina blue gowns and filled the whole end of Kenan Stadium, which was neat to see. The graduate students wore black gowns with the colored hoods. The graduation speaker was Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes from Harvard, and prior to graduation he'd been somewhat of a controversial choice, according to Brian. The seniors had been led to believe that they'd get a say in choosing the speaker, but they didn't, and were upset by it. But Gomes was surprisingly good -- funny, thoughtful, and didn't take himself too seriously. Brian even admitted as much!

My favorite factoid from his bio: in 1999 he was named one of "The Best Talkers in America: Fifty Big Mouths We Hope Will Never Shut Up" by Talk magazine. I just think that's an awesome headline.

After the ceremony we walked around campus a bit (even David, despite his hurt foot -- he'd hobbled around Atlanta last weekend and then went to the doctor this past week, and it turns out he broke the fifth "toe" bone, so he had a boot to wear) and took pictures of Brian with all the UNC landmarks. I have Brian with the Old Well, Brian with the Davie Poplar, Brian at the Bell Tower, etc. And photos of both Brian and Katie's graduations will be posted soon, so my mom doesn't kill me!! :)

We had lunch at Brixx and visited with Grandmother some more, then headed back to Charlotte exhausted after two graduation weekends but happy that everyone is happy and graduated. I think Brian was more excited to be graduating and to have us there than he let on. ;)

So it was a great weekend. Charlotte and North Carolina are beautiful places and I miss all the spring green trees and grass that I don't see in Houston. And my family is cool.

Oh, and my dog had a fine weekend here or so I hear. A couple potty mistakes in the house, and apparently he is very possessive of his food, and he can jump 4 feet in the air, and he had fleas (he brought them home from the shelter, I noticed them on Thursday), and he may have a bruise or something on his leg because he didn't like Becca petting him there...BUT he is good. He goes to the vet this afternoon for the first time with me.

I still am getting used to the idea that I have a dog!

OH! And my grandmother saw the photos I posted here of Leo and pulled out four photos of her and my grandfather from the late 40s or early 50s with their dog Skip -- who looked JUST LIKE LEO. My grandparents had the SAME dog! I had no idea!

Saturday, May 14, 2005

in my mind I'm gone to Carolina

I'm currently in Charlotte, with plans to head up to Chapel Hill with the rest of the family later today to celebrate Brian graduating from UNC tomorrow. It's my last trip for the next month, after two months of being gone almost every weekend. Somehow this spring was extremely busy!

So Katie graduated last weekend, and Brian is tomorrow. Funny how twins seem to reach major life accomplishments at the same time. ;)

It is incredibly green and lush here in Charlotte, and everything is so pretty. We just don't have the same kind of trees in Houston. There, everything feels scrubbier. I don't think I fully appreciated how pretty Charlotte is until I didn't live here anymore. David cracked me up last night when he said "I've seen you two weekends in a row. I don't think that's happened since high school." Not counting when I come home for Christmas, he's right.

I already text-messaged with Nick this morning to see how my little doggie is doing, the poor guy having been at my place for only 24 hours before being abandoned to Becca, Cari, and Nick's house -- and faced with their two excited (and much larger) dogs. He had 24 hours to figure out who I was, and now he has 48 hours to forget. The timing wasn't great, I admit. However, it was amazing how quickly I relaxed once I got on the plane yesterday, able to finally chill out and not worry about what I needed to do for the dog, knowing that Becca and co. would take good care of him.

Nick said he peed in the house. I thought he might. The smell of the other dogs is too much for him. Well, that and he's probably not entirely housebroken. We'll work on it.

Katie is currently off getting her wedding dress fitted, and I'm about to head out to a different bridal store to get my bridesmaid dress altered. Then all six of us (me, Mom, Dad, David, Katie and Joel) will head up to Chapel Hill! There is a family dinner/reception thing at Brian's fraternity tonight that we are going to, then graduation is tomorrow morning in Kenan Stadium if the weather is good. (Or the Dean Dome if the weather is bad.)

And voila, everyone in my family will be a college graduate!

Monday, May 09, 2005

What a crazy weekend. I

What a crazy weekend. I can't remember the last time I squeezed so much activity into only three days. I got back to Houston last night not even 72 hours after leaving, and felt like I'd been gone for weeks.

