This morning I woke up WAY too early.

This morning was the first of two sims where I will "backseat" someone else being the traj*officer, the first orbit position I'm training for (think of it like fdo's assistant). Then, I will start simming on my own (well, with lots and lots and lots of help). At various times during the 1.5 hours before and the 7 hours during the sim, I experienced the following (in no particular order): intrigue, drinking from a fire house, eagerness to just do things myself because I don't learn very well from just watching, confusion, enlightenment at learning why things are done a certain way, and tiredness. Does that sum things up or what? And that was just my first sim of watching someone else do all the work.

So, I left work early in an attempt to have some quiet downtime by myself at home. When I arrived, Cari was already home watching TV, and Nick came in shortly thereafter. So much for that.

I finally uploaded the few pictures I took in Killington last weekend. I would've taken more, but it was too darned cold to take my gloves off. I've posted them here in my gallery. My favorites are these two -- one of Rob and Michael dressed to the nines in the gondola, and the other of the many inches of ungroomed fresh powder we spent all Sunday skiing through.

And, lastly, Nick and his bird Ollie being silly.

A friend of mine has obviously been living in a cave. The other night at dinner, she asked "So, what is a blog?"

What is a blog?!

Was she serious? Shock! Seriously living in a cave, a dark dreary cave with no Internet access! Not to mention, this was the signal for me to catch said-person up on the last several months of my life, because, *gasp* she did not read *my* blog. I forgot what its like for everyone not to know the stupid ins-and-outs of my boring days and stream of thought.

Ah, I know my inner monologue, complete with its substandard grammar and spelling isn't exactly always riveting reading (though I like to think that I have my moments). I just take it for granted that you read this. But, apparently, there are still people who live in caves and have never heard of this strange thing called a "blog" let alone have the time (or stamina or interest) to read about the inane on-goings of my life.

For the record this is my 872nd blog entry and I started blogging on August 3, 2001. The reason I started this blog was to spare my family and friends yet another lengthy e-mail about my Swiss adventures. I never planned on continuing it once I settled into "boring" Houston life. But here I am. Nearly 4 years later. I've almost been out of university for as long as I was in university. Bizarre. I'm not old, am I? Nope. Not quite yet. Getting closer though. My cousins told me I didn't count as a "grown up" yet, just the cool older cousin with a credit card and a drivers' license. Yep. That's me. A kid with resources.

Isn't it a sign of the times that there is only one embattled abortion provider left in the entire state of Mississippi? The thought of this infuriates me almost as much as this: Mississippi no longer has any organized pro-choice organizations or a state affiliate of Pro-Choice America. Planned Parenthood of Alabama Inc. operates an office in Hattiesburg, which would not comment about abortion rights. The Hattiesburg office refers women seeking abortion services to a Planned Parenthood site in Huntsville, Ala., Birmingham or Mobile. Who cares if we have a legal right to abortion if there are no providers willing to give one? You can make an emergency contribution here to help save this clinic.

Today in the elevator we had yet one more opportunity to relive a favorite episode of an entertaining show called MythBusters.

The premise:

The story of the jet-assisted Chevy goes like this. The Arizona Highway Patrol stumbled across a blackened crater in the side of a mountain at the end of a long stretch of desert road. After an investigation, they learned that an Air Force sergeant from a nearby military base had attached a rocket-assisted takeoff unit to the roof of a 1967 Chevy Impala. He got up to about 80 mph, and then fired the things off. Within seconds the car was traveling at 350 mph. The crater was found in the mountainside 100 feet off the ground. Who do you think will be the "dummy" to test this myth?

So, these guys try to recreate the scene. The first thing they do is call GE and/or Pratt & Whitney, and say "Hi, I'd like to order one JATO engine please. How much will that costs?"

On the other end of the line you hear a long pause... "Um, sir, we don't usually sell just one to a private citizen."

Ok, after typing that in, it makes me think that maybe this is only funny to an aerospace engineer. But it cracks me up.

One more entry for today - e-mailed to me by Aunt Shannon about my cousin Jonathan's pre-school class.

Everyday in jonathan's preschool class, the kids have a group discussion with one teacher. The other teacher dictates the discussion and emails it to all the parents so we have an idea of what went on in school that day. it's called a reflection. I thought of becca when i read today's reflection. i think she will find this cute. thanks

Miguel: When I was going to school I saw the sun looking like it was following our car. How did that happen? I think friends may have questions about that. My mom says it is staying where it is suppose to be but it looked to me like it was following my car

Martha: Sometimes I think it is following my car

Joey: When I was driving on the road one time the sun was following my car. I thought it was gravity was pushing it.

T: What is gravity?

Joey: Gravity is something that looks like a rock but it is muddier

T: Anyone else have any knowledge about gravity they would like to share.

David: Probably when you went on the jeep I saw gravity that lives on the sun

Carrie: I am not really sure what that is

Martha: It might be blue

Carrie: Today the sun was following my car too.

Joey: Gravity sticks to the sky somehow. Gravity holds us when our planet goes upside down.

Jack: Gravity can be made of rock and sometime you see them at the beach and they are like docks so you can get off your boat.

