My legs my legs

Ok, aparently I thought it would be fun to delete my first try at this post. I can't even blame Blogger for this one.

I ran this morning. My legs get tight when I run in the cold. I'm afraid to run faster and loosen them up because I think my lungs would freeze from sucking down all the cold air. I still love running though.

Here's my Christmas tree. I know it's small. Last year I didn't have anything.


School is still kicking my butt. When I get done writing this I'm going to write up a take-home test that's due tomorrow.

Here's some of the fun or funny things I saw around the web today.
1. Buttonless Elevators.
2. I swear I've used a similar line in a job once, but for the life of me, I can't remember where.
3. I wish I worked in this office. Hee hee.

I remembered today

I remembered to take pictures today. First off, I ran this morning. If you were here you could see a big ol' grin on my face. Running makes me happy. As you know from my profile, I live in Minnesota where it is cold. Here's what I wore when I ran this morning. If you think that's a lot, wait 'till you see what I wear when I run tomorrow morning when it's 10*.)



Apparently the secret to running in the cold is running as slow as possible. I tried it today and it helped me avoid what I like to call "sucking wind". The reason I don't want to "suck wind" right now: it's freakin cold wind, I'd rather not gulp it down.

Also, it was really hot in my room this morning. I just feel like documenting this for a while to see what happens.

This picture a day thing is hard

My teens all insist that I said I'd bring them candy when I got back. I remember no such agreement but it does sound like me. Here's the candy I'll bring them tomorrow. Now, I have to figure out how I can tie this candy to science learning...



Also, I got home after 10pm. The window in my room has been open for over an hour. In November. In Minnesota. This is how warm it is in my room at the moment.

I put this in the wrong place at first...

1. Over on Digg I saw The Idiot Test. I tried to follow the link but I think all the Diggers have killed the bandwidth for now. Sounds cool though.

2. Browsing the web with an Apple II. I haven't watched the video because my computer on dial-up is almost as slow as an Apple II.

3. A cool site to make your own travel map. Here's the countries I have travelled to. That green dot in the middle of the ocean above Madagascar, those are the Seychelles. I highly recommend them.

Making Peace with Dail-Up

I'm not really making peace, just accepting that I have less than 24 hours to go with this thing. But I did find tons of good stuff on the internet to play with.

1. Using technology to enhance learning. I haven't listened to the podcast. Hey, I made peace with dial-up, I haven't performed a miracle.. It's cool to think of the ways I use technology in my jobs to educate others, and all of the ways it can be used.

2. Seeds of Imagination. I have no idea what this site is because it's still loading, but it's got a cool title.

3. Nintendo Says You Need to Be In Shape to Play the Wii. A short story about that here.

4. A Wii Workout. A longer article from the Wall Street Journal about the Wii here.

Those are definitely current science material.

This hill kicked my butt

I ran around the neighborhood today. Minneapolis has nothing on Cincinnati for hills. As far as hills go, most of the run in Cincinnati is comparable to what I do in Minneapolis until the end. At the end of the run I go up hill that's steeper than my whole run in Minneapolis put together. Here's what it looks like. The part that's circled is where I nearly died.


It may look like the hill I run in Minneapolis, but check out the elevation. It's over 100' in not that far of a distance. The milk run wasn't even that steep.

A few other things on the internet:
1. A table of worldwide ages of consent. If you go to the bottom it's broken down by state in the US. Most of the countries are really close to eachother for heterosexual couples. I was really struck by the amount of places where same sex partnerships are against the law. I don't know why I hadn't thought about that before.

2. 101 Things You do NOT want to hear from your IT Support. Hee hee. This is especially cogent since I am my parnet's acting IT support.

Pictures of the day

The thing I'm realizing about taking a picture every day is I will have lots of things and very few people if I'm not careful. That's not starting today. As you probably get from reading this blog I'm still at my parents house. Here are some paintings from around the house.

