Damn you, Bob Harper!

Sunday morning I took on The Biggest Loser: Cardio Max DVD and now, 24 hours later, am still feeling the burn. I selected the easiest selection on the DVD too! Most of the workout consisted of lunge type maneuvers so my thighs and hamstrings are killing me! If I keep this up, I will, like Bob says, be able to bounce a quarter off my ass! It's hard not to want to scream at him on the screen, bouncing around, being all cheerful and encouraging. Damn you, Bob Harper and your lunges!

In non-painful news... the healthy eating has been going well. I've been eating lots of fruits, veggies, yogurt, and lean meat. Saturday night I went to Chucky Cheese with the family and didn't partake in the greasy pizza. It was salad bar for me, including spinach with salad! Go me! Last night I baked some chicken and made extra for today's lunch!

Also, I started my LHOTP adventure. I'm almost finished with Little House in the Big Woods. I'm enjoying it so far. I love how each of Pa's stories has a moral to it, more or less. I will say this, I don't remember all of the drawings from the first time I read this series. Garth Williams rocks!

OUCH!

My week of the "new me" has gone well. I alternated pilates and Tae Bo each morning this week. So now that it's Saturday my calves are so tight that I'm hobbling around. I know there is an adjustment period before things will feel good and not painful after working out. I've been trying to eat more protein to help my poor, unsuspecting muscles recover faster. I'm taking today off from the working out. But tomorrow I'm back at it! I bought three new DVDs last night for half price as Barnes and Noble. Billy Blanks kicks my butt, yes, but he's also kicked my butt many, many times over the last ten years and I thought I needed something new to look at and motivate me. With options, I'm more likely to get out of bed in the morning to do this!

And I skimped on the reading last night. My box set is buried in the garage and I ran out of daylight before I could go digging. I will dig it out after work tonight, before I go to Chucky Cheese with my mom and nephew!

Correction!

My LHOTP obsessed friend (she's the one that used the acronym) informed me that in my previous post I have the first book wrong. It's NOT Little House on the Prairie. The first book, which I will start tonight, will be Little House in the Big Woods. My apologies. :-P

Returning to the Little House on the Prairie

I'm not sure why my mother challenged me. Maybe she was disappointed in my school system or irritated that I hadn't used my Christmas present, but one summer she came to me with a challenge. If I could read my entire box set of Little House on the Prairie books, she would buy me a TV for my room. I was 12 or 13 and probably too obsessed with television for my own good. I accepted the challenge and slowly began my adventure with Laura and all the others. It took all summer, but on the last day of freedom, sunshine, and swimming pools, I spent almost the entire day finishing up the last book of the series. I got my TV and continued my television obsession. (As exciting as it was, that it came with the remote was the coolest part! It didn't take much to excite us in the early 1990s!)

Fast forward fifteen years...I'm cleaning out my garage and find one of many boxes from my childhood. Deep in the bottom is my neatly packaged and cared for Little House on the Prairie box set. After a nice flashback to that summer of reading, I tucked the box safely back in storage and continued on my way. I'm no longer as television obsessed, and after completing graduate school am shocked to find that I still have a passion for reading. So a couple of weeks ago I found myself perusing some bestseller lists a few days ago and thinking "What should I read next?"

Well, my mother would be proud of me. I'm going to dig that box set out of my garage and take that journey to the West one more time! I vaguely remember bits and pieces of the books but not many so it should be a fun and enjoyable experience. Do you care to join me? I'll be starting this evening, Book One - Little House on the Prairie. After each, I'll post a review!

A cloudy day in the neighbor.

It's a cloudy and chilled morning in the neighborhood. Brrr. Makes it obvious that fall is quickly approaching. I love fall. LOVE it!!! It's my favorite time of year. And it's going to fly right by. All of my weekends are booked already, and there's not too much fun mixed in. But it's all okay. Why? Because I don't have to go back to school and will squeeze in my fall fun the best that I can. I'm already looking forward to some fall time decorating, baking, and a trip to Harvest Farms for some corn mazing, kettle corn eating, and pumpkin launching!

I completed morning one ... well, half of morning one. I couldn't finish. I was completely sapped of energy about 25 minutes in and my legs felt like 200 pound blocks. I don't even want to know how much I didn't finish. If my recollection is correct, it's about 20 minutes worth. I definitely can't do that everyday so tomorrow morning I'll take Brink for a walk and do pilates. Baby steps.

Damn you, Denise Austin!