Justin: Clouds may be pushing the sun that maybe that’s how it follows the car

Miguel: How does the clouds push the sun.

Justin: Maybe they just like push the sun carefully.

Hannah: Well when I was at home today and I had to get out of bed that is all.

Jonathan: I had a dream about a storm and you are not allowed to have baths on days it is storming because you could get shocked. Well today the sun didn’t follow me but one day it did it keeps moving.

T: Anyone else have other experiences with that.

Martha: Sometimes it follows me in the summer and I see it from the car and maybe God just pushes it.

Joey: Can I call on friends for questions?

David: Can gravity stick on windows.

Joey: It can stick on everything

Joey: It sticks to the sky. After the blue is the black and the gravity is with the black.

David: Does gravity stick on the back or front.

Joey: It sticks all over.

Trent: Gravity is something that is just yours and it sticks to just you. It is like a toy and it stays with you.

T: Where would we find out about gravity?

Joey: Astronauts know about gravity

Jack: Maybe the internet. It has a lot of things. My dad looked at four wheelers on the internet. They are dangerous cause if they tip over on you. You could get hurt.

Joe: I have something else about gravity. People can’t breathe by gravity. Astronauts can’t breathe by gravity.

Miguel: What are astronauts?

Yassir: Well, they have helmets and they are not really alive. I saw one for really one time it came into my door.

Jack: Astronauts wear tubes for their hats and they have tubes so they can breathe. It’s hooked onto the hat that they wear and they breathe oxygen.

Joey: Astronauts got to put helmets on because there is not air in outer space. That’s only where the aliens live. It’s just black there

Miguel: How come there is no air in outer scpce.

Jack: But astronauts jump out of a rocket. Because there is no gravity they float.

Ricky: It’s because they hold on to the rocket ship.

T: Oh, so what does gravity do?

Jack: If there was no gravity in this school then we would be floating.

T: Oh my wow

Miguel: What did he say?

T: He is right next to you. Jack could you say that again?

Jack: If there was no gravity in this school then we would be floating.

Miguel: Gravity so when you’re on the ground and you’re going to school and in get sky something looks like its following you but it really isn’t.

Joey: Gravity might not be real. People just talk about it.

Jacob: If there is nothing like gravity in the pool you float when you turn on your back.

Carrie: We are spinning. The world is spinning.

Ricky: But very slowly.

Miguel: The earth is going like this slow. (he shows us)

Jonathan: If there was gravity in this class right now then we would be swimming.

T: Jack seems to think that there is gravity in this class right now.

Jack: Yeah…Angie she sometimes babysits me. She told me that there is no gravity in space.

Yep. Tis my life. Weeks doing nothing, then weeks with too much to do. That's me today. I actually had more analysis to do, because I'm just that cool and when I was bored (*really bored*) last year, I wrote scripts to make a bunch of random charts that it turns out are actually needed to be done again. Go me. Plus I had a sim. Where I was training someone else (scary, eh?). Good think is Major M (the trainee) has a good sense of humor or I don't know why'd he'd want to put up with me. On that subject, I have my first Traj sim next week, and I'm already having nightmares about it, even though all I'm doing is "backseating" and watching someone else do all the "real" work.

Last night I went running about Cari. Turns out I run faster when I get all worked up about something. I don't usually run with other people because I think I run so slow it hurts other people's legs to run with me. Anyway, it felt good. This was followed by a yummy dinner.

I've had a bizarre obsession with going to Antarctica for several years now.

It lingered on and off at the back of my mind all the while I was in college. At one point, it was fueled by a guy from the GT Sailing Club who was going to go there when he graduated to do menial labor. It had another flame up when I ran into someone at the animal shelter who had been there several times hunting for Mars meteorites. Lately, I've been fanatically reading Iceblog written by a gal that has an awesome job in Antarctica. Finally, this morning, Sarah and I perused the Raytheon's job listings for next field season in the Antarctic.

The job listings make me feel pretty useless. Though there are some interesting jobs (journalists, aircraft dispatchers, technical writers, lab technicians...), I don't qualify for any of them! You'd think with my engineering degree, common sense, pilot training, and some (not much, but some) wilderness experience, I could find something well suited to my talents and skills -- but no joy, so it seems. Of course, to live in Antarctica for a season (or two), I'd totally be willing to do menial labor or be a secretary or something equally random.

Anyway, I'm not moving to Antarctica anytime soon. Maybe in a few years from now, though... you never know...

I ended up playing hooky from class today (long story, mostly boring). I came home to find the TiVo remote EATEN. Yes, eaten. Not merely mauled like the old TiVo remote. In fact, the old one still functioned after being chewed on multiple times. Unfortunately, we threw it out when Cari got me the the brand spanking new one for Christmas. Somehow the four dogs decided to show me how destroying a remote is really done -- by eating over half of it. Looking in our backyard, it obviously did not emerge unscathed either -- the charcoal is not longer in existance, replaced by a torn bag and fine black powder spread evenly over the yard. I just placed an order for another replacement, which we will hopefully keep safer. 2-day mail, because we can't use the TiVo without the remote, and ***we must have tivo!!***

This entry from dooce.com really cracked me up today.

