The Miracle Mile Part 2

Is it possible that I ran a 10:50 mile for 3.6 miles today? I just want to toss that out there. I ran after work again. Here's the things I've learned about running after work:
1. It's warmer than in the morning.
2. I try to be lit up, brighter than a Christmas tree because it's dark, people are tired, and I want to be as easy as possible to see.
3. Apparently, I tend to run faster than in the mornings, possibly because I'm already awake.
4. I don't like to run as far. Really what happened tonight was I thought I would run 4 miles but I looked at my watch after the third mile, and thought, "hmm, if I go straight I wonder how fast I can make it home" which put me on the 3.6 mile track.

I went shopping at the Wedge Co-op afterwards and ran into a girl I hadn't seen in a long time. It was nice to stop and chat. While there, I got my secret ingredient for my homemade creamy chicken wild rice soup.



That's right: Heavy Cream.

I'm trying to poke around the internet at high speed so I can sleep, something I've been sorely lacking the past couple of days. Here's the cool headlines that caught my eye.

1. First, a series of pages from Overheard in the Office. Social Worker #1, my first hero of the day. Social Worker #2 who apparently read how her colleague used "shut up" and literally brought it to a whole new level.

2. I can so relate to this.

3. CO Radio Host Challenges Ellison's Ethics, Morality. I haven't read this story yet (remember, speed browsing), but this whole story is very interesting to me since I live in Minnesota's Fifth District. To the rest of the country I can safely say, it's really not even a blip on the radar here. I know this next comment will get me in trouble... The Fifth District of Minnesota got together and elected this man knowing his story, his background, his faith. Do you really think the possibility that Keith Ellison would swear an oath on the Quran didn't cross our mind sometime before we voted?

4. Get Rich With God is a story I haven't read, but it has an interesting title so I thought I'd pass it along.

The Miracle Mile and Pictures of the Day

I am a slacker and so did not get up and run. I even got to work an hour late. There was a Christmas party at a staff's house. I went home and ran and then headed over. A couple of things. First it was raining. This is officially my first day running in the gortex. I also lost my headlight. I went to Target to get another one because I also learned I can't run without it. And I knew I had to run and then turn around and leave again so I decided I'd do 3.6 miles faster than I run 4.5 miles or 4.25 miles. I did. I ran it in 40 minutes or 11:06 miles. That's not impressive to anyone but me because I usually run a 12:15 mile.

Then I went to this party where they played a game called guesstures. I thought, "oh, good I need a photo for today".

At first I thought I would use Kathy's pretty and fuzzy socks.


Then I thought I would use this one of Lynn making sure the game is working right.


And then other Lynn tried to do something with a sock. I'm not sure what that was about, she wasn't on my team.
And this one is just funny.



And then Sue wanted to use my camera to take a picture of me. I think I look hairy in that picture.

One of the hints on Project 365 is to take a picture of yourself at least once a month. Also, please note the new sweater. Thanks, I like it too.

After the party I had to go to Target to get a new light and eighteen bottles of shampoo and conditioner because apparently they're the only store in the Twin Cities that has the big bottles of the conditioner I like, and that's when I saw what was destined to be my photo of the day.


These are the stickers we give out at the touch pool of the aquarium where I (sometimes) work. I have seen these things so many times. It's possible I've had dreams about them. I've been on leave from the aquarium for over a month and they're still following me around. Gah!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:
1. This was my experience at Rainbow last night only there was a wild little boy in the shopping cart ahead of me.

2. 10 Promising Treatments for the World's Biggest Health Threats. I was glad to see many "3rd world diseases" like Dengue Fever and especially Malaria on this list. I'd like to have seen Cholera or Polio but I guess the breakthroughs there haven't been big enough.

