iron(wo)man

Finally! photos of Jodi the ultimate triathlete! See below for my narration.



This was the evening before the Ironman. They all had to ship their bikes to the site, so they had to put them back together and they had just gone for a little ride to make sure the bike fit right etc. This is Jodi fixing her bike/adjusting a setting.


Dad and Jodi the night before. They was after Jodi was adjusting her bike. Suzanne, Dad and I made a big pasta dinner for the triathletes this night and some of us had some wine from St. Francis winery.



Here is Jodi coming out of the water. She was the third person from her wave to come out of the water after the 2.4 mile swim. She rocked!

Here she is starting to take off her wetsuit (while she is running!)

Here is Jodi dropping off her swim bag to me. The swim transition was in a different place than the bike transition, so she gave us her swim stuff.


We saw her on her first loop of the bike course. She was going so fast I only got a shot of her from behind. But she looks pretty kick ass from behind, all down on her aerobars!

Here is jodi finishing the bike ride. She looked pretty good coming off the bike and her main complaint was that she needed to cool down before she started the marathon. So, she found some ice and put it in her shirt.


Here she is crossing the timing chip point.


This is Jodi finishing her first lap of the 3 laps she had to do for the marathon. She is handing over her totally soaked socks because they were giving her a big blister on the bottom of her feet. Instead she got a blister/rubber her heel raw from her shoes.


Here she is on the second lap--she looks great!


And this was right after she finished. It was awesome. She was in such better shape than most people who were coming through.

And here she is in the Med 'tent' getting her heels bandaged up. Look at how great she looks. She is practically glowing. The chicken soup helped restore some salt--but she couldn't finish it so she gave it to me- it was yummy!

I'm so proud of her--She accomplished something that very few people have accomplished. Hail to Jodi the Ironman!

first harvest

Look at these beautiful squash! Aren't they gorgeous? I put the spoon in there for scale, but this is our first harvest, and it looks like we'll be harvesting zucchini for awhile.

jodi is an Ironwoman!

This weekend Jodi completed an Ironman Triathlon in Sonoma Wine country in California called Vineman.

She totally kicked ass when others were getting sick from dehydration and poor nutrition. I got some good photos which are at home and I'll post soon.

I am so proud of her...she can talk all the smack she wants now. She swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles and ran a full marathon (26.2 miles). All in about 15 hours.

She rocks!

weight

I just realized that I have probably gained 5 pounds from this intense writing spell I've been doing. It is not because I've been sitting so much and not going for walks etc. (although that is a factor). But I think I've probably gained weight because I am at my most productive when I have a little snack that I can nibble on as I write. It could be raisins or carrots or cookies, or nuts, or jordan almonds (YUM!), or whatever...just as long as I can take a bite every once in a while to keep my brain moving. The key is to make sure the snack is a fairly healthy one. This trick seems to help for getting lots of writing done...unfortunately, it is also helping my hips ;-)

ironman

no- not the movie. Jodi's Ironman Triathlon is coming up here in 5 days (not that she or I are keeping track ;-). It is in Sonoma and I'm excited for 2 things. I'm excited to see Jodi kick some butt, and I'm excited to be in wine country. It sounds like while Jodi is doing one of her 56 mile bike laps, we might be able to go out to a nearby winery and do some sampling and make it back in time to cheer her on for her second 56 mile lap.

And since my prospectus is due to my committee on thursday- I'll be fancy free on friday when I go. Then I can stop thinking about educational segregation for a few days or so!

productive

Last night I did some work on my dissertation proposal and felt pretty good. I wrote about 1 page in total (scattered throughout the document), but I was happy with my progress. (I am up to about 28 pages)

Tonight I was going to stay late and work on the proposal, but I remembered that I bought a tuna steak we were going to sear on the grill. But I'm feeling very hopeful and productive and I plan to come back to the office after dinner to get a good few hours in. It is sometimes easier to get work done at the office than at home with all the myriad of distractions. If it isn't Sam or David, it is the laundry, or the dishes, or something!

doggy paradise?

David sent me this last week or so and I think it is so funny. The ad for it is below. you can buy it from the SkyMall (you know those magazines on airplanes?).


