Wonky buildings, inflatable colons, blown glass, and a vent

28 May 2008, 2:05 pm by Giggles
Categories: Health, News, Random, Venting

Pisa’s leaning tower stabilized: There are some stories about engineers that just make me smile. What’s so wonky about the church steeple in Germany that makes it more wonky than a building that’s been falling over for more than 800 years?

Inflatable, walk-through colon exhibit open: This would be an exhibit I would not want to walk through either just before or just after eating. But if I were in the area, it might be interesting to go to.

Designers teach glass (and themselves) new tricks: I love glass. It’s like water or light or air caught in a beautiful moment of time. This would be something that I would love to go watch. I used to think about learning how to blow glass when I was younger. Now I’d settle for learning how to make beautiful stained glass pieces, and putting them in my home.

Now the vent. Why do companies keep not-improving their products? These new contacts that the eye doctor told me were “great,” are not. They do not last nearly as long as my last ones. They barely even last as long as they are supposed to – one month. My last ones could go three, four, maybe even five months and not have any problems at all. I’d only change them because I couldn’t remember when I’d last done it. Just over three weeks with these new ones though and I’m wearing glasses if I’m just going to be staying at home. These are not an improvement!! I’d get the old ones if I could, but they aren’t making them any more. Makes me wonder if companies un-improve their products, purposefully making them not last as long, so that we have to buy them more often. A pox on them all I say!

Share your thoughts

Now just do that 9 times … in a row

27 May 2008, 8:23 am by Giggles
Categories: Exercise

My training calendar said to run three miles yesterday. It didn’t say to do them at goal pace, but I decided to see just how fast I could run three miles. My goal pace is eight minute miles. It’s quite the pace.

I bought a Timex Ironman watch a few months ago because it has 30 lap memory. And for a marathon I’m really only going to need 26 “laps,” so it’s perfect.

First mile – 7:50.06
Second mile -8:04.12
Third mile – 7:20.43
Total – 23:14.61

Yippy!! That is a PR for me. I don’t think I’ve ever run 3 miles that fast, not even for a 5K race. And my knee was just fine. And my foot was just fine. I only had to deal with side stitches for a bit in the middle. The first mile felt a bit off, but the last mile felt great.
Now I just need to do that nine times in a row and I’ll qualify for Boston. If I think about it too much, my legs will fall off in protest.

3 Shared thoughts

The Sunday News

25 May 2008, 11:15 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Exercise, Folks, Happy Things, Health, News, Relationships, Science & Tech

Yes, I have other things I want to write about, but there are just so many funny news stories to comment on. I have deeper thoughts coming though.

Town moves against Islamic school: This story just makes me sick. It’s no wonder there is no peace on earth with people like those living in Camden, Australia. How stupid, arrogant, and pigheaded can a group of people be?

Patients Wrongly Certified Dead: Brett, do NOT read this story. Maybe even skip down to the next one I’m commenting on and ignore this one completely. How well trained can they be if it even happens!? My word! I think my favorite part of the story though is at the very beginning where it states that in each instance the mistake was later realised. Really? Ya think? What was your first clue that you’d wrongly declared them dead?42D

Spanish village holds baby jump: So, let me get this straight. You dress up like the devil and jump over babies and the devil goes away? There’s something I’m not getting here. But at least the babies are bemused.

Runners take to capital’s streets: I want to run a marathon in Scotland. That sounds like an excellent excuse to go there. I shall think about it for next year. They expect almost half to finish under 3 hours?! I’d definitely get a personal best if I ran that one. I’m hoping to finish in 3.5 this summer.

Premature babies “need cuddles”: I think all people “need cuddles.” I’m not a premature baby, but I know that cuddles reduce my stress and anxiety levels. I hope if I’m ever a parent in that situation that the hospital will be up on the latest research and let me hold my baby.

Cities of the dead: This article caught my attention because of the budding folklorist in me. Cemeteries are fascinating cultural records. How often do you think about what people put on their grave? How often do you wonder about what people used to put on their graves? Not often enough I’d imagine. Cemeteries are full of information, and more than just names and dates. The graves can tell a lot about how the person lived and when they died. I just might have to go look up the book mentioned in the article.

Some fees rising in local schools: I know I’ve commented on this before, but I find it incredulous that there are even fees to begin with. The ones mentioned in this article are a bit more understandable, but the other fees – I thought public education was paid for by the government. Except the Utah government has never caught on to that idea.

Beetles light up computer research: Soon we’ll have computers with bug monitors and bacteria processors. The term “computer bug” is going to take on a whole new meaning.