3. Night Owls are More Creative. I write my best papers at 1am, although that's getting to be a painful experience.

4. Do It Yourself Ornaments. How cool are these?

Lessons learned while cleaning

1. Kelly, I have your pants.
2. My paper towel holder is right above the place on my counter where I make the biggest mess and splash the most stuff on the wall. I'm not counting right behind the sink when I make my splashing calculations. No good can come of this.
3. Amanda's baking soda and vinegar tricks are the best things ever. Especially for removing soap scum. I also appreciate that they're not toxic.
4. My condo has a utility sink in the laundry room that is perfect for cleaning out the filter of my vacuum cleaner. I learned that you if I get dust wet it wont fly up in my face and make me sneeze from the pilot episode of Dr. Quinn. I'm not ashamed..
5. The before and after pictures were cool to take. It gave me a real sense of accomplishment.
6. It's good to listen to music while cleaning.
7. Only one thing was growing mold. I threw it away.
8. Almost the entire mess made in my bedroom was made this morning before I ran.
9. I also cleaned my bathroom. I don't know why I didn't take pictures of that process. Clutter wise the bathroom was definitely the cleanest in the house. This is the room where the baking soda and vinegar trick removed soap scum that I think had been here since I moved in. Not even Soft Scrub could get it off. You rock, Amanda.
10. Amanda is fun to talk to when she has a head cold and has been driving around the Twin Cities all day.
11. I can't believe I put the before pictures on the blog. See how grad school is frying my brains?

The joys of Firefox continue

Firefox ate my bookmarks today. Yes, yes you have seen this before. For desert it ate my tool bar settings. Now every time I close Firefox and open it back the tool bars are reset and all of them appear, even the ones I don't use. I even uninstalled and reinstalled it. That didn't help. It's sad there's so many hits on a google search for this issue. We'll see if I have it fixed now.

Here's the "after" pictures of my cleaning experience today:







Any of the Blogger Beta users out there know if it's possible to do a side by side before and after picture. If there's html code involved I'm willing to learn but tell me what it is at first.

Also, Why do computers take so long to boot up?. I'd like to echo the writers sentiments.

Those of you working and in grad school will understand this

Those of you living alone, working, and in grad school will understand this. Those of you similarly situated will also understand this. I've been having trouble keeping my apartment clean. It goes to the dogs during the semester. The end of the semester is really my chance to cleanse the place properly. Here are the before pictures. One disclaimer, most of the food is from today. Nothing that I know of is growing mold.

Before the cleaning begins:

Running update, no pictures yet

I love Sunday runs. For one thing I can sit here in my living room and be sweaty afterwards without worrying about being late to work. I ran 4.4 miles today at 12:18 miles.

Also seen on the internet:
1. Congress did not pass the Anti-Net Neutrality Bill. Is there anything they did pass this year?

2. 33 Names of Things You Never Knew Had Names. I think I actually knew a couple of these. Peen and possibly Tang.

That is all for now, come back later, maybe I'll have pictures of me cleaning. Or making chicken stock. Mmm, chicken stock. Mmm, chicken wild rice soup. Guess we know what I'll be doing today.

More as seen on

1. Absolutely the funniest thing I've ever seen. The Infamous Ghetto Indoor Pool. I think all the Digg and Del.icio.us traffic might be killing this sight a bit, but give it a try. Personally, I can related to this story in several ways. Who hasn't wanted a pet penguin? I also appreciate the story about the paranoia.

2. HandBrake is a program that rips DVDs to a computers hard drive. Now now, I think they have to be home made DVDs, none of this copyright infringement stuff. I want one for Windows.

3. KeyNote is a freeware program for windows designed for people who take notes in meetings. I haven't tried it out yet but I'll let you know what I think.

4. 81 Movies for Geeks that Do Not Suck. Is it the Geeks or the movies that don't suck? I take issue with a couple of these. Contact has a special place in my heart. Elf totally does not. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a surprisingly good movie. I've heard the sequel isn't as good. This movie has great dialog to go along with Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp. The Fifth Element I love it when the Diva sings.

I left off some of the obvious ones like Office Space and The Princess Bride because my words alone cannot do justice to how great they are.

Christmas decorations

I do believe it's possible I ran 4.5 miles in 55 or so minutes. How many minute miles am I running. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I'm running 12:15 miles. That's not bad. It's not like I'm training for Nationals for anything.

The saga of my day really began when I went over to school to fill out a form so I can graduate. Yes, that's right. I'm not graduating 'till May. Why did I have to go to school on a Saturday to fill out this form? Because I didn't fill it out correctly the first time. My adviser told me she'd slip it back in my mail box. Only when I got to school, it wasn't in my box for me to correct. I have no idea where it is. Ok. no problem. I'll just go to the office, get a blank form and fill it out correctly. The office is locked. I found a professor to open it for me so I could fill out the form. I just want to graduate.

