Daily: December 2005 Archives

Merry Christmas!

All was well in Sarah-land for the holiday. Dad made it home late and David overslept, so the breakfast crowd was a little smaller than usual: Mom, Brian, Grandmother, Tomas, and me. Tomas is Brian's friend who didn't have enough vacation to go home for the holiday (he's from Panama), so he spent it with us. We even got him a couple presents.

David and Dad were both here by 10:30 and the present-opening began. I wonder if our family does it calmer than most -- we take turns rather than opening everything all at once. We go around the room in a circle each opening one present and repeating until everyone is done with all of theirs. Katie always wins the present battle; she's always the last one with any left. With her spending the holiday in Seattle with Joel's family, I was able to sneak in and take the "most presents" title, beating Brian by one. David, as the one with the least presents, won the title of "most expensive present" with a very nice pair of Bose headphones. :)

All of my gifts were well-received. I gave Katie a homemade calendar, and the boys and I got together to give her an mp3 player. Joel got a backpacking stove from me (which he might trade for a larger, sturdier version). Mom got exercise pants and a homemade calendar as well. Dad got a book ("The Tipping Point") and a Starbucks gift card. Grandmother got an amaryllis and chocolates, two of her standard gifts. (As she says, "I already have everything!") Brian got an REI gift card, headphones, and a book ("Let My People Go Surfing"). David got an iTunes gift card and the Firefly DVDs.

This is the best -- I bought David the Firefly DVDs not knowing if he'd even seen the show, but thinking that he would like it. On Thursday night while Katie and Joel were opening presents, David turns to me and says "hey, have you heard of that show Firefly?" Laughing inside, I say "yes." He says he liked the movie, and had been watching the TV episodes on Sci-Fi channel, and that he'd seen the DVD set at Best Buy that day and almost bought it. I make every attempt to be totally stealth and offhandedly say "oh, well you can get it after Christmas or borrow mine." Last night he again mentioned it, and pondered using Amazon gift cards to buy it. Mom and I very stealthily nudge him away from the purchase. "But it's not like anyone knows I want it," he says.

Luckily he didn't buy it last night, and we all had a good laugh when he opened the DVDs today. I love it when I am so dead on with someone's gift. :)

As for me, what did I get? Plenty! A backpacking stove, a couple shirts, an ornament. A zip-it purse -- it's a purse made entirely out of a zipper -- it is incredibly funny and cool -- who comes up with this stuff?? A bunch of books (including a cool one on digital sports photography), a Barnes & Noble card to buy more books, a Starbucks card, two DVDs ("Batman Begins" and the "Apollo 13" 10th anniversity edition), and some money from Grandmother (1.4x extender here I come). Brian won bonus points this year with his gifts to me -- a black pearl necklace from China and a calendar that he put together online full of photos from his trip there in October. He even took the time to put captions on each one! It might be my favorite present of all this year, partly because it was so unexpected and yet so cool.

We had a lazy afternoon enjoying our presents, and Mom and I went to see Chronicles of Narnia tonight at the theater. I'd already seen it, but knew Mom would love it so I was more than happy to go see it again. I still need to see King Kong.

I didn't go running today, and won't tomorrow (we'll be busy all day with the big family lunch with Aunt Nancy in Chapel Hill). But Tuesday is the day for 12 miles...

Home again, home again, jiggity jog. Charlotte is cold! The pilot came on the speaker last night as the plane descended (half an hour late) to say that the temperature was 26 degrees. I live in Texas now, people. I can't handle it. It is sad and pathetic because I used to like the cold. Now I only like it if I'm running. Brr.

My grandmother just headed to bed and stopped to ask if I was updating my blog. She seemed surprised when I said "yes." Funny.

Not much to say, actually, other than I'm home for the holidays and home is nice. Mom and Katie and I went to the mother/daughter lunch with the Mickles, Easts, and Diehls today so that was fun. Mom and I went to Huntersville to pick up Grandmother, Katie and I went for a run, Joel got here after working his final day before vacation, and we spent the evening eating pizza, playing spoons and Scattergories, and laughing. My family is awesome.

