If I Could Turn Back Time...

...I might have thought of a better costume....

Instead, we both went as Cher:

Encyclopedia of An Ordinary Life

Airplanes are amazing.  I love that I could fly to Florida for my sister's engagement party for a quick, less than 48 hour trip.  I would however, love it much more if it was longer than 48 hours and if Delta didn't lose my bag.

Baseball is America's favorite sport.  I try not to get to involved in sports because it puts me in a bad mood when the team I'm rooting for loses...better luck next time, Yankees.

Colleen is my youngest sister.  She painted me a picture for my birthday.  It's inside my lost luggage.

Duck walks into a bar .... he asks the bartender for some lipstick and says "hey, put it on my bill"

Electricity.  You don't realize how much you rely on it, until you have to go without it.  The electricity was out at work this morning.  There were rumors spreading like wildfire that it might not come back on until after noon.  Everyone seemed slightly annoyed but deep down inside I think they were ecstatic.  I know I was.  You can't pray for snow days out here.   If we don't have electricity we can't do any lab work, we can't do any computer work, we might as well go out to breakfast or go home.  15 minutes later the lights came back on to resounding "ahhhs," owwws," and "ughs."  Back to work.

"Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" is a fantastic book.

Free lunch...there is no such thing as a free lunch... but also Family... got a lot of Family time in this weekend with all the sisters, both parents, and Josh's family too.

Awkward hand placement, Bridget

Generals prefer to keep their Armies in their sleevies.

"Gang Leader for a Day" is another awesome book by Sudhir Venkatesh.  Sudhir was a grad student in sociology at the University of Chicago.  He wanted to research african americans living in poverty in nearby neighborhoods.  He ends up pretty much becoming part of the gang family without actually being part of the gang.  You need to read it for yourself.


Henry Rutgers once said, "Never let your schooling interfere with your education."  


Itchy, I feel itchy.  I took some Benadryll.  Hopefully I can finish this blog before I zonk out.  If the excerpts are getting lamer, you now know why.


Jogging. I went for a jog today and it made me feel sick.  I think I am also slightly paranoid that I have the same bug as Bridget,  (See V for virus).


Joke.  Why did the bunny jump for joy?  Because he was hoppy!

Kite.  Halloween is in less than 2 weeks.  What should I be?  This morning I thought it would be pretty funny to be a kite.  Trevor can be Ben Franklin. 


Lightning was the cause of the power outage at work today.  There was a huge lightning storm last night and even some more tonight.  This is the first time I have seen lightning in California since I moved here 4 years ago.

Maybe I should re-consider the kite costume... Any other suggestions?  Some of my older costumes:

Nightmares.  Sorry if those pictures give you nightmares.  That's what Halloween's all about though right?

"Overacting (also referred to as hamming or mugging) is the exaggeration of gestures and speech when acting. It may be unintentional, particularly in the case of a bad actor, or be required for the role. For the latter, it is commonly used in comical situations or to stress the evil characteristics of a villain."-Wikipedia

Anyone remember what I was talking about?

Paralysis is a seriously sad injury.  I am really hoping Eric LeGrand from the Rutgers Football team is able to walk again after his injury in the game last Saturday. 

Quiet.  Congress has passed a bill that will limit the volume of TV commercials. This makes me happy.


Rain...when it rains it pours, and it sure has been raining a lot around here...


Shopping.  We went bridesmaids shopping in Florida and we found a dress!  Very excited at the idea of not trying on any more bridesmaids dresses.  And then there's the shoes....  hmm Nikes?


Thanksgiving.  Last Thanksgiving we went to a crowded bar with some friends.  I was talking with my friend, Kevin, while this shorter girl in front of us was standing on her tippy-toes trying to look past us to find her friends.  I said "Hello, have you met my friend Kevin?"  They talked all night.   Their year anniversary is coming up soon.


Umbrella.  I'm pretty sure I no longer own one.


Viruses are the worst!  Last year while in Florida my sister Colleen, my mom, and Nancy's fiance Josh all came down with a 13-hour-of-intense-vomiting flu.  This last weekend in Florida, Bridget came down with a similar situation on her last day there.  She puked in the airport, on the plane, and more once she got home.  Sorry 'bout that Briggles. That sounds terrible.


Windows.  I always leave the windows open at home.  The air temperature is always comfortable and it never rains, usually.  It's been raining like crazy lately.  Somewhere in the past 4 years I have lost the instinct to close the window when it rains.  The thought never crosses my mind.  That is until I went to  lay down for a nap on a super-wet soggy bed.  Luckily we have a dryer in-house.

