Recently in Weekend Category

Ok. That was one crazy awesome weekend. I've never been quite as annoyed to have to wake up, come to work, and hear that I might never actually get certified to work in the front room because the grand plan is to start cutting generic sims as soon as possible. But I am trying to keep my frustration at bay by remembering my weekend. Which was awesome.

 

Friday night Jen, Debbie, Jose and I headed downtown to the Astros game. They lost by the disappointing score of 2-1, but at least we got to enjoy the Friday Night Fireworks after the game. They really spare no expense with those things!

I had originally planned to get up Saturday morning and run the BARC Predict-Your-Time 5K and also renew my membership for the next year, but that was before I remembered that we had scheduled a BAM board meeting for 8:00 that morning! I was disappointed to miss the run, but we got some good stuff done at the BAM meeting. I got home in time to watch the STS-124 landing on NASA TV, and then Jose and I spent the rest of the day bumming around and running errands. I tried to buy a new camera (point and shoot), but Circuit City only had it in pink and I want blue. Hey, if I'm paying $200, I might as well get the color I want, right?

We had just started wondering what to do for dinner and how to spend our evening when Becca and Byron invited us to go sailing on Byron's boat. That turned out to be the perfect activity for the evening.

We got out on the water just as the sun was setting and it was really nice. We had rushed to get out while it was still light because one of Byron's friends wanted us to take some photos of his boat. After sailing up next to him and trading cameras, we sailed neck-and-neck for a while snapping photos and video as we went.

They headed back in while we continued to sail south along the shore for a while. The sun went down and you could see a lot more stars out there on the bay than you ever can from Clear Lake. Kemah shrank to just a small speck of neon on the horizon. After a while, we turned around to head back and the wind pretty much died. We were pulling about 2.5 knots with 4 miles still to go when Byron's friend called -- the motor on his boat had died, which made it nearly impossible for them to get back into their marina. We ended up putting the outboard motor back in the water and motoring the rest of the way back to Kemah to help them out. We towed them into the Kemah marina and then motored our way back under the bridge and into Clear Lake back to the Watergate Marina where Byron is currently keeping his boat. By the time we got back it was almost 11:30! I was pooped, but sailing was definitely a fun way to spend the evening.

As if that weren't enough, Jose and I got up early Sunday morning to go flying! Sailing and flying in less than 24 hours. Jose wanted to get up and back early before it got too hot, and that was a great idea as far as I was concerned -- yesterday had to have been one of the hottest days of the year so far. We were roasting on the ramp while Jose pre-flighted the plane. I did the two jobs I know how to do -- take off the cover and untie the plane. I really should learn how to do more of the pre-flight checks so I can do something other than stand there. It took us forever to get the plane started -- the engine just did not want to turn over. It finally roared to life after about 10 tries, and off we went.

It had gotten late enough that we only had about an hour to fly before we needed to be back to get ready for the Astros game yesterday afternoon, so we just flew over Clear Lake and Kemah before heading south to the coast. I even flew the plane for about 10 minutes, just keeping it straight and level. Oh, but I did fly a couple shallow turns. Fun! Just before we hit the coast, we turned to head back to Pearland. I was looking at the map to figure out exactly where we were, but I never felt sick. Hooray! As we got closer to the airport, I actually spotted the runway before Jose. That doesn't usually happen, since he's got so much more experience looking for the place.

We had an exciting landing because the wind was entirely crosswind, but of course Jose did a great job and squeak -- our tires hit the concrete and we were back. We didn't have time to dawdle since we immediately headed home to shower and meet Jen and Jason for what turned out to be a miserable day at Minute Maid Park. The Yankees won 13-0. It sucked. I'm so glad that I paid twice the normal ticket price to see the Astros get swept. (Yes, tickets for this series -- and the Red Sox series in two weeks -- were twice as expensive as any other series.) Cooper even decided to rest Berkman, Matsui and Wigginton, three regular starters. For a sold out game. On Father's Day. It was crap. Just crap.

