catch up from last week and weekend update

I wanted to post some pictures of the damage Hurricane Wilma did to my grandparent's home. It blew their roof off, and blew their neighbors roof off too. They still don't have power to the house, so they are staying with mom, who luckily does have power.

Here is a picture of grandpa with his roof. It is lying against a neighbor's house.

This is a picture of my grandparent's backyard. That crumpled piece of steel origami is their neighbor's roof. You can see it took down their power line. And look at all that insulation everywhere! Talk about feeling itchy! It took about 17 construction trash bags to rake up and git rid of all the insulation. I have another picture of the grapefruit tree in their backyard with insulation happily taking up residence with the ripening grapefruits.

In other news, David and I watched a Zombie "guerilla art" march. They started at the fremont troll and took over the sidewalks in fremont for about a half an hour or more. It was quite fun to see the people all dressed up as zombies and watch them act the part. It was a wonderful Halloween treat. Much better than a bag of kit kats.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Belated Congratulations Em and Mel!

I just want to say congratulations to my sister Emily and her long-time girlfriend and now fiancee' Melissa. They got engaged about two and a half weeks ago, and I'm so excited for them!

They are a great couple--each provide something unique and complementary to the relationship. I have to say, I've been waiting for this to happen for awhile. I think it was 2 years ago that I told emily that it would be wonderful to have Melissa in the family. She fits in very well and I think she is very good for my sister. I'm excited to have Melissa become an "official" member of the family (even though she really was considered family anyway :) .

And what makes this even cooler is that they live in Boston. The one place where they really can get married! Super exciting.

Em and Mel--I'm totally ready to help with wedding planning whenever you want to start thinking about those sorts of things. Congratulations again!

Here's a collage of the weekend they got engaged. Aren't they cute?

Spike from Buffy

I don't know if anyone watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Spike was one of my favorite characters. He could be pretty sexy in some scenes--and scary in others. The actor who played Spike is James Marsters. James Marsters is now playing an evil character in Smallville (the superman show on the WB).

I have some bad news...James Marsters is 43 years old. Yes, that is correct, forty-three! I never would have suspected it. Sure, he sort of looked like someone in their mid thirties, but certainly not in their mid-forties!

I'm shocked and devastated.

hiking

Last weekend I went for a hike with Jen and Maggie. It really was a hike (1300 ft. elevation gain), and we got wet. But it felt really good to be outside getting exercise, and you could just tell that maggie was so happy to be in the woods.

I want to go for another hike this weekend. It is a great way for me to fit in my exercise for the day, and I don't feel guilty about leaving maggie at home like when I go to the gym. However, I don't really want to hike in the kind of rain we hiked in last weekend. Hopefully it will be a fairly dry weekend.

I can't believe it is already the end of October, almost! We haven't even carved the pumpkins we bought 4 weeks ago. And I want to roast the seeds! That's the best part. We have been invited to a halloween party, but I'm not sure what we would dress up as...I'm not really the type to go and buy a costume, so I usually have to be creative with what I have. If we go, I'll let you know what we go as (and maybe even try to get some pictures!)

It's already wednesday!?

Gosh, I kept meaning to post yesterday and monday, but it just never happened. I've been busy at work.

I had some great luck this weekend. David and I went downtown to eat at our fav. mexican place, and we decided to look into the new express down there since I still had a gift card from awhile ago. Let me preface this whole story by saying that about 6 months ago I found the perfect fitting pant at express. The style is called the "correspondent", and it fits me wonderfully. When I found this pant I wanted to buy one in every color, but since they cost about $70 per pant, I only bought 2.

Back to the main story. We went downtown on saturday and went into the new express. I looked all over the place for the "correspondent" and all I could find was the "editor". Finally I asked a salesperson and she said that they are DISCONTINUING the "correspondent". WHAT? WHY? I finally find a pair of pants that fits me and now they discontinue it?

I bet you are wondering where the great luck comes in....

The salesperson mentioned that the old express downtown (which is only 2 blocks away) still had some correspondent pants and they were on deep markdown. So, I give David my best puppy dog eyes and ask him to please give me another 15 minutes before we eat. We "book it" over to the old express, and find the correspondent. They had 3 pairs in my size. One had really obnoxious stripes down the legs so those were out. I took the other 2 into the dressing room. Both fit wonderfully. Guess how much they were each? $29.50 !!! With the gift card, I only paid 29 bucks out of pocket for 2 wonderful pairs of pants.

