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HD Update

2009-12-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

Well, after me complaining about the TV, Chris futzed around with the settings and now the HD stuff looks great! He showed me what he changed.. one of them was something about turning off the "smoothing" option but don't ask me what it means. All I know is it looks way better now.

Yippee, HD

2009-11-29T22:25:00.001-08:00

After discussing it for the last, oh, five years or so, we finally bought an HD TV last week. I like it, but... it is not quite as awesome as I thought it would be. The screen is nice, the picture is big, but some programs just look a little off.

It's hard to explain. The close-ups look good, but when we were watching The Tudors on DVD (granted, we don't have Blu-Ray) I started to notice that the shots that are farther out look like.... well, like we're watching PBS or a soap opera or something. Less polished. Also, I feel like I'm much more aware of the camera panning.

I chalked it up to being a regular DVD, but I have noticed the same thing on TV shows like Glee. On the other hand, Survivor looked great. I watched a few minutes of Empire Strikes Back on cable and I hate to say it, but it just didn't look that great.

Maybe it's just something I'll have to get used to, like the shaky hand-held camera thing that started a while ago. We'll see!

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes..

2009-10-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Long time no update, eh? Mostly I update over at Baby Blogosaurus. I'm thinking of combining them back into one blog again, since the poll I took last September seemed to indicate most everyone reads both anyway.

Anyway, I wanted to post the latest about my knee. Recap: did no running while pregnant. A couple of months after having Jack, started up running again, after 2 weeks, knee pain. Stopped. A year later (June 2009) I tried again, and again, after 2 weeks, much knee pain. Saw the doctor, got an MRI: right knee stress fracture at the top of the tibia.

No running for a few months, started physical therapy. MRI in October showed: no more stress fracture! Yay! So I have started oh-so-slowly with a running program again. I am just starting my second week, so we'll know soon whether my problem has truly been resolved.

United and their baggage

2009-07-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

We usually fly United Airlines, partly because we have a credit card that gets miles, and partly because it's usually going where we need to go.

In May when we went to Seattle we flew United. United charges $15 for the first bag you check in. My sister and I each checked a bag and paid the fee. When we got to the gate, they announced the flight was full, and that anyone could go ahead and check a bag right now--for no charge.

That made me mad. We follow the rules and pay extra? Nice. So I decided to email United when I got home, just to tell them I didn't think they played fair. I went to Christopher Elliot's travel advice website and looked up the contact info for United's customer support. And within a couple of days, I got a very nice reply, apologizing and giving us each a $25 voucher. Now, the apology didn't acknowledge that they had broken their own rules--it said something about there being a "misunderstanding"--but whatever. I hadn't asked for any money, and they were nice to apologize and to give us vouchers.

Sadly the vouchers are not usable on baggage fees however!

On our Hawaii trip, we paid to check our bags when we checked in on-line. The fees have gone up--it's now $20 at the airport, but $15 on-line. However, my sister and my dad only paid $11, so I called United yesterday to find out why.

Turns out the fee increase is based on when you bought your tickets, and since they bought their tickets earlier, they had the earlier fee.

I still can't even believe airlines are charging to check a bag. It's outrageous. It makes people try to cram even MORE stuff on carry-on. If the airline needs more money, it should increase the ticket price, not nickel-and-dime us to death on basics.

I have to say, though, I don't really mind buying food on the plane. I never much liked the free food they serve, and the vegetarian option is usually also the kosher, low-salt, no-fat, no flavor option as well. I was fine paying the $6 for a snack box on our trip to Hawaii. It had lemon-flavored tuna, crackers, and shortbread cookies. Some dried fruit might be nice, but ah well.

Living in Belmont

2009-05-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

Forbes Magazine recently came out with its list of Top 25 American Cities to Live Well, and Belmont, California (where we live) was number 11.

We've lived here six years, and we like it very much. We love our neighborhood, and its proximity to hiking trails. The schools are very good. It's close to San Francisco. It has a great new library.

The main drawback is the weather.. it's often 20 degrees cooler here than next-door San Carlos! It can get quite windy. Chris doesn't mind it, but I'd prefer it a little warmer. We do have heat waves.. it was 94 degrees here yesterday.. but it seems like its either slightly on the cool side, in the 50s or 60s, or REALLY hot. I'd like more 70-80 degree days!

