live piranhas!

from www.piranhapictures.com:



if you want to see other live web cams -- such as the anchorage DMV or the Clinton, TN jail cam -- go to this site. great stuff!

>> 25 most interesting webcams of 2005

prodigal jewelry

wow.

after being so down on myself about losing jewelry, i am sitting here wearing both items (the ring and the necklace) once again.

who would have thought? certainly not me.

but apparently, i have the best boyfiend in the entire world. sometimes, i don't think i deserve him...

he spent the last 3 months searching, scouring, calling, emailing... and miraculously, in the final hour, was able to recover another necklace for me -- from a kind woman who also ran the race from which i originally got it, and who thought that what he was doing was sweet.

she has no idea.

o christmas tree o christmas tree!

the tree in our apartment, before we added the few ornaments that we got in the mail from conor's mom:



my new desktop wallpaper at work - close up of my parents' tree back in florida:

chitter chatter

apparently when the rest of the world takes blogging breaks thanks to the holidays, i become my most verbose. go figure.

i'm back in san francisco now. it's raining here. thankfully, i have a powerful new umbrella from my sister to keep me dry!

christmas this year was particularly nice - even though we were missing our littlest one (he spent the holiday in colorado with his new wife and her family).

i think i like having christmas on a sunday. i liked waking up and going to church, singing christmas hymns, and dressing up nicely for the day... i liked eating breakfast around noon, and opening presents all afternoon, right up until dinner time. there was something nice about the slow, laziness of it all.

though i have to say, it made me sad not having my brother there. and it made me sad knowing conor was out here all alone. christmas is a time to be with lots of people who love you.

it also made me sad knowing my friends' family is suffering during an otherwise joyous season. i don't like being sad for others, it makes it hard to appreciate all the good things i have before me. i think i feel too much guilt at my happiness, like it isn't fair somehow that everything should be good and normal for me.

i just started (and finished) the book 'the secret life of bees' on the plane home last night. sometimes i feel like the character may, in that the book - the way the world can affect her so deeply. i have to put up a shell so that the smallest pain doesn't sting like a murderous blow.

i hate that the littlest scratches can crack the shell and set me off. the thing that really bothers me isn't what makes me break. it's something stupid that is often unrelated. it's like the first time i was embarrased of crying, in fourth grade, when i didn't cover my textbook by my teacher's deadline. it wasn't that i got in trouble that made me cry, or that my book had no cover. i cried only because i disappointed myself for forgetting something. for not being reliable or perfect.

same thing with the present -- i disappoint myself that i don't know how to make things better for other people. i want them to know life can be richer, fuller, happier, but despite all my good intentions, expressing it always comes out wrong. i make things worse instead. i upset myself for messing up.

and so, i just build the wall higher. if i don't get too close, i won't try as hard to improve the things around me, which means i won't offend.

someday when i'm rich enough, i'll open up my wings and take care of everything like i want to. no more screwing it up with words, miscalculated intentions, or ill-expressed emotions. it will just be better because i'll give the gifts that enable things to be better, that empower people i care about to be better off. i don't want anything in return except for sadness, anxiety and pain to go away forever.

sun report 3

happy christmas eve!

the clouds have come out today, so technically this isn't a sun report, but it's still nice enough out that i'm not cold, snowy, wet, or in any other way uncomfortable. so no complaints outta me! any day that i can go running along the ocean/bay in shorts and a t-shirt is a good day, in my book.

i went on an adventure yesterday for my run that turned into be a true adventure, unbeknownst to me when i started off. ok, let me say a disclaimer, first: this isn't an extremely exciting story. but, to put it in context, most of my runs here are a very uneventful jaunt on a flat, straightish sidewalk to the same destinations (the safety harbor pier and/or phillipe park).

to veer from that is an adventure in itself.

anyhoo, i decided to take the clearwater east/west trail -- which is basically a fat sidewalk that is paved connecting tampa bay to clearwater beach, an approx. 8 mile distance. i only went part of the way - up to US19 so i could stop at the best buy store and look for a christmas cd that i wanted to buy.

things started out great... i ran past the old stream where my friends and siblings and i used to play in the mud and swing from vines as kids.

