Spreading some Christmas cheer via the internet

Here, for you festive pleasure, is a nice online time-waster for the holidays.

http://www.vml.com/handbellhero

My only question is: where is Carol of the Bells, on expert?

Santa's Using Zebras Now

For all of those who read Clark's blog, but don't want to go to the trouble of googling up the lyrics yourself:

Santa's using zebras now
to pull his Christmas sleigh
'cause a boy in Africa
wrote to him one day.
"Santa please stop by," he said,
"and bring some toys with you."
Santa's using zebras now
south of Timbuktu.

Donner, Blitzen, all the reindeer
put him on the spot -
they were used to ice and snow
but Africa was hot!
Then some zebras came along
and they pulled Santa through.
Santa's using zebras now
south of Timbuktu.

See the pyramids to by
and there's the Nile below.
Watch out for that tall giraffe;
mustn't fly too low.
Hello hippopotamus
the season's joy to you!
Hello Mr. Crocodile
merry Christmas too!

As they gallop over jungles
lions stop and stare,
wonderin' what those zebras could be
doing way up there.
While the reindeer wait for him
back home in their igloo,
Santa's using zebras now
south of Timbuktu.

Meep! Meep mee mee mee moo.

I am going through a Muppet's Christmas Carol renaissance here, thanks to Carrie giving me the soundtrack last Christmas and Clark and Shannon giving me the DVD this Christmas. (They gave it to me early - very thoughtful of them - so I can watch it before Christmas is over.)

This movie is a big part of Christmas in the Blockburger household. Big part. Very important. ("Light the lamp, not the rat! Light the lamp, NOT THE RAT!")

Anyway, on the soundtrack there are two songs included which didn't make it into the movie. One is by Sam the Eagle, and isn't that great. But the other is a duet by Bunsen and Beaker, and it cracks me up every time. It's not the best song in the whole world, but the mere fact that it is Beaker singing it just slays me. Particularly on the high parts.

I really recommend listening to it if you have the chance.

I bought a Beaker doll at the science nerd convention, too. It's been a Beaker-filled holiday season thus far. In a good way.

Bad Idea

Don't order the garlic burger at Skybox. Trust me on this one.

Not worth it.

... or maybe not

Turns out I wasn't on Fox13 this morning. Which is just as well. (Darn you and your long-windedness, President Bush!)

TV appearances

I was on KZHT yesterday (sorry for forgetting to inform you in advance!

Today I was interviewed by KSL and by the Deseret News, about our Career Day. So look for that.

December 4th I will be on Fox 13 sometime during the 8:00 hour.

One last observation about Denver

Next post I'll be moving on, I promise.

The 16th street mall in Denver is home to 5 Starbucks. I can't remember if that figure includes the one inside the Barnes & Noble, or not.

Front Range Conspiracy

The state of Colorado does not want me to leave. I am beginning to fear what will happen the next time I go to Colorado and try to leave it again.

Last year, Colorado tried to keep me there by totalling my car. Fortunately, I was able to outwit it by flying home. This year Colorado was on to me.

Monday afternoon I sat in the lobby of the hotel, waiting for my shuttle to come take me to the airport. I had reserved the shuttle a week in advance, prepaid. I had the confirmation ticket in my hand. They were supposed to arrive at 5:00. I knew that I had scheduled it pretty tight, but was confident that I would get to the airport in time for my flight.

The shuttle never came.

The lovely concierge at the hotel, Brian, got the company on the phone and after 5 minutes on hold and being hung up on once, he determined that they were not going to come get me at all. He gave them all of the information for them to refund my money, and then flagged down another shuttle for me.

After stopping at a few other hotels, we set off to the airport. About halfway there (and remember that DIA is somewhere near Kansas), it occurred to me that I had no cash. Why would I need it? I had prepaid for my shuttle.

This shuttle driver only took cash.

So, upon arriving at the airport (quite late) I had to run inside, find an ATM, get money, pay the guy, collect my bags and head off to check in for my flight. Too late for the sky hop - but he directed me to the airline counter. Too late to check in on the kiosk - it logged me out and referred me to an agent.

The agent took one look at me and told me I had missed my flight. I, happy just to have finally arrived, agreed to be placed on standby for the later flight. I had never flown standby before, but people do it all the time. Couldn't be too hard.

Having now given up on the 6:45 flight (it was 6:10), I checked my bags and took a much-needed restroom break. I then casually headed for security. TSA was understaffed, with only two attendants staffing the x-ray and metal detectors. We had to load our own stuff onto the x-ray conveyor belt.

I put my shoes and tote bag in one tray, then took my laptop out of my bag and put it in another tray. There was a line of people crowding up to go through, so to save space I put the laptop bag on top of the tray, like I always do. Went through the metal detector, no problem. However, just as my second tray came out of x-ray, a third TSA person walked up and was informed of a problem bag. He took my tote with my shoes in it and started rifling through my tote bag. While he did this, I got my other tote and put the laptop back in the bag.

"Is there a laptop in this bag?"
"No . . . in this bag."
"Is there an iPod in this bag?"
"No . . . in this bag."
"I need to see that bag."
"No problem."

I gave him the other bag.

"You didn't take the laptop out of the bag?"
"No, I did. I just already put it back in again."
"Oh . . . that's a problem. I need to see the laptop."
"Okay, I'll take it back out."

I started unzipping the bag.

"No! There has been too much touching already! You need to step away."

Oh, dear. Now, this is the part where it was really good that I had already given up on the 6:45 flight. Since I had hours to kill at this point, I was willing to do whatever it took to make these guys happy, at their own pace.

"Hey Bob, these bags haven't cleared security. And now she's touched them and gone through them, so she hasn't cleared security either."

Oh dear, oh dear. Have I mentioned that we have been upgraded to an Orange Homeland Security alert level?

Bob, fortunately, is a reasonable guy, and he walked me back out of security, and then back through again. They re-x-rayed my bags and everyone was happy, and they sent me on my way. That easily could have become a very tense situation but they realized that they had sort of caused the problem so they sent me on my way. Good thing I'm not a terrorist!

Checking in done, bathroom done, security done and done. I head off to my gate, and hear over the PA system: "Passenger So-and-so, please report to gate A65 for flight xxx to Salt Lake City.

My original flight hadn't even left yet!

Whatever. I got some food, settled in, read a book for a while. About an hour before the flight, I asked the gate agents if I was going to get a seat. They took my boarding pass and told me they'd get back to me.

It makes me nervous to be at an airport with no boarding pass, but I'm sure that is always how it goes when you fly standby, right?

At 9:10 they started boarding. I still hadn't gotten a call and was starting to get a little nervous when finally they called me over and gave me a boarding pass with a seat assignment. I got straight on the plane. We finished boarding. We sat there, and sat there and sat there . . . finally, at almost 10:00, the pilot came on to announce that the passenger manifest did not match the boarding list, and now they had to go through ticket by ticket to match up who was on the plane and who was not.