X is the hardest letter. I have nothing good to say about x-rays.

Y aren't you in bed?  That's where I'm headed.  I'm done with this alphabet business.

Z Z Z z z z z Bedtime Bye!

J-E-hel-ll-o!

Last weekend I had chocolate pudding in bed for breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday.

A Number of Things

1 second is the amount of time it takes light to travel around the earth's equator 7.5 times.   Multiply that distance by 31.6 million to determine the distance light can travel in one year (1 light year is nearly 6 trillion miles!!)!  How do scientists figure that out?

2 times the length of the empire state building is about equal to the depth of 33 trapped Chilean miners.  (They are coming out as I type!  Vive la Chile!)

3 percent is the average weight of your brain relative to your body.

4 = the number of US Presidents who have been assassinated.  Can you name them?

5 minutes is the determined amount of daily outdoor activity you need to improve your mood (study done at University of Essex, England).  The study also found the greatest mental-health benefits when outdoor activities occurred near large bodies of water.  Head for the river!  Head for the beach!  Save your sanity!

6 million:.... the number of men (aged 35 to 54) who have ever eaten the last slice of pie and denied it. (Study conducted by the American Pie Council...don't ask me how they get their funding..)

The word "7"appears in over 835,000 book titles.  There are 7 continents, 7 dwarfs, 7 deadly sins,  7 days a week, 7 digits in a phone number, 7 days of creation, and 7 wonders of the world.

8 YEARS is the  average time a woman spends shopping during her lifetime.  I think it's time we at least let the boys take over the groceries ...

8 years ago

9 percent of Americans have a birthday in August..

Personality by Month: 

AUGUST BABY:
outgoing personality. takes risks. feeds on attention. no self control. kind-hearted. self confident. loud and boisterous. easy to get along with and talk to. has an "every thing's peachy" attitude. likes talking and singing. loves music. daydreamer. easily distracted. Hates not being trusted. BIG imagination. loves to be loved. hates studying. in need of "that someone". longs for freedom. rebellious when withheld or restricted. lives by "no pain no gain" caring. Always a suspect. playful. mysterious. "charming" or "beautiful" to everyone. stubborn. curious. independent. strong willed. a fighter.

10 events are in a decathlon. Duh!

Dan can tell you all about it...

That was then....

...this is now.

Too bad I didn't think of this idea on Sunday. It would have gone lovely with my little theme.  

Oh well...  We can keep counting all month long ...

1

2 ?

Ah 2

3

4

5

6

7 wind up

7 release

8

9

10

Would you like my autograph?

"Uh guys, do you think we should have showered before trying to pick up the ladies?"

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Last but not least.....
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 100 years ago the famous Mark Twain embargoed the release of his autobiography.  His reasoning for putting it off: to assure he could speak his whole frank mind without the threat of offending anyone or damaging his reputation.  Release date is November 15th.

(....keep this in mind  for Christmas time, Secret Santa...)





Answer to 4: William McKinley, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, & John Kennedy

101st BLOG! 101 x 10 = 1010 TODAY is 10-10-10

I have writTEN these TEN TENacious TENuously-linked stories to TENtatively TENderize your TENtiginous obsession with TEN.  Can you withstand the heighTENed TENsion?

1. Paddle boarding is a water sport where you stand up on a surf board an paddle around.  It's like stand-up kayaking.  It is one of the only only sports that I am better at than Trevor.  Skiing is the other one.   In both sports my superior skills don't last for very long.  Trevor took about 7 hours to out- compete me in skiing and it only took his second try for him to surpass me in paddle boarding.   After he learned from a mutual friend that I never fell off the board once the first time I went paddle boarding, he was determined to get back on the board.  (During his first experience paddle boarding, he spent most of the time in the water.) Yesterday we went out paddle boarding with the same friends and he did not fall in once and was paddling circles around me.  Oh well, the athletic superiority was nice while it lasted...

2.  There is a Danish girl from work who is going to be at the California lab for 2 months.  I am very excited about this.  One of the things I appreciated the most, was someone showing me how to use the buses and trains while I was in Denmark.  So to pay it back, I decide that I am going to be the one to show this poor girl how to use the public transportation system while she's in the states.... there's one glaringly obvious difference here,  I have never used it before myself.  How hard could it be?  At least I know the native language..... Well, needless to say, it took us about 2 hours to get to work that morning.  Whoops.  She would probably have been better off on her own. 