Also I wish there was a real downtown. There are shops and restaurants, but no real main street.

But I have to agree it's a great place to live!

What's different about England?

2009-05-15T10:51:00.001-07:00

Every time I visit the UK, I see little things that are subtly different than the US. There are the obvious things, of course, like different vocabulary, driving on the other side of the road, having a Queen, etc. This last trip I decided to write down some of the things I noticed. I've listed them here.

Let me preface it by saying I really love the UK, and that these are just my own experiences, from the 4 months or so I've spent there. Your mileage may vary.

Separate hot and cold taps. This really drives me crazy... you either burn your hands or freeze them. The idea is that you're supposed to put the plug in and fill the sink with the right mix of water, but that seems like a lot of bother.
"Half-eleven". Just one of those phrases that I have to stop and think about when I hear it (I would say "eleven-thirty").
"dinner" == Sunday lunch. I still get mixed up about the usage of lunch, dinner, and tea. Sometimes tea means afternoon snacks, sometimes it means a light dinner, sometimes it means a regular dinner. Sometimes lunch is lunch and sometimes it's dinner.
No napkins. Or at least, very few napkins. Chris is adept at eating without needing a napkin. Me, not so much. I didn't realize I was a messy eater until I had to make due without a napkin. Restaurants have napkins, but often have paper napkins instead of cloth even at slightly nicer places.
Putting the laundry out to dry outside. This is good environmentally, and not everyone has space for a dryer, but I see lots of people who do have dryers still using the line. In a country that rains a lot. I remember being in Scotland at a B&B and the owner had just put the wash out to dry, when it started hailing, so he brought it all back in. Then it was sunny again, so it went out again.
No shower door/curtain. Another skill Chris has that I lack: taking a shower in a tub with no curtain. After my 5th visit to his parents', I am finally able to take my shower without getting the floor soaking wet. Showers often have hand-held sprayers that are on brackets on the wall; I must admit I really like my water-wasting more powerful American shower heads.
Small rooms, keep the doors closed! I'm used to houses with more open-plan styles, where you often can't even "close" a room because there's no door. A lot of the UK houses I've been too have smaller rooms, and I see people opening and shutting the doors as they go in and out. Makes sense from a heating perspective. It's just something different.
Soap with a "badge". Chris's parents have this soap called Imperial Leather that has a little "badge" in the middle, that's leftover when the soap is all gone. Never seen that before!

Anyway, those are just some of the little things that struck me. I would love to hear from Brits about the little things they've noticed in the US.

Song Flashbacks

2009-03-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

This morning on the radio I heard Sting's Love is the Seventh Wave and was instantly transported back in time to 1988, driving down Ygnacio Valley Road in Chris W's (POPnet handle: Number Six) yellow AMC Hornet, en route to a party.

I love song flashbacks. When I hear Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite, I'm back in my dorm room freshman year at UCSD, dancing with my roommate Amanda. Push It by Salt-N-Pepa puts me back at a high school dance, doing the Running Man. When I hear The Flag by the Barenaked Ladies, I'm driving in my car from Indiana to Kentucky on my first solo road trip.

When I hear Help Me Rhonda by the Beach Boys I picture my Dad dancing in our living room, clapping his hands and singing, and everything seems right with the world. Early Morning Rain reminds me of Jon...it was on a mix tape from him and I listened to it over and over in my Honda station wagon in high school.

Some songs have multiple memories. The Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams brings to mind hanging out at Jason's house in high school, singing along in his living room, as well as early days of dating Chris, jumping on the bed in his studio apartment and air guitaring.

Some songs are sad, reminding me of breakups, or my lonely first summer in Indiana. Some songs make me tearful but for good reasons: the lyric "And when I take your hand, I watch my heart set sail," from Mark Cohn's True Companion fills me with love for Chris.

And there are songs that I just can't help dancing to, like It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock. Lisa and I heard that in the mall the other day and just started grooving at the Gap.

I love how music brings back such powerful memories. Got any song flashbacks? Share them in the comments!

Love Me Tender

2008-12-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Yahoo! holiday party. The theme this year was Las Vegas, and I have to say it was my favorite so far (of the four we've been to). The first year we went, I was feeling terrible from the bug I'd picked up on our trip to the Caribbean. The second year was good. Last year I was 5 months pregnant and spent most of it sitting down. This year I was footloose and fancy free!

