Thursday, June 30, 2005

High Financing

I'm going to a conference in Denmark in August (yay!) and have been making plans this week. Registration for the conference cost $400, and the plane tickets were another $1100 (a 10 hour trip! we fly through iceland!). My credit card snapped in half on the last one, but hopefully all the paperwork will get worked out and I'll get reimbursed in a timely manner. I still have to pay for the hotel, transportation, and possibly also meals while I'm there so I'm breaking the bank on the reimbursements, too. This is one crazy expensive conference (the conference I went to in Madison WI two years ago cost about $450 total).

Meanwhile my boss has promised to submit my paper TONIGHT to the very prestigious journal PNAS. If it gets rejected, we may find out by tomorrow. If it goes into review, I'll get drunk on champaigne this weekend and celebrate. If it gets accepted, I'll extend that into a 7-day drunk, then I'll go on a boat trip to seek revenge on the giant shark that killed my friend (Life Aquatic ref).

Also, after My Naked Co-worker bragged about the tuna stuff her husband made last night I had to have some myself and I did, and it was fantastic and rocked my whole night.

Tomorrow, we're going to Iowa to celebrate the Fourth as a true midwesterner should - in the middle of a cornfield, being eaten alive by bugs, spitting watermelon seeds and shooting off the Missouri-bought firecrackers.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Blogs are a-Happenin'

I posted a bunch of new recipes on the Recipe Blog, and am almost complete with the hard copy of my Recipe Book (based on all my husband's cooking) for my cousin, who is getting married this fall. Hopefully you'll all have plenty of time to cook this weekend so you don't fall too far behind.

Revenge of the Yoga Mogul and the defeat of the toilet

Last night my yoga teacher decided he was going to seek murderous revenge on all of us lowly students in his class. In addition, I had made the horrible mistake of going running just prior. Needless to say, I slept so soundly last night that when I woke up to go to the bathroom at 4:30 am (a regular event), I did it with my eyes closed - a huge risk considering the high chances of falling asleep on the toilet. I found myself back in bed when I woke up (slowly) this morning, so I must have defeated my evil toilet's wrath, even with my eyes closed.

Moral of the story: watch out for murderous yoga teachers and quietly vengeful toilets, that both lure you in by making you think you need them for something but then get you when you least expect it.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Score 1 for Hydrogen Cars!

A lot of people have been wondering whether it takes just as much energy to make hydrogen fuel for hydrogen cars as is already burned by traditional cars that use oil (gasoline) as fuel. A study this week in Nature says that yes, carbon dioxide emissions may be the same for both types of cars, but:

"the problem with the internal combustion engine is not just its carbon dioxide emissions. It also produces poisonous carbon monoxide, smog-inducing nitrogen oxides, and ozone, an eye and respiratory irritant. Worst of all, it creates microscopic soot particles that cause a host of health risks and affect climate. Moreover, fossil-fuel vehicles tend to concentrate these pollutants in areas of high population density."

Score 1 for hydrogen cars!

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Weekend Review: June 24th

Weekend Review:

Friday night: stuffed myself blind at Chipotle, went to a NEW MOVIE THEATER and had a look around, bothered our good friend about calling a boy, sacked out

Saturday: Taught spin class at YWCA way too early, came home and took a nap, went out on the town a little bit (including lunch at the Midtown Farmer's Market), came back with a new bulb for my 1989 Toyota Camry front right turn signal, discovered the whole turn signal has rusted into a mass of bulb, screws and socket, went to hardware store and complained about it for a while, got a drill bit that's supposed to drill into a stripped screw (cool!) but it didn't work, gave up, went to a grill-out, got lost and confused and showed up over two hours late, came back and watched a weird movie (A Dirty Shame), sacked out.

Sunday: Talked to my mom three times on the phone, spent two hours doing dishes (but it was the first time all week), taught spin AGAIN too early AGAIN but biked there which was fun, stopped at the lab to throw some things around, ate some good Mexican and banana bread made by my Studly Hubby, did some blogging, made out with our neighbor girl, watched Family Guy, sacked out.

And here comes the week!

Movie Review: Motorcycle Diaries

Great!

Movie Review: Batman Begins

Fantastic!

