Facial Recognition

Over at myheritage.com, you can upload a picture of yourself and it matches you with celebrities that look like you. I'm not sure about this, as I don't think that I resemble any of these people. Brian thinks that the Sally Field photo is 'almost eerie' in its likeness.



Just for completeness, I tried to match Sadie's face. No luck. I thought maybe Lassie would be in their celebrity database...

Eight Miles!

In three days, I have made a miraculous recovery from my head cold. So miraculous that I thought that I would try to do some running again today.

Wowee! I ran eight miles! (I keep spelling it out because it seems so much more significant that way than just typing the measly one-character 8.)

I have to say that eight miles is about twice as hard as 7.3 (my previous longest distance). I feel pretty good though. And I have a really neat fine grit of salt all over my face that I keep trying to lick off.

Now I have a step-back week (where I decrease the number of miles I run so that my body can recover) and then start stepping up again to a maximum of 10 miles! I can't believe how far I have come in the last two years. And to top it off, I am injury free so far.

The tortuga conquers!

Sick

Boy am I clever. When I posted "Jet Lag", I didn't even realize that I was using the literary technique of foreshadowing. I am so clever that I missed it until now.

Friday I flew back from Germany, in a race with the cold developing in my head. I woke up Friday and thought that my throat felt a little funny. I thought maybe it was the overload on cigarette smoke that always gets my sinuses in an uproar whenever I am in Europe. By the time I was flying over Nova Scotia, I realized that I was developing a full-fledged head cold.

Landing at the Dallas-FortWorth airport was the second most painful thing I have experienced. Second only because I had to take off again about an hour later. I kept checking to see if blood was pouring out of my ears yet but I made it home with eardrums intact.

Being sick is pretty awful. The only good thing is that I don't feel as guilty when I sleep for 12 hours, wake up just in time to go to Taco Bell and finish eating just in time to go to bed again.

Jet Lag

I got back from a one week trip to Japan last Wednesday.
I am beat.
I don't know why I do just fine heading out to any place on Earth and then die when I get back.
I mean, I spent 26 hours traveling to Misawa, Japan and I woke up the next morning feeling fine. I spent the next week going to bed at normal times and waking up at normal times. Everything was great.
Then I came home.

For some reason, now I can't fall asleep at night and can't stay awake during the day. I'm taking melatonin at night so that I can sleep but after 10 hours of enforced sleep, I wake up feeling like I need to sleep for another 10 hours.
I shouldn't be complaining, I could be sick on top of jet lag. Then I would know that I am definitely not superhero quality.

Flagstaff

This is Brian (or at least his feet) after he ran a super fast half marathon at 7000' elevation. I ran the 5k and couldn't imagine running another step. They sure don't have a surplus of oxygen up there. My lungs felt almost bruised after this one.

Optimism

When I started out on my jog this morning, it was 75.1 degrees F and 61% humidity. Hardly conditions to be ecstatic about. But this is almost 10% lower humidity and 5 degrees cooler than it has been in weeks past. Combine that with the fact that there was pretty good cloud cover and a slight cool breeze, and I was grinning.

This summer, I'm supposed to be running six miles on my long runs (Sundays). As Brian points out, I completely made up that rule. I'm not denying that. Most days for the past two months I've been lucky to eke out three miles. Today I was finally able to do 5 miles. I am ecstatic!

After two months of just not feeling so great after running, I had again started wondering about the hidden heart defects that I had that were making this so dang difficult. I was sure that the next day I went out I was going to keel over dead because there must be something wrong with me; this... shouldn't... be... so... HARD!

Today at the 4 mile mark, the sun came out, I turned so the wind was at my back (and I couldn't feel it) and I started to get hot. Really hot. My heart rate started to climb. I decided that I would not run the full six miles. But I was still smiling. Because now I remember that it does get better. I can do this. I will do this.

My, Are Those Cello Eyes?

Surprisingly, I am not the instant world-wide cello playing sensation that some would have expected of me.

When I first started playing, 20 minutes daily seemed sometimes like a very long time. I would swear that the next time I looked down, there would be blood pouring from my left fingertips and my right shoulder would be entirely detached from my body. Lately it seems that 20 minutes goes by in a blur. Often, my first notice of the clock during my practice sessions reveals that 40 minutes have already passed.

Now if I could only figure out how to keep my rosin covered fingers out of my eyes, I could continue to read music for longer than 40 minutes.

CELLO!

This is me playing the cello (or pretending to because Brian wanted me to look at the camera). I have wanted to learn to play the cello for a long time and finally this past week I went and rented one.
I love this age of technology... My music stand is there to my right (the bed) and behind me is my laptop with ITunes which is playing accompaniment to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. The only other thing needed is my cup of Propel and I'm off and running, or cello-ing that is.
So far I can play: Jingle Bells, Old Macdonald Had A Farm, Twinkle, Matthew's March, Christopher's Tune, Hot Cross Buns and Au Claire De La Lune. Of course, all these songs have their squeaks and moans but I'm definitely making progress.

Brian's Studying Chair

Brian got a new chair to study in. Now I get my chair back so that I don't have to sit on the exercise ball! 

SINKS

Even rarer than DINKS lately, this couple has become SINKS.
Brian started summer school at Pima to do some review for his big return to UofA. This time he'll be enrolling as a chemistry major. I wish him luck and admirer his energy.
As for me, I'll hope for some homework-less weekends this summer and fall so that we can still do some fun stuff.
I'll probably be reading a serious amount soon so welcome all book recommendations (except mysteries that is :)

(First) New Furniture!