This made me very nervous that they were going to kick me off the plane. (Stranger things have happened at the airports, recently.) I just wanted to go home! Why won't Colorado let me leave!

Finally, though, the plane doors were closed and we got on our way. It was a very bumpy flight, but we made it back okay and finally at 1:00 I was snug at home in bed.

But if I never go back to Colorado again - or, more importantly, never come back from Colorado again - you'll know why.

It's a conspiracy!

Religious experience

Today my breakfast order was taken by Zeus, and my food was served to me by Jesus.

Now that's what I call service!

Some DAM artwork

bernini bust of pope urban viii:

rembrandt: velasquez:

saw a wood copy of this michelangelo:

Formatting headache

If anyone can tell me why blogspot won't put spaces between my paragraphs, I'd really appreciate it. They don't seem to work no matter what I do.

More from Denver

So, I guess the trip to the US Mint is out for tomorrow, since it's a federal holiday. (Yay veterans!) I am not entirely sure what I am going to do with my afternoon, but I'm sure I will come up with something.

Today I did some work on the laptop in my hotel room, and then went to the ESPN Zone for dinner. The food is good, the staff is good, and it's a wonderful place to go and watch the Colts lose. (Who saw that coming? And Vinatieri missed two field goals? Seriously? And Peyton Manning threw six interceptions? Wow.)

It's not too often that Peyton Manning only scores 3 fantasy points. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Anyway, it's been a nice trip to Colorado, overall. I got here Wednesday for the National Science Teachers Association conference (read: Science Nerd Convention). The workshops were good, the free swag was okay (but how will I get it all home?), the abundance of nerd toys was great (I bought myself a Beaker), and I got to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

The DMNS is currently home to the Titanic artifacts exhibit, which is pretty cool. I thought it would be old hat (haven't we seen enough Titanic stuff yet?) but it was really interesting. They have a lot of old artifacts they found at the site of the wreck, including clothes, shoes, and papers. I can't fathom (pardon the pun) how those papers survived over 80 years under two miles of water, but they did. The exhibit is also set up so that you travel through the first class cabins to third class, ultimately ending up in the engine rooms before hitting the open ocean. They even have an enormous "iceberg" - a block of ice over 6 feet high and 12 feet long.

When you enter the exhibit, you are handed a boarding pass for the voyage, with all of the personal info of one of the actual passengers. Not until you are leaving the exhibit do you find out whether you lived or died. (I survived.) They also had actors playing several of the different people who were on the ship - one first class passenger would not talk to you if you had a third-class boarding pass. If this exhibit travels to your town, you should check it out.

Surprisingly disappointing was the Louvre exhibit I saw at the DAM. I guess gilded chairs just don't do it for me. The sculpture was very cool - everything from the Roman empire to Louis XIV - and the paintings were also very interesting. There was a Rembrandt, a Titian, bust by Bernini, a drawing by van Dyck, drawings by Reubens, some Duhrer sketches . . . I think I liked the portrait by Rembrandt the best. It's nice seeing some stuff I learned about in art history up close and personal, too.

So tomorrow it's back home. I'll try to post some pictures sometime this week, since I think I got some good shots at the DAM.

Greetings from Denver

Hello! I finally got the computer to talk to the wi-fi at the hotel, so now I can blog from Colorado. I'm sure you were all very concerned.

Anyway, I just flew into Denver on Wednesday, and boy are my legs tired! I opted not to get a car on this trip, and as a result I have been walking everywhere. On the one hand, it is good exercise. On the other hand, my legs are tired. Of course, this is much better than DC because in DC everything is much farther away than it appears, and in Denver everything is much closer than it appears.

One reason for the rather large amounts of walking is my general desire to reconnoiter. I like to know where things are in relation to other things, thus making it much harder for me to get lost. So every day I took a different route to the convention center, just so I'd know what was there. I walked to the Denver Art Museum down 16th street and around the park, but came back through the park. I walked all the way down to Market street on 16th, but came back to the hotel on 15th (I recommend 16th). I have walked the entire length of the 16th Street Mall twice.

Another reason for all the walking is that I have a hard time deciding where/what to eat. I'm really bad at picking a place to go to lunch at work, and I am equally bad at it when I'm by myself. I think I did laps on the 16th street mall for over an hour the other night before finally settling on Chili's.

I know, I know. I'm a little ashamed by it but I stand by my decision because the honey chipotle chicken crispers are really good.

I wish I weren't here all by myself, as going out to eat is so much better when one is not by oneself, but I'm adjusting. Tonight I have scouted out many other fine restaurant chains to dine at, including: Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Chang's, Chipotle, and Subway. Hmm . . .

Tomorrow, since I already visited the museum today, I plan to do some work in my room, then go to the ESPN Zone to watch football. Monday is a bit more up in the air, since the weather is supposed to take a serious turn for the worse. I am going to try to go to the US Mint, but may just hole up at the Corner Bakery with the laptop. (They sell Swiss oatmeal for breakfast! Name one other American restaurant that sells that. I dare you. Oh, it's so good. Why did I waste two days of breakfast on Einstein's?) I fly back home on Monday evening, and then it's back to work on Tuesday.

Another Halloween idea

Spicy guacamole Pringles make my lips swell up. I don't know if it's the salt or the spices, but they do. Try it at home! If it works, you can be Oprah for Halloween next year.

UEA

I went to the UEA convention on Tuesday. Not very exciting, I gotta say. I think the National Science Teachers Association convention next week will be much more interesting. Science teachers have all the fun toys.

But, having gone to the conference (really, just the exhibitors hall - no workshops), I now can make the perfect elementary-school teacher costume for Halloween next year. It's easy!

• Festive, holiday-themed jewelry
• Festive, holiday-themed sweater
• fold-up milk crate with handle and wheels (sold by 3 exhibitors - the deluxe has a drink holder) - fill with bulletin board borders, phonics books, die-cuts, Crayola swag
• Glasses on a lanyard around your neck (jeweled lanyard extra)
• Diet Coke
• Chalk or white board eraser-tray line across your backside
• Ink stains on fingers

Blueberry muffin tops

I was meandering down the cereal aisle at the SuperTarget last week when a cereal brand caught my eye: Blueberry Muffin Tops. Intriguing. I like blueberries, blueberries in cereal, muffins, and muffin tops in particular. Sounds like a win-win! Also, it's a Malt-o-Meal cereal so it's one of the cheap kinds in the bags. Target is good for bagged cereal. Their cereal aisle is so big, they have lots of room for bagged cereals.

Anyway, I bought the bag and I have to say that they're pretty tasty. They do taste just like blueberry muffin tops, so they're true to advertising. My only problem with them is that they are very similar to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. They have the exact same consistency and mouth feel - in fact, they could have been called Blueberry Toast Crunch and it would have been just as true to advertising. Anyway, we all love CTC but is has a major failing: it kind of makes you sick if you eat more than one bowl. BMT cereal does the same thing.