While the mexican food was good, those pants made my night.

The Kite Runner

Has anyone else read this book? I'm about 3/4 of the way through it and it has been amazing so far. Very well written and a gripping story. Even though I haven't finished it, I would more than recommend it to anyone looking for some intelligent reading. It is fiction, but reads more like an autobiography in some ways.

A quick synopsis of the plotline: The story of an affluent boy growing up in afghanistan before the political upheaval of the early 1980's and beyond. Discusses the effects of the fighting, but is more a story about this boy's relationships with friends and others as he has to move to pakistan and then to the U.S., and deals with the regret and guilt of the life he left behind.

I can't wait to finish it. If anyone else has read it or does in the future I'd love to talk about it.

More horsey riding

I did keep my promise and went to the gym yesterday. They took measurements etc. I wasn't doing too bad compared to the last time I was there. Most of my measurements went up by a little bit, but my weight was 1 lb. less. The adage that muscle weighs more than fat really made sense to me last night.

I have to say, I felt really good after I came home from the gym. I was feeling positive and hopeful and excited about the prospect of getting into better shape (and trimming some inches--or millimeters). I'm going again tonight. I had this funny feeling when I was there last night...it was that I could definitely get attached to the good feelings that exercise causes.

I'm worried about Hurricane Wilma heading right for Mom and Grandma and Grandpa (and Jazzy). They are getting out today, but I hope that it doesn't cause too much damage to the areas. Please please let it slow down out in the gulf. I know Jen's grandfather is down there too...I don't know what his plans are yet. Hopefully he is leaving Sanibel.

Getting back on the horse

For the past, oh let's see, 6 months, I have stopped going to the gym. I don't think I've gained any weight since then, but I have definitely lost muscle tone. The reason for this lapse is irrelevant. The fact is I fell off the horse, and now I've got to get back on it. I know I've talked about this before, but I'm really going to do something about it now. And it is especially important as winter comes that I be active to keep up the good feeling chemicals in my body.

So, I've scheduled a session with a personal trainer to get my measurements taken and to be taken through a workout focusing on my problem areas. Wednesday night 8pm, I'll be at the gym. Hopefully I'll be back with good news instead of bad news. Either way, I'm committing to one other workout this week other than the personal trainer work-out. I'll let you know how it goes.

check out the new section

It is called "links we like". I've just put a few up there, but I will be adding more, and David said he would too.

I want to call your attention to the first link. It links to www.thebreastcancersite.com
For every click, this site helps fund free mammograms for women who can't afford them. This month they are trying to work their way up to 750 mammograms, and they were only at 180 or so this morning.

I've put this as the first link for a reason. I would love for it to remind you to go to this site daily. You can only click once per day. I've made a habit of clicking every morning before I let myself check my email. Just a little thing I do to remind me to do good. And now that you have an easy way to remember (everytime you check the blog, you can click the link), you have little reason not to. Let's try and help them make their goal of 750 mammograms this month!

The future is trans-humanist

Monday night I went with a friend to a lecture by Ray Kurzweil, famed futurist, inventor, author, generally smart guy. It was very interesting. And when I say interesting, I mean crazy, far-out, messed-up, and weird.

He said that in 5 years we will be wearing computers in our clothes, have virtual reality devices readily available, and be able to surf the web without a computer. By 2020 there will be all kinds of crazy stuff like nano-bot red blood cells that are able to carry like 1000x the oxygen as our regular blood cells.

The whole first part of his presentation was fact-based, and so when he transitioned to these grand predictions, it made it seem like fact too...if you weren't thinking too much. Very tricky. I think these things will happen, but I have a hard time believing that they will happen in my lifetime. He says technology growth is exponential and will continue to be.

Seriously, hearing his presentation made me want to go out and buy all kinds of tech, bio-tech, nano-tech stock. Part of me thinks -oh my gosh, I could really cash in on this. The other part of me thinks-this is crazy and I'll be throwing my money away. I think the truth is somewhere between the two, but probably closer to the first thought.