My original plan for this morning was to wake-up at 6:00 to do Tae Bo with my old friend Billy Blanks. But I'm still sore all over from, of all things, go-karting. Every muscle is stiff and sore from my attempt to will the go-kart to go faster than it was capable of. When the alarm went off and I moved enough to realize my muscles still hurt, I cursed Billy Blanks and continued to lounge in bed. Tiny nap, wake up, curse, tiny nap, wake up, curse... an hour later I finally crawled out of bed feeling completely guilty that I bailed on my first day of the "new me." I decided that something was better than nothing and proceeded to torture myself with my Denise Austin 1 1 minute pilates dvd. It was painful. And the sad thing is, it was a half-ass attempt. This "new me" is going to take more work than I hoped for. I knew that, of course. After all, I've been down this road before.

Anywho, tonight is walking. Then tomorrow I'll take on Blanks. (maybe)

Romance awaits??

About a year and half ago I was searching Estes Park lodging for a place for Radio Man and I to go and I found the Della Terra resort. At the time it was still under construction. They had just broken ground on it. I visited the site every couple months to see the progress - they posted photos and videos of the build. Well, it's finally open!! And I want to go! Each room has a fireplace that opens to the bedroom and the bathroom. Very interesting themes for each room too. Very different! And romantic!

Old Oatmeal

According to The Daily Green website, it's okay to eat old oatmeal. Scientists tested samples of 28 year old oatmeal and declared it acceptable to eat, but not fantastic. I'm not a fan of oatmeal unless it's mixed in a granola bar or a cookie so it's quite possible that someday I will actually have oatmeal in my cupboard that is 28 years old. I know for sure I will not eat it, no matter what scientists say. But I may try some of the other useful tips for oatmeal suggested by the website. I'll turn it into modeling clay, a soothing skin treatment for Brinkley, or a facial scrub for myself before I resort to eating the coarse substance

A is for Airplane Crash

In the first of 26 installments (one for each letter of the alphabet) that will surely stretch out over many months, this blog will feature an interesting topic that I found by searching through the "A" vertical files at work on an extremely slow Saturday in the archive.

A is for Airplane Crash

B-17

While the Rocky Mountains may draw tourists for their beauty and serenity, they've proved fatal to pilots and passengers on numerous occasions. One of the most well known crashes in northern Colorado was that of the B-17 bomber during World War II. As part of our yearly elk hunting trip my dad and I inevitably wind up at that end of a long dirt road tucked deep in the Rockies. The road dead ends at a large bronze marker that commemorates the crash that happened in late October 1943. Eight airmen died when the flying fortress was "forced down" onto the mountain side in the middle of the night during a routine training mission. The crash site is a top a large boulder field at the peak of a 12,148-foot mountain. The oldest person to die in the crash was 25-year-old Joseph R. Arnold.

While a road stretches to the base of the mountain today, in 1943, the search for the crash and the recovery of the bodies was not as easy as following the popular trail head that leads hikers up to the remains of the crash and the four massive engines that are still scattered across the mountainside. The rescue party used Army jeeps battled freezing winds and snow to reach the general area, pack mules to climb even closer, and then carried stretchers and poles up the steep mountainside to the boulder field. It's government policy not to retrieve planes or their pars from the crash sites. Unlike other plane crashes in the mountains of Colorado, this B-17 crash site is now easily accessible with three or four hours of determined physical effort.

In a more gruesome and deadly crash, a DC-6 United Airlines mainliner crashed into a mountainside in the middle of the night in late June 1951. En route from San Francisco, the passenger jet carrying 50 people attempted to cut its route from Salt Lake City to Denver short by cutting the corner, literally. Normally, passenger jets wait until they are approaching Cheyenne before turning south towards Denver. Running late out of San Francisco and then out of Salt Lake, the pilot decided to cut the corner on his route and started heading south towards Stapleton airport as he approached Laramie. When the plane crashed it was a mere 50 feet too low to clear the tourist-attracting rockies. It struck nose-first, implanting the pilot, co-pilot, and two or three of the passengers at the point of impact. One of the flight officers still had his hands clenched as if he were still gripping the controls. The tail section of the plane bounced high in the air, a quarter-mile past the nose section, and rested a steep hillside. Fifty yards beyond the tail section lay the rest of the bodies, scattered grotesquely among their possessions and the mail shipment of the day. It took more than 10 hours for the plane to be located in the dense forrest because it was not its assigned path.

The Denver Post reporter that visited the crash site during the recovery described the site with intense detail that is rarely seen in newspapers today. He wrote, "One man's corpse came to rest atop a boulder. His head was missing. Near the tail section were the remains of a woman, her arms hugged in front of her face where she clasped them in the split second before death." And "a pair of trousers, belt still in place, was draped neatly over a tree limb three feet from the ground, as if a careful owner has hung them there before going to sleep."