We had dinner over at Gavin and Jen's house before the third and fourth episodes of "When We Left Earth" on the Discovery Channel. Carina was still awake when we got there for dinner and big news -- she has started walking! We saw her take a couple very small steps on her own, and man was she pushing her plastic walker around the living room like noboby's business. It was great. Go Carina.

With all that activity, I didn't get a chance to go to Ellington for the STS-124 Welcome Home ceremony yesterday. But that doesn't change the fact that they are safely home after a beautiful landing in Florida on Saturday morning. My first mission as rendezvous support is officially over.

There are more photos of all the weekend activities on Flickr if you're interested.

Becca has been working on her instrument license and needs lots of cross-country flying hours -- defined as flying to an airport at least 50 miles from your point of departure. But she doesn't like to do all the flying alone, so she has recruited Jose to share the piloting time. And Jose recruited me as a passenger. So on this beautiful Sunday, we took off towards the tiny town of Eagle Lake, Texas.

Thus far, to go flying with Jose has meant cramming myself into the passenger side of a very tiny Cessna 150, shoulder-to-shoulder. Not much room to stretch out or relax, but it was passable. Today, however, we took one of the Warrior's that the Bay Area Aero Club rents out, and boy was it comfy compared to the Cessna! I had the whole back seat to myself, a cushy seat, and plenty of leg room.

I had a lot of fun just looking out the window and listening to Jose and Becca do their pilot-speak thing. I'm getting better at listening to the radio and understanding the terms, but parts of it still go in one ear and out the other.

As we headed west, we flew right past Twin Lakes. This is a very popular spot with local triathletes since it's the perfect place to get some open water swim practice. It's also popular with scuba divers, since they've got a couple sunken boats and things to explore. I haven't actually ever been there, since it's a good half hour drive or more from Clear Lake, but one day...

Next I saw some cows. The looked like little toys! This made me laugh.

Soon enough, we were approaching Eagle Lake. Becca flew us there and had a very nice landing at the very empty airport.

While searching for a bathroom (which ended up being the bushes behind a hangar, fun), I stopped to read this sign and learned that Eagle Lake is the "Goose Hunting Capital of the World." So if you're into that sort of thing, now you know where to go.

Of course I had to get a photo of my brave and valiant pilots next to their lovely airplane.

The only other planes that were parked on the ramp were these large yellow crop-dusters. Byron later laughed at us for not being up-to-date on our crop-duster knowledge, but come on -- how can I be expected to know that the odd-shaped cockpit is that way because it has a roll cage in case of a crash? Or that crop-dusters crash a lot (a hazard of flying close to the ground). Anyway, Jose liked them a lot, as you can see.

We switched pilots and Jose flew us back over the Texas countryside to Pearland.

I was quite excited by this point because I had now been in a small plane for 3/4 of the trip and had not felt sick at all -- not even once! This is a major accomplishment.

When we got back to the pattern at Pearland, things seemed calm. But then all of a sudden, we noticed 5 Japanese Zeros (or planes dressed up like Japanese Zeros, which is a WWII-era warbird) in formation flying ahead of us! As we paralleled the runway on our downwind leg, the warbirds buzzed straight down the runway.

The warbirds peeled off one by one over the runway to enter the landing pattern behind Jose. However, WWII-era fighters are faster than our little Warrior, and they were gaining on us. As Jose tried to concentrate on landing the plane with 5 Japanese Zeros bearing down on him like some crazy war movie, I craned my neck to see the cool planes. It was like being in a war movie! We were under attack!

Jose had barely cleared the runway when the Zeros came barreling down one by one. It was CRAZY! And AWESOME!

All in all, it was quite the day of flying.

