The Jeep

We bought a Jeep. Its a 2002 6 cyl 5 speed with a soft top. We took it for its first adventure on Saturday- 6 hour bike race and camping. So far, The Jeep gets an A for funness and also bike carrying ability. Sideburnz figured out how to secure our bike wheels to the sides of the jeep. It looked like we were heading out to the bush. Unfortunately no one remembered to take a picture. Next time...

We are presently thinking of a name for the jeep. I suppose we need to drive it some more so we can find out what kind of personality it has.

First Triathlon

Big news! I completed my first triathlon over the weekend, finished 15th over all and 2nd in my age group. Full results are here. Funny thing- I was 171st in the swim, 8th on the bike and 18th in the run. Not bad for my first attempt. My transition times were even competitive! This sounds like trouble... photos will get posted later.

Some recent observations

- Dark beer is the new snipe. Most reliable source appears to be homebrew.
- Swimming is difficult.
- Burt's Bees makes a Sage deodorant/body spray. I smell like Thanksgiving.
- New surf board = lots of repairs.
- I want a Jeep.

The newest member of our family

I'd like to introduce Blue Raspberry.  She's taking Lemon Meringue's place since Lemon Meringue has taken on a lot of water (10 lbs probably).  Blue Raspberry complements Sideburnz's Pro Board nicely.

This is Blue Raspberry (above- formatting not going so well tonight).  Pro Board is below.  You can see Lemon Meringue in the background.  She'll be on standby for guests or if I just want a paddling workout.

What an exciting day.  We also bought a laser printer.  Now we're brewing beer.  The fun never stops!

Oh yeah, and we both went to work today.  Definitely a three shaka day.  Don't you wish you lived in Hawaii?

Don't talk to the weird girl in the parking lot

Today we had a partial solar eclipse from 5:20-6:15.  I like neat science things like this, so I did a wee bit of online research to find the proper viewing methods.  I remember from elementary school that you can't look at the eclipse directly.  The fanciest do-it-yourself method involved a pair of binoculars and some cardboard.  Check and check.  Our new friend Capt. Richard just loaned us a nice pair of binoculars, how handy.  And, in an effort to clean out our cupboards, we had accumulated a good deal of Costco sized cereal boxes.

I did a little xtactoknifing and scotch taping, and whalla!  Here's my eclipse viewing device.

The first two pictures are the viewing paper.  Since this was a one-girl operation, I figured I should secure the paper.

And the second 2 pictures are the image capturing device (binoculars with cardboard).  In case you didnt read the link, the binoculars have to be pointed at the sun and the viewing paper is position in the shadow of the binocular's cardboard.  If you're lucky, the eclipse will show up.

So I set up camp in the parking lot and tried to capture the sun in the binocular lens.  At first, I had the viewing paper strapped to my leg, but then the sun angle changed too much.  What to do...  Strap it to my bike rack.  So here I was in the middle of the parking lot, with cardboard strapped to my bike, balancing binoculars with cardboard on a step stool.  Obviously all of the parents were telling their kids "Don't talk to the weird girl in the parking lot."  I coerced a few kids over to see the eclipse.  This is what they saw.

Yup, that's the sun with the moon crowding its space.  I offered to show a few adults, but they declined.  The don't know what the were missing.

What am I to do...

... the internet kept breaking at home, so I came in to my office. 6 days to finish my book chapter, no time to slack. AC/ventilation is broken at work, so it feels like I'm working in a closet. Opened my "forbidden*" office window. Ahhh.... air. Then the construction workers across the street returned from lunch. The din of heavy machinery, saws, rocks and trees falling into dump trucks replaced the stuffy air. Not sure what was worse.


*I am one of the fortunate souls that has a forbidden window crank. When my office building was built 8 years ago, the University wouldn't give the faculty window cranks because of liability. They didn't want the faculty falling (jumping) out of the windows, or so I'm told.

Neat nerdness

I think its safe to say that I've achieved a new level of nerdness today. And I'll be honest, I'm pretty proud of it. Over the past 2 months or so, I've reorganized all of my research files and binders in an effort to find resources easier. I'm finally there.

Just now, I looked up an article on PubMed (online biomedical database). Found the citation I was looking for, walked over to my bookshelf, retrieved the appropriate binder, and SHAZAM! There it was, an article from 2004 about prebiotic fibers. I have a mini fiber library in my office. I am a nerd.