DC-6

An Unsettling Trip Down Memory Lane

There is no quicker route to memory lane than opening a box of childhood goodies. The pack rat gene runs rampant in my family so I have a plethora of trinkets from the 80s and 90s that are meant to symbolize, somehow, my childhood. After some reflection, I find this very true. No matter how bizarre the item, I can somehow relate it to my childhood. Hindsight certainly helps in navigating the strange box and assists in weeding through the useless and the priceless. Here are a few items that have survived the purges over the years and my first thought as to how they symbolize my childhood. Fair warning - this isn't all bunnies and rainbows.

1. A 3-inch tall gold trophy... sort of. In my box I have two parts of a trophy. The bottom part lists the team and the year. The top part is the gold baseball player from the shins up. He's posing to swing like the true slugger he originally was intended to be. I don't remember when my little trophy stop being a trophy. I remember it was glued for a long time, but that too eventually broke. Why keep a broken trophy? It was the only one that I ever got. It was a HUGE deal to me because my brothers seemed to have hundreds. It didn't matter what sport they played and which team they were on, they always managed to have a coach or group of parents that cared and spent the money on trophies. I wasn't so lucky. One trophy - that's all I got in all the years of playing sports. When I was a kid, I loved baseball. LOVED it! In my head and heart, I knew I could be the first woman player in Major League Baseball. I had dreams of playing for the Chicago Cubs. And I was good at it - so good. I could pitch very well. I threw a no-hitter once. And won $10 off my Dad when he hollered at me, "$10 if you hit a grand slam" as I walked to the plate with the bases loaded. I did hit that grand slam! I was good! But I was a girl, and when puberty hit my dad told me that I could no longer play with the boys. So, a broken trophy is fitting I suppose. Cut-off at the shins - unable to play.

2. A purple pinewood derby car and an orange bubble gum machine - The pinewood derby car probably gives this away as being from my days in the Boy Scouts. Yes, Boy Scouts. I had a slightly disturbing childhood growing up in the shadow of my two older brothers and these two items stand testament to that. What do you do with the third wheel? I was the tag-a-long kid. What my brothers did, I did, including making pinewood derby cars and bubble gum machines. I remember a house full of Boy Scouts and not really being allowed to participate with them. After the fact, I got to do the same project. I remember losing pathetically the day of the pinewood derby car races. Stupid purple car. I wanted to learn how to camp, make fire, pitch tents, ward off bears, but when it came time for that I couldn't participate - I was a girl. And even though I was in Girl Scouts - there was nothing scout like about them. Our patches were for sewing, baking, and other domestic duties. It's no wonder I willingly bailed on the green vested cookie enablers.

3. A Small 3 Ring Binder of Colorado History - By small, I mean small. About the size of a 5x7 photograph and about 3 inches deep, this binder holds my first sojourn into Colorado history. In 4th grade I was introduced to Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Bent's Fort, the Utes, and the columbine, blue spruce, and lark bunting. I had been looking forward to 4th grade because 2 years earlier I had watched my mom frantically put together two binders about Colorado history for my brothers. She did all the work, I'm not sure why, other than a mother's undying love for her slacker sons. She used neon paper and color cutouts - the 1980s version of scrapbooking without the fancy gadgets and computer printouts. The covers were about 11x14" pieces of wood (that my dad had made) and the books were laced shut with leather straps or something. THAT is the kind of Colorado history project I wanted. Instead I got some stupid recycled mini-binder donated from some local company. Our pages were dinky and we had to use the pages they gave us so the whole project was ugly and pathetic. I was utterly disappointed by 4th grade. And I have that crappy little binder to remind me of that! I should burn it.


More and more I'm realizing how disgruntled I am about having grown up with two older brothers whose shadow it often feels like I've yet to escape. I'm sure I'll find more goodies that are less depressing to think about. I hope.

This myth is busted!

Who wouldn't want to find a lost treasure? I'm not sure anyone would leave it lie if they found one. I think this is why one Fort Collins legend has managed to grow to pathetic proportions. In the few months that I've worked for the local history archive I have discovered that when it rains it pours. There is some weird historical force behind what people look up and when. In the last couple weeks, the topic of choice has been the lost treasure of Coyote Pass in northern Colorado.

The story goes that in June 1872 a Conley line stage, loaded with $62,000 gold coins, left Denver for Fort Laramie. The stage was headed north to Fort Collins where it would stop and await additional troops to escort the stage and its heavy coffer. Upon arriving in Fort Collins, Colonel Critchell could not provide the additional troops to escort the stage. All of his troops were chasing Ute Indians west of the newly established town. Permission was granted for the stage to head north for Fort Laramie without its troop escort. Leaving Fort Collins, the stage followed the Overland Trail north and headed through "coyote pass" by Livermore near today's Highway 287. As the eight-mule stage reached neared the pass it was "bushwacked" by the Borrell gang.