The Pet's Observation Dome.

This clear acrylic dome opens a window to the world that helps satisfy a pet's natural curiosity while maintaining safety and security. The porthole mounts easily over a hole cut into the fence and the 9-1/2" diam. dome protrudes 5" to give an inquisitive canine a panoramic view of the world beyond. The black plastic flange secures the porthole into any style of wood privacy fence. Spacing several portholes along the fence gives your pet an unfettered view of its surroundings and may help reduce barking or other undesirable behaviors. 12-1/2" Diam. x 5" D. (3 lbs.)

_________________

Now, I personally think it might encourage barking, not reduce it. Anyway- thought it was cute and wanted to share.

too dependent

I had an all day meeting today and so I checked email in the morning before I went into it. When I got back tonight I tried to check email in my room, and it wouldn't connect. I felt so deprived that even though I tried to watch TV or read that paper, I couldn't take it and came down to the lobby to use the wireless here. I just think it is sort of sad that I am so dependent on technology and that I feel out of the loop without it.

raining

when it rains it pours. Not only do I have to finish a new draft of my dissertation proposal by the end of the month, but a co-author and I heard back on an article we submitted for publication. They have accepted the article with revisions- which is great! Better than a revise and resubmit (R&R).

But now that means I have to work on those revisions as well- also due at the end of the month.

delusional

Any one who thinks David Caruso is a good actor is delusional. See this link for a clip of some of the corniest and badly acted scenes from David Caruso. It made me laugh out loud. I didn't watch the whole thing, but even just a minute of it is hilarious.

David sent me a link to another great commentary on America,
and the caruso clip was in it.

The commentary on America is quite apt, I think. Sorry Dad and Suzanne for #2. ;-)

one of those things

This is one of those things that you get via email and you think-- surely it can't be that hard to do what they say, but then you try it and it doesn't work. At least it didn't work for me. Are you special enough to do this?

As David told me... Try it! Fight it... you can do it!!!

general exam

OMG! I am both ecstatic and nervous at the same time.

This week I had a meeting with my dissertation chair regarding the latest draft of my dissertation proposal. At the meeting, she told me that if I could pull together another revision of the proposal in the next few weeks (by the end of July), she wants to schedule my general exam mid august! The general exam in my department is basically a defense of your dissertation ideas, and a discussion about the direction of your project. If I can pull this together I'll be a doctoral candidate before I know it! As I said, this makes me very happy--because, well, it means serious progress, and it makes me very nervous because that means I have a LOT to do in the next few weeks.

I've got a work trip next week to Boulder, so that time is off the table in terms of when I can work on the revision. I think the revisions are definitely do-able, I just need to do some additional reading to get them done. and that takes time....

reviewer

I can now officially say that I have reviewed an article for a journal. I've been reviewing papers for conferences for a few years, but this is the first time I've been asked to review a paper for a journal.

It was a little weird b/c I knew who the author was, and she is a big name in the area, and that made me a little nervous. But I put that fact aside and decided that I just had to give my comments as if a student of mine had written the article. So I did...to tell the truth, I wasn't that impressed with the article and findings. I hope the journal editors find my review useful.

more good news!

Congratulations Mom and Peter on your engagement!

Don't they look like they are having fun?

My mom recently got engaged to her sweetheart, Peter.
They are planning a winter wedding, with a big spring party. We are looking forward to it.

The Happy Couple

last minute

Here I am, writing a quick entry before David comes to pick me up from work. I realized this morning how lax I've been with writing lately. I think the problem is that most of what is in my head is work and so I don't feel like I have much to write about.

However,

Today I can brag on my sister, Jodi.

This weekend she completed a half-Ironman in Texas.
Here is the play by play of her performance, as reported by Emily via email:

jodi , superstar, age 36 (bib #690) finished the ironman buffalo springs 70.3 in 06:40:03 total time. she was the second woman to finish in her age division in the swim, charging ahead of many of the males in her division. jodi moved quickly to the bike with a 2:45 minute transition time out of her gear. her pace for the bike was a speedy 15.72 mph. now after finishing the run (where she averaged 11:35 min per mile), she is ranked 28 in the women's age group 34-39, and 165 overall ranking.

free pavers

Yesterday David got a call from one of the contractors working on one of his projects and the contractor said that he had a bunch of pavers that he had to get rid of asap and if we could haul them- we could have them.