My parents babysat and we had a great time dancing, eating, playing Dance Dance Revolution, and renewing our vows with Elvis. Yes, they had a Vegas-style wedding stage, and Elvis performed the ceremonies. They even had wigs/glasses to dress up. The only thing lacking was gingerbread men (available at the previous parties).

Here In My Car

2008-11-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

Chris and I have been discussing buying a new car for years. I'd been driving a 1996 Nissan 200SX SE-R, and he's been driving a 2001 Audi S4.

I loved my Nissan. It was my first new car, and I bought it back in Indiana when I was going to graduate school. I took my first solo road trip in it (down to Kentucky to visit Mammoth Caves), and drove it from Indiana to Virginia, and Indiana to California. It was just right for me: small, zippy, and comfortable to drive. The only thing it lacked was a color: I wanted green, but settled for black. I vowed the next time I bought a car I wouldn't settle.

I briefly considered buying a Nissan 350Z as its replacement, and even took one for a test drive, but I knew I wouldn't end up buying it. Too impractical.

When the baby arrived, I started driving the Audi, because it's a 4-door so it's easier to get the car seat in and out. However, it's still too small to fit two adults in the back in addition to the carseat. So we decided we'd replace the Nissan with a more family-friendly car.

We didn't want an SUV or a minivan, and quickly settled on a wagon. But then we stalled. There are wagons out there, but nothing met all our criteria: good gas mileage, reasonably sized back seat and cargo space, a little bit sporty, 4WD, and, my most important one: it had to come in red!

We dithered for months, went to the car show, test drove a couple of cars, and finally decided on a Toyota Matrix. But finding the Matrix with the options I wanted (red, 5-speed manual, vehicle stability control, all-weather package) was impossible. I tried CarsDirect.com, spoke to various dealers, but they all said that combination wasn't available. One dealer kept calling/emailing me and would say, "Cathy.... are you SURE you want red? I mean... it's RED. Really red."

Finally I called an auto broker and she found the car I wanted in Sacramento. Two guys drove it down on Saturday morning, and when we opened the door they looked at us doubtfully and said, "It's red." I GET IT. Then when I said I wanted to take it for a drive around the block, one of them said, "Well, it's a 5-speed.." Um, yeah, I DID buy the car... do you think I can't drive it? Then he insisted I was the co-signer when in fact my name was listed first. Ok, I'm a 36-year old woman; why is it I can't possibly want a red car with a manual transmission??

Anyway, we drove the car this weekend and I like it a lot. It doesn't have all the luxuries of the Audi--I really miss the automatic temperature control, where you can just set the temperature you want--but it's been nice to drive so far. And, we can fit two adults in the back along with the car seat!

Now I just have to sell the Nissan. I'm going to miss that car.

Duh

2008-10-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

Stupid things I have done recently that I choose to blame on sleep deprivation:

Stuffed the water bill into a drawer and forgot all about it
Went to the grocery store but forgot my shopping list
Went back to the store to get what I forgot, and bought sour cream instead of cottage cheese
Forgot to pay the credit card bill, then argued with the customer service rep that of COURSE I had paid it, it must have been a bank error. Uh.. no.
Set fire to parchment paper on the stove
Drove down the block with the emergency brake on
Sent someone a birthday card an entire month early

I'm sure there's more, but I am too sleep-deprived to remember.

Ho Ho Ho

2008-10-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

I find this a little ironic: it's a bag of coal from Crate and Barrel (really licorice pieces), for Christmas stockings. And it's kosher.

Bad Survey

2008-10-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

As someone who used to conduct surveys, I am sympathetic when I get calls asking me to participate in one. Plus, I actually like taking surveys.

Tonight I got another call from the Nielsen people, asking me to take a television survey. First the guy says, "May I speak to Cathy.. F.... female?" I said, "Cathy F?" and he says "Oh.. no.. Cathy, the F is for female."

Ok, that's me! Then we get stuck on the first question: do I subscribe to cable TV? Well, I asked for a clarification, since cable TV sometimes means literally cable TV (e.g. instead of satellite), and sometimes it means non-broadcast channels.

He repeated the question. I said, Does it include satellite TV? We subscribe to satellite. He repeated the question. Finally, I'm like, I don't know, let's move on.

