polar bear swim club

i'm thinking about starting one here in austin (although maybe there already is one?). i left my sunny home in the south for a fabulous thanksgiving day weekend in san francisco only to return to overcast skies, drizzle and temperatures slightly above freezing (literally). people tell me that this is the worst weather austin gets, but when i moved to texas in the first place they were amidst the 100 year rain season. am i unlucky?

one of the many good things i got out of my trip to sf was one of my friends saying he'd be interested in meeting me in alaska at the end of my ride next summer. anyone else interested? we could do some hiking at mt. mckinley? let me know!

mountain unicyclists

Yes, that's right...mountain unicyclists. They do exist. I was passed by a couple of them while I was running around Town Lake this morning. I am impressed that they can stay upright while going over all the rocks and general unevenness.

the office

i had not had a real job until i started my present contracting position. it's really fun to not do work with your coworkers. today was one of those days where no one felt productive and there were lots of conversations to be had. we lasted about 10-15 minutes on each topic of conversation and then moved onto the next. i think we should keep a hat full of conversation topics somewhere so if we ever run out, we can just reach into the hat, grab a slip of paper, read the word on it out loud...and then discuss. or maybe we should just have a random word generator sitting around.

i'll get you my pretty

look out world. there will be a partial reunion of the infamous wizard of oz road-to-hana relay team over turkey day weekend. we will be descending on san francisco from hawaii, new york and texas...but will the scarecrow and dorothy be able to make it?! keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned.

for those who have been waiting in suspense for an update on life, the application to biomedical engineering went in last week, my lab class from heck had its last meeting today (but gave us another assignment on top of the final project just to make sure we didn't slack off for the rest of the term), and no, i have still not been swept off my feet by a cowboy (the boots and texas drawl don't really do anything for me). my proposal for research with human subjects went in and was reviewed last week, and i should get to start collecting data soon...i was excited about this and eager to get started, and then my boss walked in and asked how feasible it would be to have all of my data collected before the end of the calendar year so that it could all be analyzed and used in a grant proposal he has going in by february 1. it's a good thing i didn't have plans to relax and not do any work, or something crazy like that, over my winter break. speaking of which, i will be heading to california (bay area) for a little bit and then to nyc for new year's. if anyone will be in either of those areas during those times, let me know!

congrats to my brother rob for moving up to the open team for creole. he will be travelling to atlanta with them for volleyball nationals over memorial day weekend 2008. i hope to make it to there to see all of the ridiculously tall, athletic guys...i mean...to be a supportive big sister. actually, my boss is a volleyball player too and told me earlier today he's planning on going to nationals with his team again this year...so i guess i'll get to see if he's any good.

riding through the rockies

i found out i will be riding through the rockies on my way up to alaska this summer as i was asked to be the director of the rockies route. while i don't study cycling, i have found a fun and interesting way to prepare for the route at work. we were testing the virtual reality system i work on the other day, and the vr environment designer, who is from colorado, made the mountains look like the rockies. now all we need to do is convince them to get us one of the scent machines to go with the system, and we could have a custom mountain smell made.

if anyone was watching cnn, yesterday morning, you may have seen where i work and a couple of my bosses. the president came to check out the facility and meet some of the patients. the spurs where there a couple weeks ago which was pretty neat because they played a game of wheelchair basketball with a bunch of the patients.

finding my people

i went for a 13 mile run this morning...and then went to go meet some of the other tx4k riders to ride. turns out though that we were meeting at the same place and time as the ut cycling team. as only 3 other tx4kers turned out, we rode with the cycling team. i haven't ridden like that since riding with the uh team...it was fantastic. i met a bunch of kindred spirits and got to see east austin and beyond. and it felt great to be really tired when i was done.

Stephen Colbert meets the NYT

Stephen Colbert, you are awesome. Check out his appearance as a guest columnist in the NYTimes: article