There are two weeks left in 2005 and soon it will be official -- this will be the first year since college that I haven't left the country at least once. (Going to Vancouver and Whistler back in March doesn't really count. Canada's just not far enough away.) I had managed to overlook this fact in an attempt to suppress any restlessness, until Josh walked into my office 10 minutes ago to ask me a few questions about Peru. He's thinking of doing the Inca Trail this fall. He was mainly interested in whether he should spend a half day or 2.5 days in Lima, so I chatted about our activities during the day we spent in the Peruvian capital.

Lima wasn't even that nice; on my list of coolest cities visited it ranks pretty low. But as Josh left my office I found myself staring off into space for a moment, deep in memories of our Peru trip. I can't believe we didn't leave the country this year. It's good that I have Patagonia to look forward to in two short months -- otherwise I might go crazy and die of wanderlust.

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Last year I signed up for this little Secret Santa thing where you are randomly assigned someone and buy them something off their Amazon wishlist. I bought someone a present, but never got one in return. Oh well, Christmas is about giving, right? This year I signed up again and last week ordered something for a random girl in Atlanta. I'd sort of forgotten about the "receiving" part until I got a package from Amazon yesterday. "Hmm," I thought, "I thought I made sure that all the gifts I ordered for the family were shipped to Charlotte." But then I opened it and realized it was a present for me! Thank you, random person in Chicago who sent me a Secret Santa gift!

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Yesterday Jen, Jason and I bought season tickets for the Astros. Woohoo, I am once again a season ticket holder! Hope this season goes at least somewhat like last year's. Though I could do without the 15-30 mid-May record. And the World Series sweep.

One final note on my run yesterday in Seabrook -- I saw a ton of other runners. I saw some of them repeatedly. Since it's only a 6-mile out-and-back I can only imagine that many of them were out doing the same thing as me -- training for the Half or Marathon. It was nice to think that we were all in it together!

Today Jen posted one of my favorite shots even taken of me on her photoblog today. I'm sitting on a large rock on the edge of Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park and looking up at the face of Longs Peak. I love shots of me camping. Somehow they seem more gritty and real.

That sounds weird -- "favorite shots of me." I know a lot of people don't like to have their photo taken, but I don't mind very much. In fact, I sort of like it, if I think it's going to be a good shot. I'm not sure if that makes me vain or not; it's just a personality trait, or something. Anyway. That shot is one of my favorites ever taken of me.

I downloaded the soundtrack for "The Chronicles of Narnia" and have been listening to it all weekend. I have many varied tastes in music, but I always have a soft spot for good, inspiring instrumental pieces. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a result of my many years of band.

Instrumental music can get me going in a way that other music can't. I put a couple movie soundtrack songs (from my two most recent movie soundtrack purchases, "Narnia" and "Serenity") on my mp3 player as I headed out for my long run yesterday. By the time I hit 10 miles I was ready to stop, but suddenly the battle song from "Narnia" came up. Perhaps I should put more good instrumental stuff on my running playlist, because it really got me going! I probably ran the last half mile faster than anything else, though I was slowed slightly by my need to wave my arms as if I were conducting the really good parts...

I suppose I'll know that I've found the guy for me when I can conduct in the air without feeling embarassed. Because that's what I do when I'm alone and a song comes on and I want to emphasize all the good notes. You've heard of air-guitar; well, I air-conduct. I spent too much time following a drum major to not find myself wanting to direct the orchestra in my mp3 player.

I'm sure I was quite a sight -- running down the last bit of the trail towards the pool sweaty, breathless, and waving my arms like a lunatic.

The San Jose Earthquakes are officially moving to Houston! I'm excited about having major league soccer in town. I wonder how much season tickets will cost? They should be playing their first season at the University of Houston stadium, so it's actually closer than the Astros.

Too bad Landon Donovan isn't still with them. We could've actually made good on our offer to give him a tour of NASA when his team moved to Houston...