And, since I still haven't gotten around to raging about all the ninkcumpoops (is that how you spell that? hm...) who think "girls are no good at math", here's one more good read from Ms. Magazine to add more fuel to the fire. The one good thing about the Harvard president's comments is that it reminds some of my female engineering friends who think feminism is an outdated (and possibly unnecessary) movement for the 21st century that there are still people out there that think women can't/shouldn't do stuff. And that they are wrong. And that we need people to fight that attitude.

To make you even angrier, there are some scary commentators out there that agree with this blatant sexism and are using the controversy to further perpetuate the idiotic stereotype that girls aren't "wired" for math and science.

Of course, men and women are different. Of course, we think differently, and the causes are both biological and sociological. I also believe that any two men think differently. And any two women. That's the beauty of mankind, we are all unique.

Math, science and engineering is, at its most fundamental level, reasoned problem solving. Everyone's approach to problem solving is unique to their own personality. Now, in our education, we are taught some common approaches, things that work well for a wide variety of problems. Anyone can be taught those approaches. For some people, its harder to understand than others. But with practice, you get it, just like all kids eventually learn to read or do multiplication tables, and with practice, a grown-up can improve their performance in chess or on crossword puzzles.

But here's the thing about math and science, there isn't "one way" to do it, there isn't "one way" of thinking to solve a problem. There are about a million different ways to approach a problem of science, and in the end there is only one solution. One of the things I love abou about science (and math and engineering) is team work -- a lot of people attacking a problem from different sides and sharing their revelations with each other. Its a community effort. How would many men like it if I argued that MEN didn't belong in engineering because they weren't "innately wired" to work in teams to solve problems as a member of community, and that cooperation was an innately female skill?

If only the people running our most pretigious educational institutions (or at least Harvard) recognized that both men and women have something to offer every field, every profession, that they have an equal chance of succeeding and should be encouraged to follow their interests and talents. NOT to mention, we're on the brink of a national crisis in technical talent, despite growing demand, we have shrinking numbers of technically trained young people. We can suppliment this by encouraging more women to train in technical fields. Whereas women make up 50% of law and medical schools, they are still less than 20% of engineering schools (and even less of science and engineering graduate students) -- its an untapped wealth of good minds available to help our country succeed as a leader of innovation and invention!

A coworker gave me a registration form for a charity dog walk. I was reading the brochure, and noticed in the "details" section that as part of the walk, they are raffling off a "genuine City of Seabrook fire hydrant." What more could a dog want?

My calves are still aching from skiing. That's bizarre. Usually its my quads and usually it only lasts a day. Ache ache ache.

Last night, three very lonely dogs slept in my bed. I don't know where Roxy and Zoya (the Mendeck's dogs) got the idea they were allowed in my bed (well, I can guess). But I woke up this morning and the entire lower half of my body was covered by creatures. I am such a heavy sleeper, I didn't even notice them climb up, probably sometime in the middle of the night. They were really funny, when I woke up they looked at me with this "if I'm going to get in trouble, well, it was worth it"-look. And Apache just indigninantly jumped off the bed.

Oh, and if you are lucky enough to have Aliens of the Deep playing anywhere near you, you should go see it. I am aquainted with two of the "stars" of the movie and it was supported, at least in a minor way, out of the same part of mission control where I helped out during the NEEMO mission. In one of the cooler celebrity visits here, James Cameron gave us a special screening and talked for a little while about the experience, and what I saw looked spectacular! Go see it!

Skiing was great. Great!! Yes, the weather was frigid. I wore the most layers ever in my entire life: silk long underwear, synthetic long underwear, turtle neck, tight fleece, regular fleece, and a ski jacket. Plus neck warmer, hat, ear muffs and googles. Two layers of gloves. Well, you get the idea. But I was comfortable (well, at least until the end of Saturday afternoon when I noticed Caroline's rosy cheeks were turning white and I had to give her my neck warmer and hat to stave off her imminent frostbite).

Then, as if skiing wasn't great enough, at 4 p.m., the snow started falling and kept falling. We actually only got the edge of the Nor'easter, turned blizzard, that dumped snow on the entire coast of New England. We woke up on Sunday morning to about 12 inches of fresh, dry champagne, powder covering EVERYTHING. A blizzard!! How much more perfect could you get for a ski weekend! While watching the weather, the "brilliant" Fox News programming kept doing this segment called "What is a blizzard?", as if the good people of Vermont had never seen snow before.

That night we braved the blizzard and went to one of my favorite ski dives, "Casey's Caboose." The food there is awesome, but I think that I may be more entranced by the hours of my childhood I've spent throwing pennies and nickles as the bar tender... errr... cup in the back of the bar. If you hit it dead on, it sets off a model train that drives around the roof of the bar. Of course, you miss 9 out of 10 times, and hopefully don't hit the bartender. Anyway, I also had a fabulous dinner of smoked trout and Alaskan king crab legs (why don't I get that more often? yum!)

