Daily: June 2008 Archives

I get a lot of packages. So many that the girls who work in the office of my apartment complex know me on sight and by the time I actually get into the office, they usually have my package out and waiting. At first I was embarassed -- I probably get an average of 1-2 packages per week, which didn't seem excessive. Some weeks I get a lot, and some weeks I get none. But the apartment girls must think I'm made of money! Really, it's just that I do 80% of my shopping online. Why would I suffer the traffic around the mall and the crowds in the stores when I can usually find the item I want online for 10-20% cheaper. Sure, sometimes I have to pay shipping, but often it's free. And sure, buying online means you have to wait for it to be delivered, but I'm usually patient enough to wait.

Last week I got three packages on one day, which made the apartment girls tease me again, but oh well. They were all things that I couldn't get at an actual store -- an airplane headset off ebay, plus two pairs of shoes. Yes, I order shoes online. I wear a size 11, and I challenge you to find a store that carries a decent amount of stock and selection in that size. Ten years ago I had to buy men's athletic shoes, so I admit that stores have gotten better about serving bigfeet like myself, but they are still very lacking in selection. Even a huge store like DSW disappoints, and I find that when I'm there instead of looking for a shoe I like, it's easier to just scan the aisles looking for size 11s (often marked with a bright sticker, I suppose because it is an "unusual" size) and then see if I happen to like the shoe.

One pair of shoes came from Zappos, and the experience was so impressive that I feel compelled to share it. I ordered the shoes on Wednesday afternoon. They offered free standard shipping, so I went with that. Then, Wednesday evening, I got an email saying they'd upgraded my shipping at no charge. On Friday morning, I got another email with the package tracking number -- but that email was useless because the shoes had already arrived on Thursday! Ordered Wednesday evening, arrived sometime Thursday, and were waiting at my apartment complex office when I got home. That is less than 24 hours. I am impressed. This is why I shop online. So much easier.

In other news, where did the week go? Suddenly it's Friday, but of course that's a good thing. My mom is in town this weekend, so it should be lots of fun. Tonight we're going to the Astros-Red Sox game and will stick around for Friday night fireworks after that. Tomorrow we're going to see Wall-E (I am so excited, I have been waiting for Waaaaaaaaallleeeeeee for months!), and Sunday morning Mom is going to come cheer for me at the Y Tri in Pearland. I'm sure we will also eat some good food and go shopping at some point before she leaves on Tuesday.

I went running last night after the afternoon storms blew through, and the temperature was actually bearable! It was humid as all get out, and I sweated buckets, but at least the temperature was a little cooler. It was a pretty decent run. Lately I have been allowing myself to do run/walks because it's what I've mentally needed to get out the door. I don't know if this is just a hotter summer, or if I just haven't adjusted but I have been dying in the heat thus far. I start sweating as soon as I walk out the door -- whether to exercise or just to go to work! Good thing the biking is going well. Check out this shot of me from last Sunday's tri. I like it 'cause it makes me look fast!

Jen passed her checkride yesterday and is now an officially licensed pilot! Yes, there is an absurdly high number of pilots in my group of friends. Then again, we are all aerospace engineers, so I suppose it's me that's unusual for not having one, instead of the other way around. We celebrated by sitting around Jen's kitchen table and drinking and talking for three hours, which was a lot of fun. For once, we didn't degrade into talk about the office, and instead spent the whole night laughing at funny stories about camping, reality TV, the various absurdities of our work gym and sports leagues, the rapidly growing number of women we know who are pregnant, and of course, flying.

Jen seems to have gotten a fairly normal examiner for her checkride. When I say "normal," I really mean "not insane." The examiner is a freaking superwoman -- she flies in and wins aerobatic flying competitions, performs at airshows, is a captain for Southwest, and owns her own flying school specializing in aerobatics. But compared to stories from Jose's and Byron's checkrides, Jen's examiner was downright boring.

Jose never got around to writing a blog entry about his own checkride, but he had a certifiably crazy examiner. The guy was flying in from College Station, and the first thing he did was enter the landing pattern at the Pearland airport going the wrong direction. Oops. That was only the beginning. He was wearing some kind of crazy sweatshirt with a howling wolf on it that said "Alpha Wolf." When his laptop booted up, which happened often because it kept on crashing, it said "how may I serve you, master" in a sexy girl voice. He typed incessantly on his Blackberry, claiming he was taking notes. And then, when filling out some paperwork, he tore off Jose's social security number and ate it. So that the Yankee government wouldn't have it.

