De-funk-ification

It appears they haven't found any injured or dead animals, attributing this to "sixth sense". Very cool. So i think i'm de-funk-ing a bit. I just keep thinking about those waffles. mmm, waffly goodness.

survival

So here's a snippet of hopeful stories of survival from the Washington Post:

A 13-year-old girl survived drifting at sea for two days off the Indian island of Car Nicobar, clinging to a door, a tree and a sack. In Sri Lanka, Dayalan Sanders, a Sri Lankan-born U.S. citizen, rescued the 28 orphans in his care by reacting quickly. Spotting the tsunami, he and his wife corralled the children onto a motorboat and outran the waves, seconds before their orphanage was crushed by a 30-foot wall of water.

So the death toll continues to rise, as does the threat of additional tsunamis. I can't imagine. Mother Nature is rather fierce when she wants to be. It's shocking to think that the ultimate fate of something as majestic as a 30 ft wall of water is destruction. The scenario reminds me of the Pittsburgh flooding...if we build on flood planes, we face the danger of flooding. Similarly, if we choose to live in proximity of something as volatile as the Ring of Fire, we can expect a certain degree of danger. Terrible as that sounds, it's not as if tsunamis are newly discovered. We know what can happen beneath the sea...we've seen it before (though perhaps i wasn't alive at the time). Sometimes i wonder if humans are truly the most intelligent race on earth, or the most ignorant, desperate, and stubborn. We stare mother nature in the face and continuously ignore her warnings. I should stop being cynical. I'm sad for all these people that have died, it's not the time to be analyzing the follies of the human race. These people lived without fear, enjoying their daily life in homes they knew and loved, and in one fell swoop life was violently ended for some, and forever changed for others.

Now that I've posted a thoroughly depressing monologue, I have to end on something else. I made oatmeal banana waffles last night and they were really good. Those waffles pleased 4 different tummies. Waffles seem like a good enough topic as any to lift ones spirits....so go make some waffles if you're feeling down.

more relief websites...

Rather than list them, I'll just direct you to Innerbitch, who lists several additional aid and information sites. It's amazing how many people seem rather tounge-tied. But then, who wants to talk about themselves in the wake of a global catastrophe?

the quake that killed the optimist

Yesterday was a melancholy day. When stopping to think about the more that 50,000 people that have perished and those that are doomed to wander through contamination and carnage, it's rather disheartening. I'd like to implement my optimist philosophy in the face of doom and gloom, but this is just too much...it's impossible to look at a stack of Christmas presents and not feel like a selfish wench. But those that are suffering would most likely not appreciate a sulking American sitting in her well ventilated and heated office just "feeling bad". I've been scouring the web trying to find donation information. Any kind of donation would do - food, clothes, money. The best site so far seems to be the USAID site, containing links to a multitude of donation sources (I scrolled through some and found secure online donation links). So that's all today. I'm having one of those days where i feel the need to work twice as hard to justify my existence.

Post-Christmas meltdown

Wow, it always feels like Christmas and the 5 or six days surrounding it are all mooshed together into one neverending day. I'd swear it's still December 23rd. I'm all shopped out and pretty much holiday-ed out, but there's still New Year's to go. I'm not really sure what New Year's will bring...

I'm feeling non-writing like today. Maybe later.

Small Things Delight Me...

...like entering brueggars expecting nothing more than my veggie cream cheese and green peppers on a plain bagel, with a small hazlenut coffee...and ending up with a medium coffee because I happened upon Brueggars during their breakfast special. A whole size more of caffeinated goodness for 39 cents less than expected! That is a good thing. On the way back to the office I gave some pocket change to a man on the street. It wasn't much, but he seemed happy about it. I like others to benefit from my good fortune, however small.
I am in a state of contentedness, which is nice since I've been a crazy person for the past few weeks trying to eek out all the necessary Christmas chores. It always perturbs me that Christmas winds up being such a stress inducing affair...i still like it, but it's disturbing to be tossed into this vortex of holiday insanity like clockwork every year. I still have to shop, and i haven't done laundry in over 2 weeks! I fear I may start to stink soon. Atleast i shower regularly. So tonight, back out shopping i will go. OY!