Back in Ft. Collins, Colonel Critchell was having second thoughts about sending the stage ahead without protection and sent a small dispatch of men to catch up with the stage. They arrived in time to see the Borrell gang running off with "pokes" full of coins. The troops persued the robbers but all of the men got away. When word returned to Critchell that the stage had been robbed he ordered 40 men to scour the mountainsides until the gold was recovered. All members of the gang were caught and shot, but none of them revealed the location of the gold that they hid in the mountains in their hasty retreat from the soldiers on horseback.

Eleven years later, as the search for the gold continued, a "ruffian" gang from Loveland confronted a rancher in the lower Poudre Valley about the gold. When he denied knowing anything, they shot him. On his body, they found uncirculated gold coins of the Clark, Gruber, & Company mint - the exact coins that had been carried in the chest on that fateful day in 1872. The search of the gold continued, but with no luck. To this day, the gold coins have never been found and "coyote pass" continues to draw the attention of 21st century pirates in search of their treasure.

Now, for the fun part - multiple people have been wanting to do research on this hidden treasure. And each had a different strategy for finding it.

Patron #1 was looking for bodies. In the scuffle to steal the treasure two good guys were killed. The patron wanted to know where the men were burried so that she could then locate Coyote Pass and then, of course, the treasure. This path reached a dead end (pun intended) because the bodies were returned to Ft. Collins and not burried at the scene of the bushwacking.

Patron #2 wanted to look at an old map to find Coyote Pass. After talking to her, I discovered that she was neice of Patron #1. Apparently, treasurer hunting was a family thing. After doing research for #1, I was already skeptical, but I obliged, and pulled out the earliest trails map that we had. There was no Coyote Pass listed on the map. And as a lifelong resident of the area, nothing is known by that today. This frustrated Patron #2 so I began to dig even deeper for information. Enter Patron #3.

Patron #3, having become impatient while waiting for his wife (Patron #2), walked into the archive and started asking questions too. He was after the treasure. Period. It had to be out there and he was going to find it. While listening him to ramble the same story that I heard and read, I revealed to him more information that I had uncovered. The story of the Coyote Pass stage raiding was first published in Treasure magazine by a Loveland author in 1979. After being harrassed by treasure seekers for more information, the man admitted that he often wrote about "ficticious treasures." As I spoke these words, silence fell upon the room. The treasure seekers were not happy. They asked me to repeat what I had read. I did. Grudgingly they thanked me for my help and left, grumbling about what fool the author of the story was and how they had been taken.

The treasure story stayed with me a few more hours and then something dawned on me. The story said the men were headed to Fort Collins and would receive troop reinforcement before heading to Fort Laramie. Prior to finding my last tidbit of information about the original author of the story, I should have deduced that the story was false. Why? Well, two months ago I wouldn't have known this, but I do now. First, by 1866, the military post of Camp Collins had been disbanded and all soldiers were evacuated from the area. There were no troops here in 1872 that would have been ordered to protect any stage. Private security forces would have been used, not the U.S. Army. Second, a BLM search of geographic features in Colorado reveals that there is and never was an area named Coyote Pass in Colorado. And third, Fort Laramie is located east of I-25 and north of Cheyenne - not on the Overland Trail stage route. The town of Laramie was never considered Fort Laramie. This was an interesting play on words that first slipped by me. Kudos to the author for crafting such a sly tale with close but no cigar connections to days past.

It's a good feeling to get paid to hunt for treasure! And an interesting side note - in my digging I discovered that the Clark, Gruber & Company was an actual mint for coinage. It was located in Denver and its coins are very valuable today, which would explain why Patron #3 had his heart set on finding his lost treasure of gold coins and calling Cabo San Lucas home for the rest of his life.



One last side note - I think Coyote Pass sounds like a great movie title. And everyone loves a great treasure hunt. I'll try calling Johnny Depp tomorrow and see if he's busy.

Pulling teeth.

In high school I had a friend, Lana, who was obsessed with teeth. She always told me to smile and always wanted to look at my teeth. She wanted everyone smile actually... and always wanted to look at their teeth. While I've never hated going to the dentist, I've never entirely enjoyed the experience. I love the feeling after it's over, but the actual visit part I could live without.

My life feels like a dentist visit lately, except that I'm the dentist and a lot of people in my life are the patient. It feels like I'm pulling teeth, making them doing something they don't want to do. It seems like I'm repeatedly asking for simple things, am constantly being told what I should be doing, and am left with no concrete feeling of direction.