So anyway, it's a good cereal. It's tasty, but gets soggy fast and I don't recommend eating more than one bowl.

David update

I know all of you were watching my friend David on Jeopardy!, but just in case you missed it . . .

Actually, you know what? If you live in Salt Lake, you never saw David win. His first appearance was on a Friday, and KJZZ preempts Jeopardy! on Fridays for high school football. Then there was a week off for kids' Jeopardy!, and David was back on the 15th. KJZZ then preempted Jeopardy! again for a preseason Jazz game. Then David was on Tuesday, but he lost.

He really went for the gusto, though. He bet all of his $11,000 on Final Jeopardy, but didn't come up with the right answer and ended up coming in third (parting prize: $1,000). I was yelling "Adam Smith! Adam Smith!" at the TV, but since he was several hundred miles away and the show was actually taped in July, it wasn't of much help.

Well done David, though. I will be eternally jealous that you get to call yourself "two-time Jeopardy! champion." I will also be jealous of the $30K+ that you won, but maybe not eternally.

Anyway, you can catch all of David's Jeopardy! time on youtube, if you follow the link from a few posts ago.

Go Pats!

Sunday's football game between New England and Dallas was really good - perhaps made better by the fact that I wasn't watching it all by myself. A few small critiques, though:

1. Why did it seem that the Patriots couldn't tackle anyone? They totally blew getting a safety in the second half, and it seemed like there were a lot of Cowboys who were able to shake off tackles. A little troubling from such a dominant team.
2. Fantasy football makes watching football much more stressful. I co-manage a fantasy team that includes Patriots players Sammy Morris and Wes Welker. Sammy Morris ended up getting injured in the middle of the game and went out, which meant he wasn't scoring many fantasy points that day. Fortunately, or so I thought, Wes Welker was having a career game, running for over 100 yards and scoring two touchdowns. Good news, at least until my co-manager texted me during the third quarter to lament that he had benched Welker this week. 25 fantasy points, down the drain! I think I'm going to be double-checking my rosters on Saturday nights now, to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Best Home-teachee ever!

Today my home teachers came over to watch the Patriots game. A good time was had by all.

I think there is a good chance that I will be home-taught 4 times per month. :)

Yay for David!

My friend David was on Jeopardy! today - and won! I didn't get to watch it, so I'm excited that I'll be able to see him next Monday (the 15th - kid Jeopardy is next week). Yay!


You can watch it on youtube. If anyone can tell me how to imbed that, I would appreciate it.

The trouble with blogs

I've decided that the hard part about blogging is that you feel compelled to have something interesting to say. And most of the time . . . I don't. Sure, it was easy last fall, what with the crashing of the car and the whole insurance debacle and all that. But these days, I'm pretty much settled down into a routine. I go to work. I go home. I try and find something I want to eat. I watch Scrubs. Maybe read a book. Next day, I do it again.

Well, so much for that.

Hand another victory to The Man: Floyd Landis was found guilty today and got a 2-year ban.

Will he appeal to the CAS? Stay tuned.

Well hello there.

I figure that after two months, it's about time to post something on the ol' blog again. Partially, this is to see if anyone still checks it any more - which, after Carrie's comment on my last post, I don't think they are.

I'm also trying, a little bit, to get Clark's Grammar Nazi to come over here and reveal his or her identity. I'm not going to do that by deliberately making grammatical errors, but I figure that my complex sentence structure leaves plenty of opportunity for inadvertent mistakes. At least this thing has spell check, right?

I don't really have a good excuse for why I haven't blogged in a while, though blaming it on the exasperating Tour de France seems as good a reason as any. That thing sure was a mess, wasn't it? The doping rumors surrounding the winner, Alberto Contador of Discovery Channel, have died down, but the whole doping circus continues unabated. Jan Ullrich is getting swept back into everything again despite having retired, and the wolves are out for him because under the statute of limitations they can still revoke his wins. Bjarne Riis, now sport director of CSC, admitted to doping during his Tour win but did it enough years ago that they can't actually do anything to him now.

We are still waiting to hear who is the official winner of the 2006 Tour de France. The Landis affair seems to be a never ending thing. The whole "trial" happened in May and the verdict should be out this week. It will be interesting to see what the result turns out to be. No rider who has gone before the panel has ever been found innocent. I think, however, that Floyd and his attorneys made some very compelling points about the accuracy and competency of the lab in question - enough to introduce "reasonable doubt" as to the veracity of Floyd's test results.

The whole Greg Lemond issue I am not going to touch, even with a ten-foot pole.

It's all a mess, really. It's even so bad that sponsors who have been in the sport for years are starting to fall away. T-Mobile ultimately decided to stick with it, as has Astana (currently the dirtiest team, in my opinion), but the big shock this summer is that Discovery Channel/Tailwind Sports is throwing in the towel. Current champions of the Tour, winners of the Tour 8 times in the last 9 years (several as US Postal Service), champions of Tour of Georgia and Tour of California, winners of the Vuelta and Giro, holders of the US National Champion (George Hincapie) . . . gone. This is the team co-owned by Lance Armstrong.

If Lance Armstrong is giving up on professional cycling, something is wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. And I don't know what it is. I don't know how to fix it. But I'm troubled. How far back do we have to go to find a Tour winner without an asterisk next to his name? How far down the placement list do we need to go to find the "clean" winner? Why don't UCI and WADA get along? Why can't French labs seem to do anything cleanly? Why can't the UCI and ASO get along? Why am I investing so much energy on this when football season has already started?

These are the mysteries for the ages.

p.s. I started a sentence with "and." Sue me.

Oh, I GIVE UP.

First Astana, then Cofidis. Now this.

Rasmussen removed from Tour.

Rasmussen fired by Rabobank; team may not continue Tour.

la dopage

Clark said...
Somehow, even though this post is 8 days old, my RSS aggregator just barely got to it. But, now I'm relying on you for some good detail and analysis. Team Astana is gone? Why? I understand that Vinokurov failed a test, but why would the rest of his team drop? Didn't Kloden still have a chance?Another topic: I've heard this argument made in Floyd's defense: "Why would he dope and win if he knew he was going to be tested? It makes no sense!" I agree. It makes no sense. So then, can we make the same argument for Vinokurov, or is he really that dumb?It seems like the argument makes logical sense, but then tons of people are out there proving that they are just dumb enough to dope and win.

Okay. Now that a day has gone past, maybe I can get some coherent thoughts together on this one. I was devastated, devastated, when I got this news yesterday. My favorite Tour racers from 2005 (Armstrong, Basso, Ullrich, Hamilton, etc etc etc etc) were all out this year - retired or doping - and Alexandre Vinokourov seemed like the last great hope. Yes, Leipheimer is a good guy, but Vino seemed to be the one with the nerve and the skill to win this thing. He's had a podium finish before. He got locked out of last year's race. Last time he was here, he won on the Champs Elysees - a sprint stage! He just went out there and won. Because he can. Because he wants it more.