Amazingly- we've been looking at pavers to add some walkways to the back yard-but they are pretty expensive so we had put that project on the back burner.

These were pavers that were used for only about 9 months as a temporary sidewalk and stairs. They are nice and smooth concrete on top and are a good color of gray. We had looked at the ones at home depot and brought one home and they looked bright white against our other slabs of concrete. The ones we got for free are great, and now David can have a new yard project that should keep him busy for another month or so.

$4.45

$4.45 / gallon. That is how much we paid for gas this morning. Argh! I'm going to have to re-do our budget to account for the extra $100 a month we are spending.

my sister's wedding

This past Saturday my sister got married to her partner in Massachusetts where same-sex marriage is legal. Emily and Melissa put on a fabulous party and had the most touching wedding ceremony I've ever been to. I cried (of course). It was very nice and now they are off on their honeymoon to Montreal and Vermont.

Here are some M&M's I had made for them. They were just for fun (not favors or anything).

Here is Grandma Ferguson with a good smile on her face. She really had to endure a lot to get to this wedding, and Emily and Melissa were very thankful that she made it. She was even carried up two stories in a ladderback chair because she wouldn't have been able to walk up the stairs herself.

Here are the Lammert's with the happy couple. My mom and I did all the flowers (mostly bought from trader joes)- they turned out nicely- the colors worked well with their color scheme.

Here is the happy couple with Melissa's family. On the left is Melissa's sister and on the right is her 'sister' from Denmark.

This is a good one of Melissa and her parents.

rat killer

*******Warning: this post is not for the weak of heart- ****it includes descriptive langauge regarding death and blood*******

Just two days ago I had to kill a rat. It was gross that there was even a rat anywhere near our house. Let me begin the story from the beginning ;-)

Tuesday I was at home sick. At one point during the day our neighbor offered to have Sam come over and play with her dog, Emma. So, I took sam over there. They were playing as usual for awhile. At one point (probably by chance), I looked out the kitchen window and saw Emma running after what looked to me to be a squirrel. Emma ran it across the yard, and then Sam caught on and they both chased it up toward the front of my neighbor's house.

I figured that surely the little squirrel had gotten away, as those suckers are fast!

May 10-15 minutes later I heard some squealing outside and I couldn't tell what was going on, but it looked like Sam was ready to come home. Our neighbor came outside at the same time, and I heard her say something like "oh no- it is a dead animal!" The dogs had obviously caught the small animal they were chasing and seriously injured him.

The dogs wanted to play with this animal, but we obviously didn't want that, so I ran over to the neighbors to get sam. We checked out the small animal, which turned out to be a rat. His body was about as long as the distance between my thumb and pinkie finger when they are spread out (like the hang loose sign). Unfortunately, it looked like it was still alive, but that it's back legs/spine was broken (that part wasn't moving at all). I really didn't want anything to do with this rat. My neighbor called her other neighbor to see if he could come help us, but he told us we should do it ourselves. Let me pause here to say that while I consider myself self-sufficient and a feminist, there are some things I am HAPPY to let other people do for me. This is one of those things.

So, I realized we would have to take care of it ourselves. So, I brought Sam back to our house, put him inside and got a shovel and a garbage bag. I was pretty sure that I was going to have to dispatch the rat since it seemed it was the last thing my neighbor wanted to do.

I don't like the idea of killing a mammal. For some reason, killing insects (flies, bees, spiders) doesn't bother me at all. But to kill a mammal is tough. I knew that this guy was probably in quite a bit of pain, and he certainly wasn't going to limp off to die in a hole somewhere. So, I steeled myself for what I had to do.

The problem is, I don't know if the rat was in a bad spot on the ground but after hitting him with the shovel a couple of times, he wasn't dead yet. That was the hardest part. It certainly would have been easier if he had died on the first hit. But to know that I have been hitting him and he is not dead just hurt my heart (even though he is a rat).