Winter Solstice

Welcome to the first official day of winter.

amusing randomness

I found this random snippet of profile-esque description in an old e-mail. It's from some survey that peer pressure made me complete about 2-3 years ago, and it makes me laugh. This is what it says, or...what i wrote about myself:

humorous yet cynical about everyday life. Fiendishly
addicted to coffee, chai, and red bull. Torn between my
love of tasty caffeine beverages and disdain for the evil
starbucks empire. Easily swept away by untraveled places
and unspoken words. If money and the whole work thing
weren't an issue, I'd hop in my jeep and drive cross
country right now for no other reason than it sounds like a
good plan, and i crave the mountains (of the 14er variety).
I am most entertained and comfortable when sippin suds at
the local bar, shootin pool at the work local bar, sippin
coffee and bullshittin in coffee shops where employees are
apron-free, loungin on couches in friends apartments
drinkin beer, listening to great music at small jamband
shows and at large jamband festivals, hiking in the
mountains, sitting by the sea....eating green eggs and ham
with a fox in a box- you get the idea

It's still very true in some parts (the coffee for instance)...except the bar thing. Actually, those places are still locales where I feel comfy cozy....i just frequent them less often. Work and outdoors have taken precedent over a mug o suds at the local watering hole. Instead of going to the bar after work to shoot pool, it's more a weekend thing...but it's still one of my favorite things to do with friends...cuz most of my friends don't get into outdoorsy type stuff so much.

Ridin' in some powder

So last year I took my first snowboard lesson. It was the end of the season, and the snow sucked...but i promised my nephew we'd go to Seven Springs before they closed...so i made good on the deal and we went up. Learning on bad snow HURT...bad. This year I went up with my own board (freshly waxed might i add)...and WOW, did it feel good. I still fell a lot on saturday, but on Sunday I made 11 runs, falling only 2 times on the last one. That last run was pretty sweet too, I was cruisin down the mountain. With all the snow on Sunday, I even had the opportunity to ride powder. I'm officially addicted. It's nice to have overcome the girl-that-falls-down-hill stage, and be able to call myself a snowboarder.

VROOOM!

That's what I did yesterday with my brand spankin' new Jeep Tires. Though it certainly hurt to hand over so much cash when i still have a mountain (we're talking of Everest proportions) of gifts to buy, atleast I'll be safer in the snow with my nice new non-bald tires. I needed 'em, especially considering the weekend treks to Seven Springs that will be aplenty in January. As of last night at 10pm, the snowboard is waxed and ready for the mountain...and I'm pumped. I'm pumped even though I know I'll spend half of Saturday eating snow more than riding it. I'm even pumped knowing that I'll inevitably have black and blue knees for atleast 2 weeks. Sounds masochistic, but it's really just this amazing child-like excitement flowing through me. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, still believing in Santa and straining to hear anything that might resemble sleigh bells. Magic. Peace on Earth (though cliche) is still the ultimate Christmas wish, but i would surely settle for one ride down the mountain without falling on Christmas :o)

"If I were a seed, I'd give birth to redwood trees, and if I were a tree, I'd generate the freshest air to breathe"

ah, michael franti in the morning. The man can take lyrics just on the edge of cheesy and turn them into poetry. If i wrote about sprouting things from seeds, it would not turn out like that.