The entire morning was the best! My cousin Michael won the "best fall" category, since the snow was light and fluffy, when he toppled, he found himself buried up to his neck in snow. It made me laugh.

Then, last night, back to Philadlephia. The roads were suprisingly clear for the natural "disaster" that swept in the previous night. That is until we got to Bucks County - land of zero infrastructure and even less snowplowing capability than Miami. This morning, up at 3:30, on the plane, and back at work by 11. That's my day. I may update later because I want to talk about the idiot Harvard president and his "theories" on women's abilities in science. We'll start with this article.

Tomorrow, I'm getting up at 6 a.m. to head to the airport. From there, I'll fly to Phildelphia (I'm standing by on the earliest flight of the day, but if not, will be taking the 10 a.m. one). And from Phildelphia, I'll drive 6+ more hours to Killington. All and all, I'll get to the resort 14 hours after I leave Houston. Coming back, a little less travel time, but made up for by the fact that I'll have to get up at 4 a.m. Monday morning to make my flight! Oh, what I do for two days of skiing!!

Nick and Cari are making the dogs howl. They do this more and more when they all get worked up and Nick and Cari encourage it. I think its disturbing. And bizarre. Cari is barking at the dogs now. Who's training who?

I made an emergency run to REI after class (class length: 30 minutes) - to excitedly find everything on clearance. I got fleece pants and a new hat. I restrained myself from buying a millionth fleece sweater and tried to avoid too much drooling over various camping gadgets...

(This entry is dedicated to Jen M., since she's the only one who will probably read this entry between now and when I depart in the morning, because she's working the overnight shift and possibly bored out of her mind and definitely a little tired. Stop yawning Jen and wake up and smile or make a midnight blog entry or something!!!)

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SpongeBob Squarepants!
Yellow and spongey and porous is he!
SpongeBob Squarepants!

I admire SpongeBob Squarepants so much! His is SO brave to have an interspecies relationship. Not only that, but he's having a HOMOSEXUAL interspecies relationship. I mean, who would've thought that a SPONGE and a STARFISH could make a relationship work?

Not to mention, sponges can reproduce asexually too. SpongeBob didn't even need to enter into such an untraditional relationship - he doesn't even need to find a nice girl sponge to reproduce!

There are even some species of hermaphrodite sponges, that can produce a sperm and an egg. Its a good thing that Nickelodeon clearly identifies SpongeBob as a male. Or is it that clear? Spongebob could also be a transvestite! GASP! Think of the children he influences! Oh, the grand Nickelodeon conspiracy! The horror, the horror!

Starfish are only a little less confusing in their mating rituals. Gosh, just the thought of all these evil, hedonistic things about sponges and starfish is corrupting the minds of every young child who watches this cartoon! It must stop now! I call on you, children of the religious right, burn down SpongeBob's house of headonism - his pineapple under the sea before he encourages too many kids to start relationships with starfish! Especially same-sex STARFISH! Oh, and good luck figuring out how to light a fire underwater.

Must remember: boys holding hands with each other = gay AND gay = bad.

For a quick bit of humor:

I must have DARTH TATER. Mr. Potato Head as Darth Vader. Could it get any better.

And from the makers of "This Land", Jib Jab presents Second Term

Today was a busy day - at least according to my schedule of meeting, training, sim, meeting (in that order). I don't really feel like it was that busy a day though.

Last night I made a pointless trip to Rice. I left work at 4 p.m. At 5:05 p.m. it was clear that only two of us (and three professors) had shown up to class and that they needed to sort out the course listings. At 5:15 p.m. they dismissed class (and promised to find the other 10 students that were registered for it by Thursday). At 6:30 p.m. I was at home. What a waste of a lot of gas and driving time.

People are buzzing here about an opportunity to rotate to HQ. Or at least I'm buzzing about it. I think it would be cool to spend 6 months working in D.C., even if the job involved a lot of paperwork, etc. Unfortunately (well, fortunately, because I really like the idea of my new job), I'm pretty much locked in place for now, so here's to hoping something like this will exist in a few years hence. I've always had it kind of in the back of my head that "someday" I would find a rotation to D.C. and start work on a master's degree in public policy, and then apply for the fellowship, and stick around to finish it off.

On the subject of fDOing, I am officially transitioned. I even have a training guide with a blue binder that has obviously been used by more than one person and left in a car in the Houston sun to bake for a while - but it was nonetheless apparently important that I had this precise binder (I guess for tradition's sake... or to make it easy to spot when I seriously screw something up...) Now, the next priority is to "Get Becca a Desk." The current date is sometime in the first week of February. I've pretty much decided I'm going to go camp out in the hallway where my desk will eventually be, at least to be seen around the new office.

I'm all about the quizzes when I have nothing else to write...

I am a hybrid of: Progressive Girl Academic Girl Click on the pictures below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

It snowed over Christmas in Houston - something in about as likely as snow in Hell. Luckily, Cari was there to capture it all on film.

Apache in the snow:

My house covered in snow:

And just as likely as snow in Houston, is dogs lined up and sitting nicely for a photo:

(Left to right: Rachel's dogs, Bennett-in front, Apache, Zoya, and Roxy).