Yesterday I worked 11.5 hours, thanks to the sim I backseated last night. It was my last as backseat. From here on out I sit hot seat, starting next Tuesday. Of course, next Tuesday's sim is a little different and will be one run, which will be uphill, since it's a post-insertion sim. (To do post-insertion, you have to insert, which means no abort, so why do you really need the ARD in the first place, eh?) My first "real" sim is the Thursday after New Years.

Great. I will go home for two weeks, forget everything I've learned, and then have to sit console for the first "real" time. Great.

Anyway, I got home tired and then vented with Becca for an hour or so. That's always fun. (Seriously, it is.)

And finally, a new JibJab cartoon celebrates 2005...

After mentioning how much cash I had to drop yesterday for a plane ticket, I might as well mention what the plan is. There is always a plan. Dum dum dummmmmmm. To help everyone out, I have created this handy dandy illustrated guide to the upcoming trip.

At the moment, "we" are Becca, Jen, Gavin, Karen, me, and possibly Emily. And maybe possibly slight chance of Jose, if he's not broke. Anyway.

On February 17 after work we will catch a plane from Houston to Buenos Aires. Argentina! Yeah! After a day in the city, we will catch another plane from Buenos Aires to El Calafate, still in Argentina, but waaaaaay down at the bottom of the world:

See? Very exciting. It's practically Antartica, only better, with mountains and funny animals!

From February 19 until February 27 we will be in Patagonia, a place that has been calling to me for a while now. We will visit El Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and see...los glaciares!

Then we will cross the border into Chile and go to the single place that has been calling to me the most, Torres Del Paine. I mean, just look:

See? SO AWESOME.

We will also see these:

On February 27 I will probably cry as I have to get on a plane in Punta Arenas to fly up to Santiago, Chile. We will spend that day in Santiago before boarding a plane that night to come back to Houston via Atlanta.

I am muy excited. Don't you want to come along?

JSC decorates for Christmas -- lights and banners and such. They also put four of those wooden, light-up deer out at the main guard shack, the kind that move their heads and stuff. Today as we came back from lunch, two of them were lying on their sides. "Robot deer down! I repeat: robot deer down!" George called gleefully.

See? That is a lunch conversation.

I'm currently trying to figure out if I have enough hours for the week to leave at 4. That would give me just enough time to go running for half an hour, shower, find a white elephant gift, and make it to the branch Christmas party at 6:30. The other issue? Whether to run outside or on the treadmill. It is COLD here today -- and I really do mean cold, not Houston cold. It's 38 degrees outside at 3:30, and the wind chill is 26! (I love having a weather station on top of my building.)

Treadmill it will be. I didn't bring warm enough clothes for 26!

And finally, a couple thoughts on baseball:

+ The Astros have parted ways with Roger Clemens, at least until May 1. They didn't offer him salary arbitration. He can retire, or he can sign with anybody else. It's sad and unfortunate after the past two awesome seasons, but it was necessary. The Astros were paralyzed by Carlos Beltran last year, and can't afford to let the same thing happen with Clemens. If Rocket can't commit, the Astros need to start looking to spend that $20 million now, while there are good free agents still available.

+ The Braves signed Edgar Renteria to replace Rafael Furcal. I'm impressed!

One of the best things in the entire world is not sleeping. Rather, it's that moment in the morning after you've woken up when you hit the snooze button, roll over, snuggle the covers up around your head, and sink back into the bed. That is one of the best things in the entire world.

Of course, it's something I've been experiencing a little bit too often lately. After working 9.5 hours yesterday thanks to my morning sim, I stumbled in today just after 9:00. Without coffee, since I'm trying very hard to limit my Starbucks intake. And that's when I remembered that I'm out of coffee filters for the machine here in the office. Sigh.

The good news is that I may be closing in on resolving my neural net's issues -- the sim versus the real world. Or actually, the sim of the sim versus the sim of the real world. Too many sims.

I was just reading a bit on a graphic design blog and came across one of my biggest pet peeves: people who write "loose" when they mean "lose." They are two entirely different words. And it's a design blog! You're in a career that's all about appearances! Learn to spell, or at least use spell-checker!

This concludes my rambling.