J & D's Recipe Exchange

I've made a new blog! It's a recipe exchange blog. The husband (D) has created and found some truly fantasmic must-try recipes that I feel obligated to share. My cousin is getting married soon and my family is making a recipe book for her (tradition), so I will be typing all the recipes up over the next week and posting them on the blog. If you want to post one, feel free (I will copy it over to a post if I deem it worthy).

New Blog: http://jdrecipeblog.blogspot.com

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Sweatin' in Minnesota

We're having a June heatwave right now - it's 90 billion degrees out, in the shade, with your pants off. I tried to go for a run but my iPod proved too heavy to carry and I slipped twice in my own sweat.

Other news:

1. The mulberries are here! The mulberries are here!

2. My presentation yesterday was a trainwreck due to too much technology (yes, it's possible). With my two hands, I had to figure out how to hold a mic, a remote for the power point presentation, AND a laser pointer, and at the same time resist the urge to break out singing You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman (since that's what you do when you're holding a big mic like that). Despite all that, I got good feedback and hopefully I'm ready for the road now.

3. I recently remembered an interesting finding from about a year ago: what we called "smoking up" in Iowa is called "smoking down" in Texas and "smoking out" in Michigan. Does this have to do with the geographic location of each state in relationship to Missouri? I haven't yet heard the term in Minnesota so I'm not sure what it's called here - but if it's in reference to Missouri then it's most likely "smoking way up."

4. We've been enamored with the Scrubs DVD's. They're very good. I have a theory that every TV show is a million times better quality when you remove the commercials. I even started to like Buffy when I watched it this way.

5. Poison ivy has consumed my arm, and it's not even July 4th yet. I returned to the farm about a week and a half ago and although I never touched any poison ivy, I think I looked at it wrong or it knew I was there or something because it GOT me. I have to forgive it each time however due to its generous involvement in getting my mom and dad together for my conception.

6. I enjoyed some lovely bluegrass on the lawn of Northrop Hall today over lunch. I went with my boss and his wife, and another graduate student from the lab. We had a jolly good time. When I told my boss' wife who I had inquired about doing a post-doc with, she made a face and said "don't believe anything he says about me!"

Links Updates

I've updated my links list, I put a few new blogs on there. I put up a link to the first blog I've become addicted to that's written by a person I've never met, Aja. She's probably the cheeriest blogger I've ever heard of and the thing that keeps me going back is that she's an Animation Mentor student in the class above my husband, so is giving a play-by-play of what it's like from the cheeriest perspective you can imagine. Plus, she's got a good sense of humor. I am not sure however if it's an invasion of her privacy to link to her blog without asking her permission first...?

I am still looking for blogs I abhor. If you find one let me know. I have already found a few political ones I abhor but I don't want to turn my blog into a war zone so I avoided putting them up.

My links list is also a work-in-progress. I'm sure I can come up with some more if I just have some time to chew on it. I did dig up a website I found a while ago of an old classmate and friend of mine, Mose Hayward. He's apparently written a book that is due to come out soon that looks very interesting, it's about the craziest careers you can think of doing. The thing I liked most about his website, though, was that in his bio he spoke of lingering nightmares about forgetting to go to P.E. class in high school. As far as I can tell, all of us from City High are having these same lingering nightmares, and I think we should band together and sue them for the four years of mental torture that was the result of their crazy 6-day P.E. schedule that nobody could ever figure out. Anyway I didn't put his website on my links list because again, I feel like I should ask his permission before I violate him like that (and his email address has disappeared off of his website now). I may still change my mind though.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Werk Schmerk

Things are moving at work. I am writing a paper, which we are hoping to publish in a prestigious journal. I turned in a second draft today for my boss' perusal. I also heard back from the guru in Seattle who says yes, there is an open position for me that will start right when I'll be ready, but watch out, there are other strong candidates clamoring for the same piece of the pie. I was disappointed to hear I had so much competition at first, but then realized later that it's all good - the competition verifies to me that it's a good lab to be in, and the timing of the position opening is a real stroke of luck. I am also giving a very short presentation tomorrow, and I will present my new, exciting, potentially prestigious data, and look forward to getting feedback on it.

It's also my studly hubby's first day of school today, which he has been excited about for a month, and he's at his computer right now 'attending class'. Whoo!