This is one of the Bicentenial in Cincinnati. They decorated the bridge. (I don't know if you can tell that bridge was also built by Roebling and used as a model for the Brooklyn Bridge).


This is the Observatory in Cincinnati. If you look for the reflection you can see the ceiling fan in the room.


This is my all-time favorite picture my Dad painted. It's my Grandpa holding me.


This is a pencil sketch Dad's art teacher did of my dad while he was painting. Again, I had reflection issues. This time you should be able to see me.


This is my attempt to fix the reflection issue. Not sure it worked. You can judge.

Two news stories and a question

I was poking around the internet (yes, still on dial-up) and found a couple things I wanted to link to.

1. How to Make Your Urine Blue, something we should all know.

2. Open Source Holiday Gifts says it's about gifts that people can take apart, tinker with, and reassemble. I just read the BoingBoing site. You will remember above when I said I was still on dial-up so you can understand why I'm not following all the links just now.

3. A question about stories I'm not going to link to. I read two stories about impeaching President Bush. One was fourteen articles of impeachment against the president and one was called "'America Can't Handle Another Impeachment' Is Republican Propaganda".

There's no way I can not sound like Jessica Simpson when I ask this by the way. Here's my question: Is this a real thing now? Did I fall down and hit my head and miss something? Since 2001 people were talking about impeaching the man but I hadn't seen stuff on Digg about it literally until today. Is this it just coincidence? What's going on?

Picture of the day

I just now realized that I didn't take a picture today. Seriously, it's only day two of the "take a picture every day" thing. I shouldn't be forgetting this stuff so early on.

These are all of the presents I've bought for other people while I've been home. If you are reading my blog, they're probably not for you. Here's another hint: I'm not taking any of these back to Minnesota with me.

Back on the running bandwagon

I ran 3 miles today. Have I mentioned I love to run?

I also watched a movie called Saint Ralph which makes me just want to run more than I already do. I highly recommend this movie to all of the people who know me and read this blog, and anyone else out there who stumbled upon it. It's about a kid who is searching for a miracle to help his mother wake up from a coma. The miracle he picks? Winning the Boston Marathon.

On a side note: I still think it would be cool to run a marathon. I don't know if ten months is enough time to get ready for the Twin Cities Marathon. It's definitely worth thinking about. (Side note two: I'm not sure if the spell checker on firefox is working. Nope, I know it's not because it's letting me spell firefox with a small f. Sorry for all the typos.)

running update

I wonder how many posts on this blog are called "Running Update"? I should look into that. Now while I'm working on a dial-up connection.

I ran Thursday which I already wrote about and today (which is Saturday despite what my blog says) I ran for almost 30 minutes without stopping. I think this calls for a smiley.

I got started

I got started looking at news stories and then couldn't stop.

It all started with this one, 50 Ways to Use Vinegar, many of which I didn't know. My personal favorites: keep chickens from pecking eachother, also didn't know about the sinus infections and the vaporizer, Amanda already told me about number 29 but I haven't tried it yet.

A story about why picking your boogers is good for anyone who was that kid in school.

Just another reason I don't shop at taco bell. Also, both people in this story need to go back to their schools and demand to be better prepared to live in the world.

This is how bad things are at my parent's house

It is so cold in my parent's house that one parent has to carry a space heater into the bathroom so it's possible to be in there long enough to accomplish even a short visit. I'm just saying. This is your wakeup call.

While I was up visiting the family I stayed at my aunts' house (yes, that's two aunts in one house, they're sisters) and they had radiant heat in the ceiling. I found a site about Radiant Celing Panels and how much they cost. Not that bad for what they can do. First room to get one: my bathroom. I'm just saying...

This is the camera I bought. Kelly, since you can't get to CNet, it's a Canon. I haven't really gotten to know it yet. So far we seem to be getting along.

I am in hell

Before anything else happens I just want to be clear. I hate my parents house. I don't know how I ever grew up here. I didn't really even like it then.