Speaking of music, yesterday I was on a Phish kick. It was really my first major kick since the break-up. After the dissolution I went into some sort of phish abstainance for awhile...not intentionally, that's just kind of how i drifted. A mental homage perhaps, meditation and musical fasting period in honor of the most influential music of my adolescent life (and even now). So yesterday I was in a somewhat melancholy mood, over-analyzing financial conundrums and other such stresses over and over in my head, when unconsciously I put a phish CD in, and felt instantaneously better. The healing power of phish. There's a multitude of music that calms and soothes me (jazz in particular these days), but i have such a long, solid listening history with phish. At 15 years old I found myself in possession of "Hoist" and then "A Live One" when it was released the summer I turned 16, and from there every concert, boot leg, and conversation surrounding the mona lisa of modern jambands became a soothing and electrfying experience. Times of irritation in that whirlwind they call adolescence were made easier by those four nerdy musicians. The grateful dead was important to me as well, though i didn't latch onto them as quickly or vehemently as with phish. I discovered both bands at nearly the same time. And being 15 it was cool to have no preconceived idea of either bands place in music history. I was just a kid that heard some songs, and these songs made me tingle, dance, and think. Concluding that this was an amazing thing - I bought some music. Before phish, I owned one Grateful Dead cassette tape - Skeletons from the Closet of course. In the summer I would walk the mile or so from my house to tennis practice, always be-boppin to my old school walkman. For about a month straight that walkman saw nothing but that GD cassette. I daresay if i had a musically inclined family member to guide me through that initial GD addiction, I may have been one of those hardcore GD, not so much phish fans. But that's another story altogether. For the most part, my musical taste is a kaleidascope now, but it all started with 4 quirky guys from vermont just trying to play some music. The simplicity of the intention is ironic when considering the 4-headed monster that sprung. Born of good intention - that's what matters.

"this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way..."

let it snow, and keep snowing!!

Yes, I must now begin tapping into my store of holiday spirit and make cheesy references to over-played holiday songs such as the afformentioned "let it snow". But OH, is it snowing. This morning I walked out my door to not only a blanket of snow, and a steadily falling shroud, but sunshine! Yes, there was indeed sunshine. Alas, it didn't last for long and was soon hidden behind a murky gray cloud cover. But for about 5 minutes I was immersed in the perfect winter morning, and it felt amazing. This is what makes me adore Colorado. Inches upon inches of snow, accompanied by sunshine. mmm. At any rate, last night was the first snow shovel and the first run-and-slide down the driveway. Driveway skating, the simplest form of winter entertainment.

the latte liberal

This is kind of amusing, a nod to the latte liberal in so many of us.:

I have become a stereotype, and it’s all the fault of evil corporate America. I have been sucked in, hypnotized, transformed, transmogrified. Damn that Howard Schultz. Damn him straight to hell. He’s the CEO of Starbucks. And thanks to Howie, I have become a latte liberal. (READ MORE of John McIntire)

Although I'd like to state for the record that in addition to my total and complete starbucks addiction, I make a point to visit kiva han, the beehive, crazy mocha, and my very own neighborhood Forest Hills Coffee Company as well (there's also one in Oakmont). But, I should really patronize my local coffee beanery the most, rather than feeding my hard earned dollars into the evil empire that is starbucks. I realize this. I should also work on putting this idea into practice (*ponders*) hrm.

On a sidenote: I froze myself silly at the Stiller game yesterday, to my complete and utter delight. Yes, I was entertained to be outside in 30 degree weather watching men tackle each other. Though the pre-game beer and jaegar stop at Finnegan's wake did the trick in warming myself to a tolerable sitting still in cold weather temperature. Indeed, winter is here. (*smile*)