The next question? "Do you subscribe to a satellite TV service?"

Sigh.

He then proceeds to list every sport known to man, including 10 types of car racing I've never heard of, and wants to know how much I like watching them on TV, on a scale of 1 to 5. Since I don't watch sports on TV, I answered 1 to everything, though I really wanted a negative rating scale for things like hunting and fishing, which would be even worse than watching, say, football.

About 12 minutes into the survey, he suddenly says, "I am having computer problems. I will have to call you back." I ask him how much more there is of the survey and he says "I don't know.. my computer is having problems."

I think their survey technique could use some improvement.

Book Review: Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do

2008-09-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

I just finished the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt. It was excellent!

He takes a look at the psychology of driving, and has lots of data and studies to look at. One of the most fascinating parts to me was about the "less is more" theory, e.g. it's safer to have FEWER traffic signals, signs, high sidewalk curbs, etc, because those things allow a driver (as well as pedestrians and bicyclists) to feel safe when we shouldn't. He quotes recently-deceased Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, who pioneered this theory. You can read more about Monderman on Vanderbilt's blog, or watch this video.

Two paragraphs really stood out for me. The first is about people's inability to understand the odds of dangerous things happening, and how it makes us try to add security to the wrong places. He articulates something very well that I've long thought (emphasis mine):

Grimly tally the number of people who have been killed by terrorism in the United States since the State Department began keeping records in the 1960s, and you'll get a total loss of less than 5,000--roughly the same number, it has been pointed out, as those who have been struck by lightening. But each year, with some fluctuation, the number of people killed in car crashes in the United States tops 40,000. More people are killed on the roads each month than were killed in the September 11 attacks. In the wake of those attacks, polls found that many citizens thought it was acceptable to curtail civil liberties to help counter the threat of terrorism . . . Those same citizens, meanwhile, in polls and in personal behavior, have routinely resisted traffic measures designed to reduce the annual death toll (e.g. lowering speed limits, introducing more red-light cameras, stiffer blood alcohol limits, stricter cell phone laws.) . . . It might be precisely because of all the vigilance that no further deaths due to terrorism have occured in the United States since 9/11 . . . This raises the question of why we do not mount a similarly concerted effort to improve the "security" of the nation's roads; instead in the wake of 9/11, newspapers have been filled with stories of traffic police being taken off the roads and assigned to counterterrorism.

And I liked this paragraph too (again, emphasis mine):

On the road, we make our judgments about what's risky and what's safe using our own imperfect human calculus. We think large trucks are dangerous, but we drive unsafely around them. We think roundabouts are more dangerous than intersections, although they're more safe. We think the sidewalk is a safer place to ride a bike, even though it's not. . . We do not let children walk to school even though driving presents a greater hazard . . . We buy SUVs because we think they're safer and then drive them in more dangerous ways. We drive at a minuscule following distance to the car ahead, exceeding out ability to avoid a crash, with a blind faith that the driver ahead will never have a reason to suddenly stop. We have gotten to the point where cars are safer than ever, yet traffic fatalities cling to stubbornly high levels. We know all this, and act as if we don't.

Anyway, the whole thing is a great read and I highly recommend it.

A Poll

2008-09-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Just curious about my readership. (I have the same poll on my other blog too.. please only vote once!)

Which do you read:

1) I only read Blogosaurus.
2) I only read Baby Blogosaurus.
3) I read both blogs.

View Results

Make your own poll

So Close

2008-09-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, a truck crashed into a parking lot of a grocery store in San Mateo, injuring three people and killing a child. The grocery store is Mollie Stone's, where I go every week. I was in that very parking lot an hour before the accident.

Just a reminder of how random these things are.. how quickly lives can be changed forever, even when you're just grocery shopping. Scary.

Cooking

2008-09-22T22:08:00.001-07:00

I've been looking for some new recipes recently as I'm getting a little tired of all our standard meals. Plus I need more quick meals since I don't have much time to cook. Generally, I cook dinner 5-6 nights a week, and one night we do something really basic like frozen pizza. Chris sometimes cooks a meal as well (like when he has a hamburger and I have a veggie burger, or when we have breakfast for dinner and he makes bacon). He also makes very tasty broccoli calzones, but those take a while so we only have them on the weekend. Oh and this weekend he made a lemon meringue pie.. that was good too.