Friday I flew in, got the previously-mentioned rented Mustang, met up with Kent, Karen, Katie, Joel, etc etc etc. The rest of my family arrived around 5:30, and we headed to dinner at Katie's friend Lauren's house. (Lauren is another of Katie's bridesmaids.) Lauren's mom had fixed a fantastic dinner that was enjoyed by all. We also got to meet Joel's parents for the first time; unfortunately his two brothers didn't make it.

They are really nice, just like Joel, and Joel looks just like his Dad and has many of the same mannerisms. Katie should look at Joel's dad and make sure she likes what she sees before getting married... ;) By the end of the weekend, I'm sure Joel's parents were worn out by the constant craziness and chaos and loudness of my family. But that's the way we are.

After dinner, Brian and I headed to Carter's to crash for the night while David, Mom and Dad returned to their swanky hotel room on the 50th floor of the Westin.

Saturday morning came bright and early as we headed to the Georgia Dome for the graduation. Kent and Carter came along to entertain me during the almost four-hour ceremony. Katie and Joel both officially graduated, so hooray for them. Afterwards we stuffed ourselves with delicious bbq at Katie's roommate's boyfriend's father's restaurant. (Confused? It was Jody's dad's bbq place for those who know Jody.) From there it was a quick stop at the 50th floor hotel room to take in the view of Atlanta, then back to GT for the baseball game (a rout of Florida Atlantic), then a nightcap of yummy ice cream at Jake's.

Sunday it was up again to help Katie pack, although we didn't get there until she was basically done, so we didn't turn out to be very helpful. Lunch at Rocky Mountain Pizza on their deck, which is much nicer than it was that last time I was there. Said goodbye to the family and then headed to Peachtree City to see Carter's parents. They have just moved into a gorgeous new house, and on Saturday they got their pimpin' yellow golf cart with green racing stripes, and green and yellow seats. There will certainly be no mistaking the cart for anyone other than the Greens! We rode at breakneck speed (which on a golf cart turns out to be ~20 mph) around PTC including visits to Radio Shack, a used bookstore, and a secret pavilion in the woods only accessible by golf cart.

We had steak for dinner and then it was time to head back to the airport, where I was overcharged for the rental Mustang (apparently she gave me the wrong car -- a Mustang isn't a compact, it turns out, which didn't really surprise me, but that's what they told me to take, SO I have to call them today and sort it out) and chastised by the anal-retentive security lady who counted my purse as a bag and wouldn't let me go through the metal detectors unless I somehow consolidated to only two bags. Somehow I did it without bursting the zipper on my suitcase, but I fumed the whole time. Every time I fly out of Atlanta, something goes wrong. I am convinced that it has become the worst airport in the country since 9/11.

And now I'm back in Houston for the work week before heading home to NC next weekend for Brian's graduation from UNC. We were teasing him this weekend because he's the only member of the family without a college degree...for this one week. :)

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

I had a fantastic weekend

I had a fantastic weekend that started Friday night with a trip down to Galveston to see Stomp. I'd been wanting to see the show for a while, and it didn't disappoint. For the rest of the weekend, I was drumming on things and stomping my feet. (And for the rest of the weekend, I was harassed by Carter for going to see Stomp instead of going to the matchup of two 300-game winners, Clemens and Maddux.)

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to pick up Paul, Sonia, Debbie and Jason and head past Austin to Flat Creek Crossing, a ranch that shares a fence line with Pedernales Falls State Park. I'd been wanting to visit that particular park for a while, and it didn't disappoint.

We arrived at the ranch about 3:00 Saturday afternoon after the drive from Houston with many stops along the way. The ranch owner immediately loaded us into his huge SUV and drove at breakneck speeds along the gravel roads to show us the cabin we could have for the night. Cabin turned out to be cabins, plural, and cabins turned out to be one actual cabin and one large lodge, complete with fireplace, kitchen, toilet with lizard in the bowl, dinner bell, and a dead antlered animal hanging on the wall. Oh, and a tricycle for Sonia. Oh, and air conditioning and heating. And not just a window unit, but central air. Yeah, this was quite a bit more posh than we'd been expecting.

It was awesome!!

