My New Year’s resolution, only 28 days late

If I say it on the blog, it must come true:

This is the year in which Lisa develops some muscles.

I’ve had problems with both hips, one knee and one foot caused by running, and I think part of the problem is probably that I don’t have good enough core or supporting muscles. Also, I’ve always wanted some arm strength. While at home, Mom cruelly made me go through all the junk I left behind when I went to college and combine it into two boxes instead of three. What does this have to do with arm strength? I found a trophy from when I was still in gymnastics for getting second place in number of pushups in my age category. I distinctly remember completing only one… Needless to say, there weren’t many people in my age group.

Anyway, anybody know anything about strength training? Because I have no clue what to do except large quantities of push-ups, planks, and lunges.

It’s nearly 11 AM and I’m still in my pajamas avoiding cleaning the house

• I bought a three-pack of Dentyne gum to stash at work. The flavors are Peppermint, Spearmint, and Arctic Chill. Peppermint and Spearmint are labeled “Artificially flavored.” The Arctic Chill is not. What??

• Normally when Ken forces me to buy that dry cardboard bread, we each eat two sandwiches out of the loaf (8 slices) and then the rest sits there and goes moldy because I don’t like it and Ken doesn’t really eat bread. He’s more of an ice-cream and pasta type. I think if there was a dish that combined those two, it might be his favorite food ever. Today I have decided to nip the mold in the bud and have cut the rest of the (dry and disgusting) loaf into bread cubes. What can I make with bread cubes? All I can think of are stuffing, bread pudding, and croutons. I plan to make some croutons, but we don’t need THAT many.

• My church is instituting some big changes – which is good – and apparently one of them is to change up the order of worship. I learned this three days ago thought it was a good idea. However, I’m apparently highly subconsciously disturbed by it. The last two nights I have had vivid and awful dreams about playing piano and the order of worship being new and making mistakes.

• I bought curtains for my front windows last night. (Thanks grandparents.) Now passers by can’t see everything that goes on on the first floor of the house. And the curtains are awesome and it didn’t take me countless hours of sewing to make them. Sometimes pre-made goods ARE the answer. It’s better if they’re used, but I already checked at the thrift store and there was nothing.

So I’m doing this video contest

The professional society of which I am a part tried a video contest to get their members involved. This isn’t a gigantic society of the likes of the AMA, ACS, or even ASME, but it’s got a good number of members. Guess how many videos were submitted?

8.

And mine and Ken’s are two of them. Now, my video is really lame and boring because I’ve been busy and not had lots of time to create new and exciting materials science footage and it was my first attempt at video editing. So… I’m just going to look like a hack in front of nearly everyone who might ever hire me when they play the video at the big conference in Seattle. No problem. I’m certainly not going to win. At least I tried.

However. Ken’s video is actually pretty good. Part of the contest is based on number of views and ratings from YouTube. Unfortunately, through no fault of our own, our videos weren’t put up until a week after the other videos, so they’re several hundred views behind. So, I’m asking you to go look at the videos – you’ll learn something about materials science, if nothing else – and give them a rating.

This is Ken’s video. This is the contest channel. Just for Mom because she would complain if I didn’t link it, this is my video.

New York ski trip – In which I sound overly snobbish and superior and long to return to the great western frontier

Do you see something funny here?

Somebody at Delta is a genius.

See that? That is a DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND at Kissing Bridge. It had some moguls on the side, but certainly could have passed for a green run back home.

Night skiing in the fog was pretty sweet.

Eating dinner in the car while skiing brings out the best in us. Ken insists on getting that disgusting white bread whose first ingredient would be bleached cardboard if the label didn't lie and say it was something ridiculous like wheat.

New York was sorta rural and pretty, although it's hard to get a good picture while traveling at 55 mph.

The trip certainly wouln't have been complete without a stop to tape the car back together.

This was a single black run at Holiday Valley. It might have been close to deserving a black rating, if only because it was mostly ice. I find it amusing to compare the background scenery in this shot to that of the page header, taken in Colorado last winter. Why do people like the East Coast again?

Holiday Valley, you are overpriced, over-rated, and overly full of rich New Yorkers with obnoxious accents. This food cost over $12 but it was a long way up a hill back to the food in the car.

And then it started to rain so we left.

Exciting things

Firstly, I used some of my birthday money (thanks Infrangible and Grandpa) to buy a camping stove and a pizza stone, both of which are things I always see at the store and think, I don’t really NEED one… and pass them up. So, here’s to baking pizza and being able to cook on a stove instead of over the fire next summer.

Secondly, a great computer switcheroo is about to take place in this house. Current status: I use my 4 year old Compaq laptop at work and bring it home on the weekends for mindless Hulu watching purposes. The Dell desktop gifted to me by my parents for my high school graduation sits downstairs mainly as a vehicle to print things and holds the last bit of Morrowind ready for me if I ever have time to play it. Ken has his gigantic Dell laptop from HIS high school graduation at work, and his tiny little Toshiba tablet from his college graduation at home whereupon he attempts to play games but mostly just gets really frustrated and angry because it doesn’t have a good enough video card. It’s really not the right computer for him, but it was a gift, so what can you do?