I want a vacation. I want a long, romantic weekend that I don't have to plan. Why? Because I plan everything. And everything never seems to work out. Exhibit A - camping site #1. I want a job. A real job. I don't want to move. Ever. I love Ft. Collins. I love my family. Even if they are a pain in my ass for wanting to know answers to questions that I can't get answered myself. I want people to stop telling me that I need to bide my time. Screw that. I've bided my time for eight years. And doubly so for going on two years. I want tulips just because - not because I asked for them. I don't want to be measured against my brother. Period. He's the golden boy, I get it. I want a yard. And if it happens to be surrounded by a picket fence, so be it. I want to sleep-in on Saturday mornings and go out on Saturday nights. I want to go camping without it being a hassle. I don't want to go running by myself. I want my family to choose a day and time not based on the golden boy's schedule, but mine. And I don't want to feel guilty about it. I want to live life for today. Not the financial future. I know what regret is and I know what's most important. I want to make my grandparents proud. I want to travel, and not just up and down the same highways. I'm sick of junk. In my closet. In my kitchen. In my garage. In my head. And I want house insurance. And health insurance. Why? My tooth hurts. Seriously. At least whenever I can afford to go to the dentist, maybe it won't hurt as much. I'm kind of getting used to this pulling teeth nonsense.

Open For Business!

I'm making big headway on my photography website. It has a fancy slideshow homepage and all of the shopping cart features are enabled!

Who wouldn't want astro-nuts and moonarshino cheeries??

Fort Collins Coloradoan - July 1969 - Fort Collins Local History Archive

I was doing some research for a little swing frame exhibit poster and found this advertisement on microfilm. The weeks leading up to the Apollo 11 launch in 1969 pushed the country into a deeper space craze, if that was possible. The Space Race had reached its peak and the final race to the moon had captured the world. I think the advertisement from Dairy Queen speaks volumes to that. I also found that businesses in Fort Collins were advertising that they would be closed on Monday July 20th in honor of the moon landing. President Nixon declared the day a national holiday. When is that ever going to happen again? What historical event would ever compare to landing on the moon? Landing on Mars? It's hard to say if that will happen in my lifetime, but I would sure like to have that same feeling that captured the world in the summer of '69.

Here's a great link to an article written by a Fort Collins resident about the launch in Florida.

"You would never expect mimes."

Yesterday in the archive I was doing some research for a man in Iowa. He was interested in a couple on his family tree that he knew had lived in Fort Collins most of his life. After tracking down some obituaries and I few article clippings, I have to wonder what this man's face will look like when he opens the package with the copies that I made for him. The couple was your typical World War II era family - the mother and father had both served in the war, she as a SPAR and he in the Coast Guard. They had four children, one a baby girl that did not survive long enough to get a name, two boys, and a girl. They lost another son when he was 34 from a drowning accident in Florida. His profession - a mime! Didn't see that coming. I tracked down some newspaper articles that discussed the man's attempts to start a mime school in Fort Collins. He and a friend started a business called Mimes and Mayhem. After filling in my supervisor on my findings, she astutely commented "How do you suppose they answered the phone?"

One thing a day...

My lists of things that I want to do and need to do just keep longer. So I have developed a new approach - one thing a day. Ultimately, that means I'm one step closer to accomplishing things. So instead of grumbling about how big a project is and that I don't have the time to do anything, I'll just do a little bit each day, and some day I'll complete my goal. It's kind of like working for myself - one hour a day or something of that equivalent.

For now, I'm too tired to continued to think today. I'm wiped. Long day in Casper - cemetery strolling, sun bathing, test taking, stargazing...I'm definitely ready for some zzzzz's.

I like my ham with pineapple.

For the last few weeks I've been reading about hams...not the pineapple covered kind, but the amateur radio kind of ham. Frequencies, voltage, wattage, conductors, inductors, repeaters ... stuff that I normally would runaway from and leave to the experts, I have been studying over and over again. Brent, Mr. Radio Man, is a ham and frequently drops "So and so's wife got her license" and "So and so's girlfriend got her license." So, I decided that I'd bite the bullet and try to understand all of the gibberish that makes a radio operate and take the test myself. It's been an experience thus far, I think I've learned more about electronics than I ever cared to know, but maybe that will prevent me from getting electrocuted someday. The prospects of talking to someone across the globe or something is kind of cool. Although, considering that takes bouncing off of the Ionosphere (see, I have learned something), I probably won't be saying "Konnichiha" to anyone in Japan in the near future!

The studying will continue at least for a few more days. I have the opportunity to take the test this Saturday but I'm not through my study book yet so we'll see how the next few days work out. I would like to take it so that I can concentrate on studying for the Certified Archivist exam in August. Considering it's already the end of June (holy crap - the end of JUNE!), I should really start studying for that.