I just finished another excellent (though light) book this weekend: Blowing My Cover: My life as a CIA spy. It made me want to be a spy. Or not.

Other books I recommend this year: Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Sex Lives of Cannibals, and Persepolis.

Now, I'm on to more trash, the lastest Terry Goodkind book, Chainfire. Random fantasy books always make me happy.

This morning I got all my FDO training guides. As usual, these things seem daunting until you start tackling it and right now the training guide is sitting on my desk daring me to get started. I also got a "welcome to the group" pep talk with the dose of reality sprinkled in. The dose of reality is that I'll be competing with a lot of people for sims and, oh, by the way, here's the flight assignment list and don't expect to be assigned to anything for a couple of years (the only reason it didn't depress me is that I'll still get to work at least one flight as an LSO before then). The pep talk portion (at least for me) is the "I came from analysis too, and operations is very different, and we do things differently here" (I know different isn't always better, but it still made me want to scream "Hallaleujah brother" when he said it).

So, that's my day. Its a short week for me - I depart for skiing (yeah skiing!) this Friday (just two days on the slopes, unfortunately, but c'est la vie). The weather forecast for this weekend in Killington, VT: Party cloudy, High < 10 degrees, Low, -10 degrees. 98 of 200 trails open (hopefully they are making snow like crazy), 24-36" base of packed powder. Not great by Rockies standards, but pretty excellent for vermont. Looks like they'll get some fresh snow this week too.

Got to love the stupid random government three day weekends. Ok, this is not the most pointless holiday (Columbus Day wins that category). But MLK day is still not my favorite, since it comes on the heels of a long Christmas/New Years vacation period. I'd much rather have a three day weekend in the long down time between President's Day and Memorial Day (where we go three months, rather than three weeks, without a holiday). But here I am, at home. The A/C repair people are back, to do more stuff, and cost me MORE money. Hopefully this will be their last visit.

The weekend was entertaining. Saturday, time flew quickly, with a dog walk, late lunch out, and shopping. Yesterday I woke up early and saw Sarah as she ran by Rice Univ. at mile 11 of her marathon, and then again at Memorial Park for mile 22. I'm so impressed that she finished the marathon. Though, I don't really know why anyone would want to run that far. But, hey, some people don't understand why I want to fly or sail or travel, so to each their own. Afterwards, Cari and I walked the dogs along the three mile loop around Memorial Park. Then home, started watching Troy, fell asleep, woke up, and went to Matt & Stephanie's for a hot tub party and some playing of their ORIGINAL Nintendo system. I *must* have one complete with Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, and Paperboy... and I can think of a few others too. That was awesome.

So, I just watched the end of this week's Law & Order (thanks TiVO!) -- it was so bizarre. Serena, the Ast. DA, was right all the long, using her intuition, that the suspect was innocent. She made a comment in the middle of the show saying the other two DA's hadn't been listening to her in the last few months. At the end of the show...

State Attorney: "Serena, passion has no place here, prosecuters need to be cold blooded... You're fired." Never mind that she's a civil servant and incredibly competent and therefore would be very difficult to fire. Not that I'm an expert on prosecuting crimes, but I had hours of training in youth court by state's attorneys who reminded us repeatedly that their job is more difficult than a public defender's because they were obligated to serve "justice" while prosecuting a case, whereas all a defender had to do was zealously advocate for his client.

Serena replied "Is this because I'm a lesbian?"

(WHAT?!)

State Attorney: No, not at all.
Serena: Good. Good.

(Cue end of show.)

A bizarre and weak loss of a good cast member.

This was one of the most interesting personal stories about abortion I've ever read - Safe, legal and rare.

This made me laugh:

The thought of a 52 year old father with two toddlers and no life insurance made me cry.

I had a breakthrew this morning, everything worked, it all matched (<.5% error!), and that's that. I have to say, it felt amazingly satisfying to get the answer right. Yesterday sucked. But today was good. The plan is me to start fdo-ing at noon on Tuesday (we have Monday off and I have a sim tomorrow morning).

Swimming definitely improved my mood last night. It was more improved a nice (spontaneous) girls-night dinner.

Tonight I have my first day of class, followed by a retirement party for our div chief. I'm kind of disappointed I'll miss the beginning of the party (we made a VERY funny video that will be shown at that point), but hopefully I'll get there to see at least some of the program.

Annoyed annoyed annoyed. G. thinks I'm closer to a solution. J. says "Yeah, he's optimistic like that." Sarah described this project as the "red headed step child" of our group. I think that this could easily take a few extra months rather than a few extra days. The thought cross my mind (briefly) that if I quit my job now I wouldn't have to think about it any longer, but the greener pastures of a new job are in sight and I won't get it if I quit working.

I'm going swimming now.

Nothing exciting to report today. Everyone (well, not everyone, because I didn't go) went to a meeting today with the big-big-big-boss. Now they are all at lunch. I'm assuming the group lead went with them. I want to discuss the results (or lack thereof) I have from this study and figure out what to do next. I'm not satisfied with them, but I also don't know how to fix them, which leaves me in quite a pickle. Especially when I all I want to do is finish. Ho hum.