Saturday's time trial seemed to prove my point. Here's a guy who has stitches in his knees, losing to his teammate, and he went for it. No holds barred, a one-man race to the line and he wins the day. Moxie. Followed, the next day, by a catastrophic failing on Plateau de Baille and losing half an hour. Is the man out? Why no, Monday he goes for individual glory, having already literally waved goodbye to his chances for the overall win. So he goes out and clobbers everyone. Beats them into dust. He's a new man.

Fatefully, I turned to my friend and remarked: "This is so reminiscent of Floyd last year. Don't count the man out. He will come back to make you pay."

24 hours later, he's persona non grata at the Tour - both him, and his team. Gone. Stripped of wins (pending B sample results), out of the Tour, probably finished. He's 33. You don't come back from a 2-year ban that starts when you're 33.

So reminiscent of Floyd.

Actually, this mess wouldn't be possible without Floyd. Yes, Floyd had a sample come up positive after a win. But his whole team didn't get instantly removed from contention. Without last year's doping mess, this year's [over?]reaction wouldn't have happened. Kloden would still be in there, in the top 5, racing for glory with his broken coccyx.

Almost as devastating as the doping, almost as damaging, is that he went about it in the most stupid way. For a year now I've railed against Floyd's positive result. Why would you dope and then set out deliberately to win the stage? You are guaranteed to be drug tested only on three days of the Tour: the first day, the day you win a stage, and the day you wear yellow. The whole point of Floyd's resurgence last year was to win the stage and get back yellow. The whole point of Vino's Saturday was to win the time trial. Both of these guys knew that if they did what they had set out to do, there was a 100% chance of getting tested that day. 100%.

That has led me to protest for 12 months that Floyd must be innocent, but now . . . Vino not only kicked the sport while it's down, not only made Rasmussen's job that much harder [more on that another time], but dragged whatever chances Floyd had down with him. Floyd's done now, thanks to Vino. There's no way arbitration is coming back in his favor now.

Edited to add: Another one bites the dust.

For further viewing, go to http://www.velonews.com/ and watch their video interview with British cyclist David Millar (convicted former doper) from yesterday afternoon, right after Millar heard the news.

le Tour

...because la Tour is the Tower.

But I digress. Clark's been blogging a lot about the Tour in the last week, and it's been a while since I've posted here, so I thought I'd put down a few thoughts.

The Tour this year has been really interesting, partly because no rider in this year's Tour has ever won before. It's wide open. No defending champion is riding - in fact, there currently isn't a defending champion at all, since Floyd Landis still has not been declared the official winner from 2006. But that's a story for another day.

Without Floyd ('06), Lance ('99-'05), or Jan ('97), the peloton is a bit empty. We're even missing CSC sport director Bjarne Riis ('98) because he decided not to come to the race this year since he admitted to doping during his winning year.

As a result, the peloton seems a little lost. No one rated a real GC (general classification) contender has been putting in attacks. No gusto. No guts. Again and again during yesterday's stage, the announcers questioned why no one was dropping the injured Vinokourov and Kloden (both major talents on the Astana team). Why the GC contenders all huddled together on the mountain.

So here we are on the first rest day, only one day left of the Alps, and it's all a muddle. The Flying Chicken is in yellow, of all things!

[Side note: two years ago when Danish rider Mikael Rasmussen first took the lead in the King of the Mountains competition, he got the polka-dot jersey. In following days, he later added polka-dot shorts, helmet, sunglasses and bike to the ensemble. Goodness knows what the man will do with yellow.]

So who do I think will win? I have no idea. No one seems to. It would be nice for Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) to win, adding to the American winning streak, but I don't think he has it in him. The most dangerous man still riding is Alexandre Vinokourov, but he's riding with 15 stitches and his man backup man has a broken coccyx. It remains to be seen whether he can really come back from his stage 5 crash to win the whole thing, but if gambling were legal, that's where I'd put my money.

The thing about Vino' is this: he's nuts. He came in third a few years ago. He's won pretty much everything else. In 2005, he won the (usually ceremonial) final stage on the Champs Elysees, just because he can. I mean seriously. That stage is 60 km of chitchat followed by a sprint. And he's not even a sprinter. Then in 2006, he wasn't allowed to ride because too many of his teammates were DQ'd for doping. That's got to make him mad. He's out to prove something now. Keep an eye on him.

One last word: poor T-Mobile. Yesterday they lost three guys - and yellow! One withdrew as planned (this was his first Tour, and you don't always plan on finishing your first) but two others crashed out. Team leader Michael Rodgers rode bravely after a bad crash on a mountain descent, but ultimately had to face up to the fact that you can't ride up mountains with a dislocated shoulder. Then, after the stage ended and everyone was heading to their hotel rooms, his teammate Patrick Sinkewitz* crashed into a fan on the road, fracturing his cheekbone and putting the fan in a coma. All of this just 24 hours after Linus Gerdemann, a 24-year-old T-Mobile rider no one had ever heard of before, went out on a breakaway and won the stage along with the yellow jersey. C'est le Tour!

Another famed rider, Stuart O'Grady, also crashed on the way to the hotel, breaking his ribs and puncturing a lung. Maybe next time these guys should wait for the team car, no?


*last name unspellable; all names in this post are approximate.

KSL

What time to you all arrive in Utah on the 29th? Because I will be on KSL TV some time between 11 and 12. I probably won't be talking, but I will be holding an owl.

IKEA

Everyone in town has been tingling with excitement - IKEA is here! People actually camped out the night before the store opened to be the first ones in. I can understand the excitement, but camping out for furniture (which they're not going to sell out of) is a bit crazy.

Anyway, Blake, Cameron, Linda, Cathy and I made our pilgrimage last night to check out the store and see if it really was that cool. And: it is. Wow! I want all that stuff! And it's an incredible amount of stuff, too: 310,000 square feet if I'm remembering the newspaper articles correctly. That's twice as big as Cabela's, for those of you keeping score at home.

We didn't get there until 8:00, and the store closes at 9:00 so we only had time for brief reconnaissance. But first order of business was dinner so we headed upstairs to the restaurant before it closed at 8:30. I had vegetable soup (forgot my cash except for $2, and soup is $1.69) that was very good. Linda and Cathy had poached salmon, Cameron had a chicken Caesar, and Blake got the Swedish meatballs. Everyone thought it was great, and cheap. You have to clear your own tables, but that's how they keep costs down. They are very good at informing you throughout the store on stuff that they do to keep costs down.

Anyway, the furniture is very neat but most of all this store has thought of everything. Hands full when you walk in the store? Use a convenient locker. Got kids? Drop them off in the supervised play land. Need a sturdy bag? Use one of ours! Bag got too heavy? Borrow a fold-up hand truck! Need a cart? They're on the first floor, so pop on the elevator! Want to know if this will fit in your house? Here, we have paper measuring tapes in metric and standard! Want to make a wish list? Grab a golf pencil and paper! Please note that there is a map of the store on the back of the paper, so you can write down the coordinates of the thing you like. Hungry? Please, stop in the restaurant, or bistro, or Swedish foods store!