I did my best to hit him a couple more times. Finally he stopped blinking and moving and I saw blood coming out of his ear. This is disgusting. Don't forget I warned you that this would be disgusting and graphic. The last thing I wanted to see was blood.

I shoveled him into the garbage bag I brought and then my neighbor got another garbage bag and we double bagged him.

That is not something I have ever done before, and I hope that I never have to do it again. My neighbor called me her she-ro. I certainly didn't feel like one. I went home, cleaned the blood off my shovel and put it away.

licorice

I am on a huge licorice kick. I really like black licorice. I think this all started from my recent trip when I got some Good and Plenty candy. Then when I got home and we went to the local sundries shop I saw that they had some brands of licorice I had never tried. So we bought some. I fell in love with the brand above- RJ's. This is the best licorice I have ever had. The store I bought it from only sells the black kind as single logs ( see below)

The company is based in New Zealand. Why do the Aussie's and Kiwi's have the best licorice? I went online today and bought a few bags of the stuff (like the photo at the top). The raspberry licorice flavor they have is good- really addictive, but this black licorice is like nothing I have ever had. the texture of it is perfect, and the flavor is very strong.
Love it! Did I say that already ;-)

happy graduation Em!

Today my sister graduated from MIT with a master's in architecture. MIT, being the technological university it is, webcast the graduation ceremony. So, I got to see her hanging out in her seat, and receiving her diploma. My other sister saw Em processing in and taking her seat, but I wasn't able to see that.--I'll go back to the webcast and see if I can find it.

I wish this sort of thing could be routine-webcasts of important events so that people who can't afford to travel can see the event.

It was really cool

congrats Emily!

wedding prep

My sister's getting married soon, and I've been getting my preparations ready. Last night I bought the shoes I am going to wear with my dress, today I get eyebrows waxed, and hopefully this weekend I'll get a pedicure. Have I forgotten something?

Then I think I'll be ready. I remember what it was like planning my wedding, and I'm sure they are feeling that same excitement and nervousness. It has got to be worse since emily graduates from grad school this week!

999,999

That is how much the house next to us is now on the market for. They put the for-sale sign up earlier this week, but not until today did it show up on the online databases. It still doesn't have any pictures available--They haven't finished landscaping the front yard. I'll post a link when they get pictures up.

feeling the pinch?

A few of David's good finds...thought some of you might get a kick out of this...If you don't understand the first one, might be best not to ask...

dissertation movement

Today I 'presented' (using that term loosely) my dissertation ideas to the class I'm in right now. I got some really great feedback, especially from the professor, and am excited to move forward on my dissertation prospectus.

Now I've just got 2 weeks to make significant improvements in my document... argh!

silly photos

As requested, here are the silly photos of Sam

Here he got a whiff of something and was following it with his nose...or maybe he was just being snobby ;-)

I guess he got tired of sitting nicely for me...

better photos?

This morning was a pretty bright but with diffused light so I took a few more pictures of the outside. There are also some additions in these photos that weren't in the last ones.


I couldn't resist adding a photo of sam sitting nicely for me.


The back yard with Sam for scale.


Here you can see the new vegetable garden fence David installed to keep sam out of my veggies. I was going to mix in compost this weekend and hopefully plant some seeds.

This is how much vegetable garden space I have....plenty!


And here is the 'fence' we installed. Just simple metal- enough to keep Sam and his friends from escaping the yard when they play.

And here is the new neighbor's fence. You can see it stops at the back of their house, just to the left of the 2nd arborvitae.

rockery/yard

Here are a few photos of the rockery project we have been working on in our backyard.
The new rockery is in the background above. I took this photo in the morning so there are some shadows, but it gives you a sense of the scale.


The next three photos could be 'stitched' together to show a close-up of the rockery from left to right. Above is the furthest left,

this one goes in the middle,


And this is the last one where it ends. Sam looks sad on his leash, but as you'll see in the next photo, we had no other option, since we had no fence.


This is looking from our new rockery to the new house next door to us. As I noted in an earlier post, the fence has been installed now.