then, i got to run over the new foot bridge that crosses mcmullen booth road (a 6 lane high way that used to be a 2 lane country road when i was a kid). i paused for a moment to marvel at the congested thorough fare that my old little road has become... to think my sister and i once got stuck behind a cow on that street, which backed up traffic for miles...

leaving the bridge, i then weaved my way along some soccer fields, a baseball field, and a nice park with a lake. the goal was to turn left on lakeview road which cuts back to drew street, right near best buy, where i'd make my purchase before running the same path back home.

the problem is that i never found lakeview road... i kept following the path, eventually got dumped into a neighborhood, snaked my way through, turned on a street, and then boom!

there i was. staring back across mcmullen booth, looking at my very own neighborhood through the blur of whizzing cars. i'd done a 2-3 mile circle back to my starting point, and i didn't even realize it.

shit. sigh.

start over.

back to the foot bridge... back through the park... i finally found my way. apparently there is a craftily hidden left turn that i missed the first time through. i must have added a good 2 miles extra to my already 6 mile run.

well, at least the weather was nice. i probably needed the ass-kicking, too. i just can't believe i ran in a giant circle. i need to study a map. i'm still baffled how it happened.

so, the other part of the adventure was returning home. i took different route back, in effort to save time, but i planned to cut through the soccer fields back to the entrance of the footbridge at the end of the run. the problem was that the genius designers of the footbridge didn't create an access to it from the soccer fields (that i could find)! uh, hello? why build a bridge that pedestrians can't even get onto?

well. being irritated that nothing was going right, i decided to hop the 15 foot fence in my way. then i scaled another 4 foot railing to get on the bridge. i felt like a little delinquent... i was waiting for the cops to show up... it was cathartic! a blast! refreshing.

i think i need to scale more fences in my future.

sun report 2

salutations, kind friends!

two days of floridaness have passed. what have i accomplished? well, pretty much NOTHING. i'm even bored of being bored.

wednesday: woke at 11 am, went on a 6 mile run, came home, ate, showered, called my boy to get him out of bed (it was only 10am in san fran when i called), and, um... yeah.

didn't do much else.

checked email? played some video games on my computer? oh i did have some wine and finish putting ornaments on the tree. then i had dinner with the folks. then i fought with my laptop, which doesn't seem to see the ethernet signal from my parent's cable modem (???). finally, i topped off my day by playing more video games, eating some cookies, and going to bed.

i think i'm allergic to this house. instant congestion from the moment i walked in. grumble.

today: woke at 10:30 am, went on a 6 mile run, came home, ate, showered, called my boy to get him out of bed (notice a pattern here?)...

but, to spice things up, i had lunch with 2 friends at a restaurant on the beach. the cold, windy beach... but who cares when we're talking about grilled grouper sandwiches! yum!

after that, i fought traffic to run an errand, came home, checked email, had dinner with the family, then helped with my parents' christmas shopping (off to the mall! a staple florida activity).

i topped off my day with some present-wrapping, and (you guessed it), cookies and video games.

my oldest sister also arrived on the scene today. she's sick, so i'm avoiding her like the plague. i really CAN'T get sick right now. i can't do it. i can't take off more work when i get back, and i CAN'T have another ruined holiday at home due to germs, allergies, or other strange bodily ailments. i will tolerate no more of that! too many ruined holidays existed in my past! germs, begone!

begone, i say!

do you think it would piss her off if i popped a tent in the front yard and hung out there all weekend? i think i'm already going to piss her off if i keep staying 10 feet away.

maybe i should just go to walgreens and by myself a face mask... catfoo, where did our stash of masks from your mom go!?

sun report

greetings from florida!

i've put the fog report aside for a week, and will be reporting from sunnier places until after christmas. can't you see my tan already?

after being home for a mere hour, i managed to:

- snag my old bedroom from high school (not to be confused with my elementary/middle school room, which once had a GIANT RAINBOW with a SMILING SUN painted on one wall. no joke... definitely not the mastermind of my brother, nor i. our poor room came that way when we moved in.)

hmm, come to think of it - maybe thats why we're so weird now. or... optimistally sunny, with, uh, rainbow-y personalities?

- eat leftovers

- notice that the cable signal coming into my mom's new flat screen tv is wonky (maybe i have such a magnetic personality that i messed it up?)