hibernation

I finished Narcissus and Golmund this weekend. I love that feeling of completion, especially when the task completed is done in a relatively short period of time (these days, 1 week for a book is fairly spectacular considering the amount of TO DO things constantly floating around in my brain....plus the collective timespan of book reading was smooshed into about 3 days within that week, maybe 6 or so hours total. maybe less. decent I'd say). So now there's Jung to finish, but I'm bypassing it once again for Angels and Demons. My mom would like to read it after Christmas, so I figured it makes sense to read it now. It's a quick read, as was Da Vinci Code. 100 pages flew by...it's that short chapter format that pushes the book along so nicely. Dan Brown is the first mainstream author I've read in awhile, so I thougt it appropriate to give him adequate attention and read several books instead of just taking a ride on the Da Vinci train. It's good so far. I like Dan Brown because his stories spark curiosity. Fact and Fiction make for a good combination. I first enjoyed this in "London" by Rutherford. It's the history of London as told through fictitious characters, but based around factual events. It's a very satisfying way to learn about new things, it's like following a path. You somehow gain the urge to look for books that chronicle history in depth. Dan Brown does this as well. England, France, Italy... the fact based fictional accounts gain my attention and lead me to dig further and educate myself in the degree of accuracy of Brown's fact. I don't doubt that the fact provided isn't true, I'm more curious about how much he's presented, and what remains outside the boundary of his intricately woven story. After reading London, I proceded to read an entire book on Henry VIII...and another on Henry's wives. I like English history anyway, but I am not entirely sure I would have found myself wading through a 1000 page history of King Henry if it weren't for "London". So that's my current state of mind. Winter always puts me in a literary state of mind. I guess it's my form of hibernation. This year I'll be a hybrid...some hibernation, and some adrenaline (snowboarding). It should be very interesting.

literary moment

I'm almost finished with Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund. I haven't finished the Jung I was working on yet, but i have this nasty habit of hopping from book to book. No wonder I have issues remembering storylines. But when a book is suggested to me, I fear I'll forget about it forever if i don't start it right away. So I end up accumulating stacks of half read books. But it pays off...such as in this instance. Narcissus and Goldmund. I began it on the flight to San Diego, and I'm nearly finished. I wouldn't know quite how to describe the contents, except to write that 2 soul-sewn characters with different temperament and drive begin their friendship together as they strive to achieve a severe monastic existence...and from there the journey begins.

On an unrelated note. My mother has baked more than 10 types of Christmas Cookies already. That probably amounts to 40 dozen or more, so it seems i will take a stab at trumping the cookie queen tonight. I doubt I'll reach 10 kinds...but maybe 3 or 4. Tonight shall be reserved for Biscotti making. Chocolate Hazlenut Biscotti. mmmm. (hopefully complete before CSI starts...this is the only TV show i actually watch on a somewhat regular basis).

Must be jet lag

I just wrote a comment, then realized it was listed as "anonymous"...so i deleted it. Then i published the same one twice. Talk about a brain malfunction. California-itis? Maybe i should just go on permanent vacation...HA!! I still can't believe I'm not wearing a winter jacket on December 8th. I was a little confused yesterday and this morning. Am i still in san diego? Cause the temperature there was about the same (only they have that whole beach/mountain thing going on....making chilly weather a bit more tolerable). okay, time to un-malfunction my brain. Best Cure?? Coffee you say? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cali...

So I finally made it to California. The weather was less than desirable this past weekend, certainly not the sun soaked California Coast I was hoping for...but I enjoyed it none-the-less. I could definately live there...who knows if, or when that would possibly occur...but the atmosphere is definately conducive to gettin my learn on in grad school. heh. We had somewhat of a wacky travel plan, arriving saturday evening and leaving early Tuesday morning...but these whirlwind trips are somehow fun because you haven't the time to exhaust all explorative possibilities. And despite the inclement weather, we still got out of our hotel room by 7am Sunday Morning to find breakfast. This took us to our first beach locale...Mission Beach. Not only did we find a kick ass retaurant (creatively named "The Mission")...but we also beat the rush and had quite possibly the best pancakes in existence. Banana and Granola pancakes...all perfectly stacked and equivalent in thickness, with a diameter of atleast 8 inches. I couldn't finish mine. The granola and banana were poured on top of the batter once in the pan, thus the crunchiness rested on top...which i liked...a lot. A circular pat of butter situated in the center created a little syrup ditch. I'm not sure if it was strategically placed there, or just a result of the butter pat being too heavy in relation to the soft, fluffy pancakes. mmm, good. So we drove around a bit, had a nap at the hotel, then ventured forth to Torrey Pines Nature Reserve. The Torrey Pine exists in only two areas...the reserve, and an island of California (Santa Rosa I think). So we drove up through the reserve...and from the top I saw my first view of both beach and mountain together in California. Quite a site. I took way to many pictures for an overcast day...but overcast was what we were dealt, so i accepted it and clicked away. Gladly, we awoke to sushine on Monday mornday. Even though I had appointments at UCSD for most of the day... I enjoyed trolling around campus in the sunshine. That night after dinner (we ate in La Holla Village), we drove up to Mt. Soledad for a beautiful 360 degree view of San Diego and vicinity...though cold, and suffering from blistered feet (i wore stupid heeled shoes for my interviews)...it was an amazing view...a breath-taking end to a whirlwind vacation.