"Ho hum" is a fun word. So is "gadzooks". See what I think of when I'm sitting here doing nothing?

Though I have a strange impulse to go home and watch t.v. (see, the new tv is already a bad influence). But I really need to go home and jog. I've taken several 3-4 mile walks with the dogs since getting back from Christmas, but I haven't gone for a run. I'm imagining it will be very painful and I won't be able to go that far. Well, I've never been able to run that far. Something about my complete unwillingness to push myself athletically. Oh well. I'll just try not to break my legs before skiing next weekend. Yeah skiing!

If you thought my menagerie of animals is bad, I just got an e-mail from one of my teachers for the reduced gravity program, and in his classroom he has a 4 ft alligator, a 55 pound giant tortoise, scorpions, and frilled dragons from Australia. Now that's a zoo!

I'm all about the Christmas presents this week. The obsession for the weekend was the beautiful new clock (now happily hung in my dining room and ticking away. Today, well, I admit, the old tv was woefully inadequate. This is such a change. We christened it with tonight's episode of The Daily Show.

John Stewart: Well, good luck with your new book, Mr. Grisham.
John Grisham: Thanks. Yours too.
Stewart: That is, so long as your book doesn't take the number one spot on the bestseller list. That's mine!
Grisham: We can both be number one. You see... there's a fiction list and a non-fiction list.
Stewart: NO WAY! Really?

Cracks me up.

Here are pictures of everyone in the house showing the t.v. how great it is (look how much we love it).

Analysis never EVER ends. That's just the nature of the beast. There's always more to study. You always need more detail to understand something. It takes a great deal of patience, which is not my strongest trait. I'd like to think that if I ever find my "niche" I'll have the patience to take great joy into delving into problems like that in more detail. Until then, I like achievable result driven study. The good news is the "more" I'm working on is achievable. Its all stuff I know how to do and "can do" quite easily. It frustrates me that I didn't think to do it before. And it frustrates me that I don't care as much as I should. And it frustrates me that I definitely have FDO-itis (Last week I just had "I SO don't want to be back from vacation-itis").

So, that's my day.

There are two new additions to the menagerie of animals in the house! Cari and I got beta fish tonight on a lark. I'm eventually going to take mine to sit on my desk at work. But until then, they both live at home. There names are Sushi (mine) and Sashimi (Cari's).

This is Sushi:

This is Sashimi:

Oh, and thanks to Nick's handiness my new clock is on the wall and ticking. Here's a picture:

More pictures of the clock are here.

Jen M. posted this video of our trip to Peru.

And for Aunt Diane, Cari looks like this. Though its not the greatest picture of her on the planet, and apparently my photography sucks. But at least you get the idea.

Well, I did it! I added a gallery of photos to my blog. I only posted ones taken with my new digital camera this fall and winter. Well, and a smattering of old ones. The pictures are uploading as I type this entry.

Here's the link: http://photos.pilesofrock.com/gallery/

A few highlights:

Here is a video of (left to right) Aunt Diane, Aunt Joy and Mom making fools of themselves while Grandad attempts to play his new keyboard

Here is a video of a fire twirler at Disney World. I took this for Nick S. as another example of a "manly" dancer.

Here is an album of photos from my trip to Whistler in 2003, so that everyone who's thinking of coming along skiing this year can get a sneak preview.

Finally, here is a photo of all my biological siblings. Legally I have two more. Don't ask, but their names are Kyle and Cory and I saw them over Christmas and they are TALL. In this picture, the tall one is Nick, he's my only full brother. The others are (in age order) Rob, William, and Demetra.

I've got skiing on my mind. Its the first week of January, and I haven't even spent 1/2 a day on the slopes. Ug. So, that means its time to plan some ski trips: somewhere in Canada with my friends, VT with the Kohart.. come on, maybe Aunt Diane will get in on the agenda?

Yesterday I spent a good deal of time wandering around work in an afro wig (for good reason -- the making of our division chief's retirment video). Days like that make me laugh.

Its hard to get back into a routine after vacation. Every morning I've been so tired I've basically had to drag myself out of bed (after hitting snooze at least 10 times -- thankfully Cari isn't here to get annoyed at the sound of my alarm).

I dreamt last night about going back to school full-time. The good news is I think I may have found a class to take next semester: Materials Science (which is part of the Mech Engineering Department) 751: New Venture Creation for Scientists and Engineers. The best part? It starts at 5:15 p.m.! No leaving work early! Way to go Rice for pulling through at the last possible minute! Now, I just have to wait for the professors to e-mail me back to let me know if its ok to take it (long story). Maybe my Master's degree isn't derailed after all. We'll see... until then, I'm going to continue mubling the litany "3 more classes... 3 more classes.. 3 more classes).

This weekend I plan on sleeping a lot. Going running both days (let's see what 3 weeks of not running is going to do to that plan). Posting my pictures from Christmas. Hanging my new GIGANTIC clock on the wall.

Hi Aunt Diane! She said she caught up on 3 months of blog entries and that I should publish this darned thing. It would be like the Seinfeld of books. Days and days of absolute nothingness. Who would read that besides a relative?