But it was Byron's examiner that won the awesome quote contest. When he asked Byron what a group of orange traffic cones reminded him of, he mentioned that they look like psychadelic witches that have melted into the pavement. I can never look at traffic cones again without thinking about psychadelic witches melting.

I think I may need to learn to fly, just to get a good story.

He got his pilot's license back in February, but Jose hasn't actually owned his own headset until yesterday! After months of borrowing Becca's headset and spares, and having to drop by her house all the time to pick them up, he treated himself to a brand new headset of his own, and it arrived yesterday. Coincidentally, mine also arrived! Mine (which is necessary for my role as Jose's #1 passenger) is a used headset I bought off ebay for $50. It wasn't until after I bought it that I realized apparently it's a helicopter headset, and I now get to spend another $40 for an adapter to convert it to general aviation use. Oh well, that's what I get for using ebay! It was still way cheaper than a new one.

Back in March, Jose and I were sitting in the massive traffic backup that was the rodeo. (We found out later that we ended up going on a day that was sold out, so there were more then 80,000 people there, apparently.) As we sat in traffic, on an unusually hot day for March, my car's air conditioning suddenly ceased to be cold. Then I noticed that the needle for engine temperature was pegged on H. Not good. The temperature came back down each time we started moving again, but when we were stopped in traffic, the car started overheating again.

I never noticed it again until the weather warmed up, but lately it has been happening pretty much every time I'm stuck in traffic. I've managed to avoid pegging the engine on high, but the needle has definitely been climbing. And that's definitely not supposed to happen.

Now, I'm an engineer, but that doesn't mean I know anything about car engines. In fact, they really intimidate me, in much the same way that the thought of working on my bicycle intimidates me -- I'm terrified that in trying to make something better, I will screw it up and ruin it entirely.

But, as Jose kept telling me, it's just an engine. And my coworker Ray encouraged me to get the Haynes manual for my car, that goes into great detail about how to do a lot of maintenance from the easy stuff to the much more difficult. I bought that and read through the section on the engine's cooling system and then, after much research, and much talking to Ray, Jason, Byron and my other friends that are knowledgeable about cars, I determined the following:

• I might need a new thermostat.
• I might need a new cooling fan clutch.
• I might just need more coolant.

After all my questions, reading, and Internet surfing, it appears that all I needed was more coolant. The level in the reservoir was less than minimum, and opening the radiator cap revealed a dry interior, when the Internets (and my car's user manual) said I should see coolant up to the top. So on Sunday night Jose and I added a whole bunch of coolant to the system and voila -- the temperature needle has not risen above the halfway mark all week!

I feel rather dumb to discover in the end that all I needed was more coolant. But I am also a little bit proud that I solved the problem on my own (albeit with help from my friends)! And I learned a lot more about how my engine's cooling system works in the process, so that was pretty cool.

This may not be the end of the story, since I do plan to keep watching the system in case I have a leak somewhere (I mean, how did the system get so low on coolant in the first place?), but for now I'm feeling quite happy and maybe just a tiny bit mechanically-inclined after all.

Next up: cleaning my bike chain! All by myself!

Every time I pass an orchid -- at Lowe's, at a restaurant, anywhere -- I always stop to admire it. They are such beautiful plants, especially when they're flowering! However, I'd never bought one for myself, because I have always heard that they are hard to care for, and even harder to nuture well enough that it blooms again after the initial time. But there's a first time for everything, and for my birthday back in March, Jose gave me a gorgeous orchid. And I love it.

The problem is that the blooms have finally all fallen off, and I'm anxiously trying to figure out what I need to do to care for it in hopes that it will bloom again. (Side note: at first I was worried that I had done something wrong to cause all the blooms to drop. But then we were at Lowe's over the weekend, and I noticed that every single one of their orchids was bloom-less. So it must just be that time of year?)