1 Shared thought

Books, really long telescopes, and the amazing world of the microbe

23 May 2008, 7:07 pm by Giggles
Categories: Books, Education, Happy Things, Health, News, Random, Science & Tech

Giant “telescope” links London, New York: How cool is this idea? I’ve always wanted to go to London. Could I at least get to New York in the next month and look at it? Also reported by the BBC in “Tunnel” links New York to London

Teachers tempted to leave Calif.: Every time I hear a story like this, I’m even more glad that I never moved to California to teach in the first place. What looked like an amazing offer at the time has revealed itself to have been a bad decision. I’m grateful I never took that road.

Working classes “have lower IQs”: I’d question Dr. Charlton’s statements too. Can he really believe that? How low is his IQ? Just about everyone agrees anymore that IQ tests aren’t accurate descriptions of intelligence anyway. I could point out several examples of people from the supposed upper class who have abysmal IQs. The media does a pretty good job of doing that for us though.

Addicted to text messaging = Part 1 & Part 2: Is it an addiction? Or is it a lack of the ability to communicate with people in any other way? I think it’s a telling sign on society that people talk more through keyboards, of all sizes, than they do with their voice or face to face. I think I’ll go out and look at real people today.

Bacteria thrive in inner elbow; No harm done: I have never thought more about my inner elbow. What’s so different between my inner elbow and my inner arm? I like the idea of all the cells on my body and that are part of my body taking a vote. I’m not sure what they would vote on though. I think if they were to vote on running though, there would be days where it might almost be a unanimous decision.

Calculating Bacteria: Real Computer Bugs: Brett, maybe you should have taken a micro-biology class. Wouldn’t it be funny if we found the solution to p=np in the last cold virus you had?42D

Author Mo Willems on “Elephant and Piggie”: I really like how he describes easy readers as hard writers. I’ll have to check out these books.

1 Shared thought

News comments and a thought about cereal

21 May 2008, 2:42 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Exercise, Family, Health, News, Politics, Random, Relationships, Science & Tech

Recently I’ve heard a few commercials for Total cereal. Their commercials always claim that you should eat Total in the morning because it provides you with 100% of your recommended daily amounts of vitamins and minerals, while you’d have to eat 3, 7, 293 bowls of the other cereals to get what you get in one bowl of Total. It’s a nice marketing scheme, but I do not know anyone who eats just one bowl of cereal for the day and calls it good, eating absolutely nothing else all day. So I have no problem with my cereal not having 100% of everything. I’ll get the rest of it in the other stuff I eat during the day.

I saw some news articles yesterday about a court ruling that paper money discriminates against the blind (New York Times article 1, article 2; CNN article 1, article 2). I wonder why I never thought of that before. I remember learning in elementary school that you could tell the coins apart by feel, but I never even thought about paper money. I wonder what they can do to them that would be cost effective but also less discriminatory.

A warning on this next story, don’t read the article if you are squimish. Don’t read this paragraph if you are very squimish. It appears another sports caster has had a meeting with the business end of a javelin. And this guy got pictures of the javelin through his leg as well. What a trooper to do that! I’m amazed that it only took 13 stitches to close up that hole. That’s incredible. The coach’s response is classic though. His first thought is to be glad he brought an extra javelin. And the kid did go on to win the meet. The reason this story stuck out to me though was because I’ve seen this happen before. When we lived in El Paso, a television sports caster was out covering a track meet and he got struck through the leg with the javelin. The camera guy who was filming him at the time almost lost it. The sports caster was okay until he looked down and saw it sticking out of his leg. Maybe they should mark of the dangerous areas a bit better.

Hoard a Cord: The writer of this story might want to do some research before she sends her story to the press next time. Even if you do not maintain a land line number, you can plug a phone into a jack and call 911. So a corded phone is a good thing to have in your emergency kit.

These stairs were made for walking: This story made me chuckle. Good for them for combining the two. My office here is on the sixth floor, so there were days when I might take the elevator up. But the majority of the time I took the stairs. I always felt like smacking the people in the head who rode the elevator up to the third floor (the ground floor is the second floor). They looked like perfectly healthy people to me who might have gotten some good out of walking up one flight of stairs.

Professor makes black hole breakthroughs, ballads: Who says that professors are stuffy? His classes look like they would be a lot of fun. And I bet his students remember what they learned long after the final exam.

Google, Apple go head to head in ultimate frisbee: See, this is what corporate America needs more of – people running around throwing frisbees. It gets them out of their cubicles and into natural light. And it’s just fun to think of these companies competing like this.