Really, it's like they thought of everything.

Another cool thing they have done is to have set up a few model homes. Each has a bathroom, front room, bedroom and kitchen decked out in neat IKEA stuff, and on the outer wall they tell you exactly how many square feet it is. So you can get an idea if the stuff you want will fit in an apartment that is 579 square feet, or 340 square feet.

So anyway, I'll go back some time for dishes or cushions or a tiny couch or something. All I've bought there so far is the soup, and Linda got cinnamon rolls for all on our way out. (Hot and fresh, at closing time.)

This couch is very comfy.
This chair, with the footstool, is perfect for dozing off.

Wild About Wetlands!

Whew! The wetland exhibit, she is finished. It about killed us, but it's done. Pretty much. Still some finishing touches to put up, but finished enough to be open and up and running.

If I haven't been writing or calling you back lately, this is why. Working 80 hours per week isn't fun. But we took the building from totally empty with white walls on the 16th to open to the public on the 26th. Not too shabby!

Photos:

Linda finished painting the heron at 2AM on the 26th.

Every zoo should have a sea monkey exhibit, don't you think?

Tell me now, who am da man?

I rock! Yes, that's right. Me. Rocking.

We had some little baby snakes get loose at work several months ago - October and February - and went missing. We all assumed they'd perished in the winter or wandered off somewhere. Well, last Friday night I was walking to my car after an after-hours event at work. It was dark out; about 10:00. Suddenly, my cell phone begins to ring. It's Alex, who was walking down from the front gate with Elliott and Brindi when they saw a small snake on the path. I told them to keep it in sight, dumped all my stuff in my car, and ran over to where they were.

Brindi was using her cell phone as a light to watch the snake, which was curled up at the base of a tree. I had thought that maybe it would end up being a garter snake or some other wild snake, but no! It was one of the missing gray-banded king snakes! While I was still trying to register all this, he began to crawl away. Without even thinking, I grabbed him by the tail and picked him up.

It was very much a Crocodile Hunter moment, me holding the cranky snake by the tail, and trying not to get bit. I took off running for the reptile house - Alex, Elliott, and Brindi following close behind. I managed to get the door open with my right hand, and then threw a pillow case at Elliott so he could hold it open for me.

Success! Single-handedly brought in a snake, months on the lam. Granted, I'm not the one who spotted him, but I did catch him. Anyway, I called the curator of the zoo who instructed me to put that pillow case in another pillowcase in a locking snake carrier in my office, to make sure he wouldn't get out again before the vets could pick him up in the morning.

The next day, the vet came and got him, pronouncing him to be in excellent health. It also turned out that he was the one who escaped in October, meaning he'd lived out there for almost eight months before we got him back. What a guy. Now if only we could find the one we lost in February...

Raison Cookis

On sale at Smith's today! They tast grayt.

Here we go again

Okay, I will be on 97.1 KZHT Friday morning about 7:00 or 7:15. I will then be on 98.7 around 8:15, which I think also includes a Fox 13 live spot at the same time.

I will then be in a pre-recorded spot on 98.7 on Monday morning, but I don't know what time since I recorded it already.

Victoria Day

Last Monday, the 21st, was Victoria Day. I found it fitting to celebrate with donuts, Legos, and Victoria.

40 degrees

I was watching the news yesterday, and the weather person said that it was 40 degrees cooler at that time than it had been 24 hours earlier. 40 degrees! I was just getting used to hot weather, and now we're back to jackets again.

But the rain was restful and needed. So that was good.

More strange things afoot at the Circle K

Okay, all of you physicists and chemists and engineers out there. What on earth would cause my ice cubes to form like this?

These were from two consecutive trays of ice I made over the weekend. The spikes aren't from drips; rather, they appear to have grown upward.

last night's news

If you missed it - and you may have, since they edited my part down to half a second - you can watch it online.

The News Authority

I will be on TV tonight, on channel 5 (KSL) for a story about our baby orangutan, Acara. It's supposed to air on the evening news, and then a longer version for the 10:00 news. So if you're into that kind of thing, there you go.

Apartamente Nuevo!

Okay, since the last post has kind of left you all hanging for the last week, I'd better elaborate on it a bit.

Last year, I decided that I would move out and get my own apartment some time during 2007, since my car was going to be paid off in the summer. Well, then my car got totalled in October and things were a bit of a mess until the end of the year.

I gave it a lot of thought, and even though I will have a car payment for a while now, I decided that I would still move out in 2007. It is time. The question then remained: when? In the spring, before the crazy summer season? After the crazy summer season? At the end of the U semester, when things are available? After the IKEA store opens on May 23?

So I got an apartment guide and started looking around online, just to determine what was out there and for how much. I don't want to spend my whole paycheck on an apartment when I could still be at home for (almost) free, so I was looking at the low end of the scale. Trying to avoid a studio apartment, that got a little tricky.

So I was passively looking through stuff but not actually going to visit any actual apartment complexes when someone at work told me that a 1-bedroom unit was coming available in the house she lives in. I called for more info on it, and the landlord invited me down to check it out on the first. It was okay, but dirty because of the previous tenant. She was cleaning and repainting, and deciding whether to replace the carpet, and said she'd get back to me.

Two days later, she offered me the apartment. Quandary! I don't have any stuff! IKEA is still 2 months off! What to do?

Well, I decided to go for it. It would be hard to get that much apartment for that little money elsewhere, and it is actually (21 blocks) straight down the street from work. Hard to beat.

So the apartment will be ready after the 15th, and I need to get ahold of a bed and some other furnishings so I can move in. It's in a house, 807 S 500 East, and I have a bedroom, front room, bathroom and kitchen. I share the back yard with another apartment, and I have access to free laundry through my co worker's apartment. I can walk to the park or to Trolley Square, and Smith's is just 3.5 blocks away. People at work have already offered me a table and chairs, two bookcases, an end table, and a $100 couch.

Movin' on up, to the east side

Apartamento nuevo! Not very glamorous at the moment, but it's still being cleaned and repainted.

Put me on the DL

I pulled a hammy! I've always wanted to be able to say that.

Turns out that was a foolish wish, because it's really not fun to have a pulled hamstring. Particularly when you can't take any anti-inflammatories. Plus it's way awkward trying to find a way to stretch this particular muscle.

The fridge

Just your average day at work for us.

The saga of the ant farm

I got a nifty cool ant farm for Christmas. It's the same kind they use on the space shuttle! Instead of using dirt, it's filled with a cool blue gel that the ants can both dig in, and eat. A pretty nice all-in-one deal. They use this on the space shuttle because the tunnels in the gel don't collapse during takeoff.

Since I got it in December, I wasn't able to fill it right away. Ants are a bit thin on the ground in the winter, and they weren't able to ship any to me until the weather got warmer.