- update my dad's computer with about 100 critical windows updates

- update the graphics card driver for said machine, above

- fix the refresh rate (ow 60 hz kills my eyes) on said machine, above

- start a load of laundry (no, i did not have time to do it before i left)

- make a giant mess around my suitcase - digging out dirty clothes to wash - turning my old room into my ACTUAL old covered-in-clothes room

- answered important work emails (like the one where i told my group to save me leftovers from the gift basket my developer said would arrive in my absence!)

- admired all my dad's fancy new gadgets - he's quite up on his technology these days, between his new phone, new camera, and flashy silver ipod mini.

... now, if only he had the shoes to match, he could be SO hip! <insert jibe about his old-man-loafers here>

- put the first presents under my parent's wonderfully fat and deliciously-smells-good christmas tree

- stay up really really late (i have an excuse - i'm on california time), sitting at the same old desk and same old computer (theoretically, not actually) that i used to sit and and stay up late on, many many years ago... good old high school procrastination days. ahh yes.

home again home again.

the day will come...

... when i lose my mind and decide to do something like this. so don't say i didn't warn you!

>> man runs 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 weeks

i just read a book thanks to my pal greggers, called "ultramarathon man". it's a fascinating account of a crazy runner who does 100+ mile races. a great read! perfect for planes, if any of you are flying across the country in the next week.

very brassy christmas

i have a history of losing items when i go to a yoga class.

back in boston, i lost a pair of sunglasses - dropped them in the bathroom before yoga, and they were gone afterwards. clearly someone stole them, but it's my fault i dropped them in the first place. i never got them back.

when i moved to san francisco, i lost my brass rat. for the non-MIT people out there reading this, a brass rat is my school's class ring. the thing that is cool is that every class has a different design, chock full o' symbolism about the class' experience at the 'tute.

anyways, i can't prove that i lost the rat in my yoga class, but i'm about 86% certain that i did. it disappeared shortly after attending one. i had gone to class right after work. i took the rat off and placed it in my bag. perhaps it fell out of the pocket? i am not sure. i never found my old ring. it was a very sad realization when i moved to my new apartment and the ring never turned up...

recently, i ran the nike women's 1/2 marathon. one of our finishing gifts was this awesome necklace from tiffany's. it had a small simple silver chain, and a charm of a girl running, specially designed for the race.

i wore it every day after the race, for a week.

until i went to yoga.

and took it off, after it kept catching on my chin...

i set it on my jacket.

and somehow, i dropped it after class.

i was in the last class of the day, and when i went back to the studio the very next morning, it was gone.

another theft? a case of it being swept into the trash? who knows. it never turned up. i'm really pissed about this still. quite stupidly upset at myself, but there is nothing i can do except try to stop losing things i really care about... and don't even get me started on the things i've lost while NOT in yoga, like the awesome mittens my dad gave me years ago. i cried about losing those on my way home from physics 1.23 at frickin' harvard...

anyways. the point?

two months ago, right after i lost the necklace, when i was feeling particularly down... and i exhausted all attempts to get another one... i decided that there was ONE thing i could do, at least, to feel a little better about sucking so much.

so i gave myself an early christmas/late birthday present: i re-ordered my old MIT brass rat! not cheap, but SO completely worth it. and the company who makes them rules -- they had all my sizing and engraving info still in their system, so they could exactly recreate my old ring.

and it arrived today! hooray!



i'm very happy now. i promise not to lose it again, or it will become a very expensive habit...

dedoo dedoo dedooo dedooooo

if you like(d) zelda,
and you like music videos,
then this link's for you!

>> dedoo dedoo dedooo dedooooo

americas next top model predictor queen

i win!

company poll from october - i was the only person who had nicole as #1.

>> thank you, thank you very much!

jonathan coulton we love you.

listen to this soothing, smooth, love song...

> jonathan coulton does 'baby got back'

pure genius!

"ladies YEAH ladies YEAH if you wanna roll in my mercedes YEAHHHHHH..."

"baby got baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack...."

chaos

my desk at work is getting messier and messier with every passing minute.

i lost control a week ago and all hell has broken loose!

papers papers papers and more papers.

with the occasional box of business cards, vitamins, plants, cereal box, plastic spoon, pens, notebook, and toys mixed in...

aye-yi-yi.

anyone want to come clean it for me?