Hello World

It's been brought to my attention that I have not blogged since January. Ellen, this one is for you!
Last week was Spring Break. I went camping with Christy and Megan at Silver Lake State Park off of Mt. Baker Hwy in Maple Falls Tuesday night.




Wednesday, Timm rode his bike out (nuts) and Craig and his kids Keegan and Kaeliegh came out for dinner and marshmallows.


We sang songs and huddled by the fire.

C, M and I walked around the park Wednesday and found some nice cabins and a little trail. The lake is pretty nice too, except for all the goose poop.
Friday Chirsty and I went to a seminar about healing Native American children who have been sexually abused. We gained some new ideas and insight. It was one of slowest seminars I have ever been to. and no set schedule. i got to practice having patience.
Friday night Rick came over for dinner and he and Beard decided it would be a good idea to buy as much pork as possible and grill it all the next day. And that's what we did.


5 different bbq sauces and a rub. all delicious.



We boiled the meat first so it was good and tender.



we grilled 18 lbs and made our way through about 11--pretty good for 6 ppl.



Tara made an awesome coleslaw, too. BBQ pork and coleslaw--yum!



Sunday we (me, Beard, Tara, Sam, Delilah, Rick) took a hike to walk off some of the pork. We started at the N. Chuckanut Trailhead on the Hemlock trail and turned off on the Salal Trail. We were looking for the Madrone Crest trail and were probably on it but it wasn't posted.




We ended up back on the main trail and made our way back to the car. And since the pork was still on sale, we bought another package for the freezer.
Sunday night Beard and I had dinner with Stacia and Evelyn who work with Beard at the Border Policy Research Institute on campus. Good food, good company.
And now it's Monday--bah.
I have an interview today with David Davidson of BPRI to work for him this summer at the border. It's a backup job in case I can't work with a professor on research. I think it would be pretty interesting though. Interviewing people about what they are bringing over the border--I might even be able to sit in the little box.
Tonight I have training for teaching kids English online and then dinner with Beard and Rick. Kath's spring break is this week so she's headed to LA to see her parents.
Tomorrow class starts again....
Here are some more random pictures for your viewing pleasure.

On the wagon

The original wagon on which reform alcoholics pledged to stay was the horse drawn water cart of the late 1800s. During Prohibition, reformers would take a vow to stop drinking alcohol ans substitute water. A backslider was said to have fallen off the (water) wagon and back into drinking alcohol.

--From: I Didn't Know That

things i did today

1. woke up
2. drank 1/2 cup of coffee while talking to Megan on the phone.
3. finished ch. 1 of family
4. ate breakfast
5. went to kohls with kath
6. called Dad
7. walked to work
8. actually put some time on the phone--2 completes!
9. went grocery shopping w/ Beard.
10. read Whaley article
11. rode exercise bike for 15 mins
12. did 2 loads of laundry
13. did the dishes
14. ate dinner
15. ate some dark chocolate
and NOW...i'm starting on chapter 2.

Happy New Year!

Just practicing.

obama and his use of sentences

He's creating quite a stir...
This is pretty funny. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion while reading this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/obamas-use-of-complete-se_b_144642.html

satruday

Sooooo, I think I might be getting a cold. My nose is stuffy then runny, my left gland in my neck is swollen, and my throat is scratchy. I think that means I'm getting a cold.
I'm vitaminning and teaing, I shall overcome. As you can see I'm bundled up with a scarf and hood. You can also see my Ipod ear cords. Shuffle songs is treating me well today.
Today I want to finish up my presentation on my school visit for Diana's class. I have 10 slides in power point (my first time using power point, by the way). I just figured out how to take a picture of my screen or parts of my screen using Grab and I'm mighty happy about that.
Another reason to be happy is that mac is going to send me a new battery! Mine has started acting wonky: only staying on for about 30 mins and then BOOM off, no 10 minute warning, and the little orange light stays orange instead of turning to green when it's fully charged. I called mac and dude said he didn't think he could send me a new one for free b/c I was over my 300 charges--I was at 303. I had explained to him that this started about 2 weeks ago but I thought maybe I did something b/c I had changed the settings about a month ago. He talked to product guy and came back on and said they'd send me a new one! YEAH!
And I turned the heater on in this room. soon i'll be toasty on another rainy day.

HA russian funny

doggone it, you betcha, doggone it, you betcha, say it ain't so joe

minesweeper

this reminds me of jen playing minesweeper in college. she could beat the biggest square.
best quote: 'that clock is gonna keep tickin until it says 9, 9, 9.' 'And then what?' 'Nothing. You just suck.'

Wow.

I just found an awesome program by accident. It's called Kiva-loans that change lives. I went to Kiva.org and learned that I can lend any amount of money to an entrepreur in a developing country, they use it and then I GET MY MONEY BACK and I can lend again to another business owner. During the process I get email updates as to how the money is being used. I think this is amazing. Check it out.

http://www.kiva.org/app.php


Two things I'm happy to have this AM:
1) public transportation, in particular WTA bus 71x. It was 2 minutes late but super warm inside.



2) Good Earth Original Decaf Sweet and Spicy Tea.

