Book Recommendations

It has been a while since we ahve shared any book recommendations, so I thought I would bring the topic back up again. I also happened to just finish a very unique book, which I think that Jen in particular would enjoy. My book recommendation is Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. It is a self-professed "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" and it is rather interesting to read. The novel is set on the Island where the "creator" of the pengram " The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" lived. Things happen to a monument to the author and the sentence and life changes irrevocable. It's a quick read, and lots of fun. Let me know if you get the chance to read it and what you think!

Yesterday

Kristi, how did your first day of classes go? Did you meet any new people? Learn any new things? Play any team-bonding games? Keep us ( or me!) updated.


I learned yesterday that we may not have enough third-graders, so I could be switching grade levels. Perhaps even 10 days into the school year. Fun times ahead.

Cruuise-ites

So, those of you who were chatting with me last night about taking a cruise should know that there are forces at work in the universe trying to make this happen. I registered for carnival.com so taht I could look at the prices and other information on their website. This morning, I had an email from a personal vacation planner telling me that he would be happy to help me in any way I might need. Later this afternoon, when I turned my cell phone on after work, there was a message from the same vacation planner, asking me to call him at Carnival so that I could hear about special deals available to Carolina residents. Don't think I've given up on this plan.

My summer adventures

My summer adventures are hard to recount in a way that is fun and interesting. However, I will list for you the highlights of my summer "mid-pines, and hills and lakes of crystal clear."

• I got a sunburn the first week I was there ( mid June) which I STILL have tan lines from.
• I had a psychotic camper who loved me but threw fits and went into hysterics for hours and then would calm down in 30 seconds.
  
• I got dressed up as George Washington AND as Mary Poppins, on 2 different occasions.
• I got thrown in the lake by the International Counselors on the 4th of July.
• A guy died in our lake ( a public beach swimmer) like 2 weeks ago.
• I met a 18 year old from Alabama who was trying to get pregnant with her 44 year old boyfriend, bought prescription painkillers on the black market, got her nose broken by a 5-year old, and ( before camp even started) scraped her face on the bottom of a pool, leaving an attractive Hitler-moustache-esque scar
• I went to a Portland Sea-Dogs game
  
• I went Whale watching
• I learned to "jump, shake my booty" and "rock the boat"
• I helped the Swim staff lose a tan-off to the Boating staff

For now, that is all I can think of. Comment as you wish, and I'll try to edit to add things as I think of them

Goals

Results from the America's Finest City 5K (afchalf.com) on Sunday, August 14:

Overall Place	Sex Place	Div Place	First Name	Last Name	Sex	Age	City	State	Time	Pace	Bib	Gun Time	Year
164	129	18	Jack	Pham	M	24	San Diego	CA	00:25:35	8:14	6949	00:25:58	2005

25:35. A far cry from the sub-20:00 I used to do in high school but hey, that's what 50 pounds and 5 years of college eating/exercise habits will do ;-).

I don't have the picture with me now, but there's a funny yearbook picture of me in a track meet when I was 15. I looked so skinny! I'll try to upload it when I get home.

Backstory: For those who didn't know, I signed up to run in a race this past Sunday. There were two, the half marathon and the 5k, with the half marathon bearing additional 15km, $20 and agony. The 5k was run completely inside Balboa Park, and on a nice overcast early Sunday morning, I could not ask for any more.

Race recap: I started off quickly, shooting off characteristically like the Jackrabbit that I should be named for, and ran the first mile hard. And pooped out. The second mile was extremely tough, as I had expended all my energy and was paying the price by watching people pass me by. Oh well, I was running the race for myself and wasn't in it to beat people, per se, but it does knock you down somewhat when everyone else looks to be running strong. I managed to find some last bits of adrenaline-surged energy at the end, right at the 3 mile mark, to finish the last tenth-of-a-mile strong.

And so the running bug's venom has finally made me succumb to running a race, and it's left me with only more desire to run another one if only to improve my time (a PR - personal record - as it's called in the runnersphere).

Next up, the Pardee Ocean View 5k, October 2. I have it marked on my calendar.

[edit: As seen above, now you can understand why I wanted to expand the width of this blog. Grr!]

Grrr...IE sucks!

So here I was, today at work, procrastinating (or rather, with little real work to do), and I decided to try to fancy up our beloved blog. The main thing I wanted to do was expand the width of the blog content area. Sounds easy enough, right? Open up the template, change the width from "450" to something bigger. Not quite so easy. A few hours later and more than a few under-my-breath curses (I've got officemates to mind) later, I had thought I made progress, but when I checked with IE, it looked like shit. (It looked pretty in Firefox though!) Googling reveals that IE has a botched implementation of their CSS templates, which means Microsoft sucks ass. Grr. Unfortunately, I gave up.

So you wanna be annoyed at a television show

It's really sad that i'm coming back from my posting-haitus for this comment, but whatever.

Did anyone else see tonight's episode of "So you think you can dance"?

And was anyone else really really bothered by it? It was like 1.5 hours of showing people being mean to each other. Dancers being mean to other dancers....choreographers being mean to dancers.... SHEESH! Enough already. Instead of seeing the good dancers were might actually make it to the final round of auditions we just got to see a lot of annoying bickering.

The only good part was like the hip-hop dance off between Melody (who might be one of my favorites) and the other modern dancer whose name escapes me.... Ashley I think it was. Cause they were good, and that was like competitive, but in good fun. And yeah, it actually showed the choreographer (GASP!) being nice to a student.

And that ballroom lady was really annoying me with comments about people's hair. goodness. I mean, I know ballroom is refined and all. But lordy.

If they don't shape up soon they will lose me as a loyal viewer. Ya hear that FOX?!