And this is their ginormous garage (with fake stone below the siding, just on the back side-so tacky!). I feel bad for the new owners. They will hardly have a yard at all.

fence

Apparently we have a fence now. I'm still at work, but David is at home and he said they finished the fence. Yea!

Of course, they finished the fence more than 10 feet away from the end of our house, so in order to keep sam in the yard, we will have to extend it ourselves to our gate. But, we are going to do that with some metal t posts and cheap metal fencing (not quite chicken wire, but close). So, the builder might not like it b/c it makes their house less marketable, but they are the ones who chose not to extend the fence to our house.

OH- also- I found my camera battery charger, so I'll have pictures up soon.

14.25 hours working

That's all I have to say. Long day today.

12 hours

I've now been working for 12 hours. I just got back to my hotel room for the first time since 8:45 this morning. I'm sapped. Tomorrow is a 13 hour day, I believe. I've got to catch a shuttle to the meeting at 7:15 or 7:45 am and then the shuttles back to the hotel leave at 8:15 and 8:45 pm. Forget about trying to get anything of import done after that much time. I can barely find the energy to check my email, respond to a few, and then go to bed.

don't mind me, I'm just tired and complaining. I should have tried to get some fresh air today- didn't get out the hotel for even a minute.

planted

This weekend, we got the entire back terraced slope planted, and mulched! It looks great, and we even put up a little rock border at the top, to keep the mulch in. I can't wait to see some of the plants grow and thrive.

I bought a 2' tall lilac bush. I love the lilac bushes we had in our yard when I was a kid, and I wanted to plant one of my own. I'm sure it will take awhile to become a decent size, but until then I can have good memories of mom cutting the blooms and bringing them into the kitchenette and putting them on the table. I would sit there and do my homework and just be flooded with that wonderful smell. It is addictive.

when are we gonna get on that?!

Last night when David was working outside, a 'neighbor' from who is not in the immediate vicinity came by and said hello to him. We've met her before, but no one can remember each others names.

Anyway, she was saying how she wanted a family with small kids to move into an empty house next door to her, and how she really likes kids and wants more families in the neighborhood.

Then she proceeded to give David a look and ask him something like, " Speaking of kids, when are you gonna get on that?"

I don't know if David's jaw dropped, but mine surely would have. Like it is any of her business what we plan to do about kids! We don't even know her! I think David mumbled something and waved her off.

I just couldn't believe it when he told me about what she said. I had to share it with all of you.

rock laying

the rock laying last night was successful. We (meaning David- I'm just moral support) place 6 or 7 rocks last night and made some significant progress. We just might get it done in time to plant this weekend.

YEA!

rock puzzle

David and I have been working on re-doing our rock retaining wall in the back part of our yard. David has been working on it more than I have. It is difficult. A puzzle so hard that I need grandma to solve it!

We have all these natural rocks of different sizes and shapes that were there to begin with or that we dug out of the ground when we were moving dirt around. Some are smaller than a bowling ball, others are the size of a pillow. They are all heavy! You have to find the big heavy rocks for the bottom, but you have to get them to fit together well so that they are stable. Here is a picture I found online to sort of show you what this will look like. I have no idea whose house this is. The thing is that our rocks fit together much more closely than the ones below- they fit like puzzle pieces. The only problem is that it feels like we are missing a piece. Last night we spent much of the evening trying many different rocks for one spot. We placed ONE rock last night. So much for having the rock wall done for the weekend! Well anyway- we'll keep working on it, and hopefully we'll have better luck tonight with fresh eyes.

grey goo part two

So the haz. materials guy came by yesterday and looked at the stuff with David. While he didn't know what it was, he felt confident enough to say that we could throw it in the garbage. So yea for us!

BTW- I would post pictures but my camera battery died, and I can't find my charger...I'll keep looking for it this weekend.

grey goo

no- not the kind of grey goo in M. Crichton's (spelling?) book. This is grey goo we found in our back yard last night as we were preparing our upper terrace for planting.

I called it "ooeey-gooeey stuff", which might not be all that specific, but it is descriptive. This stuff sticks to your shovel, gloves. I think we got all of it out of our yard last night. We filled about 6 garbage bags half full b/c they were too heavy to carry if you filled them more than half full. I mean each garbage bag must have weighed 30 or 40 pounds.