Well, it really stuck in my mind, so I wanted to share. I also got to ask him a question about the social and ethical issues involved with these emerging technologies, and he seemed a little flustered by it. Go me. Of course, I was setting him up for my friend so she could take notes on what he said (and what by inference, he didn't say).

a milestone

I hit a milestone this morning. I fit into my leather boots! I bought these boots about 6 years ago, and I've only been able to wear them for 2 time spans since then. They haven't gotten much wear. I put weight on in my legs, and so usually my calves are just too big to fit in them. They even have an expanding spot in the back of them to help with that...but to no avail.

Do you ever consider whether you should do something because you know if the thing goes badly it will make you sad and depressed? Well, that is how I always feel about trying on these specific boots. There are probably more times that I've tried them on and they didn't fit, than when I've tried them on and they fit. Well, I stood at my closet this morning surveying the shoe options to go with a skirt I wanted to wear. Nothing was quite right except for the boots. Dilemma..try the boots on and risk disappointment or just wear something that wasn't quite as "right".

I obviously chose to risk disappointment--and I wasn't disappointed. It just made the day start off well. Just wanted to share my "win" for today.

Happy Birthday Old Man! ;-)

Happy Birthday Dad! Hope you have a great day and enjoy yourself.

oh my goodness, such cuteness!

A co-worker just showed me the cutest websites. For those of you who are kitty lovers, there is www.kittenwar.com and for the dog lovers, there is www.puppywar.com .

These sites pit two pictures of cats, or dogs against each other, and you click on the picture you think is the cutest. They have rankings of the cutest ones and the ones who are the "losingest" /underdogs. You can look and see a percentage of people who think your animal is the cutest.

It looks like the kittenwar one has been in existence for awhile and the puppy war site is fairly new. I'm really tempted to put a picture of maggie (even though she isn't a puppy) and see how she does in the battle.

I think gray and torry would do pretty well (especially if you posted one of their kitten pics), as would jazzy (who doesn't like a fluffy doggy?--okay, well, some might not, but I'd vote for him). As for bernie and casper---I'm not sure since I've never met casper and I haven't seen Bernie in awhile. Oh-and "kiki" might do well too. Did I miss anyone's pet? I'm blanking on pet names right now....there's Jules, and Copper & Buffy, and Luna and Jack, Belle, Kate and Fran...who am I forgetting? Please don't be mad at me for forgetting your pet!

Have a good weekend!

Chick Lit

Chick lit is now being called a genre. Within this genre are some very dull -tell the same story- sorts of books. I bought some of them at the book sale, but there were others that I read the back of the book and wanted to puke. Others are interesting and have new story lines. They are fun books to read in the sense that they are mindless and occasionally entertaining.

Well, I'm reading a book now that has been made into a movie. I'm not sure if the movie is out yet, but it is called "In her shoes" and has Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine in it. I've seen previews for it on TV. Based on the book so far, I will definitely want to see the movie-although probably as a rental. I have to say, this is a smarter, more interesting kind of chick lit. A good part of the book is about the relationship between two sisters. Men are sort of tertiary to the plot. It has been good so far.

Speaking of sisters, did anyone watch the WB show "Related" last night? It is about 4 sisters in NYC (or was it Philly?), and is a mix of Friends and Sex in the City. I was prepared for it to be trite and predictable, but it wasn't too bad. I actually teared up during two different parts of the show. (Okay, it was a little more than just tearing up, but don't tell anyone). Of course yesterday was sort of an emotional day for me; thus making it easier for the tears to flow. Maybe i just need what some people call "A good cry"? Get it all out. Free my 'chi'. Of course, I don't know of anything right now that would make me cry that much.

How did I get on this topic...oh yes, the tv show. If anyone else watched it, I'd love to hear your opinions. I think maybe I was not quite able to be a good judge of the show.

mind games

My aunt just sent this to me, and I think it is great. I've seen some of the other mind games (is it a woman or a witch? etc.). But this one was my favorite from the list. I've never seen it before- but boy does it mess with you. Have fun trying to count the black dots!