Then, in March, things began to thaw and I noticed that I had ants in my office at work. They ran around on the walls mostly, but soon found my tiny flower pots on my windowsill and attempted to move in. These pots are about 2 inches tall, so not much room there for an ant colony. They'd work all day, transferring one grain of dirt at a time out of the pot and onto my carpet.

These ants, being much larger and seemingly more industrious than the average sidewalk ant, seemed ideal for my ant farm. I began capturing them for relocation. Once I had about fifteen, I put them in my nifty cool ant farm.

Where they promptly fell asleep.

These ants were so boring. The first several days they just hung out, cleaning their antennae and attempting to escape when I'd add a new batch to the mix. The first eight actually did escape - I put them in and then went to a meeting, and while I was gone they crawled out the air holes and got away. A little masking tape solved that problem.

Eventually they did dig a tunnel, all the way down the corner of the container, straight down to the bottom. When they hit plastic down there, they must have been a little disappointed, but they didn't let up on their new found industry. Instead, they found that there was a tiny gap between the bottom of the container and the gel, and began wiggling their way in to explore. Unfortunately, it was a small gap - even for an ant - and the ants would become lost underneath the gel and weren't able to find their way back to their tunnel in the corner.

One by one, all of the ants ventured down the tunnel, never to return. You can see them there still, dead where no one can reach them.

Perhaps when it gets a little warmer I'll send away for the fancy mail-order ants. We'll see.

Citing irreconcilable differences, Suzanne and Elliott split amicably

Reuters - After 8 months of dating, Suzanne and Elliott recently broke up, citing irreconcilable differences. In the heartfelt discussion, Suzanne and Elliott decided that the relationship had been "strained" for some time.

The long relationship was the first for Elliott, 25, and second for Suzanne, 27. Her first relationship was with Justin and ended after six weeks. Suzanne and Elliott first started going out in August of 2006, after having worked together for a few years. News of the union stunned fans around the world.

One aspect of the breakup that raised a few eyebrows was that in spite of the fact both Suzanne and Elliott have vastly different ways in which they approach the world, they reserved the right to remain "close friends" and still see each other often. Elliott is the only child and sole heir to the estate of Paul Zgraggen.

It's here! It's here!

Allergy season! Hooray! I feel like maybe I'm going to die.

Flickr

Dad's on Flikr now. Can you guess which pictures he posted, and which ones I stuck on there while I was figuring out how to work it?

New hairstyle?

Trying out something different. My hair looks very choppy when it's straightened out.

Leftovers

Some leftover Valentine-y pictures. A card for Elliott, and a hippo for me.

Not a heathen

Just to clarify. I may have a Starbucks cup on my desk this morning, but it's a tall hot chocolate with cinnamon. I love Starbucks' hot chocolate.

Logan

Logan is a funny town. It seems to be a pretty good size, but it definitely has a small-town mentality. We were on 7th south talking to someone, and she asked where Rebekah was staying. Rebekah replied that she was at the Hampton Inn, and the girl responded "All the way on the other side of town!?"

Um, no. The one by the Chili's.

"All the way on the other side of town?!"

Well, I suppose. Technically, out of town, in North Logan. But really. It only takes seven minutes to get there. But it was really funny.

Also, Logan has tons of restaurants. Tons of 'em. Everywhere. And they're all empty! We went to Ruby Tuesday (motto: Everything Served With a Side of Broccoli!) and it was pretty empty. Perhaps because they think that "medium rare" means "make sure it's still cold in the middle." But I digress.

The next day, we got sandwiches at lunch. Again, half full. That night, Chili's. Packed at 6:00, right? Nope. Half full. Next day: Subway. Empty. That night, Olive Garden. No wait.

Next lunch? Cafe Rio (way on the other side of town!). Now, Cafe Rio is always, always packed in Salt Lake. Some times you're lucky to get in the building. The line snakes around like you're waiting for Splash Mountain or something. In Logan? No wait. No line. That night we got Thai food, and we only saw two other full tables.

Where do all the people in Logan eat? At home? Then why are there so many restaurants? How do they all stay in business?

It's a mystery.

So busy!

Where does all the time go? It seems like I have something scheduled all the time now. Meetings, evening outings, trips, full-day retreats, dinner appointments . . . unfortunately, no time for hair cuts! Or laundry. That's becoming a bit of a problem.

Last week I was in Logan from Monday to Friday. Logan is a quaint little town; very nice. Main street in the center of town still looks the way it always has, since like the 50s. Cute little storefronts. Once you get two or three blocks away from Center Street, things open up more to the typical mini-malls that you're used to everywhere. And the temple is very pretty up on the hill.

I stayed in the Comfort Inn, which delivered pretty much on the comfort, but goes down in the books as Worst Hotel Towels Ever. One of them was unraveling, and they all smelled like the swimming pool. Which means they wash them in bleach, thank goodness, but still. Also: no wireless internet outside of the lobby. Our room was about 50 feet away from the computer in the lobby, but no luck. So the Best Western in Canon City was much better in that regard.

Three of us from work were attending the Certified Interpretive Guide training at the Willow Park Zoo there in Logan. If you happen to be in Logan, do stop by. It's on 7th south and a bit west of Main Street (4th west? I don't know) in a city park. Admission is $1.00 (50 cents for kids!) and it's a cute little zoo. Mostly ducks, but they also have emu and wallabies and bobcats and coyotes. They coyotes make quite a racket when they play.

I think Willow Park Zoo only has 5 employees, but the four I met were all very nice, and very good at what they do. They're all very committed to their animals and their jobs. You should all write letters to the newspaper in Logan and tell Logan how good they've got it.

Interpretive Guide training was very dull - most 32-hour training classes tend to be, but I picked up some good tips there, and I should hear back soon on the results of my written test and outline. I'm pretty sure I passed.

We drove straight from Logan back to work on Friday afternoon to do our last evening of the Valentine's class, Mating Dances and Wild Romances. It was a smaller group, since several couples that had signed up to come ended up staying home sick. Then two staff people also had to go home sick, so the class pretty much ended up being the Suzanne and Chris show for three hours. It could have become very interesting there, as we had been up very late the night before working on our CIG presentations, but I think everyone had a good time and things went well.

Then, when I got home, Carrie and Lauren were there! They were actually there the whole time I was gone, so I was happy to be back for a couple days before they had to leave. Lauren is a very cute and very happy baby. So low-maintenance! Lucky Carrie and Clint.

Then, after dropping them off at the airport on Monday, I had to go into work to put out some fires that had developed while I was out of town. Tuesday was an all-day retreat (breakfast through dinner) that was long, but had good discussions and is now over. Yay!

So here I am at work again, trying to get back into a routine and get caught up on everything that came in while I was gone. March looks to be just as crazy as February ended up; so much for the off-season!

March

In like a lion, out like a lamb. Right?

Please complete this sentence:

In like a sheet of ice, out like ___________ .