Anywho...

The Whole Truth...I'm loving this no-school thing!

Free time sure is nice! I've been checking things off my list like crazy anddoing other things that I've been meaning to do. Woohoo - cartwheels all around. The Brinkley web cam is up and working. He's a little restless today - barking and howling a lot. It may be because Brent left after me this morning. His routine for leaving is different than mine so Brink may be a little disgruntled. I also forgot to leave a distracting dog chewy behind for him. Lesson learned!

I finished thank you cards last night! All of my wonderful friends and family spoiled me rotten for my graduation so I had a lot of thanking to do. Over the weekend, I managed to move furniture, pack up some more useless stuff, and read! Yes, read! I finished David Baldacci's The Whole Truth, which I had started the week before school was finished. It was a nice mindless read. I have been a fan of David Baldacci for some time. I loved his Split Second book, which began the King and Maxwell series. I two books behind in that series so I think the next Baldacci books I read will be those. While The Whole Truth was good, I don't think it quite deserves all the acclaim it's been getting. It pales in comparison to his other works. It's not as suspenseful, funny, or just plain entertaining. The ending felt rushed, which is sad considering Katie and Shaw were well developed characters. It also felt too much like a personal commentary on Iraq. Views on Iraq - good, bad, and in between are everywhere - does it really have to be in a novel too?

Before I take on another Baldacci book I was thinking about picking up Twilight, if anything just to see what all the hype is about. I'm not a big fan of vampires, but I do love a good love story! And frivilous reading - without a deadline! Whoop, whoop - I love having my life back!

Time for some To Do lists.

I picked up my gown, cap, and hood today.  I also had to pick up my name card from the graduate school.  It came with a gift!  A silver business card holder.  It's kind of neat to think that I actually have business cards to put in it because I have a job in my field.  My new job in at the local history archive is going well.  Everyone that I have met so far has been incredibly nice.  My boss loves Disney so we'll get along just fine!

Right now I'm sitting at home with nothing to do.  I have filled out my application for the Academy of Certified Archivists exam that will be in August.  Basically, this proves even more that I know what I'm doing and can place me above other candidates for a job.  It's just a multiple choice test so I just have some reading to do through the summer.  It will be nothing like where I've been.  I'm working on To Do lists like crazy.  Painting here, packing there... the lists are growing fast.

Here we go again...

I may as well revert back to my very first post when explaining what is going on in my life at the moment - of course the 30lbs that I was so proud of remaining MIA during grad school have crept back into my life with a few of their friends. So, I have to start again...slowly.

I'm starting the Couch to 5k running program tonight before volleyball. My goal 5k will be the Firecracker 5k. The general gist of the plan is that I start by warming up with a walk then alternate between running and walking until two months from now I'm running three miles without stopping. It sounds easy, and it is. But it hurts at first and is tiring and I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Blech.

Where to start first?

For the last 2.5 years everything I've wanted to do has been put on the back burner because of school assignments. Now that the end is very near, I don't know where to start. It's kind of overwhelming. So much so that this past week when I have had the opportunity to do something other than school work, I've sat on my butt and done nothing. Maybe my mind needs to reset before I can enter normal life again.

I have one paper left. I haven't worked on it as much I should have up to this point. It should be one last boring weekend of reading and writing. I'll try to behave myself and be productive, but it's so tempting to procrastinate one last time and find something better to do - there's always something better to do.

A new show to love!

Last night I watched an episode of Castle on ABC.  I am officially sucked in.  Good comedy and a nice romantic tension between the two main characters - very reminiscent of JAG, minus the hot uniforms, of course.  

I found live streaming of the episode on ABC, but unfortunately it only starts with episode 3.  I also caught an episode of Greek on ABCFamily late last night.  Not too bad - I'll have to give a few more episodes before I can say I'm hooked.  I think it might just be something to kill time not an obsession.

Obviously, if I'm watching TV again, then school is lightening up.  I officially have four more tasks left and then I'm done with school.  One of those task is a hefty paper but compared to where I've been, I'm pretty sure I can handle it!

Casper or Bust

It seems so long ago when I was counting down the hours to go to Casper to see my man. The whole day would creep by until I could get on the road. I'd fuel up, grab some snacks, and hit the road. The excitement would wear off just after Cheyenne but I'd sing to the radio to entertain myself the rest of the way. It was always so nice to finally get there and get wrapped in a big bear hug. Everyone should get a hug like that after a few hours in a car!

