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these are my 20 most recent entries. Missed some entries? Then simply jump back 20 entries.

Thursday, April 13th, 2006

Willaim Sloane Coffin
William Sloane Coffin, the former chaplain at Yale who made a name for himself by being not just outspoken about social justice issues but even taking actions himself, has died.

I saw an interview with him a while ago. He'd had a rather major stroke several years ago, but he'd spent a lot of time and effort re-learning how to speak again. And aside from a few slurred sounds, he was really quite good. And watching him, listening to his answers...all I can say is that I have nothing but respect for him.

The world is a better place from his having lived.

Here's the LA Times obituary.
Posted at 1:15 am | comments(1)

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

Canada
Spring break is here!

And to celebrate the start of it, I get to go to Vancouver. Yay!
Posted at 2:25 am | comments(0)

Monday, February 6th, 2006

*yawn*
i should sleep. but that's always the case.

not that i really care about the superbowl, but it was still a bit disappointing to see seattle lose. especially since it ended up turning on a couple of controversial calls. not how you want a game's outcome to be determined. but oh well.

my labmate's daughter was tired when i picked up all three of them at the airport today. she had several long days in a row, so it's no real surprise. she did let go over her mommy long enough to grab my finger briefly, though, so she wasn't being unfriendly. her hands are so small! (she is only 17 mos.) fussing set in pretty much the instant she hit the car seat, but ended no more than 2 minutes later when she fell asleep -- and remained that way for the rest of the ride home.

several things to work on for research now. unfortunately i seem to have things come up often. meetings and such. and i don't always do context switches as quickly as i should. sigh. but i'm in pretty good spirits about things anyway so it's ok :)
Posted at 1:06 am | comments(0)

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

Wheee -- look, a post!
My advisor offered me a chance to go to Sheffield, England on an exchange program for some amount of time last week. I turned it down. I've felt stressed even thinking about it. The whole dietary restriction thing really is a major deal and I can't go to restaurants in the US successfully and consistently yet. Plus UK rules for food labeling are more relaxed and many people complain that the government-allowed level is too high there -- they react to things that the label may claim is safe.

So while a short trip may be tolerable, I really just want to stay here, experiment with cooking and feel safe with familiar brands and labels.
Posted at 12:48 am | comments(0)

Sunday, November 6th, 2005

TV vs real life
I didn't get to see it, but it sounds like the live debate between candidates on 'West Wing' went quite well. It pitted Alan Alda against Jimmy Smitts, with Alda in the interesting position of playing a Republican (he's left of center in real life, I believe).

From this AP article, it sounds like the episode was pretty good. And it ends by asking why real politicians won't have real, substantive debates like that.

It's sad when it seemslike there's more policy discussed in a fake political debate than a real one.
Posted at 11:42 pm | comments(0)

Friday, November 4th, 2005

...
Yes, I'm still alive. I just haven't felt all that inclined to post for some reason.

This'll be the second weekend in a row I'll have spent in Seattle! So exciting. This hasn't happened since early September. And, of course, I'll be going to a conference at the end of this month... Oh well. Location TBA since Cancun, the previous location, was hit pretty hard by Wilma. Except there isn't all that much time left until it starts and they still haven't given a new location! I tend to think that if they can't get word to everyone more than a couple business days before the 21-day airline ticket window, they really should postpone it.

But they won't. Alas.
Posted at 4:49 pm | comments(2)

Monday, October 17th, 2005

:)
I haven't updated for a long time. I'll have to change that at some point.

But not today. Cuz it's a special day today :D
Posted at 3:09 pm | comments(0)

Monday, September 12th, 2005

Life
I feel like I'm living in a soap opera these days...

On an unrelated note, I really need to get moving to finish everything today. I leave tomorrow! Eek!
Posted at 11:51 am | comments(0)

Monday, September 5th, 2005

:)
From a friend's blog, a Bush extended family portrait:

Link [defectiveyeti.com]
Posted at 9:08 pm | comments(0)

It's labor day
I seem to be the only one in my lab today. Oh well.

A friend was going to go to a picnic yesterday but was too tired and ended up napping instead. This was probably a good thing since it started raining. Anyway, it was a pot-luck dinner, and she was going to take pork feet which she'd already made. So today I got to try pork feet. I've decided I'm still not used to such textures, although the taste was good :)

I *really* need to stop procrastinating on putting stuff away in my apartment. Very soon. Will I stop, though? Probably not. Sigh.

And a week from today I get to leave this continent for only the 3rd time in my life!
Posted at 5:22 pm | comments(0)

Wednesday, August 31st, 2005

Peace
And like that, I'm at peace with myself.

I was sitting at my desk in lab thinking, and basically just made a decision. Within a couple minutes I could tell I was obviously more relaxed and less stressed. It was weird.

Still hurt -- that won't change -- but I'm much more calm now.

I think the trip to Palo Alto helped. And I should probably thank iil (who doesn't even read this) for yelling at me about being crazy lately. Maybe it finally sank in? ;)

And now...g'nite!
Posted at 1:15 am | comments(1)

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

Sigh
All I can say is that it's been a very long week (the pasts 7 days or so).

And many thanks to my brother for a huge amount of help recently.
Posted at 2:09 pm | comments(0)

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

:D
I get a work trip to Cancun, Mexico at the end of November! :D Yay!