Oh, and another thing

Another Great Achievement from my posting hiatus: five stars on an "expert" level song on Guitar Hero. Beat that, Clark!

Don't Panic

I will be up in Logan from the 19th to the 23rd, getting trained as a Certified Interpretive Guide by the National Association for Interpretation. So if I don't post any blogs, don't panic!

Scouting

Seems like Clark always has fun nerdy stuff that I want to comment and expand upon. When he posted that he had found the OOTSSOERAAAP, it became my new "greatest thing ever!" for the day. I am surprised, I have to say, that Clark doesn’t list himself as earning that many badges. They’re all so loosely defined, I figure I qualify for about a dozen of them. Here’s how I see it:

The "talking science" badge.
Assumes the recipient conducts himself/herself in such a manner as to talk science whenever he/she gets the chance. Not easily fazed by looks of disinterest from friends or the act of "zoning out" by well-intentioned loved ones.

Considering that I have ruined dates in the past with discussions about water surface tension and the gory details of the Ebola virus, I'm a shoo-in for this one.

The "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, I've got a TV gig" badge.
In which the recipient plays a significant science performance role in TV. This badge is nullified if recipient is always shown wearing a lab coat.

I don’t necessarily have a regular gig, but I’ve been on TV a lot. I’ve wrestled a giant African pouched rat on live TV, and was wrangling an armadillo on Wednesday. Surely that should count?

The "arts and crafts" badge.
Because you can't have a bunch of badges without an arts and crafts badge. This one assumes the recipient has all manner of "craftiness" with a science geek twist.

I'm not well-versed in the girly arts, but I do make origami elephants…I make food chain paper chains…

The "I'm pretty confident around an open flame" badge.
Recipients have demonstrated proficiency around open flames in laboratory settings.

Self-explanatory. Looks like a Young Women's award, doesn't it?

The "destroyer of quackery" badge.
In which the recipient never ever backs down from an argument that pits sound science over quackery.

Do not even TRY to convince me that Intelligent Design is actually science. You won’t win.

The "sexing up science" badge.
In which the recipient has had experience with things such as selective breeding, crossing, mate selection, prokaryotic conjugation, fertility studies, STD related microbiology, and/or any other acceptable interpretation of the badge.

Please see my post titled "I'm not dead."

The "I've touched human internal organs with my own hands" badge.
In which the recipient is "hopefully" doing something that is somehow related to human health.

Human Biology 260, anyone? I think a full semester in the cadaver lab is more than adequate for this badge.

The "has frozen stuff just to see what happens" badge (LEVEL I)
In which the recipient has frozen something in the freezer for the sake of scientific curiosity.

Ah, the infamous Twinkie, Cupcake, and Peeps Failure Testing.

The "dodger of monkey shit" badge.
One of our self-explanatory badges.

Um, yeah.

The "inordinately fond of invertebrates" badge.
In which the recipient professes an arguably unhealthy affinity for things of this category.

It’s not for nothing that the kids at work call me "the bug lady."

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge.
In which the recipient knows what a tadpole is.

Check.

The "I'm a scientist who is fundamentally opposed to administrative duties" badge.
Presumably a badge with a consensus even stronger than that seen in the global warming arena.

Boy, if I never had to do personnel paperwork again, I would be very happy.

Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, as I'm sure you were all made aware. I think the constant onslaught of jewelry commercials ("He went to Jared!") should have been adequate warning. Hopefully now Jared and all of his jewelry compatriots will take it down a notch. Or twelve!

Gah, I hate those Jared commercials. They have basically no redeeming value. Okay, the radio ones aren’t so bad. Not much worse than, say, the Shane Company commercials. But the TV ads are just annoying. "Hey," the ad people must have thought, "I know who will make great spokespeople for our product! People everyone can really relate to! Professional ballroom dancers!"

"Oh, I don’t know, Bob. Is there any way we could make that commercial better?"

"How about an INREDIBLY ANNOYING tag line that can be repeated in totally obnoxious tone of voice by every person in the commercial?"

"Gee…that means we have to pay them all for having speaking parts."

"Trust me, Stan. It will be worth it."

Ugh.

Actually, regarding Shane Company commercials – I kind of like them. There’s something very reassuring about Tom Shane and his general demeanor. This is not a man who will try to rip you off. He won’t pull a fast one on you. He’s barely awake enough to read the ad copy, for goodness sake! But really, I think the Shane Company commercials are the best jewelry commercials, except maybe those old de Beer’s commercials with no talking at all, just that "diamond commercial" music. You can hear it in your head right now, can’t you? A diamond is forever.

So anyway, yesterday was Valentine’s Day and I actually had a date! Amazing, I know. We all thought this day would never come. If you want to know who won the Westminster Dog Show, I can’t tell you. For a change.

But I digress. Elliott and I went out for dinner and a movie. He picked me up at home, and came bearing roses! Beautiful red roses! I’ve never got flowers before. When I woke up this morning my whole room smelled like roses. So nice. I think I would have taken them to bed with me if they were cuddly at all.

We went to Café Trio for dinner (site of our first date, though at a different location because the downtown location had an hour and a half wait), and then to the Century theaters on 33rd (also site of our first date!) for a very long movie after 10:00 at night (also like our first date! Kudos to Elliott!).

Side note: Elliott is wicked good at Ms. Pack Man.

Side side note: Why is it Ms. Pack Man, and not Mrs. Pack Man? Mr. and Ms. Pac Man do get married in the game and start having little baby Pac People, do they not? Such are the mysteries of Namco.

To bring everything back full circle, the movie we watched last night was Blood Diamond. I had wanted to see it for a while, ever since we saw The Departed and Leonardo DiCaprio was very good in it. He’s very good in Blood Diamond too, even if the movie does seem to be about three years long. It’s a compelling story and brings out lots of good points and isn’t too preachy all the time, and is only marginally cheesy at the end (that could have gone very cliché very easily, but didn’t) . . . but . . . I think they could have tightened it up a bit in the editing. How many times do we have to see the main characters be attacked by rebels? How many minutes of footage do we have to watch of people walking all the way across Sierra Leone? It’s beautiful country, but I think a lot of that could have been trimmed without hurting the movie at all.

This is also the third movie I’ve seen wherein Leonardo DiCaprio plays the hero and then (spoiler alert) ends up dead at the end. Oh Leo, will you never win?

Anyway, it’s a pretty good movie. If that’s the kind of movie you like to watch, you should watch it.

I'm not dead

Okay, so it turns out that the absolute best way to get people to make comments on your blog is to not post anything. Good to know.


In response to all of your inquiries, no I am not dead. I'm still here, the weather is not high of 30 and low of 21. I've just been busy working and going out, and haven't taken the time to update here. Sorry! I didn't know you all were so interested!