I'm headed back to Casper this weekend if the snow holds out. This time, however, I won't be alone. The man and the dog are coming with me. I can still snack and sing and probably still get the bear hug at the end of the trip, but it's just not the same. And I'm totally okay with that! I'm spoiled rotten. I don't miss the long-distance relationship thing at all. I think about that almost daily. Those long weeks in between were too hard. And I hope that I never have to do it again.

*SIGH*

It's over!  Big Sigh.  It wasn't as bad as I expected.  The massive amounts of preparation definitely paid off and made it easier.  I'm proud of myself.  I don't do well in on the spot questioning type situations, so considering past experiences, I did really well.  And now I only have to concentrate on passing two classes.  I think I can handle that!

Whew, I'm glad it's over!  

Here we go again.

I've been re-reading my material culture books about cemetery research.  I have the urge to go cemetery walking again.  Maybe this summer I'll visit some of those older ones that I've passed by many times.  I think it would be interesting to teach a community class on cemetery research and symbolism and stuff.  Who knows, maybe someday it will happen.  

I have an interesting few days ahead preparing for my oral exams.  The work load to prepare for them has been more than I expected.  Lots of reading that has sucked up all of my extra spring break time that I was going to use to get ahead.  Less than 7 weeks to go!

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!

All is right with the world.

Whew!  Five hours of typing and 22 pages worth of answers and I finished my written exams!  And I passed them both!  It seriously feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders.  I still have oral exams to study for but I think I'll manage.  I have the rest of the week to kind of prepare for them so I think I'll be ok.

I also got my new computer!!  It's great.  I love it!  I don't miss my crappy old computer at all.  This screen makes me feel very, very small.  Anywho, all is right in Worm's world right now.  Hopefully, it can stay that way for a while!

Bring on the mucho mudslides.

Screw the exam, just bring on the mucho mudslides. Seriously. My mind is about ready to burst from the amount of memorizing that I have done and I can't wait to wipe the slate clean, get the gorilla off my back, and the world off of my shoulders and I enjoy of guilt free indulgence! T-minus 21 hours!

Finally!

I've decided it's time for a new computer. Actually, my old computer decided for me. It's been a real trooper. Eight years is a long life for a computer, especially considering six of those were in school. My original plan was to replace my old Dell desktop with a MacBookPro, but alas, I think I've talked myself into an iMac so that I can save myself a $1000, which will eventually be used to buy this...

*Sigh* Sometimes hard work and frugality does pay off! It should be a fun summer!

I'll be waiting until after I take my exam next Saturday before I order the computer. I know that I would not get any studying done once it arrived so I'll just behave for one more week!

But I'm SOOOOO excited! Obviously...that was with five o's after all.

Tick, tock goes the clock.

Um, it seems like just yesterday I was counting down from 3.5 months until exams, then 2 months. Now I'm 8 days out and think I'm ready. I have two strong drafts done and am just concentrating my efforts on memorizing them so that I can type them out quickly (because they are on the longer side) and be done with it all!

In different news, I'll be researching Western Europe's experience at the start of the Cold War for my reading seminar. I'm not too thrilled about more research at this point so this will more than likely be most lackluster attempt in my entire school career. Blech.

Oh, and it's windy. I hate the wind.

one more

On the Industrial Revolution ... "The Industrial Revolution began in Germany and England. England shared and spread it to the United States." (How kind of England, yeah? Damn selfish Germans.)

Undergrads...gotta love 'em

So I've spent about 10 hours grading so far this week and I've laughed out loud numerous times. The brevity and vagueness (definitely not clarity) of their answers is always entertaining. They have approximately an hour to write about a page and half to answer one of two provided essay questions. Mind you, this is the most basic U.S. history courses that exists in the course catalog, and like I said, it's U.S. HISTORY - they've been exposed to it a time or two.

Some highlights...

On Jim Crow ... "He made blacks and whites use different things of the same thing. He made it seem that blacks and whites had the same things, but in reality the things that the blacks had to use were more run down and not as nice as the whites." (Ah, clear as mud!)

On sweatshops... "The people in the sweatshops work long hours, with no breaks. The women didn't necessarily mind though." (Of course they didn't - they had their poor children working beside them to keep them company)

On xenophobia ... "The invasions of scum led to xenophobia." (Where's the scrubbing bubbles when you need them?)

Only about 20 more essays to go! I should be able to finish tomorrow but it will be another mind numbing experience, I'm sure.

T-minus 13 days!

100th Post!

Wow, I should make this especially newsworthy or witty or something. 100 posts - it's taken a while to get here given the whole school speed bump thing. I really have nothing to say. I'm just killing time at work. My brain is so tired from grading and reading that it can really focus on much more than frivolous items right now. I'd say good thing it's a Friday but I have a weekend at the library studying for comps and grading undergraduate exams.