I had a really nice time with my family this weekend, despite small children trying to give me panick atttacks. Obviously it was someone else's fault. I read a while ago about a photo-a-day journal or blog. I always thought it would be cool to do one. Here's my first try: right now I'm trying to help my Mom prepare a paper to mail off to a peer-reviewed journal.



To all of the parents out there: Your children are not your IT support. Using children in this manner is not only a violation of child labor laws, it is cruel.

Here's the situation

Here's the situation: for some reason loud rambunctious children can give me a panick attack faster than anything else in my life. I have no idea why, even on good days, children yelling and screaming strike fear in my heart. There's uh, I've lost track like four but it sounds like twenty children downstairs so I'm up in my uncle's office with my mom. Mom is reading and I'm playing on the internet. I found the coolest t-shirt ever. Kelly, this is the "your-mom" joke you were looking for on your blog yesterday.

Your Mom Shirt

Or check out Your Mom Shirt 2.

Hee hee.

I'm hungry

I'm hungry. It is thanksgiving afterall, and I'm being starved until 2:30. One more hour to go. In defense of the relatives there are four potato dishes, lasagna, turnkey, and a honey baked ham we all have to eat, and that doesn't even include the vegetables.

I ran this morning, here at my aunt's house. I'm kind of curious to see how far I went. I ran a really long time, like 5 minutes, then break, then about 12 minutes, then break, then another 3 or 4. Then I went for a walk with my aunts and uncles. They are slow.

I'm currently looking at the black friday ads for digital cameras. There are a couple things that seem like they should be good deals but secretly aren't. Anyone with any advice, call me. Now, I'm going to gnaw on my arm for a while.

I'm in Cincinnati

I'm in Cincinnati. No, I haven't had my Skyline yet, but I will soon. My Mom got in not one but two traffic jams on the way to pick me up. I used the extra half hour to plan my social calendar for my visit.

The day with the most potential: Sunday when I take a nun shopping. Any of the Catholics out there know about a thing I like to call "nun-radar"? I was having coffee with a known nun trying to explain the concept to her, and also telling her about someone who literally trips my "nun-radar" every time I see her. It's a similar concept to "gaydar" (which I'm not endorsing, only acknowledging the social reality). Anyways, if you know what I'm talking about, let me know.

I ran this morning. My leg is starting to act up. I just don't know what to do about it. I was reading a book, Prescriptions for Living, which I highly recommend. In it he was talking about thinking of y our body's injuries as metaphors so a bladder infection is your body feeling drained, etc. I have a stiff knee that hurts when I run. Stiff like underuse, overuse? Maybe I'm just not using the right thing? Metaphors are not my most developed literary skill.

nothing good can happen

I'm up late trying to work on my computer so obviously nothing good can happen. I think we all remember what happened the last time I tried this. Tonight, my "Briefcase" files that I can update on more than one computer with my jump drive are corrupted. Now I'm redoing my flash drive.

I want to sleep so I can wake up, run, take my car somewhere, park it, catch the bus, and go home. Instead, I'm dealing with....

I did run today. I love running.

It's my blog and so I can say these things

I was poking around on the internet this summer and discussions with Kelly about homelessness, begun here and continued here on Kelly's blog and here on my own blog.

I was watching D. L. Hughley on the Jay Leno Show the other night. Mr. Hughley pointed out that in Las Vegas prostitution is legal and unionized and so is gambling. About the only thing people go to jail for is being homeless.

Victoria is a wonderful city in Canada and home to Butchart Gardens. I'm really not sure why this place isn't one of the seven wonders of the world because it's fantastic and I don't even like flowers. Victoria was plagued by the same thing as these residents in Las Vegas: public urination. Victoria turned to technology to address the problem. They invented urinals that sink into the ground during the day and literally come out of the cement at night. There's something Vegas never thought of.

anyone know why performancing extension won't log into blogger?

No? Me neither.

Face recognition software

I will like to say...

I ran today.

(Now, really my mind knows I ran intervals over a two mile course. My body thinks I ran today. My body feels good.)