When I say I "cook" that doesn't necessarily mean much; it could just be boiling ravioli & heating sauce and making a salad. But sometimes it's more complicated, like veggie Wellingtons (Chris's favorite vegetarian meal).

Chris doesn't like leftovers, and I can't really complain about that.. he eats anything I make, even though it's vegetarian. We both grew up with moms who were stay-at-home (though my mom did go back to work part time when I was older) and who cooked dinner every night, so we're used to that model.

But I found a way around the leftover problem! Did you know you can make twice as much, and FREEZE part of it? Wow! It only took me 36 years to learn this.

Anyway, two new things I've tried recently: spinach & mushroom in phyllo cups, and sausage-egg casserole.

The spinach & mushroom thing is from Vegan Lunch Box, but the original recipe uses tofu and phyllo you have to roll out, so I never tried it. But then I saw on her blog [can't link to the post; scroll down to "Greg's Great Greek Lunch"] that she used mushrooms in place of the tofu and used the pre-made cups (found in the frozen section) so I tried that and it worked well.

I decided to try some vegetarian sausage last week when we had breakfast for dinner, and it wasn't too bad. I wasn't a big sausage eater when I ate meat, either. Anyway Chris didn't like the plain sausage, but I thought I might be able to find a dish that used it in a less obvious way. I found this recipe on Epicurious and tried it out tonight and it was pretty good--I think we'll have it again! (I substituted veggie sausage for meat, of course, and added more sun-dried tomatoes, and used half-and-half instead of whipping cream).

That's the latest in our culinary adventures.

President of Yugoslavia

2008-09-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Back in high school, for reasons I cannot explain, I declared myself the president of Yugoslavia. My friend Tara S. declared herself the co-president, and we would talk in funny accents. I had a Yugoslavia keychain and a Yugoslavia sweatshirt, and I visited the Yugoslavia booth at the World Expo.

Anyway, my friend Andy got me a cool huge Yugoslavian flag that I hung in my room, and then later in my dorm room in college. I carried that flag from San Diego to Indiana and back to California again. At some point I thought maybe I should sell it on eBay or something, since I was no longer using it, and someone else would appreciate it more. But I was too lazy to do anything about it.

Until a few weeks ago, when I walked into my mother's group and met someone who was born in Yugoslavia. I said, "This may be an odd question, but would you like a Yugoslavian flag?" And she said "Sure!"

So the next week I brought it with me, and gave it to her. And that is the story of my Yugoslavian flag.

The Android's Dream: Review

2008-09-03T17:58:00.001-07:00

Over the years, I'd heard favorable things about John Scalzi's writing, so I was happy to find one of his books (The Android's Dream) at the local library. The title interested me because of the homage to Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I really didn't like this book. First off, the core plot revolves around a fart joke--not exactly my favorite type of humor. The writing is sloppy: for example the word "just" would be used twice in one sentence, and there were a bunch of typos. The writing style is extremely casual, which in general I don't mind, but this was casual enough that I was conscious of it.

What I disliked most, however, was its treatment of female characters. I am very disappointed that a modern science fiction writer would do such a poor job of including female characters. It's science fiction.... you can do anything you want! Yet it suffers from the age-old treatment of women as important only as love interests.

There are two major female characters: Robin Baker, and Andrea Hayter-Ross. Baker is a human/sheep hybrid; her mother was genetically engineered as a sheep-woman to satisfy men's beastiality urges. Nice. Baker is described as "attractive," of course, and is pursued by Earthlings and aliens alike for a ceremony to determine the next leader of the Nidu alien race.

Hayter-Ross is really the only decent female character, as someone who started the Church of the Evolved Lamb, a thinly-veiled version of Scientology.

Of course, Baker is always called "Robin" (or "the girl"), while the male characters are usually referred to by their last name.

There are so many politicians, hackers, aliens, etc. in this book--why are they almost all men? In another charming example, Earth has banned all females of a particular alien race from visiting Earth during mating season unless they are on birth control, since their mating practices wreak havoc. It's a silly piece of the story, but why must it be the females who are banned?

This book gets an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon. Even if the misogyny doesn't bother you, I think the story is pretty lame. I did actually finish the book, so it's certainly not the worst thing I've ever read, but I can't say it makes me want to read anything else he's written.