A little definition (for Mom, Aunt Diane, and the rest of the old farts...)... URL = A web site address. So when you fill out a comment and you have a personal web page, you put it under the URL. If you don't have a web page, just leave it blank.

Faithful blog readers (especially of an "older" generation), I'd like to point out a little used, but very cool feature of this new blog. Its called "Comments." Look down below this entry and you'll see the word "Comments." Click on it. Here, if my entry moves you to speak or catches your interest, you can let me know what you thought, give me advise. In the case of yesterday's entry, you can tell me not to be so Bridget Jones about the prospect of marriage (v. funny). Now, be warned, the first time you comment, I will have to approve you're response, because I was getting so much spam. But after that, you will be a "trusted" commenter and chat away. So, go ahead, give it a click and a try.

Ok. Enough about that.

I'm very disappointed Sarah didn't post the photos from our office follies yesterday. I'm sure she will, but let me give you a preview:

Sarah: Hey, look, here's a giant gumball I've had on my desk for a year. [gumball is yellow and about 2 inches in diameter]
George: [raised eyebrow] Why do you have that?
Sarah: Well, I saw it and I had to have it.
George: [sniffs nose] Yuck.
Sarah: Eat it, I dare you!
George: No way.
Becca: I bet you could get Matt to eat it. Just offer him Two Dollars.
Sarah: Hey Matt!! I'll give you two dollars to eat this gumball. I dare you...
Matt: [shrugs] Sure.

And antics ensue as he tries to eat a stale gumball that was larger than his mouth. He ended up getting three dollars and a breath mint.

I'll leave you to pass judgement on the meaning of the results of this study.

Academics at the four British universities who carried out the survey said the schoolgirls with high IQs later witnessed a dramatic decline in their marriage prospects. But the brighter schoolboys found it easier to find a bride.

The results are borne out by evidence from psychologists that successful career women are struggling to find “interesting men” who are interested in them...

For boys, there is a 35% increase in the likelihood of marriage for each 16-point rise in IQ. For girls, there is a 40% drop for each 16-point increase.

In the meantime, surely some bookmaker will give you odds on the likelihood of me *ever* getting married.. not that (at this point) I really want to.

The question becomes:
1. Am I not married because guys aren't attracted to smart girls
2. Am I smart enough to realize that marriage is just a big mess to be avoided?

The study also suggests what I've suspected for quite a while, many smart men marry stupid women. Never fear, though, I know many bright men who've married women even smarter than themselves, so its not a "rule", just a trend.

All of this lends truth to when my dear old dad told me (in his bizarre anti-feminist way of jesting) "If you keep spending all that time reading, you'll never find yourself a man."

I think I'm a drifter for the most part. (I want to add, this entry was inspired by Nick S., who has recently started blogging again.)

I do a lot of thinking about what I'm going to do "next," I mean, after my current "career" at NASA. I'm pretty committed to sticking it out here for the next 5+ years the space shuttle is flying (well, that is if I like my new job as much as I expect I will... if not, well, I'll be looking for other alternatives sooner). I'm maybe committed to staying longer depending on what the future of manned spaceflight looks like when we start winding down the shuttle program.

But its funny, when I consider what I am going to do next, I totally don't think about career advancement and I especially don't think about accruing wealth. When I started talking to my Uncle Dean about maybe being interested in Public Policy and going to work for an aerospace consulting firm, or on Congressional Staff, he's like "Think bigger, think Cabinet-level..." and he started strategizing what I needed to do now (which including developing a network with some influential *gasp* Republicans). Meanwhile, my Dad continued to pitch the "airplane salvage" plan that he thinks will make me a fortune, if only I was more interested in disassembling beautiful "vintage" airplanes that I would rather make fly.

Though those ideas sound really appealing - so does taking a year off to study Policy as a poor student, or moving to Antarctica and sweeping floors or something (just for the adventure of living there), or joining the Peace Corps, or joining the Foreign Service (which will also involve a pretty serious pay cut since I'd have to take an entry-level government salary again).

But one thing is for certain, if I were to become a billionaire, I think I'd like to be like Richard Branson. He rocks.

I'm all about the blog entries today. I hate the premise that the government should be run like a business. There are so fundamental differences between the two. Anyway, this article had some interesting thoughts. But my favorite tidbit came from the end:

In government you need to find ways to motivate people without dollars. In early 2001, Powell shocked his assistant secretary by informing him at the morning staff meeting that neither of them would be briefing the president on his upcoming trip to Mexico. The most junior officers on the desk would be. Powell, who liked to find small ways to send big messages, wanted to communicate that you could do important and interesting things early on in a Foreign Service career. It wasn't long before morale, retention and recruitment all improved.

Study hard, save a beach full of people...

From Aunt Nancy & Family's annual Christmas letter (all done in verse):

Machu Picchu
The destination of our most recent trek
Nanc and Em were joined by Bec
We hiked quite a lot
With a trail guide so hot
Who dug him most we could only suspect

(I'm doing this from memory, so is not uite right, I'll try to fix it tonight)

Next year's trek possibility: visiting Emily in Ecuador!