Kickin it in Geumcheon

This is hilarious. Thanks, Bryan!

i want to be a dolphin

Check this out. Dolphins are blowing air rings.

diving in FL

1st step, getting ready to dive. roughish seas. belly not happy.


belly still not doing well. waiting for captain jim to quit yappin so i can get in the water.


more spiegel grove


fred and i swimming under the crane



lock test--finishing deep water dive

2 videos from minneapolis

video of a big storm in minneapolis


segway tour on stone arch bridge across mississippi

lummi "adventure"

Beard, Kath and I went to Lummi Island this Sunday to ride the 7 mile northern loop. Where I have lived in the past, no one would think of asking me if I rode my bike to the ferry--hell no. What? Seven miles isn't enough for you people?! And, in case you haven't noticed by all the crosses on the side of the road, not a very safe place to drive. Ride--no.
We get to the ferry parking, it's fairly packed, probably b/c you can leave your car there for FIVE days, free. We wait in line; the order being: pedestrians, cars, bikes. BUT-the laugh's on YOU pedestrians, we with our bikes are only THREE bucks each, you with your measly feet are FOUR bucks.
It was a perfect day--little wind, sun, pretty wispy clouds, the water sparkling. Of course we took a lot of pictures and laughed at ourselves and those around us.



the ferry


a beach on the northern side of the island


me and beard


the scenery


who loves her honey bowker?



me and kath showing our athletic ability riding uphill. it may LOOK flat...it;s an illusion.


Here's a link: http://www.lummi-island.com/

playing

So...I want to finish reading my book but it's taking a boring turn and I have laundry in the washer and don't want to fall asleep before it's done. I decided, why not blog.
This weekend we helped Kath finish moving. It went really fast b/c so many of our friends were there and we had already made so many trips with her parents. Everything's in and basically where she wants it. It's a sweet house. We found out this weekend that our friends Derick and Keri are pregnant. She's 35 and considered an elderly mother. I thought that was a bit odd.
Today I went with kath to a graduation party for her student, miguel. he's been living by himself and working full time in order to graduate. His mom lives in Mexico. He saved up 680 to buy her a ticket to his graduation and somehow she got the wrong visa and they wouldn't let her in. It was really nice of Kath to do that for him. She bought burgers and buns and pop and a graduation cake and a ton of her students came. I got to meet her Ethiopian students as well.
And now, I'm home. Beard's finishing up his essay questions--reluctantly. I think I'll make my lunch for tomorrow, finish up the laundry and head to bed.

things

i saw tonight.
1) giuseppe's--i have no idea how to spell this. italian restaurant next door to downtown johnny's and the pickford. went for a pre-movie drink w/ roshni and megan.
2) met muslim who learned to fly and is in a movie about it. he gave me not one but two copies of the quran. he's from bellingham. his wife is going on a cross-country tour of small town america. if you see her, check out what she has to say.
3) saw then she found me--helen hunt, bette midler, mr darcy, and ferris bueller. how could it be so boring?!
4) roshni drove me home and we saw some old folks searching under the streetlight for something. we turned around and i asked if i could help them look for something. the couple was dressed in all navy/black, man in hat, woman in scarf. she gave me this huge smile and opened her plastic bag--they were searching for earthworms. of COURSE!

and now i'm having a baby glass of wine before retiring.

ear

my shorty ear piece gave out. i don't miss him too much. i mean, sure, stereo is good, but really...i can still hear.
however, i feel awkward with one ear bud in. like i'm missing something.
i've searched for my back up pair of ear buds. i bought them before we left for indonesia but they've jumped ship.
yar--the one ear bud bandit rides again.
photo:

oldish videos

This is from the Butterfly Garden in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.



Monkey at a Flower Garden in KL.

saturday night bill was in town. after eating turkey meatloaf made by kath's mom, marie (which has allowed us to have meatloaf sammies for lunch the last two days), we decided to go out. we went to the shoe first. beard and i hadn't been there since we left. it's a lot different with the non-smoking and the more lighting.



it was crowded nonetheless and we decided to find a quieter spot.
we headed to the waterfront.



it was quiet. we ordered a pitcher and a vodka blah blah blah for kath and settled in.
soon--there was dan pike, mayor. chattin us up.






it was a nice night...
and now

getting ready for bed.

yeah!

so...
if you remember WAY back in 2006 when my toshiba laptop took a shit, i thought i had lost everything. all my pictures, music, etc.
THEN in late 2007 Angie took me to the electronics market in daegu and a wonderful man there put my 80gig hard drive into a box and MAGIC i had access to all my old stuff.
Immediately upon returning back to our apt in gumi, i plugged in my old hard drive into beards PC and copied all my photos to CD. I had assumed that I couldn't plug it into my mac without losing everything. Beard talked about dreams of networking our computers and la la la. i started downloading music, copying friends cds, etc in korea to make up for my severe lack of music. i forgot about my old hard drive and that was that.
we moved back to WA. i unpacked my old hard drive and we talked about networking again. Beard actually checked out books from the library on how to do so. We still have the books, but no networking.
Today I decided I was going to plug in the hard drive to my mac and see what happened. I expected warnings, weird noises, perhaps sparks. BUT NO! nothing! all my pictures are there and i can open them. all my music is there and i can play it.
IT'S AMAZING.
So, while beard is on the phone with windows help, i'm trying to play down my excitement that I'm able to access my old files.