Looking around after a long day

It's been a long day. I'm beat. Here's some things I saw on the web.
1. Another way to encourage voting is something originally I thought I'd show the kids. I don't think I will but it's still a valid point.

2. BMW"s Hydrogen 7 is something I might show the kids, assuming I actually read it first.

3. Clear evidence 2006 election hacked is another story to prove democrats will not only eat their young, they're also sore losers and sore winners. If you know me, I'm so allowed to make this statement.

4. Going Pro is about the advent of professional bloggers. I may force the kids to read this one.

I need

I need to replace a dimmer switch. Call me if you have information about how to do this. Just so you know, there are two wires, not three connected to the switch and they go in at the same place. They are not connected with screws/nuts/whatever else. They just go into the silver box.

You know who you are

This is for two people who know who they are:
1. Your mother is a librarian
2. You thought about becoming a research librarian

A great blog entry about librarians. I apologize in advance for the language. I didn't know I could say those words on my blog.

Today = Mental Health Day

Yeah, I've decided to have a good day though.

Here's some things I found:
1. Lotus just introduced the fastest car capable of running on biofuel. Who can say current science?

2. The Thai IT Minister just blasted open source software. This is another thing that it'd be interested to discuss with the youth. I haven't yet.

3. How cool is this?

4. Yet another story that proves Democrats are the party most likely to eat their young.

5. Finally, I love todays Dilbert. I work with teenagers and I don't always understand the slang.



From http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2006166591116.gif

Food for thought

I found this comment while I was trying to find answers about Blogger and IE 7. You can find the account of my recent troubles here and here.

It doesn't display quite right in Opera either. The "A4Bats" at the very top is not centered and the next three lines are slightly less than centered. I have no explanation and haven't tried opening it with safari for a while.

I miss running

I just thought you should know. I miss running. My whole body misses running and my mind misses running. Mostly, my heart misses running.

Work has been much more stressful. Do people gain weight during periods of stress? (The answer is yes, I just googled it.)

Here's the thing: I think running would help me loose weight, it would also reduce my stress and help me feel healthier, making me loose weight and feel healthy even faster.

I'm ready to start running again, all of me except for my right femur which isn't so sure. I think I'm going to try it tomorrow morning and see how it goes. Here's hoping I wake up in time.

anyone know why IE does this to my blog?

My blog doesn't look like this in Firefox or Opera. Why are the links so big? We actually can't blame this one on IE7 because IE6 does it too.

Uhhh...

Some women allergic to sex. There's no way I could not pass this on. It's an article, nothing more inappropriate than what the title describes for anyone reading at work.

How much can I write before Studio 60 is on?

We'll see how much of this I can get down before I need to go watch Studio 60.

1. Central High School Among US 50 Healthiest Schools. I know kids who go there.

2. News about IBM and Drupal. We use Drupal at one of my jobs and I'm not wild about it. Our blog/page has a very clunky design.

3. 50 Blogging Resources.

4. 10 reasons you should never get a job. I'll make sure my kids see this.

5. 10 Things I Wish I Never Believed. An even better list.

Phew. Plenty of time.

Hee hee

Surely we could make something like this on the floor. There may be a mutiny at work Tuesday...

10 Reasons Nonprofit Organizations should be using RSS. I think we all know how I feel about RSS. I just don't know the difference between RSS, atom and xml except RSS is more widely used and read.

10 Ways Women Judge Guys. This is one of the funnier things I've read in a while. Love the "Is He Generous" one. I'd like to deny that it's not all about the last one, but sadly I can't. It's probably not all about that for every woman though.

I was out last night...

I was out last night and we were talking about how men, women and driving directions. I refused to blame men or women for worse directions. Here's a story that speaks to that. Now, can we get a study about what I like to call "gas station directions"?

NASA can't have a shuttle in space from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1. Is this really not a problem that was taken care of with the Y2K bug? Seriously, pick a place anywhere in the universe and NASA can hit it, but this? This is way beyond rocket science...