We dropped our stuff in the lodge, changed clothes, and hiked about a mile and a half down to Flat Creek. Contrary to popular belief, Texas does in fact have some scenic areas, and Hill Country is one of them. We went swimming in the creek for a while; the water was chilly at first but not bad at all once you got in. We wandered up the creek for a bit before turning around and heading back to our little beach in the sun.

From there, we walked back up to the top of the canyon through an artificial cave near some cool canyon walls. We drove into Johnson City to get food for dinner, then returned to make hobo dinners (which turned out decently, but they took forever and the potatoes didn't get entirely cooked) and s'mores. We would've built a campfire outside, but we weren't allowed too. Ah well, we were still rocking out in our lodge.

We awoke bright and early (ok, at least it was bright) Sunday morning and drove next door to the state park to see Pedernales Falls! I'd seen pictures before, but from the photos the falls looked a lot smaller. In actuality, they're big (if not a large drop) and very pretty. We ran around on the rocks and basked in the lovely sunshine. We climbed farther up the falls where there were pools, another small waterfall, and cool eroded rock. The area is very prone to flash flooding, and all the rock was very smooth. Debbie, Jason and I headed back down to the main part of the falls looking for Paul and Sonia, and then wandered down to the bottom of the falls where we found ourselves looking back up.

We found Paul and Sonia back up in the parking lot, where my Xterra was looking very rugged and cool. Jason, Paul and Sonia went down to the river to swim again, while Debbie and I decided to mountain bike for a while. Our planned hour-long trip turned into two hours, but it was very fun. On the map there was a "Trammel Crossing" which we thought meant, you know, a bridge across the river. Turns out there was no bridge, so we got to take off our shoes and wade across with our bikes on our shoulders. VERY FUN. Seeing us tackling the river made other people want to do it too.

After biking, we headed home to Houston with a stop at the Outback Steakhouse in Katy. Mmm. Fun was had by all, and attention other friend o' mine who like camping -- we really need to go back to this ranch sometime.

And all the photos are in the gallery, of course.

Monday, April 18, 2005

I arrived back at home

I arrived back at home just before 8:00, safe and sound after riding my bike from Houston to Austin. I updated the whole way by sending photos to my Flickr stream (at right) so if you weren't checking over the weekend, you can go back and review them now.

Got up at 4:30 on Saturday morning and picked Nacho up at 5, and from there we were off to Rhodes Stadium in Katy for the start. Leaving Clear Lake on I-45, you see the occasional car next to you with bikes in tow as well. As you get into downtown, you start to see more. By the time you're on I-10 West past the 610 interchange, it seems like every car on the highway has bikes either inside or on a rack on the back, and "every" is not much of an exaggeration -- with 13,000 bikers converging on two stadium before 6 a.m., there really isn't much else on the road.

Because we'd dropped off our luggage at the Team Mission Control truck Friday afternoon, there wasn't anything left to do except make sure we had all our numbers and bike gear and head to the start line, where we quickly found the Mission Control team. We were underway by 7:20 or so.

I hit the lunch stop around 9:45, same time as last year. I think my lack of training this year was made up for by this year's lack of wind (and when there was wind, it tended to be tailwind). I think my pedals and shoes that I got for Christmas helped too; I didn't have the clipless pedals last year. And thankfully, I never fell over with my feet stuck in the pedals! Though I was overly careful about taking at least one foot out of the pedals while I still had some good speed and balance going on... ;)

The hardest part of the first day came on the ~10 mile stretch between breakpoints 5 and 6, where the rolling hills really started to get on my nerves and my back and neck starting complaining. I took some Advil at a breakpoint that seemed to help get me through the last 20 miles into LaGrange. I enjoyed the afternoon by first taking a shower where, for perhaps the first time in history, there was no line for the girls, and a line at least 100 people deep for the guys. I took my shower and came back outside and Nacho was still waiting in line. Take that, boys.

Later that afternoon I got my bike gears adjusted and said hello to Fred, who was doing massages at the Halliburton tent. I also stuffed my face with a variety of food available in our tent, everything from hot dogs to ice cream Snickers. Mmm. They started putting away the tables at 7:30 or so, when I was finally able to lay out my air mattress. I read for an hour as it got dark, and finally crashed at 9:15. Apparently there were a few trains that passed during the night, but I didn't hear anything until the first team started up their generator around 4 a.m. As generators came on all across the fairgrounds and breakfast was prepared, I dozed for a while longer and finally got up a bit before 5. I took my time eating, drinking coffee, packing up, and getting ready for the day. Nacho and I headed for the start line around 6:20 to get in line, and were on our way by 7:20 or so. We chose to go the "express" route.