I was supposed to be writing a race report on the Battle of San Jacinto tri, but after being sick for the first half of last week (and I continue to hack up stuff even today), I decided that yesterday wasn't the best day for me to do an olympic distance tri. If it had been a sprint, I might've gone ahead and raced...and once I got out there and saw everyone on the course, I really wished I was racing. But c'est la vie. I had a great time volunteering, and will now look forward to my next tri -- the Silverlake sprint on May 18. The race organizers (the always impressive Tri On The Run folks) were even kind enough to let me transfer my registration to one of their other races, so I'll be using it for Ironbabe in August!

I arrived at Sylvan Beach at 6 a.m. and immediately was put to work helping Jay put out cones to mark the two mile run that made up the first leg of the duathlon. (The event had a triathlon, duathlon, and aquabike.) Sitting in the back of the truck with the wind blowing on me, it was actually pretty chilly! Good thing I had a sweatshirt. I was back in the transition area in time to chat with some BAM racers and watch the first wave start the swim. After that I hopped in my car and drove to the 1-mile mark of the duathlon run to work the water station. There were only 40 or 50 people doing the duathlon, and since it was so early in the race and such a cool morning, only about 10 or 15 people actually took any water from us. That was over quick, so it was back into the car and over to the San Jacinto monument.

This is the only race that I know of in this area that is point-to-point. The swim is at Sylvan Beach in La Porte, but the bike takes racers 25 miles over-and-back across the Fred Hartman bridge and then through the refineries (I know, not the most scenic of backgrounds, but that's what Houston has chosen to build in that area next to the ship channel -- chemical plants and refineries) to the San Jacinto Monument. From there, racers transition to the run, which is two loops near the monument.

The logistics of the point-to-point race were interesting to watch. I've never done this race before and had never seen how it works. There was one transition area at the start, where people racked your bike and bike stuff (helmet, etc). When racers came out of the water, they dropped their wetsuits and swim stuff and hopped on their bikes. But before the race, they had packed a bag with their run stuff -- shoes, race belt, etc. Those bags were transported to T2 at the monument and laid out in order.

I was volunteering at T2 by this point. When racers rode in, they hopped off their bike and gave it to us. As they ran ahead, we took their bikes and racked them on another set of racks set up there. There was another volunteer with a megaphone standing at the bike dismount line who would call out the racer's bib number as we took their bike. The racers had to run a few hundred feet to the transition tents, where another set of volunteers would by this point have their run bag ready to go. Racers dropped their bike stuff, got their run stuff, and headed off for the last portion of the tri. The volunteers would then put all the bike stuff back in the bag and leave it for the racer to pick up after they finished.

Racers also had the option of packing a post-race bag with clothes to change into after the race. After the race, awards were done at the monument and school buses took racers back to the start line, while the bikes were transported back to the start line in a big truck (rather like the MS150). Everything worked like a well oiled machine, and it was cool to watch.

The rest of my weekend was busy and full. Friday night Jose and I went to Star Cinema Grill to have dinner and see Leatherheads. It wasn't the best experience. There was a guy next to Jose who talked through the entire movie, and the theater smelled really musty and damp. It's going downhill, which is really a shame because the concept is cool. And the movie itself wasn't that great. The previews looked funny, but the movie itself is too long and just not that entertaining. I was ready for it to end.

Saturday was filled with errands, including buying and potting a bunch of new vegetables for our ongoing experiment in gardening. We watched the Rockets game that night, but sadly they lost. Hopefully they win tonight.

Yesterday while I was volunteering at the race, Jose and Becca were flying to Angleton and back. They'd originally planned to go all the way to Palacios, but the clouds were descending and the ceiling got too low to go the whole way. Jose took a video of the landing at Pearland on their return leg, when Becca was flying, that is pretty cool.

After not racing in the morning, I did squeeze in a 15 mile ride yesterday afternoon. I made it to Webster Bicycle on Friday afternoon finally to get a new seat for my tri bike and ended up with the Adamo road saddle. It is awesome! The forked front means that the front of the seat is wider, which I found that I liked. (The guy at the store told me that people either love this saddle or hate it.) My ride yesterday was so, so much more pleasant than the last time.