Work was exciting. It was soo sloooow when I got in I began to doubt whether the kids would get the 73 projects they had left to make. Oh man. They made over twice that. Balloon powered cars and rubber band powered boats were the order of the day. Check out the pictures over on The Make It Blog.

I went grocery shopping and stood in line for eight hours on the way home. Also on the way home I began to think about my picture for today. Even though the ones I took at the museum should count, I don't count them. I decided to take pictures of some Christmas decorations in my neighborhood, most of which I can see from my front door in the dark.


Still the same house...

And a close-up of the penguin for Aunt Elaine


I found out while doing this that my camera can actually take decent night shots. Yeah, I know, but you should have seen the ones from before I switched the settings/

Also seen on the web:
1. The Scientific American Year in Review is asking for feedback. I'd tell you mine but I'm trying to type and eat an artichoke at the same time.

2. World's Most Unusual Buildings. These are cool but seriously messed up, especially the 135* house, the Astra haus and the Upside Downer.

Oh dear lord make it stop

I really did take a picture yesterday, I just didn't post it. I tried installing a new light switch. I totally couldn't do it. Anyone out there with any advice, let me know.



Well, that combined with it being the end of the semester and everything happening at once about threw me into a panic attack. Instead of waking up early and running this morning which I totally meant to do I slept and got to class around 10am. Interestingly arriving late didn't throw me into a panic attack which it really should have.

After school, I went to work and had group facilitator training. It was only partly my idea of hell. If you are a person who would like to work with people and help them, but doesn't want to be a social worker and work with people who have problems, go work for this company. This group facilitation thing is like social work for people who are afraid to talk about feelings.

I went over to Travis' house after work and then took him to the airport. It wasn't until I got home (the first time) that the wheels really started to come off the wagon. I lost my cell phone. (Even if you think I have your number, I don't. Call or email me and tell me what it is.)

When I was walking into Travis' house a bunch of stuff fell out of my bag so I went back over there and looked around on the grass outside his house. My cell phone should have been easy to see because of all of the reflective tape. No joy. So I went to the Mall of America and bought a new one. It's the same phone only a newer model.

On my way out I went to Caribou Coffee, one of my favorite places, for a Latte.



All of these teeny-bopper girls kept coming in and flirting with the dude behind the counter. It was pretty hysterical because the kid totally knew it and seemed to both enjoy it and still at least try to act professional.



Then, when I got home, Blogger invited me to try Blogger Beta. Only it's making me allow Google cookies, which we should never ever do. And I can't switch back. Boo.

I'm trying to play with my phone. It has blue tooth. I'm going to see if I can get it to talk with my PDA. Hee hee.

I have been playing on the web a while too.

1. How to Knit a Binary Scarf for my friend Kelly, and anyone else who knits.

2. I'm not sure who I feel worse for, these guys or their girlfriends. Hopefully they're gay and no one is missing anything they should get to experience.

3. Having worked overnights in a similar setting, I've totally heard this before. To all the parents out there: you don't get to be stupid like this.

4. Truthiness is named the Word of the Year. Sigh. I love The Colbert Report.

Oh boy

I was so tired I couldn't find the eggs is Kowalski's tonight. That's all I'm saying.

It's a good thing there wasn't anything on the web today

Today is the day I got my humidifier out. I'm trying the vinegar trick I learned about here. I'm not sure if it's working or not.

I didn't run today. Actually I was lucky I made it in to work on time. My legs were still sore from running in the snow yesterday. Also, I still haven't figured out what to wear. Please help.

As seen on the web:
1. For my Mom, Cell Phones Don't Cause Cancer.

2. As seen on Kelly's blog, a report that Minnesota is the healthiest place to live. Go us.

3. New York is banning trans fats, maybe to compete with Minnesota at the healthiest place to live. I'm telling you, it's a little thing called social services.

4. Tech Market for Boomers?

5. 11 ways to get rid of a bad mood. I'm not sure why I put this on here but I've done the typing now so it might as well stay.

6. Enviro-friendly cars.

7. 10 Best Inventions from the Ancient Chinese. Kelly, you're going to be a history teacher, you'll need to know this sooner or later.

8. BBC is reporting that Psychophath's brains are different. I don't know why that's news, but there it is.

9. A truly sad story until you are able to see the humor of the whole thing. Try it, I don't think you'll have to look hard.