Supreme Court Nominee

I can't help but feel like the requirements for the Supreme court nominee were those above. How can they nominate someone to the supreme court that has had no experience as a judge? Boy, I hope they look for someone more qualified than Harriet Miers. He says he picked the best candidate he could find....well, I don't think he looked very far. Here is his exact quote: "I picked the best person I could find. People know we're close." She was his personal lawyer and most recently White House counsel. They certainly are close...I'd say close enough to call cronies!

Okay, okay...I'm done now. I just think it would be so sad to have Sandra Day O'Connor replaced by Ms. Miers.

mish mash

This weekend I felt like there were multiple times when I thought-oh, I should write about this in my blog! Of course, right now I can only remember two of those times.

The big event of the weekend was giving maggie a bath. We usually take her to petsmart for her baths, but a friend gave us some allergy shampoo, so we decided to give it a try on our own. It took us about an hour to wash her twice and thoroughly towel her dry. One of us was in the shower shampooing, and the other sat on the edge of the tub and held her in there. She didn't fight it too much, although I am a bit worried about how she will do in the future. We tried to give her treats to make her associate it with good things, but she still didn't seem too happy. Weird that a water dog doesn't like to get wet for a bath. We went out after that to run some errands and when we got back, she had moved the shower curtain quite a bit--I don't know if she was trying to see what the shower was all about, or if she was expressing her displeasure at being washed. Either way, it made us laugh.

On sunday it rained most of the morning, but it slowed down after noon, and we went to the greek festival. When we got back, and I was making dinner, David called out and told me to look at the rainbow outside. It was huge, and you could see both ends of it. Until I moved to Seattle, I don't think I'd ever seen a complete rainbow from one pot of gold to another. But this was just amazing and beautiful.

Happy Birthday Suzanne!

Suzanne, I hope you have a great birthday and get through this weekend's work event.

In other news, David beat me at scrabble last night. I think his cautiousness is paying off and my impatience is costing me. The spread was about 50 points, I think. You'd think with all I read that I'd be able to come up with some good ones, but when you have RR LL NN and A in your hand...your options aren't fabulous for scoring well.

I'm going to lunch today with my co-workers and a woman from the National Science Foundation. I'm a little nervous. Sometimes I get tongue-tied in situations like this. We are going to get some feedback from her on an idea for a grant proposal. We've submitted 4 grant proposals this summer, and we are looking at submittng another one by January. Boy, I hope we get at least one of these! It would take some of the pressure off.

Last night while I was watching Smallville on the WB, I saw a preview for the Harry Potter movie. It looked awesome! Lots of cool images and fun stuff. I believe the movie opens in November, so it is coming up soon. I'm excited to see it. We'll definitely see that one on opening weekend!

Possible fun plans for the weekend: art show saturday night, greek festival sat. or sunday day

getting sucked back in...

I'm getting sucked back into TV now that they are starting to show new episodes. I quite enjoyed my summer when we didn't even turn on the TV most nights. But part of me really enjoys vegging out for an hour in front of the "boob" tube.

I know, I know, all I have to do is just not watch, or don't turn the TV on. But there are some shows that are my guilty indulgences. I really enjoy watching them. They are probably the worst shows on TV, but since we really only get 3 channels, I don't have much to choose from.

I need to get over this guilty feeling, and be okay with watching shows maybe twice a week? At what point do I become a total couch potato?

Interesting, amusing, frustrating, whatever…

Liz and I have repeatedly observed that there are an awful lot of people our age in Seattle who are driving luxury cars and living in $400,000 homes. On these occasions, we ask ourselves “what the hell are we doing wrong?” I mean…we’re pretty smart, right? Well, at least Liz is.

Anyway, I have found the answer. Check these articles out:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/15/pf/training_pay/

http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2005/07/14/overpriced-cities-lifestyle-cx_sc_0715home_ls.html

In case these links have expired, I’ll tell you the gist of the articles.

The first one identifies jobs with the worst return for your investment. It singles out three careers, and guess what…Liz and I have two of them! Architects and academic research scientists make the list for their substantial education requirements, the cost of this education, and the dismal salaries that are offered after all your time and effort.

Couple that with the second article, which identifies Seattle as the most overpriced city in the U.S. (for the second year in a row), and I think we have a winner…or loser, whatever.

Kind of makes you want to pull your hair out…maybe that’s why I’m so thin on top!