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Juneteenth Weekend

We had another fine June weekend (or Juneteenth weekend as a Texan I know called it). We mastered pogo sticks, demolished several old buildings, burned down an entire forest, got makeovers, and ate some good food (particularly the salmon we BBQed Sat night, thanks to my naked co-worker and her husband). My husband created a fantastic blog but the blog put on an angry face and threatened and blackmailed him so he hadn't posted anything yet... until the Big Massacre happened this afternoon and the blog was defeated and a post was put up.

Happy Father's Day!

Saturday, June 18, 2005

My Studly Hubby

My studly hubby has joined the blog ranks, but his purpose is more application-oriented; he's joining a group of Animation Mentor students that all have blogs and use them to post and get feedback on each of their assignments. He will also most likely comment on class and possibly life and maybe even sometimes me so it might be good to check it out every once in a while.

Also, my studly hubby is a studly graphics guru so my blog may be spiffing up a bit over the next couple weeks. If it doesn't, go ahead and complain about it on his blog.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Ego feeding

My husband recently did a favor for my aunt, who is a famous musician that lives in NYC (where she can be the most famous). She was very happy about the favor (it was a poster depicting her and her very famous band) and emailed this back:

"oh wow let me tell you that nephew-in-law of mine is so cool"
"oh really"
"yeah. did you see my new poster?"
"you mean that really cool 8 1/2 x 11 one?"
"yeah. Derek made that"
"NO, Get out!! really??"
"yep. he's married to my niece, the microbiologist. She's a genius too."
"WOW, you mean you are actually related to these amazing people?"
"oh yeah, I hang out with them all the time"
...real life conversation, New York City, 2005

Clarity

Wow, nice find CTG. Steve Jobs truly is incredible - I would have liked to have heard that commencement speech at Stanford. My favorite part:

"Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

Thursday, June 16, 2005

My LiFe

I'm all caught up in trying to figure out where to go next with my life. I just emailed somebody today in Seattle that I'm interested in working with, but realized immediately afterwards that the CV I sent him had a blatant error (I forgot to add the references that I said I was going to add in the email). In the business world, that would mean I was dead in the water, but in academics everyone is spacey like that so hopefully it'll be ok (this is why I want to stay in academics). Anyways, we'll see.

A good friend of mine just emailed me a web link for a site that she later warned has some offensive content (reader beware) but I thought it was rather interesting. It's about how sugar feeds into the same receptors in your brain as heroin and other horribly addictive happiness drugs. I've heard this from people doing research on this topic (we're all funded by the same training grant, it's a craniofacial thing - the relationship is weak but really it's there). Anyhow the whole idea is that sugar, in it's raw form, isn't something we evolved with and now our body doesn't know how to deal with it - we think we need it so we are addicted but really we don't and that's why America is so fat.

My husband went to a conference this week in Minneapolis called Flashbelt. He reported back: good stuff, although some computer nerds aren't the best speakers (but science nerds aren't always either). I wonder whether a conference in Communication or Public Speaking would be very good.

Summer is here full-blast and it's been beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I'm eating ice cream all the time and getting allergic rashes all over from mysterious sources. I think I also got a little tan, which means turning a shade more red (or maybe that's just the rash). But, you gotta love it and you gotta keep going out there.

Happy summer!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Cow Analogy

There is an interesting analogy that has been posted in our lab ever since I started. Nobody knows the source. It appears to be some sort of description of different types of governments based on a language understood by most midwesterners. Feel free to banter amongst yourselves about whether it's true and/or add on if there is an important one missing (i.e. LIBERTARIANISM).

FEUDALISM:
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

FASCISM:
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

TOTALITARIANISM:
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

PURE COMMUNISM:
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

APPLIED COMMUNISM:
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

DICTATORSHIP:
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

MILITARISM:
You have two cows. the government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:
The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "cowgate." The cow sues you for breach of contract.

EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other one and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Rainforest Update

I got some feedback from a few Iowa City natives who are getting rather tired of the rainforest idea. There's a blog about it that I previously referenced (and quite a few more I'm finding), and I was recently made aware of an interesting twist in the name of that blog - rather than being called a Rainforest Park, it's being called a Pork Forest by these blog people. Why? Perhaps because they are making fun of it in the twisted way Iowans do? I'm not sure, and since I don't live there anymore, I can only ponder. The government has been advertising this adventure with the name "Iowa Child" apparently (it was originally going to also be home to an elementary school), and an interesting article titled Leave No Iowa Pork Child Behind seems to bring together the Pork idea with the Rainforest Theme. The bloggers are apparently are just calling it a "boondoggle."