Another busy week ahead. Away I go.

I think I must have kept the germs at bay for a few days with the constant stream of alcohol provided by Karen's family (I think I drank more in three days than I had in the prior three months), but as soon as we got on the plane to return to Houston, it was over. The low level sore throat I'd had for a few days grew into a roar, and by Sunday night I was feeling pretty miserable. Thus my four day vacation has now become six days and counting -- but the last two days haven't exactly been fun. I hate being sick. But Jose has been taking good care of me and I feel better today than yesterday. Sleeping for 12 hours will apparently do that.

We all had a great time in Atlanta. After arriving on Thursday, we had some time before the evening's bachelorette festivities, so Becca and I took Jose on a walking tour of Georgia Tech. (We stayed at the Renaissance, which is right across the highway from the campus. In fact, our balcony overlooked the campus which I thought was very cool.) We ate lunch at Junior's, a diner on campus where the chicken tenders tasted just like I remember them, before covering the rest of the campus. There has been an enormous amount of construction in the 7 years since I graduated, and there are so many new buildings that parts of the campus are almost unrecognizable. There's also an entirely new section of campus across the highway that has a few stores and restaurants as well as academic buildings, the bookstore, and a new hotel. It would have been really nice to have some of those facilities when I was a student! Alas, the years I was there, GT was simply raising millions of dollars. They didn't spend it until after I left!

Thursday night was girls night (though Jose and Karen's dad were allowed to join us for dinner). We had yummy Mexican food at Casa Grande before heading across the street for dessert and drinks at Cafe Intermezzo -- and presents. From there it was back to the hotel. Karen's grad school friends all had to work on Friday so they headed home, but Karen and Becca and I spent the rest of the night in Becca's hotel room drinking champagne and gossiping.

We got to sleep in on Friday, which was just plain awesome. I hadn't been getting enough sleep for the past few weeks (so what's new), and with the hotel curtains pulled and the room dark, I slept until 11:00!! Jose headed off to visit the Georgia Aquarium, the largest in the world (and yet another new thing that wasn't there when I was at GT), while I joined Karen, Becca, Ashley and Karen's mom for manicures and pedicures. It was lovely, and I'm proud to say that it's been a whole 5 days and I haven't screwed up my manicure yet.

Friday evening was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The priest doing the ceremony was very funny and kept us laughing during the rehearsal and even during the ceremony itself. Dinner was fabulous (Maggiano's, mmm) and the cold front that Karen's mother had been dreading came through while we were eating. It was raining hard, but it finally slacked off when it was time for us to walk back to the MARTA station.

Saturday dawned overcast and early. Karen had let me know a few weeks ago that the Pi Mile 5K was scheduled for the 12th and that Ashley would be running it. Well if one bridesmaid has time to do it, I figured that I did as well! I was very excited to get to run this 5K on the Georgia Tech campus, especially since I never did it as a student because I didn't start running until I was gone and in grad school. I brought my running clothes (and proudly wore my Texas Independence Relay shirt), but this race was more notable for what I didn't bring -- my watch. Yep. No watch, no nothing. My plan was only to run comfortably and enjoy my jog around campus. In the end, I'm very happy to report that it was a good race! Atlanta is no San Francisco, but it's also not flat. The entire course involved going either uphill or downhill -- there were really no flat areas. I am proudest of the fact that I did no walking! Not a bit! They were calling times at the mile markers, so I do have an idea of my time and pace. I passed mile 1 in 10:40 and mile 2 in 21:32. The last mile had the biggest hills, and I don't actually know what my official finish time was because I got only a glance at the clock as I passed the finish line, but it was something like 33:30.

I got to see my friends James and Chrissy at the race, but only had time to chat for a few minutes before walking back to the hotel. Jose and I ordered room service breakfast and had just enough time to eat it before I had to jump in the shower to get ready for wedding day activities! Ashley picked me up and we headed out to meet Karen and Becca at the hair salon. In yet another example of why I don't particularly like hairdressers, I asked for my hair to be done straight, with the top part pulled back out of my eyes. I ended up with curls everywhere. Not what I asked for, but it looked good so I didn't complain.