The second day, though more painful in terms of neck, back, and butt, seemed a bit easier, just as it had last year. I guess there is something to be said for knowing you are getting closer and closer to your goal. After crusing along the rollings hills of Highway 71 (which get more intense as you approach the lunch stop in Bastrop), I got to lunch around 9:30. I wolfed down my Subway sandwich and got back on the road, eager to cover the remaining 35 miles to Austin. I stopped at each of the last four breakpoints to do a bit of stretching and just get off the bike for a few minutes, and finally rolled down Congress Avenue in front of the Texas state capitol at about 1:10 yesterday afternoon.

Somehow I managed to finish ahead of Steve (another guy from my division at work, and my ride home -- Nick drove Steve's truck to Austin yesterday morning to pick us up and drive us home, very nice of him to do), so I showered and gathered my things and we headed out of town soon after Steve and his friend Jason finished. They took the longer route yesterday, which must explain how they finished after me because I know Steve is a better biker. We were on the road by 3:30 and back at my car in Katy at 6:30.

I was home by 8:00 and in bed by 9:30. I'm still really tired and sore today, but happy to have finished the ride despite my horrid lack of training. I want to go home and sleep tonight, but alas, there is no rest for the weary! The Braves are in town and I want to see tonight's marquee pitching matchup -- Roger Clemens vs. Tim Hudson. Should be a good one!

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

cause I will be your safety / oh, don't leave home

I'm pleased to report that the 2nd annual Yuri's Night 5K this past Saturday went very well. The educational activities in the afternoon went well. And Saturday evening sucked.

When all was said and done, we had 123 people at the race -- 107 runners and 16 kids. That's about 20 fewer people than last year, but we still made over $500 for the charities. Overall, I felt like race day went much more smoothly than last year; I at least was much less stressed out. We had a few more volunteers, and that was a huge help as well. Until about 7:45, I actually had volunteers sitting around with nothing to do. I felt a bit bad, but then again, it's better to have too many than too few.

I am crossing my fingers that I get the fellowship, and on the off chance that I do, I will have to find someone else to organize the race next year. Which could prove difficult. Won't think about it now.

Sunday morning I got up early again to shoot photos at the Run for the Rose. The light was bad, and my camera was acting up. I was pretty disappointed in the results, but I think I still got enough usable images that it wasn't a total loss. And I'll get paid. Yippee. I've also volunteered to go to Corpus Christi on April 24 to shoot the CC Triathlon. That should be fun; I've never been to Corpus. I think Becca may come along for the ride.

Sunday afternoon I watched the Braves/Mets and was very sad that Smoltz ended up with the loss despite his personal record-tying 15 strikeouts. Stupid Carlos Beltran. After that game got out of hand, I turned to the Astros/Reds. Happily, the Astros won.

We had a soccer game Sunday night, and for the first 15 minutes we looked as bad as we'd ever looked. I have no idea what was wrong with our team, but we were all (me included) running around like chickens with our heads cut off, totally disorganized. The other team took advantage with 2 goals. After 15-20 minutes we finally settled down a bit and held them scoreless for the rest of the game, losing 2-0. But it was a weird, crazy game. We were just off, moreso than usual. Cari, we could have used you. Get better already.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

like a chicken with my head cut off

Yesterday turned busy -- training in the morning, followed by a meeting, followed by a couple hours to finish a few things. Becca, Jen and I all left work at 3:00 to join Karen for a girls trip to the Galleria. We shopped and had Cheesecake Factory and all was right with the world. Karen even managed the unthinkable and found me nice size 11 shoes; unfortunately for her, I have decided to return them. When I put them on this morning to wear them to work and walked down the stairs, my heel kept sliding out of them. That, combined with the fact that they were a bit tight in width to begin with, has made me decide that they aren't worth $70. Sorry Karen, but the search continues...