Back in Minneapolis, the first we heard of the Rainforest was in a recent Star Tribune article, and the folks around here seem to be rather excited. These people get fanatically crazed over the State Fair, though. The State Fair Craze has gotten so out of hand that the state is thinking about passing a law that prohibits all schools from starting until after the state fair is over (after Labor Day). That State Fair is pretty good stuff though, especially the deep-fried Twinkies on a stick (not fried Twins players, but fried Hostess Twinkies on a stick).

On a completely different topic, the prestigious journal Nature published an article on an alternative fertility treatment for men. It's a bit riske, but if you're interested, just go to the article itself. I want to get it out there in the open in case there are people who are wondering.

Iowa Ups and Downs

We just got back from our trip to Iowa last night. It was overall a good trip, but had a lot more ups and downs than usual:

Ups:

1. We saw Derek's whole (maternal) family, and didn't even have to stay in a hotel or eat bad food. Derek's mom made dinner Friday night and we ate at our favorite Mexican restaraunt Sat night, El Ranchero. We also got to eat at the Hamburg Inn on Sat morning for a classic Iowa City breakfast (those of you who were fans of the Chill-N-Grill, it exists no more - however, Taste of China is still going strong.
2. The weather was great, despite bad predictions (never trust weather predictions)

3. I got to spend some quality time with my mom, my brother and my horse.

4. We took both Friday and Monday off, so the vacation was extra long and extra nice.

5. Derek is at a conference today (Tuesday) that he didn't need to be at until 9:30, so we got to sleep in

6. We saw a HUGE rainbow on our drive back (no pot of gold or skittles, however, they both appear to be rather elusive)

Downs:

1. My mom's horse revealed his nervous side in full blast and she has finally decided to sell him - since she has only had him a year she isn't too attached, however it is a pain in the neck to sell a horse and was a hard decision to make.

2. Since my mom is selling her horse she has to decide now whether to continue with horses and manage a farm by herself. If she decides not to, then I have to find a new home for my horse, which is an incredibly difficult move (although may actually be easier for me than for her, since giving away my horse will probably mean giving up riding forever).

3. My mom's beautiful Samoyed dog, Lady, disappeared on Sunday and hasn't returned - she may have been picked up by some stranger looking for a pretty dog! We're very sad.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Here we go!

We're off to Iowa today to visit our family. We'll be sure to tell everyone that our friend over in Cincinatti is really T.O.'d about the rainforest. We're taking some organic soy milk and oatmeal and stopping to hug some trees on the way down so it should be a fun trip. We may start a war with the libertarians while we're down there since they're obviously arrogant Wal-Mart preservationists.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Of Stand-Up, Wal-Mart and Rainforests

I got feedback from my sweet but too honest husband that my stand-up act would be a bit of a letdown. He thinks I need practice in front of a real audience. Who needs a real audience when you have a blog!

A friend of mine has been blathering about Wal-Mart and something about his republican viewpoint on business strategies. I'm proud of Wal-Mart and the niche they found, and know people who have been happy to work there, so I'm not too against it personally. However, the massive chunk of land that was developed in Iowa City by the super-Wal-Mart, the mall, all the houses that want to be near the mall, and all the businesses that love the mall and Wal-Mart are starting to get under my skin. That used to be a very pretty field of corn that somebody made a lot of money off of, and now it's concrete, ugly houses and a big fat Wal-Mart. What kind of a beautiful city did we live in again?

On a different note, Coralville is planning to build a gigantic rainforest (and there's a blog about it! with pictures! and space to post your comments!). I guess since they scraped up all the corn fields and trees and replaced them with houses and Wal-Mart and a mall, then they feel they need to make up for it by creating some sort of indoor nature park (but not a cornfield, that would be boring). I like nature, and being indoors is nice in the winter, so I guess I'm not against it. Everyone in Minneapolis is a little confused though. Why in Iowa? they say. What the...? they say. Let's go to the Mall of America, then Wal-Mart! I hear there's a new one by the Mall of America! they say.