Dinosaurs Are Not Just For Boys

2008-09-03T15:00:00.001-07:00

It drives me nuts when people advertise things like dinosaur decorations and label it "for boys". Why on Earth would only boys like dinosaurs? My mom got me a really cute scrapbook with dinosaurs on it and put pictures of everyone in the family in it. It comes with stickers and they all say things like "absolutely 100% boy" and "of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable" and "it's a guy thing". WTF?

Look, I understand that in general, more boys than girls are interested in dinosaurs. But I was a dino-freak when I was a kid and I'm sure lots of other little girls are too. There is just no reason to categorize the world into "boy" and "girl" items. It's like greeting cards--why are Star Wars cards labeled "Boy Birthday"? Why can't they just be birthday cards?

Jack's room is painted lavender. We painted it that color a few years ago and saw no reason to change it when turning the room into a nursery. Having that color for a boy disturbs some people, however. I called a place to ask about glider cushions and when I mentioned the color of the room was lavender and that we were having a boy, the woman said, "Well, and you'll be changing the color of course..."

Just what do people think is going to happen if a baby boy has a room with lavender-painted walls? No doubt he'll be scarred for life.

Great Weekend

2008-08-24T17:46:00.001-07:00

What a nice weekend. On Saturday I went to book club for our 5-year anniversary. We read Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sacks, and had a great discussion at Bistro Vida, where our book club was conceived. I love book club. We spend about half the time discussing the book, and half the time talking about all kinds of things. I always wish we could meet longer.

Saturday night S. came over and made us dinner: lentil tostadas. They were very tasty and I had leftovers for lunch today. We watched some Olympics and played the Poll Game, one of my favorites. (Dave was out of town so missed out on the fun.)

Today I met up with Amy and visited Lisa and Jason and their new baby boy Jon. They're doing very well and Jon is adorable.

Last night Jack gave us a treat and had a five-and-a-half hour chunk of sleep (he went to bed at 8, woke up to eat around midnight, then slept until 5:30).

Soon, Jack will wake up from his nap and we'll go for a short walk, then have dinner. And that will be the end of a very nice weekend.

3 Day What?

2008-08-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

I'm sure this isn't news to anyone, but the company 3 Day Blinds should really be renamed "3 Day Blinds (if you pay us $150 extra)".

Question on Unlocking Phones

2008-08-17T18:25:00.001-07:00

Ok, people out there who are cell-phone savvy: I need to know how I can make sure my phone will work when we go to the UK.

I have a Motorola Razr V3. I called T-Mobile and told them I wanted to unlock my phone. They sent me an email with the unlocking code and the following instruction: "Before you start, you must have a foreign (non T-Mobile) SIM card entered into the handset."

I want to test this out before we travel (prob in a few months). Can I buy a SIM card here and try it? If so, where would I buy it, what would I buy?

Where the Hell is Matt? At Yahoo!

2008-08-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

Matt Harding, of the website Where the Hell is Matt?, recently paid a visit to the Yahoo! campus. For those who haven't heard of him, Matt travels around the world and does a goofy dance in various locales. He often dances with the locals. This year's video is excellent, be sure and check it out.

I wanted to be in on the fun so I went down with Jack and had lunch with Chris, and then took part in the dancing on the green outside the cafeteria. They just posted the video on the Yahoo! blog. Matt danced all over campus and the part we were in is very brief, right at the end of the video. You can't really see us, but we're standing in the circle at the top left of the Y.

UPDATE: There's a photo of us on Flickr right before the dancing started. We're just to the right of the white light post. In fact that's Jack's diaper bag next to the post.. :) Thanks Mom for finding us!

I Fought the Curl, and the Curl Won

2008-08-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

For 36 years, I've wished for straight hair. I've been going to the same hairdresser for nearly 10 years, and every time I have him blow-dry it straight. All day I say "I love my hair!" and the next time I take a shower, when the straightness gives way to the huge hair that's always been my nemesis, I shed silent tears.

Ok, I don't really cry, but I do wish it could be straight all the time.

My hairdresser's moving out of the state, so I decided to finally try going to someone new. She was all about the curl, so I let her loose. I have to say: I like it! The big question is, will I be able to make it look that way on my own? I think I'll have a good chance at it: she just put some product in and twirled the hair into ringlets and let it air-dry. Never too old to try something new, right?