Here's a cute, sweet, movie from YouTube

This made me sad, although it could just be the place I'm in right now too.

well...

I had a good then lousy then nice day.

The good:
After I woke up I took an exercise walk (faster than a regular walk). During my exercise, I ran a little bit, slow-fake-jog is really what I did. I didn't get the stabbing pain in my leg that I've had for quite some time. It was really the first thing that game me hope I can run again.

The lousy
Racist visitors and a really bad family situation (not my own family) made me very sad and upset.

The nice
The first nice thing was the big hug I got from Amanda. Then her and Kelly and I had dinner and went shopping. It is possible to speed shop at Macy's if you were wondering. I wound up with a sweater and a vest.

As seen on the internet:
A story about who people prefer to work for.

Cool pictures of the Glass wing butterfly.

This is disturbing.

I read the headline Federline offering 4 hour Britney sex tape for millions and my first reaction was, "like he could go for four hours". Is that wrong? I just saw this on Digg, I didn't follow the link.

I'm done complaining, here's cool stuff to look at

Ok, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Now, here's some cool stuff I found around the web:

1. A story about helping your parents move.

2. Minneapolis is a top travel destination. I knew that. Over Chicago. I knew that too.

3. Studio 60 has been picked up for the rest of the season. I think we all know how I feel about Aaron Sorkin. I love what this article says about just listening to an episode. I've totally done that before.

4. Children prefer lucky friends. Again, duh. We needed a Harvard study to tell us that?

5. Wal-Mart sells Nazi Skull t-shirt. Yet another in a long list of reasons I don't shop there. It's great they apologized for it. What were they thinking selling them in the first place?

Timeline of events in my screwed up life

The drama really began on Wednesday night:

Wednesday
1:00p Get to work. Do reviews for each of the thirteen people who work for me.
4:00p Kids punch in. I do the reviews for the next two hours.
6:00p Kids go home. I breath a sigh of relief. Hey, reviews are hard on the reviewer too.
7:00p I leave work.
7:30p I arrive at a classmates house for one of the most pointless meetings about a project ever. We both knew it was going to be pointless. It was a necessary formality.
8:00p I get home and feel the need to feed myself before beginning to write my paper.
2:00am I finally get to sleep. My paper sucks.

Thursday
6:00a I wake up. It's way too early in the morning. I reset my alarm clock.
7:40a I actually wake up.
8:30a I come late to class. The person I sit next to tells me she got an extension for the paper because what the professor actually wanted is way more than is on teh syllabus. I could have gotten an extension and actually slept last night.
2:00p This is the class where the paper is due. I get an extension because what I wrote is close but not quite enough.
5:00p I get back to my condo and read that they're going to come and bleed the radiators tommorrow. Oh great, now I have to clean.
9:00p I'm getting a migraine. My apartment is hot. I don't feel good. Homework is pointless.
10:00p I go to bed.
1:00a I wake up because someone is on the phone yelling in my courtyard. It's easy for me to hear since my window is open. Yes in November in Minnesota. I told you my apartment was hot.
2:00a Ok, now the guy is back banging on the doors and swearing into the phone. I don't draw my blinds or look outside (or shut my window because he'll definitely hear that). Instead I call the police. (I have made more 911 calls since moving to Minneapolis...)
Obviously now I can't sleep so I watch the episode of ER that I taped. (This episode sucks.)
3:00a I go back to sleep.

Friday
7:00a Wake up. Shower. Notice I skipped that yesterday. Clean the apartment (sort of) since I didn't do that last night. Write notes to the people who will be coming in to bleed my radiator. These are the things that are important to know about my particular unit:
1. There are hot spots in the wall that get very warm.
2. Because the wall is so freaking hot already, I don't turn my radiators on. That would be overkill.
3. The side of the radiator that needs to be bled is under my bed.
4. My bed is on those riser blocks. It will fall over if you try to move it.
5. If you turn the radiators on to bleed them, I expect they will be turned off. My apartment is hot enough already. Please see above.
8:00a Drive to school. Get caught behind garbage truck. Yup, that's the kind of day it's going to be.
8:30a Get to class. Late. Again.