It'll be for this conference. I got my acceptance notice today and my advisor will send me :)

Oh, and my lab's spam filter marked the acceptance letter as possible spam.
Posted at 4:41 pm | comments(1)

Sunday, August 21st, 2005

Mountain!
I went back to Mt. Rainier this weekend. Well, not the main peak itself, just the foothills around it. It's really pretty there, although there were tons of roots and rocks in the trail which meant having to watch the ground most of the time.

We got to see Spray Falls, a waterfall that looks almost like there's mist rolling off from the top of the cliff. And if we lookd to the same side as the sun, we could see tons of tiny drops flying by away from the falls.

And I sorta slipped on a rock while crossing the water going away from the waterfall. And I'd been thinking of taking an extra pair of socks, too, but decided against it. Oh well, it was just a day hike so I didn't worry too much. It was just a bit uncomfortable having one wet foot for the rest of the day.

That also marked the 3rd day in a row I was up and out the door early. I'm sorta surprised I was able to do it, but I seemed to survive ok. Tired, but ok overall. I need more sleep tonight, though, since I woke up early to make a phone call and then couldn't get back to sleep. That almost never happens, except if, like today, my mind starts racing the minute I wake up.
Posted at 11:06 pm | comments(0)

Friday, August 19th, 2005

Tired
Long day. And it's only 1:30!

A few of us went out last night after badminton since one of the people there is moving to the Bay Area to work for Roche. She had a little too much to drink, not so much that she was absurdly drunk but enough that we could tell. She seemed fairly normal, but the things she said were a little...different. After eating we went to a small park on Queen Anne Hill overlooking downtown, and I think I got a couple good pictures of the Seattle skyline at night. That was beautiful -- if only the moon had been a tiny bit lower when we were there it would have been perfect.

Despite our friend's assurances that she was ok, we didn't relent and drove her home. That is, I'd carpooled with another friend, so she drove the friend's car and I followed. Then we went home. I got in a little after 1:30. And then had to get ready for bed for a 9am dermatologist appointment downtown. 8:06am bus since I had to be there early to deal with paperwork.

The facility I was at, Harborview Medical Center, is a teaching hospital, and it was fairly obvious. But the staff and physicians were all friendly yet professional which made me happy. I felt like I was on display for a while as they invited people in to look at me, but they made sure to be respectful. I was introduced to everyone who came in and they all thanked me as they left. Then they did two skin biopsies on my right elbow. So I now have 2 stitches down there -- they said you don't necessarily need one for the 3mm holes, but they like to use them anyway. I can either have the nurses at the local facility remove them in like 10 days, or they gave me a sutureu removal kit so I can do it myself. Except I'd hafta do it left handed. In a mirror. Hmm...

The actual procedure was done by a 4th year med student. I didn't feel a thing after the anesthesia, and there didn't seem to be much blood, so I'm reasonably content. I just hope they can figure it out from the samples they took.

It just would have been nice to break 5hrs of sleep, especially since I'm supposed to go to Mt. Rainier tomorrow morning.

I wonder if the anesthesia has worn off on my elbow yet? I think she used kinda a lot.
Posted at 1:36 pm | comments(0)

Monday, August 15th, 2005

...
There are days I wish there were some way to shut down my mind. About now, any day I get little sleep counts as one of those -- and napping doesn't help since my mind is likely to start racing the instance I lie down and am not actively thinking of anything in an attempt to fall asleep.

Blargh.
Posted at 12:32 am | comments(0)

Sunday, July 24th, 2005

Rainier
I was invited hiking with a group yesterday. This meant being up at like 6:10 so I could meet people in time. We met in front of the near-downtown REI where I'd bought new hiking shoes the morning before and set out for Mt. Rainier Nat'l Park.

The road to the park entrance was interesting. It involved crossing a 1-lane bridge on a 2-way road (probably like 150-200 ft with a turn on either side), and, the most fun, like 15 miles of unpaved road. Ok, that's exaggerating -- it looked like a couple miles of it had been paved at one point. My little corolla did quite well, overall, climbing to 4900ft on gravel. It's v4 was fine and aside from being pretty dirty afterwards, it seems generally ok.

The trail we took was short but steep. We ended up dropping down a couple hundred feet initially, only to climb to about 5900 by the end. We reached the top of a small range around Rainier, the site of one of several old fire lookouts in the park. It was pretty, and we could look down and see a couple lakes we'd passed on the way up. The only drawback is that mosquitos were swarming on top for some reason -- down by where we started they were basically non-existant. It was odd since we'd have expected them to want to be closer to water. There were some gorgeous views of the mountain, though.

My car has now had a light bath, but it wasn't all that thorough. Now I get to go clean the windows and perhaps a few other other areas the auto-wash unit missed.
Posted at 6:27 pm | comments(0)

Friday, July 15th, 2005

Guests
I found out yesterday my brother and his fiancee will be in the area for the weekend :) Yay!
Posted at 12:44 pm | comments(0)

Thursday, July 14th, 2005

:/
:/
Posted at 5:36 pm | comments(0)

Sunday, July 10th, 2005

Confused
I was about to put a fleece blanket I had in the laundry (yeah, I know, fleece pills. It needed washing, though) when I decided to look at the tag to see if it gave specific instructions. I was very confused when I saw it told me to "wash inside out."

How does one turn a blanket inside out?

In other news, I finally cleaned my bike chain today. It's far from perfect (same with the gears, for that matter -- I did those a while ago) but much better than before. With luck it'll be nice enough tomorrow that I can go put new grease on it. Overall, I'm making it a nice, relaxing weekend. Now to finish getting ready for bed and then read for a bit :)
Posted at 12:51 am | comments(2)