Isn't it awesome? The above includes our Todd Oldham vinyl couch as well as Sadie's new pink shag bed (so she wouldn't be jealous).
The below is our new recliner that is really cool except for the head grease pad which I had to put on to make Brian mad.

Bird Nest

That's adorable, right? A dove nest on our neighbor's back porch.
Wrong, it's funny. Those clear plastic things are bird spikes, they're supposed to gouge the birds in case they try something like this.

Evaporative Cooler

Brian and I finally installed an evap cooler. Now we're enjoying ice cold air on the cheap!

Daruma

The thing in James' arms is a daruma. I just like the picture. You're not going to get an explanation.
So Brian is criticizing me for not giving an explanation, I'm just going to give a link here to his highly up-to-date and complete blog: http://brianzacher.blogspot.com

Sadie's Easter Bunny?

The morning after Easter, I went out for a little jog and when I came back, Sadie was eagerly trying to put this cute little bunny ON my feet. Sadie was so proud of herself she could hardly contain her excitement. She was wiggling around like she didn't have any bones in her body. I assume now that what I was doing to avoid getting the bunny put ON my feet looked much the same. After much cajoling, I convinced Sadie to put it on the patio and to come inside with me so that I could give her a treat for being such a good dog.
Finally I worked up the nerve to go outside and discard the poor bunny. I grabbed a broom and dustpan and slowly approached. I was dreading having to try and move what I thought would be an icky, squishy bunny into the dustpan. When I prodded it with the broom, the bunny was as hard as a rock. Rigor mortis was fully in effect. I discarded the bunny and then went inside to try and stop squealing.
That's when it hit me.
Sadie was a bunny-catching imposter! There is no way she could have just killed this bunny and for it to already have full rigor mortis. Since she was asleep in the bedroom with me up until 45 minutes prior, she could not be the murderer. Phew! My dog didn't kill a harmless bunny. But what she did was much worse. She was taking credit for the neighbor cat's handiwork.
I have to say I'm ashamed of her. I thought she had stronger integrity.
Sorry about the ickiness factor of this story. But aren't you glad I didn't make you think too much about the part where my dog goes and picks up an hours old bunny corpse?

Easter Eggs

My mom came down to my house for easter. I love dyeing eggs but for the last few years, those little tabs that you dissolve in vinegar have been hard to come by. I just keep finding these fancy kits like the sponge kit that we used here. Not as stinky or messy and thus, not as much fun.

Kevin got married

I just keep falling more and more behind on this blogging stuff.
Kevin got married back in late March. He was so nervous, excited and goofy.
They both looked like they had a lot of fun that day and I think that this guest did as well.
Happy marriage Kevin and Marti!

Lost Dutchman Race February 19, 2006

I can't believe that I forgot to blog about this!
This is Denise, Brian and I after we completed the Lost Dutchman 10k (or half marathon in the case of Brian).
It was a beautiful race with perfect race-day temperatures. That is, after the sun came up it was beautiful temperatures.
This was the first time in my life I have actually trained for something physical. I never participated in sports when I was growing up so had never had the experience of trying to improve my performance.
For this event I actually had an 8 week training schedule and except for a 3-day travel episode in the middle of week 4, I stuck to it. It was a tough schedule but it was intended to improve speed.
It seemed to work. I improved my per-minute mile time by 1 and 1/2 minutes!!! Although I can't maintain that training intensity all of the time (I was beat most nights toward the end of training), I am excited to keep trying periodically to boost up my training level and see what results.

Taipei 101

This is the world's tallest building. There is no way to capture how big it is unless you ride the world's fastest elevator to the top of it (1010 meters/minute ... so clever) and look out at how small the 50-story buildings are all around you. 1,667 feet tall, it is amazing in every way.
The tower was opened on New Year's Eve, 2004. This building could be cut off from the rest of the city and still run autonomously. The entire building is outfitted with fiber communication lines but has its own satellite communications system were the connection to ground communications cut off.
The first 6 floors of the building is a mall with movie theater and the best food court I have ever seen. Of course there is McDonalds, Subway and KFC. But there are several udon noodle bowl places, a really good Indian counter, a Mongolian grill, a sushi bar, and several other places that I couldn't name which region the food hailed from.
We saw a movie the last night that we were there. That itself is another experience. We walked up to a machine that is a lot like an atm. We picked which movie we wanted to see and at what time. Then we picked the seats we wanted to sit in and any concessions that we wanted (butter, soda, etc). Then we swiped our credit card and about twenty seconds later had little slips of paper that we turned in for popcorn and entrance to the theater.
I think the Taipei 101 was the best part of Taipei.

Snowmobiling

At the beginning of March, Brian, his parents and I traveled to Winter Park Colorado. The purpose of the trip was for Brian and his dad to do their practice ski run. The ultimate goal is to ski some amazing place in Banff Canada for several days (I think). However, since it has been several years since Brian skiied and maybe more than a decade since his dad has, they thought they should practice. Barb and I went for fun and moral support should it be harder than they were expecting.

So it turns out that skiing was fine and they skiied one lovely warm day but the next day, we all decided to go snowmobiling. That was awesome! It was the first time I had been on a snowmobile so I was quite surprised when I found out that I got a cush seat and even hand warmers. This was the way to do "cold weather sports".

We rode the snowmobiles up to the Continental Divide and back down for about a total of a two hour ride. It was a blast. It was really sunny so we got lots of icy patches on the way down to slide around in.