We found it under about 2 inches of soil and grass. In some places, it went 8 inches deep, and it spread out over an area maybe 3 feet by 3 feet (I'm not good at dimensions, so keep that in mind).

I called household hazardous waste today and a guy is going to come by our house to check it out. Even though it isn't really 'household' haz. waste, this guy got kind of excited by a "mystery" material and wanted to come out and see if he could figure it out. Worst case we have to spend a couple hundred dollars getting heavy metal tests at a local lab, after which we have to spend another couple hundred "remediating". Best case is that we can just chuck it into the garbage. I hope it isn't toxic b/c it was in the area where I wanted to plant vegetables. I may not be planting vegetables at all, depending on what this stuff is.

more nyc photos

more nyc

looking down into the MoMA courtyard.


The subway is fun!


And it was chilly while we were there!


Cool building with trees growing out of the landings


At the central park skating rink.


The next few are all of times square.


The "naked" cowboy

tried to post

I swear, I've now tried to post images and a few videos more than 5 times today and each time it has given me an error.  I will get more stuff up as soon as Blogger fixes their problem.

finally, some NYC

this isn't all of them, but at least there are some... I'll get to the others later.

Flatiron building

Flatiron building and me.

Hearst Tower

Start of Central Park (South east corner, I think)

A view from within central park.

Another view from Central Park

Chrylser building (can you tell my husband is an architect ;-)?

Grand Central Station

Inside Grand Central Station

response rates

I know I'm not supposed to blog about work, and I know that what I'm about to say is probably not interesting to many of you, but I've got a sort of natural experiment going on with a web survey I am administering at 23 universities nationwide. In general, response rates to web surveys average below 30%. Social scientists like to see rates of 70-100% response in order for them to say that the respondents are representative of the population.

So, about 6 of our schools have closed the survey. The response rates range from 35%, 35%, 39%, 48%, 53%, and 88%. The incentives at each of these schools was similar- and in fact a school who made the incentive drawing significantly larger didn't have as good of a response rate as a school who held a drawing for a $100 check. I'm thinking there has got to be something with the culture at some of these schools, and maybe the size of the institution, but I am just totally shocked that one of the schools got an 88% response rate!

This is a methodological publication waiting to happen. I wish I knew what caused the differences in the rates.

busy-ness makes the person more productive?

I've had a theory- as have others, that the busiest people are the ones who are most productive with their time. For example, back when I was planning my wedding and writing my master's thesis there was something family related that needed to get done. I recall that I was the only one who put it on the list to do and got it done. It seemed like, out of necessity, I had become uber-organized and therefore was super productive with my time. If it got put on my list, it got done.

I'm hoping that something similar will work for me this quarter. The class I'm taking is already taking up way too much of my time, just for the reading. Let alone, I am supposed to be writing my dissertation proposal AND work at my job 40+ hours per week. Add to that the fact that the triathlon is about 16 weeks away and I need to get on a serious training regimen (that and I want to look good for my sister's wedding). So, I'm thinking that because I've got so much going on, I will be able to get all of it done because of the fact that I've got so much going on...I know it is a bit of a tautology (circular logic), but I'm banking on it.

Because the truth is, I'm not really willing to let any of it go. I want to do it all. Maybe I'm asking for trouble...

thanks

Thanks to all for my birthday wishes. I do appreciate it. I had a wonderful dinner at Ray's Boathouse and David made me a carrot cake (yummy!). I finally downloaded our photos from New York, but there were more than 300, so we need to go through them and pare them down to the best ones to post. That may take some time, so please bear with me.

I'm taking a class this quarter which will finish off my minor certification in stratification. I have agreed with the professor that my final project to be graded on will be my dissertation proposal. arghh! I can't believe I've promised to get this done in one quarter, while I'm working full time.

I'll let you know how it goes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZY!!!

Happy, happy birthday, happy birthday to youuuuuu...
Happy, happy birthday, happy birthday to you!

Have a great day today! I love you!

David