Anyway, on to the recap of my busy busy B-U-S-Y weekend. From the time I left work on Friday to the time I came to work yesterday morning, I think I was home for a total of about 25 hours, and that includes three nights of sleep. I felt like I was back in college; I wasn't doing homework or stressing about classes, but the level of activity and lack of sleep was at the same impossibly high pitch. I was so glad to come to work yesterday just to recover from the constant go-go-go of the weekend. How did I ever survive my last semester of undergrad??

Friday night began with a trip to Mely's where I had dinner with Becca, Karen and Jo while everyone else sat at a larger table. Karen was apalled at some of our topics of conversation, but when she asked "do you always talk about stuff like this, at typical Becca/Sarah volume, at restaurants" we could only reply that yes, we do. After dinner I went over to Edgar and Betsy's for the St. Patrick's Day party they were throwing. I'd only planned to stay for an hour or so (because I had to get up at 7 the next morning), but instead was there for three. The Georgia Tech game on TV and the Dance Dance Revolution activity was too much fun to cut short. They always kick my butt at MarioCart, but it has now been proven that I'm the group champion at DDR!

I got up early Saturday morning to join Karen Thibodeaux at the Tsunami Relief 5K at UHCL. It was my first-ever attempt at shooting running race photos, and it went really well! I learned a lot and was quickly thrust into having to take a lot of photos, and quick. My arm was actually sore the next day from holding up my camera vertically (i.e. weird arm position) for so long; I'll have to look into getting the battery grip, which lets you shoot portrait while holding the camera normally. I used my 75-300 lens and started out shooting in the basic sports mode, which was ok but not ideal. After talking to Karen I switched to shutter-speed priority and proceeded to shoot about 25 pictures in RAW format, finally realizing my mistake when my camera basically revolted for about 3 minutes in its mad efforts to write the huge files to the flash card. I then switched to JPG, AI servo mode and shot the rest of the race without a problem. I did turn off the image-stabilization feature of my lens, because I felt like it was really slowing it down and at shutter speeds no slower than ~1/1000, I certainly didn't need it!

From the post-race party, I went straight to my Saturday morning soccer game. We played well and that only made the 5-4 loss more disappointing. It was hot outside! Spring has definitely arrived and my body is not prepared for the heat that my brain knows is coming. Ugh. After soccer I had a lovely Meditteraneo's lunch with Becca and Karen before coming home and showering and then pretty much immediately heading up to the rodeo, where it turned out that four very intelligent women had a very massive brain fart.

I guess Karen's exempt because she doesn't live here, but neither Becca, Cari or I had realized that in addition to starting early on Sundays, the rodeo also started early (4:00 instead of 7:00) on Saturdays. We got there around 5:00, wandered around the livestock show, ate corn on the cob, rode the ferris wheel, and then, at 7:00, headed into the stadium where we found Clint Black already on stage for the post-rodeo concert. What?!?

We all looked at the tickets more closely; sure enough, they said 4:00. How dumb are we?? Anyway, the nice thing was that the concert had literally just begun, according to a souvenir stand guy, so at least we didn't miss that. And the bright side was that after the concert and dinner at Pei Wei, I was still home by 10:30 to fall into bed before my 6 a.m. wake-up time on Sunday morning.

Up bright and early, I headed over to Seabrook for the Lucky Trails Marathon, Half Marathon, and Marathon Relay. Buzz did the half, and Ron, Gavin, Jess and I did the relay. I took a few photos before my run, did my 6.55 miles in a slow but not too too bad ~1:12, and then took a lot more photos. I stayed until noon and got a bit of sunburn, before I had to leave in order to shower and get ready for the rest of my day. Oh, Buzz and I are shown prominently on Karen's main page for the Seabrook race on Sunday. :)

At 2:30 I went to the local theater to see Jason, Curt, Paul and Michelle in their final performance of "Don't Drink the Water," a Woody Allen play. They were all excellent. Michelle was hilarious as a tempermental cook, Paul's shining moment involved babbling about Orville and Wilbur Wright after getting conked on the head, Curt covered himself in fear with couch cushions as Jason the Communist policeman waved a gun around and later appeared in a straightjacket and boxer shorts.