My legs part 2

There was snow cover this morning when I ran. I've never run in the snow before. It wasn't very much, but just enough that it added an extra workout for my legs. My calves are so sore. I actually walked a little way up the "big hill" in my run and stretched a bit.

Also, I'm still working on the ideal running outfit for this weather. Let me know if you have suggestions. As my picture for today, here's some of the things I wear running:



These are Brooks shoes. I love them.



Yes, I wear a headlight when I run. It's dark here. Notice the reflective tape on the headlight. It even comes out in my pictures.

I'm slowly recovering from homework. Still left this semester are preparing for a presentation on Thursday and completing a final paper, both for the same class. I'm done with my other three classes. That I know of at least.

Instead of posting news stories today, I want to ask, who saw Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip tonight? Love the ending. I love the whole show really.

Who can do the math

I ran this morning, in the cold. I love running. I ran 4.25 miles in 50 minutes. How many minutes did it take me to run 1 mile? Who can do the math? Not me at the moment.

After running a couple people from school came over to work on a project. We ate Chinese food. One of them had left overs which I nicely packed in a bag for her to take home. She nicely left it here for me.



Also, my computer keeps crashing. Remember the class action suit I'd mentioned a couple of times?. It's totally justified Toshiba!





Cool stuff seen on the web:
1. 99 Ways to Keep Your Heart Pumping. I was excited to learn I can have my steak. Too bad about the caffeine but I love red licorice. (Mmm, Twizzlers.) Also, see number 33 and then remember every time I said I could eat a bucket of spaghetti sauce.

2. Are You a Gearhead Quiz. Hee hee. I scored a 45. Most of my points come from: having a blog, having a digital camera, uploading photos from said camera, wanting a space ride, properly defining the word "widget", and knowing that it is social acceptable to talk about Battle State Galactica but not socially acceptable to wear those stupid blue tooth phone headsets. (You know who you are.)

3. Finally, Crayon Sculptures. How cool are these?

Homework, I swear, I'm going

But first:

1. Citigroup Plans Thumb print ATM for India's poor. We just talked about fingerprints at work.

2. Nike +iPod used for surveillance. Yeah, that never sounded like the best idea to me either...

3. The demographics of Digg. What struck me most about this article was the number of Firefox users on Digg compared to Firefox's actual market share. Also making out of proportion appearances are the Mac OS 10 and Safari web browser.

So these two guys walk into a bar...

I don't really have a joke, but now that I've got your attention, I'll tell you about my day.

It's the final weekend for Bodyworlds (not to be confused with BodyWorks which doesn't exist but everyone calls it that) and the museum is super busy. They're so busy they're staying open 72 hours straight. As I was coming in to work this morning, I saw the sign I always see telling visitors what tickets are still available. Here's what it looked like this morning. (Hint: click on the picture to see it full size. Check out what's after the 2:00.)



It was a pretty normal day except I didn't run. Everyone needs a day off, right? I sewed names on shirts with teens and generally hung out.

Sadly, I did not do homework last night. In my defense I was really tired. Instead I watched Grey's Anatomy and part of Men in Trees. The Men in Trees for next week looks really good. I can't believe I'm enjoying this show.

Photo and running update

Is it bad if ice forms on my body while I'm running? It didn't make me cold. I actually didn't know about it until after I got home.

I'm toying with the idea of running 4 miles instead of 3.6. I'll have to play with the Google Maps Pedometer (see link over in the sidebar of the blog) and find a 4 mile route. How funny that I have a 3.6 and a 5 and a 6 but no 4.

I also started timing myself. I ran 12 minute miles today. It took me 48 minutes (can that be right?) to run 3.6 miles. I am so slow. Maybe when the weather gets a bit warmer I'll be really fast. I thought I was moving faster today than yesterday though.

After running I had to get Bagels for everyone in my Friday morning class. I would have been on time but it seems that every time the sun is shining there is a traffic jam on I-94 eastbound. Seriously people, it's the sun.




Here's the fun things I saw on the internet today:
1. The Long Horse: The Most Bizarre Creature I've ever seen.

2. Keith Ellison will swear his oath on the Qur'an and not the Bible when he is sworn into the US House of Representatives. Seriously, "the Jews swear on the Bible too" is the dumbest argument I've ever heard. It's right up there with "he jumped off the cliff so it seemed like a good idea..."

3. Coffee and more specifically why it's good for me to drink. I love coffee.

4. Best Open Source Projects.

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.