Anyway, here's a little rundown on my busy life. I was on 97.1 KZHT on January 26th to promote our "Mating Dances and Wild Romances" class that we teach every Valentine's Day (or thereabouts). In this class we teach all about how animals flirt, about pheromones, sexual dimorphism (the differences between sexes - i.e., antlers), coordinated breeding between zoos ("computer dating"), etc. etc. It's a really fun class, catered dinner, tons of fun. I was on the radio with "The Morning Zoo" for about 10 minutes. By January 29th, the class was full! We added a second day. It's full! So we added a third day. Incredible. It's about 1/3 full so far.



To really appreciate how remarkable this is, two years ago, we couldn't give away spots in the class. No one was signing up for this thing. Now I think we could teach it every weekend in February and it would go.



Anyway, so this morning I went on KSL TV to promote the third night of the class on "Studio 5," which is the station's morning chat show. You know, on right after Rachael Ray. They have a cooking segment. You all know what kind of show I'm talking about. We (the PR girl and I) took the armadillo with us and did a little segment with one of the hosts to plug the class. So hopefully it will fill up - fingers crossed!



My segment of the class, by the way, is the pheromones bit. I get up there and act all goofy (very Eddie Izzard-ish) explaining how the different types of pheromones work. I think all of this stuff should earn me a badge! I hereby award myself the "sexing up science" badge.

If nothing else, I think I have earned that one through breeding Dr. Jeffery's fruit flies.

"That's very punk rock."

This winter, I was noticing that my purse was very dirty. That is, visibly dirty. We all know from horrible, terrifying email forwards how truly dirty a purse can be. So, I decided to toss it in the wash. That's one of the side benefits of owning a nylon purse. Very washy.

Anyway, in order to wash it, I had to remove all of my bug pins. Those of you who have seen me in the last year or two know that my purse has been covered in many jeweled bug pins, to keep it from looking so boring. (And because I like sparkly things, and bugs.) A bunch of them had come off recently and needed to be repaired, so taking of the rest wasn't so bad.

However, once I got my nice clean purse out of the washing machine, I decided not to put the bugs back on. Instead, I put on some pins that I had got at Christmas time.

And so I give you - The Weather Purse. (Eat your heart out, Mark Eubank!)

Now, the obvious downside here is that I have to update it every day. (Well, in theory. We've been stuck in a weather rut here for a little while.) But I think it looks like fun. It's still suitably nerdy like the bugs were, and Danger Boy says the pins look "very punk rock."

Pictures!

I told you that I'd load a lot more pictures once we switched to high speed at home.

Behold - I have baked cookies! They're delightful and delicious.

Everybody Loves Elliott

Everybody loves Elliott on his birthday. Probably more than he wants them to.

Tragedy!

Tragedy today, as I discovered that there was some sort of error with the memory card in the PS2. All of the stuff saved in it has disappeared! That means all the high scores, all the saved games . . . all of the Guitar Hero careers . . . my 5-star performance on "Heart Shaped Box." On HARD.

Sigh.

So, when you come to visit, I'm afraid you'll have to start over. So I guess the good news is that since you're already pretty good at it, your low scores will be pretty high, and you'll look better than you really are.

As we say in the radio business, that'll sound great on the radio.

For those of you in the Salt Lake/Ogden/Provo area, I will be on the "morning zoo" tomorrow morning at seven on 94.9 KZHT. Wish me luck - this will be my first encounter with Danger Boy.

Fingers crossed, I'll be on Radio From Hell next week. Here's hopin'.

S-M-R-T

Sometimes I wonder how smart people really are. Take, for instance, this email from the BYU Alumni Association:

"BYU Athletics will honor the 2006 Western Conference championship football team with an a autograph signing on the concourse level for a half hour beginning at 5:30 p.m. The team will also be honored at a half time celebration with video highlights, trophy presentations, and remarks from coach Mendenhall and other members of the team."

So . . . we're honoring Boise State? Wuh?

Did they mean the Western Athletic Conference? The Mountain West Conference? Logic leads me to the latter option, since that's the conference the BYU actually belongs to. But you never know . . . Boise State did have a great bowl game.

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K

It's ridiculously cold outside. Just ridiculous. Count yourselves lucky, those of you in St. George and Texas and Colorado. Today I was trying to wash the salt off my windshield at lunchtime and you could see the water freezing instantly on the glass. Really pretty patterns, but not exactly what you'd call encouraging.

Actually, I was downtown for lunch today and it was snowing hard. It was very pretty - big, fluffy flakes drifting down between the tall buildings. Then we drove back to work, and it was like someone flipped a switch at 5th east. Snow just stopped like there was a wall. By the time we got back to work, it was blue skies and sunny.

In other random news, we just got a bunch of new stuff at work to use in education classes and such. You know, nerd toys. One of these is a model of DNA. It's about 18 inches tall, a nice double helix with all the base pairs, etc. Only problem is, the phosphate chains along the outside are represented by strips of rubber. And the rubber stinks. You know how brand-new rubber things are when you get them. Smelly. So now my office stinks like DNA.

Robot Roll Call

I know you're out there! Occasionally, someone will reference something I've written here. So I know you're out there reading this. So just leave me a comment, let me know who you are.

Please?

Boredom is a funny thing

Here is what happens when Suzanne stays home sick for a few days over Christmas and is, in general, under stimulated.

Don't judge me!

Shiny!

See, things really are a lot prettier after it snows. Snow is nice.

I'm afraid that Alex did end up having to drive in it and to shovel a lot of it.

The absolute worst thing

I was talking to Alex today, and I said that I wish it would snow. Seems like if it's going to be cold, it should at least snow. Otherwise it's just a waste of cold. Snow at least will pretty things up a bit and make everything sparkly.

Alex disagreed with my idea initially, but then relented a bit and said that he didn't mind if it snowed as long as it didn't he didn't have to shovel or drive in it.

Which brings me to my main point here: what, in your opinion, is the worst part about winter? I know usually we all try to dwell on the positive, but it's January and we're in a post-holiday slump here. If you're going to succumb to SAD, you should at least post about it online, right?

In my opinion, the worst part of winter is the dirtiness. All the dirt and the salt and everything just seems to build up on the snow, leaving a film on your lawn when it melts.

What do you dislike most about winter? You can only pick one thing.

Slacker

Well, it's the new year and everyone's back home again from all their holiday travel. Going back to work, seeing the piles of stuff there is to do . . . calling in sick, hoping to extend the holidays just a bit . . .

Oh, I kid. Though it is tempting.

I'm back at work, which means I'm back to reading everybody else's blogs again. (DSL cannot show up too soon at home.) I must say that Adam and Shannon are really making the rest of us look like slackers, what with their 4-7 posts per day. Or is it that they are the slackers, and we are the ones getting stuff done at work? Hm?

Anyway, I felt a little duty-bound to produce something bloggable. Here is is: I like Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory caramels. And the almond clusters. Ooh, and their bridge mix. Their bridge mix is the best - it's not just raisins and nuts like all of the other bridge mixes you'll find out there. It's full of good stuff. Next time you're in an airport out west and you need a snack, pick up a bag.