From the play it was home long enough to eat, then to my regular Sunday night soccer game. We lost 4-0, but it really should have been more like 1-0. Oh well. We played well, the score just doesn't reflect that. From soccer I raced home to get there by 9:15 for my fantasy baseball draft. After that, I collapsed into bed.

The best news of all, however, is that Karen Thibodeaux really like my race photos and wants me to shoot for her whenever I can! I'm so excited! I feel a lot like I did when I started working for the Technique at Georgia Tech, and realized I was going to get paid for something I would do anyway because I enjoyed it. It's happening again -- I'm going to get paid for doing something I enjoy! Taking pictures! The next race I'll be doing is the Run for the Rose on April 10.

Monday, February 28, 2005

party like it's 2005...and we're all old and tired...

After Saturday morning's 10K, I spent the rest of the weekend "partying." Or as close as I get to partying these days...

Saturday night was the long-planned "shot party" in honor of Becca's birthday, Cari's birthday, Melanie's birthday, and Jo's desire to get sloshed. I went over prepared with a toothbrush and pajamas, but it just wasn't happening for me. I like to spend the night in my own bed anyway, so I was one of the few (two?) who actually made it home that night. The party was fun though. We played Twister (I love Twister!) and watched Space Camp, which I had never seen, much to the dismay of everyone else in the room. Now they can get off my case about it.

Mental note for the future: Do not -- under any circumstances but especially when everyone is tipsy -- watch cheesy 80s space-themed movies with a bunch of NASA engineers. Why? Because they will steadfastly refuse and/or ignore your requests that they SHUT THE HELL UP about all the inaccuracies in the movie. You know who you are!

I slept late yesterday and lounged around all afternoon. I'd planned to go see The Aviator, but Cari and Nick both ditched me, or rather, just didn't want to go. So it's still on my list. I headed over to Becca's for the second evening in a row to watch the Oscars. They were surprisingly short, and I thought Chris Rock was a nice change as host. I loved his bit comparing the presidency to a job at the Gap, finding that your register is $7 trillion short at the end of the day, and starting a war with Banana Republic over toxic tank tops...and it turns out that Banana Republic didn't make tank tops to begin with. Hee hee.

No big surprises with the major awards, so that was a bit boring. I feel sorry for the people who had to accept their award from a microphone in the aisle of the theater; do they not deserve to be on stage like the actors and directors? The best acceptance speech of the night came from the guy who won Best Original Song with "Al Otro Lado del Rio" from The Motorcycle Diaries. He got up, sang two verses of his song, said "ciao" and left. Beautiful.

Monday, September 15, 2003

queen of minor injuries

if i had a soccer game every night, i would be in incredible shape. then again, i might also inadvertantly kill myself.

i hurt myself again, and am now going to dub myself "queen of the minor injuries." my mildly sprained finger improved a lot over the weekend, and the bruises from last wednesday's climbing disappeared, and my ankle only feels weird if i turn it a certain way...but last night i tweaked whatever muscle is on the inside of my upper right thigh. groin muscle, anyone? or rather, as i'm going to start calling it, the oswalt muscle?

it was raining steadily at 7:00 when our game was supposed to start, not to mention the fact that lightning was criss-crossing the sky. but apparently we have to give it 20 minutes. at 7:20 it was still raining, but the referee counted 16 seconds between lightning and thunder, and so he decided that the game was on. i headed out onto the field not exactly excited by the prospect of getting struck by lightning, but fortunately, that part of the storm moved on and by the end of the game, even the rain had ended (though by that time, we were so wet and muddy that we didn't notice). buzz has joined our team, which is awesome. now i have a friend in the group!

anyway. we played, and the first run of the game, i felt a twinge in my oswalt muscle. it bothered me the rest of the game, not enough to keep me from playing, but enough to be bothersome. i thought maybe it'd go away overnight, but it didn't.

queen of minor injuries. that's me.

other than that, i had a nice weekend. friday night we went to see "once upon a time in mexico," which is not as good as desperado, and unnecessarily gory. but i still love johnny depp and antonio banderas. saturday, jason and debbie and i went downtown to the open house for the toyota center, the new coliseum for the rockets and aeros. it was really, really nice. the upper level was open to the concourse, which i thought was cool. the lower level along the sidelines are "club seats" featuring a really posh concession area. since we are planning on buying a 13-game season ticket package for the aeros (minor league hockey team), we'll even get to take advantage of the poshness. woohoo!