I had the hardest time waking up this morning. Actually, Apache was sleeping on my bed and breathing really heavily, and I swear she sounded like a baby screaming. Scream, cry, scream, and I tried to ignore it (like I had done for the last two days at dad's house). But there's something about that sound that gets under your skin, even when you're imaging it. Anyway.

I guess we're off to lunch. We're eating out a lot.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m., my plane departed Philadelphia at 6 a.m., I arrived in Houston at 9 a.m., and by 10:15 a.m. I was at work.

The exciting news is that it sounds like a week delay is the perfect amount of time for me to actually get desk space in the FDO office. Yeah! Now I can focus on the ironic problem I have to solve this week. I have to force this code I've been working on to output "good" results, so that I can use them to prove the code is "bad" and should never be used again. So basically, I am exerting an enormous amount of effort to make something work that will hopefully never have to work again after I'm done with it. Ah, the irony. But, it actually makes sense from an engineering perspective.

On the topic of irony... what's the most ironic thing that can happen to a hybrid car? Well, Nick S discovered it the other day. He pulled away from the airport and ran out of gas. Giggle. Great gas mileage, 1,000 miles to a tank, and he ran out of gas, and there wasn't enough juice left in the battery to roll to a gas station. (Don't worry, Toyota roadside assistance came and fixed him right up). The thought of it is still making me laugh.

I hate the ends of vacation. I start dreading the "real world." The Swiss (probably all Europeans) had the philosophy that any vacation must be at least 3 weeks long. You need a week to wind down from work, a week to truly enjoy your vacation, and a week to get yourself (and your mind), ready to go back.

My dad just made the kids sweet rolls. The baking sugar and cinnaman (ok, can't spell) smell so good. Its so sane and civil here when there's no psycho girlfriend around.

I'm actually about to buy plane tickets to come back. Apparently Aunt Julie, Aunt Mary, and Dad (and all associated family members) are going to Vermont for a long ski weekend on January 20th - Thursday afternoon to Monday morning, so I'll take one full and two half days off work. Its no west coast, but the prices are pretty reasonable and I love to ski. Anyone want to come along, I think there's probably room for one more? Its nice to have my annual leave reset and for a change I don't have all my vacation time planned-up for next year. Yeah me!

Oh, and in case you don't read all the comments on an entry, Maayan wrote to tell me she ran into Hans on her cruise. You know, Hans of high school boyfriend fame, the one who lived on a boat, flew airplanes, disappeared off the face of the planet about a month before I left for college and then called me out of the blue the day before I left, and was never to be heard from again (except for in a newspaper story 6 months later about his boat sinking). It was the weirdest end to a relationship ever, and trust me, I've ended my fair share of relationships (well, when I dated Hans, I called it a "relationboat because I wasn't too into commitment then. I'm still not, for that matter). Anyway, I guess he's engaged and was on the cruise with his fiancee. There goes one more "perfect" guy, though bizarre with his disappearing act, snatched from the realm of us singletons. Ok, enough reminscing.

Anyway, I'm off to drop off the car I've been using, and then do some shopping and then wind down for an EARLY flight tomorrow.

2005 is here. I had a great time last night at Aunt Mary's house. My Dad's whole family was there (yes, in one place)

There was one rude moment the whole night, but probably better to save that for my novel, rather than my blog. We ate, talked, gossiped, played numerous rounds of fusball, etc. Everyone left at around 11 p.m., so I watched the ball drop with three of my younger cousins who were the only ones who would stay up late with me.

The hit of the night were the statues my Aunt Mary bought for her Catholic coworker's children's confirmations (say that five times fast). They say "Jesus is my coach" and had Him, complete in white robe and sandals, playing sports with kids. The football one has a kid playfully tackling Jesus. You can't tackle Jesus!! My aunts had a good run of jokes about these things. Think one of the kids saying "No fair, Jesus is your coach! We only have stupid Mr. Smith coaching our soccer team" or "No fair, Jesus can't help you hold the bat!" Or check it out here: Jesus is my KARATE coach. Jesus playing karate?? Then, think of another alternative, for people's jobs. "Jesus is my lawyer", "Jesus is my accountant", "Jesus is my plumber."

My Aunt Mary had the football Jesus sitting on her desk at work for a little while, the one where the kid is tackling Jesus. She said she got a kick of watching visitors expressions when they tried to figure out why she would have this on her desk.

Ok, I may not be the most reverent person in the world, so I hope this entry didn't offend my more faithful friends. But these statues are just bizarre.

Well, tomorrow my two week vacation is over. Sigh. On Monday, I go back to work, which is making me a bit more anxious than usual for a multitude of reasons all related to my up and coming job shift. I'm trying not to be a type A person and just go with the flow of the change, but the lack of really knowing the details really bothers me. I don't deal well with things not quite under my control. Add to that the complete lack of a plan for taking a class Spring semester (my planned robotics class stayed scheduled, like the rest of the Mech E classes at my university, in the middle of the day, an impossibility given my schedule)... well, 2005 could start out with some more certainty than I currently have. I'm trying to be "zen" about it all though.