Torrey Pines Nature Reserve: San Diego, CA

Break in the Water Main

I arrived to work this morning and hadn't even taken my jacket off before i heard the words "no water..." WHAT?? Now, we have the crystal springs dispenser that could be utilized for coffee-making, but the inability to use the facilities would make drinking an obscene amount of coffee (as I usually do) a rather unpleasant experience. So i abstained. It was not fun. But, the water is back...and even though it's the diet coke of coffee I'm drinking (Folgers), I'm happy for it today. I even have good parking karma today. PLUS...could it be that I spied snowflakes in the air this morning?? WOOO-WEEE! I even found a snowboard. It's a Ride Solace (still a 146!!). I spent $200 on it, so I'm pleased...under budget and over joyed.

I'll be on a plane to san diego tomorrow afternoon. I spent about 2 hours scouring the net for anything san diego oriented last night...bike trails, hiking, food, best places to go...and the list goes on. I have meetings all day Monday at UCSD, so Sunday is soak up SD day. The weather might be rainy on Sunday, but i still plan to be out of bed by 6am and watching the sunrise somewhere along the Pacific. mmm. I hope the weather isn't too bad...i'd really like to get some road bikes and cruise around town. Maybe even do some serious Mt. Biking East of the city. Come one weather.com! Give me some good news!! Ah well, regardless, I'll be in Cali for a few days....

cold, rain, and.... cold (no snow, urgh)

Cold, when devoid of snow, is no fun. What good is freezing, if there's not a snowball melting in your hand causing that freezing? hrrrr-umpph! In time though, it will arrive. I'm not in the mood to dwell on weather related phenomena, so moving on, here's today in brief (list style, aka Bridget Jones style):

1. wake up (really the fake wake-up, aka - snooze-a-thon...it's more like the wake-up decoy, the real wake up happens about an hour later. i'm so sneaky)
2. attempt showering in a physically awake/ mentally stupid state. this is always fun. It's this particular state that is most often responsible for those socially retarded occurences like tripping up stairs, spilling food on self, and speaking in tongues.
3. discover new twead-type jacket in my closet ...choose skirt and appropriate shirt/shoes to go with jacket. sidenote: I like twead. Next to cordouroy, it may just be one of my favorites. Classy, without looking pretentious. Also, it reminds me of the twead-ish couch we used to have in our living room . I like texture.
4. Lunch Mission. I determine it's more cost effective to create scrumptious lunch items at home, rather than frequent the bagel, deli, chinese, and burrito places repeatedly. Also, to save money, fill a thermos with home coffee (this saves me from ass-tasting office coffee...and decreases my kiva han/starbucks cravings)
5. WORK. (no need for extensive detail here...I spend hours puzzling over brains and typing things into various computers, while periodically stopping for meetings and teleconferences)
6. LUNCH. I left my damn hummus sandwich on the counter. DRAT! To the deli i go...
7. Starbucks. I didn't forget the thermos, drank it all in fact. This did not deter the craving though. oops.
8. NOW = me, here, typing

TA DA... don't you fee enlightened to know such extensive details of my daily activities - regardless of the bland and rather generalized description of them??? hrm? heh. In other exciting news, I started reading some Jung last night. Jung is one of those elusive people I've always meant to read...out of curiosity. So after perusing the environmental/nature section of Borders one day...I meandered over to Psych and lo and behold - Mr. Jung called out to me. So there you have it...i now make my way through Modern Man in Search of a Soul...for fun.