The rest of my day was pretty normal. I miss sleep.

Couple of things for my friend Amanda

I posted about getting tickets to the Bare Naked Ladies concert next Sunday.

Here's a couple of things for my friend Amanda to increase the anticipation.

First: I love this song.


Second: I also love this song. The video for it is really good.

It's possible my leg is getting better

I'm still recovering from the chaos of last night.

Every day I try to "fake run" a little bit. Today I only took a few steps but without the stabbing bursts of pain I've been having for the last month. Maybe I'll start walking in the mornings again. (I had discovered the "8 Minute Arms", "8 Minute Abs", and "8 Minute Ass" Videos on YouTube).

Before I do that, lots and lots of funny things have made their way onto my computer.
1. A review of the 10 best and 10 worst companies for customer service. I'm surprised Circuit City is only 10. Originally the Best Buy rating really surprised me, but I've always thought their "geek squad" had rip-off written all over it.

2. Information for anyone who has ever tried to help a guy pick out clothes to wear.

3. 248 Ways to Annoy People. (As if some of you need the help.)

Also, some of you have heard me complain about my laptop. It has a tendency to freeze or shutoff or reboot when it gets a shock from static electricity. (How fun is that during the winter?) Someone has finally started a class action suit against the manufacturer. I need to re-read that email. I'll let you know if anything happens.

Speaking of history

Obviously since I live in Minneapolis, I live in the 5th congressional district in Minnesota. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that district just had a noteworthy election. Keith Ellison was just elected. Here's his victory speech at Minnesota's DFL headquarters. (This link opens a video, video may open in windows media player.) Two things about this: One, he reminds me of Barak Obama and other talented, charismatic politicians who may possibly have a soul and a conscience. Second, I love the part where he talks about our responsibility to take care of each other, and that we do well when we all do well.

I F*ck!ng hate Firefox

Just so we're clear, given my recent experiences I'm liking Firefox less and less with each passing minute. Firefox's latest trespass: erasing every last one of my bookmarks. Many of them I replaced from memory. I need to find new websites. But many of them I'll never see again.

This isn't a new problem, just google "Firefox lost all my bookmarks" and see what pops up. It's not even the first time it's happened to me, although this is the most troubling since I have a 15 page paper that I should be working on right now but instead I'm dealing with this crap.

Is there a way to schedule Firefox to export all my bookmarks every so often so I have a backup file. Some are in my Del.icio.us account but not all.

IE 7 is screwing up my blog

I know, that's not really a surpise.

I try to check how my blog looks on browsers other than Firefox. I have Opera on my computer for that reason. (Also because it's lighter and so opens way faster than Firefox.)

The blog looks fairly normal in there. I don't have the IE 6 so I can't check it there. If you've already updated to IE 7, I'd just like to say, normally this blog looks better. I blame your browser.

For those of you running Firefox or Opera, here's a screen capture of my blog in IE 7. Check out how big the links are.

Is there anyone who can make this day stop?

It all really started last night when my neighbor had a TV on all night long. I have to sleep with my windows open (yes, in November, in Minnesota) due to heating irregularities in my building so I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. Hopefully tonight is looking better. Before I can sleep, I need to write a paper.

Before I write my paper, here's some of the things I found while playing around on the web:
1. I can relate to this, I think.

2. I haven't read this one yet, but it looked interesting. Even more so because I'm flying home for Thanksgiving and staying with the relatives that love Wal-Mart. It's my own private hell.

3. Maybe they are out to get you.

4. In honor of election 2006, this is a cool list.

5. I think you all know how I feel about Jon Stewart. A hilarious look at election day, and another on the long list of reasons Liz Can't Live in Florida.

instructions for the day:

'Nuff said.

cool site and a question

All right, I have discovered my perfect blog: The Bacon Show. 'Nuff said.