Messages Too Juicy to Delete: I guess I should have figured I wasn’t the only one that saved fun messages on my voice mail. Mine would all fall under the category of family stuff as well. I don’t save the message from the mechanic calling to make sure my car is running fine. (Although that was a great message. How many people get a follow-up call like that from their mechanic? I miss my mechanic.) But I save short messages from my good friends and from my family. I even put my cell phone on speaker phone and recorded my favorites to the computer. I’m glad I did because when I changed phone numbers I lost those ones. And I wish I would’ve done that before unplugging my land line phone in Utah as well. I had some great messages on that phone I was saving.

American, Cutting Back, Plans $15 Bag Fee: It’s just going to snowball from here. Even if the cost of fuel goes back down to what it was 10 years ago, they won’t repeal the fee once it’s there. All the more reasons why I prefer driving.

Reform spells change for Portugal: I didn’t know you could legislate language like that, just get rid of silent letters and increase the letters in the alphabet. I don’t know that I’d agree to this. Sure it might make sense for internet searches and legal documents, kind of. But it’s those differences that make the countries special.

Share your thoughts

Curitiba, a cidade mais bonita

20 May 2008, 2:20 pm by Giggles
Categories: Gospel, Happy Things

Sunday the Deseret News published a story about the Curitiba temple open house and dedication. My heart is full when I think of the blessing that my friends there will have. My heart is with them and the rest of me wishes I could be there as well. The year and a half I was there changed my life.

Share your thoughts

Just need to comment on several things at once

19 May 2008, 1:34 pm by Giggles
Categories: Exercise, Health, News, Questions, Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting, Random, Relationships, Science & Tech

I’ve noticed that most people who comment on news articles on-line are simply providing more proof that the stupidity of the human race should never be underestimated. Rather than joining their ranks and letting my wonderful insight get lost in the babble, I’m going to be making my comments here on my blog on occasion. Obviously I should do it more often so I don’t end up with so many stories like I have today.

From CNN.com

Yearbook photos botched: Why would they even want all the heads to be the same size and have all the eyes at the same level? Heads come in all shapes and sizes. I’d hate to think that someone thought my head wasn’t good enough for my body. I like my head.

Woman’s dead body lies in flat for 35 years: Please, someone, anyone, check on me if you don’t hear from me before I’m dead for 35 years. Was there no one anywhere who wondered where she was? Did they never need to perform maintenance on her apartment? Did her neighbor never back-up the drain and flood her apartment?

Landlines vs. Cell Phones: I found the poll findings about income and education levels related to different phone types interesting. But I’m not sure what any of that has to do with National Health or the CDC.

From DesertNews.com

Bat Injury: When I saw the title of this article I first thought the boy had been hit in the head with the bat. Nope. He was hit in the chest with a ball that was hit with the bat. The suffering of the family and boy is probably intense. But if you take their logic further, any bat, no matter the composition or who approved it, is unsafe. Because under any number of very random circumstances, any bat can cause extreme injury to a person. Not that I want to dismiss their pain, but I really do hope they lose this case.

United through stitches: I like any article about quilting. Quilting not only brings together different fabrics. It brings together people. I know the quilts I make are all made with love and I consider it a small part of me, my heart, that goes with each one to the person I give them to.

Classes spin out craftsman: I want to learn to do this. Add wood turning to the list of things I want to do some day. There was a station in Utah (either PBS or UEN) that used to show a wood-turning show on Sunday afternoons. I enjoyed watching it to see what he would make each week. It was a very relaxing show.

4 days, 3 guys, no shower and 48 states: I want to do that (except maybe not the no shower part). What was their route? Did they visit any state more than once? What a fun way to spend a long weekend!

Teacher truly “walks the walk”: I often wondered just how far I walked during a day when I was teaching. I paced that room a LOT.

From NewYorkTimes.com

Making their own limits in a spiritual partnership: It is very nice of them to spend that much time together, but I really don’t think it is necessary to do that. You can be one with your spouse without having to be no more than 15 feet apart. Sometimes feelings are better dealt with when you can take a time-out. A spiritual partnership does not require that kind of togetherness. It requires togetherness, that’s for sure, but anything taken to such an extreme cannot be a good thing. And while I have no experience in the matter (never having been married, yet), I do not think a married couple can be truly united without all forms of intimacy, spiritual, emotional, and even physical. They all work together. Physical intimacy does not mean there isn’t spirituality or purity. What they are doing is a philosophy of man trying to imitate an eternal truth.

Something Google doesn’t want you to see: If this is really the only secret that Google is hiding, when compared with some of the other things we are finding out about in corporate America, then I applaud them. Legos are cool!

Share your thoughts