I think I can, I think I can.

While the economy may stink right now and a lot of people are losing their jobs, it looks like I will have multiple jobs over the summer again. I have the opportunity to stick around CSU and work on a digitization project. I was planning on taking it easy - one job, ONLY 40 hours a week. But it looks like it will be 6 days, closer to 60 hours. *Sigh* Hopefully, it won't feel as bad because I won't have homework looming over my head.

I'm ready. Now. Let's get this show over with.

*Sigh*

Oh yeah, Spring Break too!

I've been so caught up in studying and worrying about my written comprehensive exams on March 14th that I haven't given much thought to Spring Break. Once I finish my exam, it's officially Spring Break!! I can party for more than a day. I'm ready - to sleep...a lot. And catch up on some studying that I have been pushing back.

I think I'm on the right path - I just have a lot of memorization and reading to do between now and then. I'm certainly much more comfortable than I was this time last week. T-minus 3 weeks!

Stress Level is a 10

So today I had the pleasure of Target Deep Tissue massage through work. It's a 3-week deal where they bring someone in for everyone and you get a 30 minute session where they put you through an incredible about of pain! It was lovely actually. It was painful, but my knee feels great right now. The lady focused on all of these muscles around my knee and lower back. Anywho...at the beginning of the session she has me fill out this sheet about my pain levels and what not. One of the question asked what stress level I have on a scale of one to ten. For the first time in my life, I could honestly put 10 without feeling the slightest big guilty for thinking my life is more stressful than other people's lives.

I just got over a four day bout with the flu. Not fun. At all. I did get to sleep though. Not really by choice, however. It's amazing how I didn't WANT to sleep but was. My body just took over. I missed some classes and work and am finally back to the usual hectic schedule. One month and two days until the dreaded written exam day. I've finally started writing the draft for one of the questions. It's coming along fairly well. My plan is to have finished drafts of both answers within two weeks of test day so that I can just memorize, memorize, memorize. The European Reading Seminar is dreadful. I've never felt so lost in my life. I really want to go to class Tuesday simply because I need helping understanding what I had just read. Blech. It will be a slow-going, uninteresting semester if I can't even understand what I am reading. Blech again.

Ok, enough griping. Back to studying I go.

The House on Ideal Drive

This is the official title/working title of my book that will be published sometime after I graduate. I came to this conclusion a few days ago. I've always known that I had a perfect childhood and the more I miss grandparents the more I want to recognize the role that they played in it. I've already thought of the follow up title too. I hate getting great ideas in the middle of the semester because then I have to sit on them for months and months. At least this is the last time that I'll have to wait the semester out before I can be productive again. Three and half months! I can make it!

My list of things to take on after graduation is getting quite long. But if I work it all out, all the work can be done in tandem. During a study break this weekend, I plan on officially starting my business by filling out the paperwork! May as well give it a go!

What is that smell?

I just walked into the office. Ewwww. It smells like cat urine or something. Horrible. It's going to be a long day at this rate. Blech.

Procrastinator Be-Gone?

Ever since the semester started I haven't procrastinated. At all. I don't have time to even think about what else I could be doing. I just keep trudging along and working on the next thing in line. I've received my comp question and have frantically been fitting extra reading for that into my normal hectic school reading schedule. So, back at it, I go.

Inauguration Day Holiday

We celebrate our pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. We celebrate our nation's founding on July 4th every year. We celebrate our veterans on Veteran's Day. We celebrate our nation's workers on Labor Day. Why not get an extra holiday every four years and celebrate our nation's ability to transfer between presidents peacefully.

I start classes tomorrow. Obama is supposed to take the oath at 12. My first class starts at 12:30. It's going to a crappy day knowing that I can't veg out in front of the TV and watch all of the hoopla that goes with inauguration day. I'm going to old school record it on the VCR and hope that it's just as neat watching it in the evening that it would be watching it live.

I say we should just get an Inauguration Day holiday. That would solve a lot of problems.

One more time.

The beginning of the last semester - there are days when it seems like it's gone by so fast and days when it has felt like an eternity getting to this point. It feels like all of my effort has been for nothing given the craptastic economy. I'm not getting my hopes up for a great position to open up in the area. I'm just going to hang on to the job that I have until the area looks more graciously upon my chosen field.

I meet with my advisor next week to go over my comp written exam question for my major field - museums. I've been trying to study for the minor field question but it's very hard considering my body is telling me "Noooo, you're on break!" Something is better than nothing I suppose.

Perfection?

Warm home. Internet Access. Brent sleeping in the recliner.Brinkley chomping on a bone. Perfection!