The wedding was beautiful and lovely and perfect and after 8 years of dating, Karen and Brian are finally married. The reception was held on the top floor of the Renaissance with an absolutely fantastic view of Atlanta. After all the thunderstorms and rain, the sky was finally clearing as we sat down for dinner, and the sunset was lovely.

Because Byron couldn't make it because he was in Miami learning how to fly 747s, Becca called in Kent as a backup date. He is perhaps the only guy I know that actually enjoys weddings.

During the "money dance," I decided that I wanted to dance with Karen instead of Brian.

I was exhausted by the time Karen and Brian took off, and was asleep within a half hour of getting back to my room. On Sunday morning, Kent came to pick us up for breakfast at Ok Cafe. This was the one time I wasn't busy with wedding stuff, so I got to see all my other friends that still live in Atlanta -- Carter, James, Chrissy, Chris, and Kent. It was great to see everyone, especially because it's been a while since I'd made it back to Atlanta. I used to go a lot more frequently after I graduated, and when my sister was at Georgia Tech, but it had been almost 2 years this time around.

After breakfast, we had a couple hours to kill before Kent so kindly ferried us to the airport, so we randomly went and climbed Stone Mountain -- another Atlanta tourist thing that I never did as a student. It was a gorgeous day and very clear, so we got a great view of downtown from the top.

All in all it was a great long weekend. The wedding was wonderful, but I also was very happy that Jose was able to come with me. After visiting Boston last summer and watching him relive his college days, I really wanted to be able to show him around Georgia Tech and meet the last of my college friends that he hadn't met yet (Karen, Carter, and Kent). I know he wasn't thrilled about a trip that revolved around a wedding, but he made the best of it and we had a great time.

Congratulations Karen and Brian!

What a weekend! I am exhausted, but in a good way. There were so many activities and so little time!

Things really started on Thursday night, when I met a group at Boondoggle's to celebrate the successful ATV docking. One of my friends has been working on the ATV program as a NASA representative since he started working here 8 (?) years ago, so he was definitely in the mood to eat, drink and be merry. That continued into Friday night with tacos and margaritas at Nick and Heather's place. After we finished the margarita's, we drank official ATV champagne (with a picture of the ATV on the label and everything!), followed by Nick and Heather's anniversary champagne that they never drank on their anniversary, followed by some eiswein (ice wine) from their trip to Germany. I haven't had that much alcohol in one night in ages, but it was spread out enough that it didn't make me drunk, it just made me tired. It's official: I am OLD.

On Saturday I was up bright and early for a BAM board meeting which lasted far too long -- but we did get a lot done, so I guess that's ok. After that it was a quick turnaround to get showered and meet the gang from the night before to head up to the Museum of Natural Science to see the Lucy exhibit. They brought the bones all the way from Ethiopia and we'd all been too lazy to go see them until now. With the exhibit closing at the end of April, there's no time like the present! The exhibit had a lot of information about the history and culture of Ethiopia, but the good part was the Lucy section. I thought the exhibit was very well-done. (There was a lot of controversy when the exhibit arrived over the fact that the bones were even moved from Ethiopia to display in the first place, since they are so fragile, not to mention irreplaceable.)

The exhibit traced the various branches of how humans evolved, and which branch led to us. The common misconception is that we are descended from apes, but of course that's not really true. We share a common ancestor with apes somewhere far, far in the past -- 5 to 7 million years ago. That line split, with one path leading to apes and the other path leading to humans. So Lucy is not an ape, and yet she's not human either. We aren't directly descended from Lucy, because there have been many branches and many different hominids -- we're the only ones that survived.