Stand-Up Act I

I've always wanted to do some stand-up comedy, but haven't been able to cultivate a good series of jokes mainly because I usually forget them as soon as i think of them. I was recently lamenting my lost stand-up career and decided that I'm am going to document my good jokes on my blog so that maybe they won't be lost forever. At least this way, if I don't ever repeat them in a stand-up act, they will live forever on my blog, appreciated by a few people who may read it (thanks, blog readers, for your loyalty and enthusiasm).

So here's my Stand-Up Comedy Act I (based on personal experience).

I was at work the other day, and carrying my timer around with me so it wouldn't go off while I was out of the room and bother everybody. I had to go to the bathroom, so I carried it in there with me, but as I was zipping up my pants, it almost fell in the toilet.

(everyone chuckles mildly)

I nabbed it just before it tipped off my pants and fell in, but as I was recomposing myself afterwards I thought, now how embarrassing would that be if I had dropped my timer in the toilet, and had to go back to the lab and explain to my boss that i needed a new timer because I dropped my old one in the toilet?

(more serious laughter now, come on, you know you want to)

Naturally, my boss would say, "now how can you do a thing like drop your timer in the toilet??" and I would have to point out in my defense that I did NOT do it on purpose - you don't stand over the toilet with a valuable electronic and consciously decide whether or not to drop it in.

(very serious laughter from the audience - the lady in the front row wets herself due to her out-of-control hysterics)

But, on a more serious note, next time I am carrying around my timer, I will take it off before I have to go to the bathroom, so I am not even tempted to drop it in the toilet afterwards.

That's all everybody! Good night!

(everyone stops laughing, gets up, and demands their money back for a disappointing show).

So! That concludes my Stand-Up Comedy Act I. Please let me know whether you think I have a shot in entertainment, and if you hated it, please tell me I do anyway so I don't feel too discouraged (I'm very sensitive).

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Storm Season

Another storm swept through last night around 4 am. It was pouring and blowing in windows we've never had rain come through before. The lightning was exciting and the thunder was monstrous and we had a ball being safe and cozy beneath our roof.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

The Minnetonka Soak

I needed some distraction this weekend, so I convinced my husband to go biking with me around Lake Minnetonka on Sunday. It was sunny and beautiful, so we stayed out for a while. At some point the lake became a little choppier and the wind picked up, and we thought it might be best to turn around and head back. A few minutes after we turned around, the sky started to rumble so we sped up. We cruised pretty fast for about fifteen minutes as it started to sprinkle on us and the sky turned black, and we stopped in a tunnel to assess our situation and look at a map. We were still a good 6 or more miles from our car (which wasn't too bad - we had really picked up some distance), and it had only been sprinkling lightly for a while so we thought we'd keep going. Another couple of bikers had stopped in the tunnel for the same cause and agreed, so we both set out in our different directions. We almost felt like we were staying ahead of the storm as we were biking back, which was kind of exhilerating and quite a workout. The highway we were on (Hwy 101) cut through a bay area of the lake, and as we passed through I looked out over the lake at the black sky and all the boats that were still out there and thought, now why are they all being crazy and staying out on the lake when it's going to rain? A few seconds later, the wind picked up some more and the sprinkles turned into hail pellets that were actually painful as they pelted down on me. We sped up even more, if that's possible, to try to get off the lake, but the wind was against us and we were starting to head uphill. Just as we rode off the lake and back into the woods, the rain came down like someone had just turned a bucket of water over on top of us. I was drenched down to my underwear in a matter of seconds, and my shoes filled up and turned into leaden bricks. Since we were long past the tunnel and hope for shelter, we had to keep going (after checking that the camera and cell phone were safe and dry in our backpack, which they were - but our wallets were soaked). Once you're wet, you may as well keep going, so we did, and it continued to pour for about ten more minutes. Then, as we finally reached civilization and found a gas station to seek shelter under, the sun started to come out again. When we reached our car, people were coming back out onto the trails, looking dry and happy, and we were soaked, covered with mud, our socks were black and our shoes were still wet. But, it was a thrill!