Anyway, I've searched all over the web, but there is so much information, and much of it conflicts because there seem to be a zillion different types of orchids. The tag on mine said nothing but "dendrobium." Does anyone out there have experience with orchids? Do I need to cut the stalk now that the flowers have fallen off, or should I leave it? Do I need to do something special with fertilizer? Or just keep watering it weekly like I have been?

If I can keep this one going, I'm totally filling my apartment with orchids.

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I ran yesterday. At 5:15. I did the same workout that some BAM people were doing elsewhere -- a ladder of 200-400-800-400-200 with 200 rest between each one. I walked each of the rest portions. It was incredibly hot. After the 800, I felt like throwing up, so I took it slightly easier on the remaining 400 and 200. I did feel better by the time I got to my cooldown, and so I did the whole mile. Total running was 4 miles. That's the most in quite a while. Baby steps...

Last night I emerged from my STS-124 bubble and headed downtown with Jason, Cari and Jose to see Eddie Izzard at Jones Hall. I took a three hour nap yesterday afternoon, and without that I doubt I would have made it through the show awake. But I did, and he was very funny. I like his brand of comedy mainly because he takes ordinary things like religion and history and science and makes them funny. He doesn't just tell redneck jokes, or make fun of how women drive, or any of that. He does intelligent comedy, which I find hilarious. I'd heard from the Twitterverse that Eddie would come out into the lobby after the show for an informal Q&A session, but we were all tired and didn't stick around. We are lame.

Now that the mission is over, it's time to catch up on life in general. It's already mid-June! When did that happen? This weekend will be busy but fun. We've got tickets to see the Astros play the Yankees on both Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Saturday morning is the BARC Predict Your Time - Pay Your Dues 5K. Sunday morning there's a triathlon in Clear Lake that I may sign up for, since you can register as late as Saturday. I'm tempted. But the more likely scenario is that I'll just go watch and cheer. The Y Tri is only two weeks ago, which is close enough for my summertime monthly tri fix.

On Sunday afternoon after I got off work, I went home just long enough to change clothes before heading out to meet my BAM buddies at Twin Lakes. I've known about the place forever, but never actually took a trip out there. As much as I know that open water swim practice is worthwhile, 1) it's a 30-minute drive, absolute minimum, to get there and 2) I don't actually like open water very much. It's not that I don't trust my swimming ability, but rather something about not being able to see, not knowing what's below me in the murk, mud, and FISH. Ew. I'm just not a huge open water fan.

But it was fun to finally make it out there. There were tons of people out enjoying the brilliantly sunny day. There are picnic tables and grills (at least I assume so, since I smelled grilling) and multiple docks to jump in from. Some parts of the lake are very deep, but other parts were so shallow we had to wade through the muck to continue swimming. It would be a great place for a group get-together and/or picnic.

Anyway, I ended up swimming two laps around the perimeter of the lake, which I estimate to be about 1800 meters, in 42 minutes. It was my longest swim workout in a few weeks, so I definitely needed it. My arms were even a little sore yesterday. After the swim I sat around on the dock for a while talking tri and enjoying the day. It won't be my last visit to Twin Lakes.

Happy Birthday to my "little" sister and brother, Katie and Brian, who are turning 25 today! I was just thinking about them as I sat here on console watching the sunrise from orbit on TV. Very cool.

Speaking of cool, here's a photo of Woody waving goodbye to Buzz Lightyear, who travelled into orbit on STS-124 yesterday to take part in some of the educational activities planned for this mission. To get it, a photographer from the Orlando Sentinel strategically positioned Woody in a tree while he was setting up his remote cameras prior to the launch.

Jose and I were browsing at Best Buy on Friday night and I stopped to check out the Flip, a no-frills digital video camera. I'd heard good things about it, and I've been interested in playing around with video lately since Flickr can now handle short video clips. But in looking at the specs, I am less impressed. The resolution is only 640x480. Which is twice the video resolution of my current point-and-shoot and equal to the resolution of newer point-and-shoots. I've been considering buying a new p-n-s anyway, and the one I want is only $70 more than the Flip. So why not just get the new p-n-s and do some video with that? The only issue I can see is that the Flip can do up to an hour of video, while the p-n-s would be limited to the size of the memory card. But that's no biggie. So I'm leaning towards just going ahead and getting the Canon SD1100 that I've had my eye on. We'll see. Anybody have a Flip and want to share your feedback?