The most interesting part to me was a wall display that discussed how paleoantropologists determine whether a species was bipedal (walked upright) or not. First you can check where the spinal cord leaves the skull. Our spines connect more or less in the middle of our heads, while Lucy's connected far to the back of her skull. Then you can check the pelvic bone. Ours are short and wide to carry the load of walking upright and provide a base for the leg muscles, while a chimpanzee's pelvis, for instance, is tall and narrow. You can also look at the knees. The reason apes hop around with their knees bowed out is that they don't have fully formed knees. Humans, on the other hand, have fully articulated knees with a kneecap.

All in all, it was a great exhibit and if you haven't seen it yet, make sure to check it out before Lucy leaves Houston.

Sunday was full, but calmer. I worked the BAM water station at Angie's Half Crazy (the new half marathon in Clear Lake), followed that with a 22-mile ride on the new tri bike (desperately need a new seat), spent some time hanging out with Jose, and then had hibachi with a bunch of people for dinner.

On Thursday I go to Atlanta!

Yesterday Jose and I flew to Brenham, a small town about 80 miles away as the crow flies, to have lunch at the Southern Flyer Diner that's located right at the airport. It was so cool -- they had a little "airplane parking lot" and we stepped out of the plane and into the restaurant. We arrived around 2:00, and as we waited for our food, we got to see plane after plane after plane take off as the lunch crowd headed out in various directions.

It was a fun trip for the most part, but on the way up, I started feeling sick after about 10 minutes, despite having taken my generic Dramamine an hour earlier. It stayed at a low level for a bit, until Jose asked me to look at the map. That was not a good idea. From then on, I stared straight ahead out the front window until we landed, internally reminding myself "do not throw up in Jeff's nice, clean plane...do NOT throw up in Jeff's nice, clean plane!" Poor Jose. He had to fly the plane and worry about me getting sick.

I felt much better once we got on the ground and I got some food in my stomach. Since we were in Brenham, home of the Bluebell Ice Cream company, I splurged on a chocolate milkshake that was absolutely delicious.

The flight back to Pearland was much more fun, as my motion sickness did not return. Most of these photos are therefore from the return leg. Jeff (Jose's flight instructor) was at the hangar when we got back, and he recommended something other than Dramamine, so I'll have to try that since the Dramamine didn't even work this time. Not to mention that it leaves me pretty loopy for the rest of the day, and causes me to crash -- hard -- as soon as it gets dark. Even though it claims to be the non-drowsy kind, I went to bed earlier last night than I have in months.

It's official: Jose is a licensed private pilot! He passed his checkride on Friday! I couldn't be happier for him. He didn't finish his checkride until sunset, but fortunately the good weather held out long enough for him to take me up as his first passenger yesterday around lunchtime. We flew around Clear Lake for a half hour before heading back for a nice landing.

Congratulations Jose!

I stayed home sick on Friday, so this feels like the third day of a very long weekend. I caught whatever bug Jose's brother had. See, Alex gave it to Jose's mom, who gave it to Jose, who gave it to me. Hopefully I'm on the upside of the cold and I'll be feeling 100% soon. At the moment, this cold has made my half marathon prep even worse. I'm probably looking at one of my worst half marathon times ever next Sunday, but that's all I can really expect. My training has stunk. Stunk. With a capital S.

Yesterday I was feeling decent (just congested and achy) and stir-crazy, so Jose and I went out to do some errands. First on the list: a new Tivo. My old one has been acting funny ever since getting back -- pausing in weird spots, skipping, hiccuping, and just generally behaving weird. After a search online, it seemed that 99% of the time a Tivo starts to do that, it means the hard drive is going bad. Hard drive replacement kits seemed to cost just as much as a new box, and since a new box would come with a dual tuner, it was an easy decision. So, I've got a new Tivo.

Next was a stop at the La-Z-Boy store to look at chairs. I decided to buy a nice armchair with the money my grandmother gave me for Christmas and replace the way-too-college-era papasan chair that does nothing but gather coats and clothes. Both of my brothers told me I should get a La-Z-Boy, and the ensuing conversation went like this:

Sarah: "But I don't want a La-Z-Boy, only old people have them."
David & Brian: "They're super comfortable."
Sarah: "I don't want a recliner!"