Second, a question for Firefox users. I'm looking for an extension to "protect" certain tabs so Firefox won't navigate away from the page open in that tab. I've tried Tab Mix Plus among others. It does have "freeze tab", "lock tab", and "protect tab" as options. However, that only protects the tab when I click on links inside that tab, or when I type a URL into the address bar. When I'm on my RSS reader and click on a new story, it still overwrites the current page. Anyone know anything I can do to make it not do this?

Thanks in advance.

the blog slacker

I haven't written much lately. Woops.

School is going well. Today I had an interesting experience at my field placement leading a group. It's an interesting group because there are some differences of opinion on how this particular group should be handled.

I've decided that I'm not as wild about the Performancing extension as I once was. It's not really publishing my blogs and has a hard time logging into blogger. Anyone else use this extension and have it work?

While poking around on the internet, I found a site with some cool pictures Although, my McAfee SiteAdvisor rates this as a "red site" because it links to "high volume" or "spammy emailer" sites. So, don't follow the links.

I also found this clip of Beck on SNL. It's a fantastic performance. Made me smile.

Energy Policy and Performancing

This is my first time using the Performancing extension. I wanted to have another batch of videos to watch with the teens on Tuesday and here they are:

Kick the Oil Habit Road Trip - Mark and Wendy at Wendy's - Google Video
Speaker Newt Gingrich on Energy and Alternative Fuels - Google Video
Energy From The Wind-The Global Learning Series - Google Video
Wind Power Project; California and the American Dream; Hotel San Diego Demolitio - Google Video
Full Focus: Top Stories 4-28-06 - Google Video

We're talking about energy policy.

powered by performancing firefox

powered by performancing firefox

I learned to hypnotize people today

Today in "Advanced Practice: Mental Health with Adults" (which is the name of a class I'm taking) we learned to hypnotize each other. To all of you who just said, "I can't be hypnotized" I'm going to say "not that kind of hypnotized. It's really just being very relaxed. It works well with people who have anxiety problems. (Oh, hey, that's me.)

I was very anxious about driving a 15 passenger van (with 15 passengers) today. The whole hypnotization and visualizing myself remaining calm while packing said van was very helpful.

It's good that I was nice and calm because when I got done with that whole thing, I got a call from a friend. The message was "call me when you get this". This friend never leaves the "call me when you get this" message. I'm thinking that she's sick, or her dad is sick, or something else equally horrible has happened because any message from her that's under a minute long is unusual. So, I called this friend back as soon as I could. Here was the conversation:

Me: Hey I got your message. I'm sorry it took me so long to call. I just got off of work.
Friend: It's ok. Hey, who sings that song, "If I had a million dollars"
Me: (In my head: are you kidding me?) Outloud voice: The Barenaked Ladies
Friend: They're going to be in town soon. Do you want to go...

As Kelly would say, "this is against the rules people".

It's good to be back

I enjoyed doing the I've Gone Pink for October thing. I'm happy I did it. That said, it's good to have my blog back. This one is way less ugly I think. I'm constantly playing with it, so if you have any suggestions, pass them my way.

I am sleepy but I had a good day

Following up on the whole "Michael J. Fox and Rush Limbaugh" thing I threw up there yesterday:

I had a great discussion with the kids about stem cell research. We talked about the way things are right now - the government will fund some stem cell research on a limited number of stem cells. Then we talked about the issue that's cropping up in political circles all over about expanding stem cell research. We also talked about why people want the government to fund this research. It was a positive discussion. I tried my best to not allow Rush Limbaugh bashing. That's not what the discussion was about. The point was more that some of these kids are going to be voting soon. How do you take the facts of science and come to your own decision? Then how do you decide who supports that decision? It's sort of hard to find the truth behind all of the videos I laid out yesterday. My favorite part is in the last minute of the Katie Couric / Michael J. Fox video, Michael J. Fox talks about being respectful of everyone's own decision and how they came to that decision.

I'm also avoiding homework right now. Is that wrong?