New situation: My Compaq laptop stays at home for blogging/mindless Hulu purposes, occasionally making the journey to work if I have to do long tests in a lab that require a lot of waiting around. The Dell desktop (which has a slightly faster processor than the laptop) gets an upgrade from 1.25 GB to 3 GB of ram and lives on my desk at work, ensuring that I no longer wait for ten minutes (ok, so maybe it’s like 25 seconds) every time I want to open a new program. Various and sundry computer bits arrive at the house from Newegg and get built into a new desktop computer which can run games for Ken without making him grumpy. It works the first time we put it together, installing Windows Vista and then the Windows 7 update goes completely smoothly, games get installed, and everything is peachy keen. Riiight. I forsee the new computer monitor full of bullet holes or something. This is where the dream breaks down. Luckily one of Ken’s friends is kinda a computer geek, so hopefully he’ll be able to fix anything that goes wrong.

Thirdly, we’re leaving for a ski trip today. Today we’re driving out and night skiing at one place in Western New York, and tomorrow we’re going to ski at another place all day. I’m trying to prepare to be underwhelmed, but I just feel incredibly excited about skiing so it’s probably going to be a huge letdown.

Finally, Monday is a day off (one of two this whole semester) and Ken wants to go to the fabric store. Weird, huh? Last night I mentioned that while we were up there I would like to go to Target to pick up a few things, and he freaked out and starting going on and on about how he couldn’t go into JoAnne alone. Luckily for him, I would never abandon him to such a horrible fate as having to go into a fabric store without me to protect him from the femininity that leaches out from the yards of tulle and lace and all those crafting supplies.

Haiti

Do you want to help out in Haiti, but don’t know how?

May I suggest Compassion? I grew up with my parents sponsoring a child from Compassion, and now I sponsor a girl one day older than my sister Sara in India and a 9 year old boy in Indonesia. To quote from their website:

Compassion’s work in Haiti began in 1968. Currently, more than 65,000 children participate in more than 225 child development centers. Compassion partners with churches to help them provide Haitian children with the opportunity to rise above their circumstances and become all God has created them to be.

Compassion has had a longtime presence in the country and has proven themselves to be good stewards of their funds. From their email today:

Without a doubt, the children we serve in Haiti are in shock and face immediate needs for food, water, medical care, shelter and counseling. We have teams prepared to respond, and we are deeply committed to helping each child.

Pray for the people of Haiti and consider giving any amount you can Haiti Earthquake Relief.

Infrangible Update

Over the past month I have made several efforts to cause my infrangible friend to weep.

First – I threatened to not give her a gift. Alas, I caved and got her something wonderful.

I think she'll probably re-decorate her entire house to match this gem.

Failure

Second – I subjected her to old home videos of us in gymnastics class. Infrangible’s sister – also in the movies, definitely laughed so hard she cried, however, infrangible herself had an iron will and merely laughed until she couldn’t breath. Failure.

Third – I invited her to go downhill skiing with my family. Last time we skiied together, I have a distinct memory of crying on the slopes because I couldn’t get down a blue (intermediate) run while she just snowplowed down because she was reasonably apportioned kid and I was gargantuan child with ridiculously long gangly arms and legs. Based on that memory, I would guess that it has been approximately 15 years since we skiied together, in which time I have been skiing on many occasions and she’s been… 3-4 times. I was hoping that the tables would be turned. This photo was taken after dragging her down a blue run.

Clearly, another failure.

Lisa: 0, Infrangible: 3

Mi casa

It has been requested by several parties that I post some pictures of my house. The tantalizing pictures of the lamp and chair weren’t enough for these demanding individuals. Therefore, I give you a tour of my house, such as it is.

The house from the curb. I live in the left half.

The view from the front door.

A blurry look back at the front door, closet, and fireplace

The living room from entrance to dining room

Dining room

strange, very blurry view of left side of dining room.

Right side of dining room and stairs to upstairs.

View into the "breakfast nook"

Left side of the breakfast nook with my precious, mostly dead plants.

Right side of the nook, looking back into the dining room. Note the pile of junk on the table and periodic table on the wall.

Looking into the kitchen from the nook

Left side of the kitchen

Right side of the kitchen

Back door in the kitchen

View out the back door.

View of the back deck, complete with spare tire in case the deck gets a flat.

Stairs down to the basement. We won't be going hungry any time soon.

Basement, with four of the seven bikes in the house.

Rest of the basement, including bike #5, washer and dryer, back door, laundry chute, and amazing sink.

Bathroom at the top of the stairs.

Looking down the hall from the bathroom. The door to Ken's room is not pictured directly to the right.

My bedroom!

More of my bedroom

The attic room. This is your guest room when you come visit me! I'll even put sheets on the mattress if I like you.

There.

This post proves that I listen to suggestions for content on this blog. How congenial of me.

Vacation

I have pondered what is the best way to return from a multi-week absence. How does one adequately describe the events of three weeks?

My parents post Cable Bridge Run. I ran a 55:44 for my first 10K. That's an 8:59 pace, and fine with me!

More post-cable bridge runners

We had a traditional German star-making party/Sara's birthday party.

Absorbed star makers

The annual cross country ski trip on Christmas Eve

Hobbes assists me in opening my Christmas presents.

An infrangible friend and her sister came over for a sleepover and I turned 25. Yes, we are mature. And yes, I stole this picture.

Last, but certainly not least, we went downhill skiing 3 whole times!

Things to note about these pictures:

• They all contain at least one family member (yes, Hobbes counts). It was good to see my family.
• Each girl now has a boy hanger-on. This is exceedingly weird and the only cause of angst throughout the whole trip.
• There is more to come about my success in causing tears to fall down the cheeks of my infrangible friend. Clearly she’s not crying in that picture.
• I was exceedingly busy the entire time. Since I got back to Cleveland, it has been snowing 4 inches every day, and I am STILL exceedingly busy.