from there we headed over the few blocks to minute maid park and took in a true pitcher's duel, and maybe the fastest baseball game i've ever seen. it lasted only 2 hours and 5 minutes, with roy oswalt and the astros emerging victorious over matt morris and the cardinals by a score of 2-0. oswalt went 7 innings with no runs, giving up only 4 hits and striking out 8. matt morris wasn't bad either, going the same number of innings and giving up the same number of hits. he just happened to give up a couple runs too. dotel came in for the 8th, and wagner closed it in the 9th for the astros. he didn't top 98 mph (which seems slow for wagner!), but was still effective.

anyway. yesterday i got some digital photos printed and was privy to the slight incompetance of the walmart photo lab. luckily, eckerd's saved the day, and now i have everything i need to put together my scrapbooks from scotland (a year ago) and france (january). i'm so slow. while waiting on photos, i got my oil changed. hooray for being productive.

i think i'm going to have to skip climbing tonight because of my oswalt muscle. grr.

Monday, September 08, 2003

california weekend

i had a california weekend.

it's hard to explain exactly what such a weekend entails, but i will try. it starts with weather so sunny, so pleasantly warm and yet cool, and so all-around beautiful that you can't imagine doing anything that doesn't involve going outside, or at the very least, opening all the windows. throw in some fun activities with friends. throw in some driving around town with the wind in your hair. throw in some celebration-worthy news from friends. finally, add a general, inexplicable feeling of happiness that just leaves you smiling the whole time.

and there you have it. a california weekend in houston, texas.

friday night i took it easy, chatting on the phone, watching baseball in the background, and finally cleaning the dining room area that has become my study. i packed up a lot of books that i no longer have bookshelf space for, and put them in neatly labeled rubbermaid bins in the closet. voila--clean study. hooray!

saturday i slept till late morning, and got up only to go get a pedicure. ah, the luxury. i can't believe i ever made fun of becca for doing something so girly. it was when i walked outside on my way to the salon that i discovered how absolutely lovely the weather was. it was about 80 degrees and so not humid that i almost did a double take, wondering if i had been transported to an alien version of houston. the weather stayed amazing for the rest of the weekend.

after getting my toes painted, i ran a few errands, finally bought another bowl/vase for v-tot the beta fish (now he matches viggo!), and came home to clean a little more. gavin, jen, debbie and jason came over at 3:30 and we headed to the new rei store, where i bought a chalk bag and successfully resisted the temptation to buy numerous other things, among them being new hiking shoes and a tent. :)

from rei, debbie and jason and i headed to the galleria, where becca met us for dinner at the cheesecake factory (yum). afterward, we drove through a lovely part of town that i had never seen before on our way to a little independent movie theater on west gray that was showing "step into liquid," a documentary about surfing. it was great--it showed surfers all over the world, from hawaii to the great lakes to guys in galveston bay surfing the bow waves produced by the oil tankers (yes, really). sigh. i want to go surfing again.

yesterday i slept late again, and puttered around the apartment enjoying the breeze coming in through my wide open windows. i watched the braves beat the pirates, and then headed over to the running store nearby to talk with the owner; he has generously agreed to provide me with guidance and advice about planning a 5k road race! see, i am going to be the race director for the newly formed yuri's night 5k, to be held next april 10. we talked for half an hour, and he was very helpful. i'm so excited that i'm actually going to be able to make this happen; i have wanted to plan a race for a while now.

later in the day, i heard some happy news from friends and headed over to chris and edgar's to chat and play mario cart. from there, it was off to the first soccer game of the season in my women's league. we lost 4-0, but we played well. we are definitely improving. at the end of the first half, the score was only 1-0; we let three more in during the second half, when we were all exhausted because we had no subs and thus each had to play the entire 90 minutes. i still have some frustration with my team...though the truly exasperating girls have left the team, the coach still complains far too much about silly things, and one of our defenders (when she's playing sweeper) has a habit of hanging back to stand next to the goalie and gossip during the game, which is infinitely frustrating to me. but i try to just ignore the frustrations and just have fun playing, which i do. since i'm not friends with anyone on the team, it's easy for me to just play hard and go home. :)

and thus ends my weekend.

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.