Jose informed me later that La-Z-Boy sells more than just recliners, so we stopped by yesterday afternoon and I immediately found a chair -- on sale -- that I liked a lot. I wasn't prepared to buy it right that minute, but I might go back later today. We'll see.

With Karen's wedding now less than 6 months away, Becca and I finally agreed to seriously talk about bridesmaid dresses. Karen's original request to go looking back in the spring was rejected by the two of us, who argued that we didn't need to buy so early. (Aren't we such lovely, agreeable bridesmaids? Sheesh.)

There are three of us. Becca has dark brown hair and olive skin. I've got light brown-to-blonde hair and fair, freckle-ridden skin. Ashley, who we've only seen in pictures, appears to have red hair and pale skin like mine. Finding a dress -- and a color! -- that looks good on all of us is going to be challenging.

Nonetheless, Becca and I headed to the Galleria to try on the dresses at Ann Taylor, where we've previously decided to buy the dresses from. If we're buying dresses, we might as well get something of good quality. In 45 minutes, we blew through at least a dozen dresses in different styles and colors. We were like machines! Try on dress, take picture. Try on dress, take picture. Ashley and Karen now get to check out the pictures and hear our thoughts, and hopefully we found something good.

As for the rest of the mall, well, if I didn't know better I would've assumed Thanksgiving had already passed. Not only was the place absolutely packed, but every store had their Christmas decorations up. Every store except Nordstrom's, that is. Nordstrom's had a sign in the window saying that they like to celebrate one holiday at a time, and as such, they would not be putting up any Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. I really liked that stance. I think part of the reason this time of year always feels so hectic is that we begin getting bombarded with Christmas decorations, music, and messages almost for two months in advance.

After the dresses, Jose and I wandered off looking for a couple items, while Becca and Byron went in a different direction looking for a new purse. I found a new shirt at Eddie Bauer on sale for $15! I bought that, along with three pairs of socks. Jose found a new pair of khakis like he wanted. Between the two of us, we got out of the gigantic, very upscale shopping mall with less money spent than yesterday at Target.

I'm not sure what that says about us, but I'm sure it says something.

Last night I woke up at 1:30 to find that I'd been asleep on the couch for the last two hours. At that point I decided that I was more tired than I thought, and pushed my run to Sunday, when I'll have the bonus of an extra hour of sleep thanks to daylight savings time (not to mention it'll be light earlier). So it was that I was still asleep at 9:30 when I awoke to a strange sound.

"What is that roaring?" I wondered groggily. I'd left the window open last night and was trying to figure out if it was windy or not, and how it could possibly so be windy that it was roaring through the open window. It happened again -- sounding like a dragon breathing fire from a movie. Wait -- dragon breathing fire? That's it! Fire! A burner! It's hot air balloons!

I leapt out of bed and opened the blinds to see dozens of hot air balloons coming right for me. I grabbed a sweatshirt and ran outside to find them floating over my parking lot, close enough that I could wave at the people in the baskets and greet them with a "good morning!" The rest of my apartment complex was out as well -- I've never seen so many neighbors out at one time.

After the balloons passed, I watched the skydivers from my balcony. My balcony looks directly across a field to the Ballunar Festival site that's less than a mile away. My apartment complex is the only one with a view of the festival from home! Pretty cool.

I'm currently watching Scott Parazynski dangling out on the end of a huge makeshift robot arm adding "cufflinks" to the torn solar array on the space station. What an insane view he has right now -- Earth below, station below, nothing but solar array and space in front of him. What a crazy world we live in where people can work in space. They're about to start redeploying the array now that he's added all five cufflinks, so I'm crossing my fingers that it deploys smoothly from here on out!

Update: It deployed smoothly! The cufflinks worked! To echo the astronauts: yaaaaaay!