3.  Taking the public transit system is really like living in another country.  My experience in Santa Barbara is one thing, but my experience on a Santa Barbara bus is completely different.  Lots of Mexicans, mentally disabled people, stinky people, drooling people, people talking to themselves, and then a handful of young students with their head phones on.  The guys sitting behind us were speaking a mix of English and Spanish. Sentence by sentence, almost word by word they were switching back and forth between languages.  The hot topic of the day was when this guy was going back to county and how his lawyer got the charges dropped from 365 days to 30 days.... wasn't able to catch what he was in trouble for....

4. We went to the beach yesterday.  It was about 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.  Most people would love to go to a beach on a day like yesterday.  Vampire-Trevor, however, has a sever adversion to the son.  The boy hates direct sunlight.  So we have a little beach tent for him.  It's a small little tent comepltely open on one side and fairly easy to set up with just 3 of those compactible tent sticks.  While we're setting up the tent some grey-haired old man walking around by himself comes over to us and says: "Don't ya love the beach? !  I always says it takes a day to set-up and a day to pack it up.  Ya know one time I was fishing in Alaska, caught a 60lb halibut but I couldn't throw it back because the guy I was with loves fish...."Then he moved on to the next group of people on the beach.

5. There was a Rutgers football game on Friday night.  Rutgers won.  Their new freshman quarterback had a pretty sweet game.   He looks like a baby which makes me feel old:

While on the Rutgers topic, today I was bored and looked up the Alma Mater song "On the Banks of the ol' Raritan."   You guys remember that song, right?  Well apparently in the 70's there was a faculty fundraiser talent show and Richard McCormick's Dad, who is also named Richard McCormick and was a history professor at the time, sang his own rendition of the Rutgers theme song:

Your fathers sent you to Old Rutgers,

And your moms were glad to see you go!

For they had quite enough

Of your adolescent guff

And they felt it was well worth their dough!

(Chorus)

To the Banks of the Old Raritan you came

Where Old Rutgers ever since has stood

Where you found sheer delight

Beer and parties every night

For we've done the best that we could!

So sing your praise to Alma Mater

And the RU Screw forever ban!

For, as we all should know

We find kindness apropos

On the banks of the Old Raritan!

6.  Last week a dead 80 foot blue whale washed ashore on a beach in northern California.  Scientists think the whale was killed from being struck by a large cargo ship judging by her broken back.  She was pregnant when she was killed the 20 ft baby whale was expelled post-mortem. 


7.  During the summer-time in Santa Barbara, a nearby park has a summer concert series.  You bring your own blanket and the show is free.  It's very popular with families with small kids and kids of all ages for that matter.  One time we were at a show and Trevor was sitting down with his legs straight out in front of him and leaning back on his hands.  A small blond-haired blue eyed little boy suddenly jumps on his lap, straddling Trevor and is just right in his face.  A stupefied Trevor..."What the..!!??!  Who are you!?"  "Little Boy:  "Hi, I'm Sthammy" (with a lispe).  Sammy proceeds to lay down on Trevor and start rolling around.  Poor Trev didn't know what to do with this kid, but luckily Sammy's dad rushed over to grab his crazy kid.  "Hi I'm Sammy"..... whatever happened to teaching kids not to talk to strangers?

8. Trevor is back to school-mode.  Nothing too exciting to talk about there.  Although the one bright side is I feel like the quality and quantity of my blog posts are directly correlated to the busy-ness of Trevor's schedule.  Hopefully I can keep up.

9. At work we just hired a new person who is right out of college.  Although I still feel like I'm right out of college, I think I really actually forget what that feels like.  Because this new person makes me feel old.  I was telling a friend about it.  My friend is my age and she told me about a  conversation she was having with a co-worker who is 3 years younger than her.  They were talking about a 30 year old co-worker who is trying to have a baby and the younger girl said "what's the rush?"  Sally said "I dunno she's thirty so...."  At the same time Sally says "she's still young" as the younger girl interrupts "so she's pretty old."....awkward

10.  Things I did with my Mom, count em-
 ---- Bombay Bellywood Belly dancing show (1) 

 

 ---- Tasted beers at the Island Brewery (2)
 


  ----Went to the Avocado Festival (3)
 

  ----Watched the Chumash Indian Pow-Wow in Santa Ynez (4)

   ----Ate lunch in Solvang with a real Dane (5)

  ----Went on the Double Dolphin Sunset Cruise (6)

  ---- Had beers at the Creekside Inn (7)

 ---- Walked in the Botanical Gardens (8)
 
 ---- Yard Work ---boring  (9)
  ----Met her ol' college friend for a drink at the Brewhouse (10)






 

DONE!!! Check the time !!!  10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10!