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Animation Mentor blogs

One more use for blogs:

My hubby has been trying to launch into a different career for a while now, a career in 3D animation. It has been quite difficult for him geographically, since we don't live in California or NYC, but recently a promising online school for animation has sprung up called Animation Mentor. This was started by some guys over at Pixar (most recently made The Incredibles) and looks like a pretty good program, but to find out more about it my husband did some searching and found a bunch of Animation Mentor blogs, which are blogs by people who are in the first class of the program (which just started a few months ago). The weekly assignments looked interesting, they have given good feedback on the program and the way it's run, and they seem like a generally good group of people. My huby promptly signed up for the program and is very excited to start it June 23. Wheee!

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Uppity Uptown

We went to uptown tonight, to launch into summer full-speed. Uptown is the part of Minneapolis that reminds me the most of Iowa City, where I grew up and went to college. It's extremely diverse, hip and happenin', with lots to look at and do, and people lying about watching other people and coffee and ice cream everywhere you look. Uptown is also where the lakes are, which are beautiful and breezy and surrounded by walking and bike paths, and lots of interesting people doing lots of interesting things. We usually see something interesting in Uptown, including an empty car rolling backwards down a street (fortunately going slow enough that my husband, with all his manly strength, could get behind it and stop it, at which time we recruited some help of a passer-by, found a few big rocks, and secured it). We have also seen: a woman carrying her dog on her chest like a baby, a man grooving out to his own tune on rollerskates, and a classmate from college that we hadn't realized lived here.

Tonight was no exception. Tonight, we saw a lone dog run into a grocery store, a team of twenty middle-aged men shoot by on mopeds, and a bike-polo game. These were all first experiences for me.

Happy summer!

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

A slice from my past

When I was in junior high, it was my duty to feed the horses on certain mornings of the week before school. One of the horses was mine, so I did it willingly although I can't say I never complained. I didn't always get out there very early, and every once in a while a problem would come up that would make me late for school. I was always enthused to miss school, and I think I was considering this one of the benefits of having horses and living on a farm. One morning, I found both of our horses wedged into a long narrow aisle of the barn that was supposed to be for people only. My horse, Rocky, was in front, which meant he was most likely the Houdini of that adventure. Unfortunately, that left our schizofrenic horse Tah in back, who was afraid of everything and most likely followed Rocky in there out of fright of being alone.

To get the two horses out, we had two choices; back them out, or lead them through the low doorway at the end of the corridor that was essentially a hole in a wall on the other side, with at least a four foot drop off into the main part of the barn. We decided backing Tah out would be the easiest solution, but unfortunately, it wasn't an easy solution at all. We were city folk with little creative perspective on problems like these, and this 1000-lb horse was pretty well planted in the corridor and did not want to back up under any pursuasion.

After some sweat and tears, we re-evaluated our situation. Neither horse seemed too concerned about the problem, and probably would have stayed there for several days before starting to look around for a way out. We had to decide whether to be late for work and finish dealing with the problem, or leave them there and deal with it when we got home. Being that the barn was a little teetery and the horses had capability for mass destruction when provoked (although they were far from provoked), we decided we may as well take the morning off and figure this thing out entirely. In my enthusiasm for missing school, I leapt off the four foot ledge into the main part of the barn. Rocky, a pony with a mind for adventure, thought that looked like a fantastic idea and followed me, navigating the sharp turn upon landing with ease (has he done this before??). Tah, a little more anxious about things like that, had to think it over a few minutes but clearly was pursuaded by the grace of those before him. Eventually Tah dove through the hole in the wall as well. Moral of the story: never get too excited about the promise of taking the morning off.

More Limericking

My co-worker once became nude
We were all shocked and thought it was rude
But after a while
It became part of her style
And now we really like that she's lewd

Limerick

I've seen some good haiku and poetry lately (written by my dad, and some other poetry written by his friend at the Carbondaley Dispatch) and I thought I'd put in my two cents' worth:

There once was a loyal blog slogger
Who bragged to his friends "I'm a blogger!"
But everyone knew
He couldn't Haiku
His blogs slogged which wasn't a shocker

So one day I started thinking
I should make sure my blog's not stinking
A limerick was slogged
And posted to my blog
Now my readers will be cheered and go drinking

Time to take a break

 What do you do to relax? These past two years I feel like I have forgotten how to relax. It reminds me a little of grad school and how afte...