how hot was it?

The heat wave did this to a candle in our apartment last week.

My Favorite Movie in 4th Grade?

Three Men and a Baby


This one was done by James...I don't remember what the snack shop has to do with it. Maybe there's one in the movie, or maybe I said I also liked snacks?

the Boardwalk

Yesterday afternoon I got out of work early for our company picnic. This year it was in Santa Cruz at the boardwalk- a sort of mini amusement park. It was great to get out of the heat. It's been unbearably H-O-T! We had some bbq, walked on the beach, and went on a few rides. One of my favorites was the haunted house- I love the rides where you just sit and relax while your winding your way through. It made me want to go to Disneyland. The tilt-a-whirl was also a lot of fun.



I was really looking forward to going on the log ride. It's always been one of my favorites. But it was kind of freaky- being up so high on water rapids, our log slowly careening to one side and then the other. I was sure we were going to slowly slide over the side and plummet to our deaths. It was a relief to reach the big fall at the end, the "scary" part. That part was fun.



Now it's time to escape the heat of our apartment in search of air conditioning.

i want a dog like this

[It's a Tibetan Mastiff...they're huge!]

who would've thought...

...a comic about computational linguistics.

*From boingboing.

hamberger friend

I Tri'd!

Yesterday I did my first triathlon. I started training somewhere around 2 months ago, and the time seemed to fly by. I was pretty nervous the night before and didn't get much sleep. I didn't have any specific time goals besides to finish, but my overall time was right around where I thought it might be. John and I got up 4:30 (yes, AM!), and headed over to Elaine's (my training mentor and the one who got me thinking about doing a tri in the first place- thanks Elaine!) and headed out to Pleasanton. When we got there I didn't see as many people who looked like "beginners" (since it was a "Tri For Fun") as I thought I would, but I tried not to freak out too much. I knew once I started I would be fine. The picture above is our transition area- the place where we would go in between each section of the race to put on shoes, get our bikes, etc.


Then we headed down to the beach to try to figure out when we would start.



We ended up in a huge wave...I think it was women under 35. They blew an air horn at the start of each wave, and everyone was clapping and cheering. When I saw the group before us go, I though..aww, how cute- just like a school of fish! Then we got into the water, trying not to get in the front to avoid being swam over. The horn blew, and everyone was in the water. It was less than graceful. More like a herd of cattle pushed into the water, hooves flailing and heads trying to stay above water to see what's going on. Most of the time I was trying to get around people and avoid getting kicked at the same time. Once a woman doing the back stroke actually swam over me, going sideways towards the shore. It was crazy. It was actually loud in the water.



Then I grabbed my bike (Thanks Elizabeth! *side note- I've been amazed with how generous and encouraging triathletes are, they're wonderful people! Or at least the 4 I know are! ;-)



After the bike was the run... I actually felt pretty good! All the volunteers stationed around were wonderful- cheering everyone on. And of course it was the highlight to see John there smiling and waiting to encourage me and take my picture. Baby you're the best!



Here's me at the finish...It took me around 1:48 (I started 15min after the clock). I had enough energy to run the last stretch, and there were John and Elaine cheering for me! It was strange but fun to have all these strangers cheering for me. It had me wanting to volunteer at these events and cheer...and I've never been the cheerleader type. Overall I had a great time! If you want to check out more details about distances and such, you can look at my race report on my training log.

so that's why they call it a brick

Where did my legs go, and who gave me these potato sacks?

So a "brick" in triathlon lingo is doing two things in training in a row. Like biking and then running. As my tri is this Saturday, I needed to try the bike/run combo (I've done the swim/bike transition a couple times). Elaine and I went for about an hour long ride, and then I went on a super short run. And my legs did feel like bricks. For a second or two I felt like my upper body could go sailing forward without them. It got a little better after a few minutes. Now there's nothing to do but go buy a hat for the run and rest up!

I Was A Fabulous Fourth Grader

A few months ago when I was going through stuff at my parents' house, I found an old poster from 1989. My fourth grade teacher would have one student be the "Fabulous Fourth Grader" for the week. All the students in the class would draw and color a picture of something having to do with that student- what they liked, what their favorite tv show was... All the pictures were put on a board outside the classroom, where the whole school could see.

Back then I was a huge cat fan.


Stay tuned for more facts about the fourth grade me.

4th of July

For 4th of July we continued our new tradition of going up to San Francisco, where we visited our friend Mike. One of the things I love about the city is seeing the huge tankers that come into the bay. We also got to see the huge, booming fireworks from Coit Tower.

road trip

The weekend before last John and I drove down to southern California for my cousin Angela's wedding. My parents were also there- they drove out from South Dakota, where they moved to about a month ago. It was great to see everyone.

[There was an amazing sunset on the trip down- this doesn't do it justice]

[Pake, Mom, & Dad]

We also got to see my brother Steven, who's renting a horse ranch with his friend Shaylene. We went to see it, and there were several horses there that they're boarding. I hadn't seen horses close up in many years, so I was reminded of how ginormous they are!

it's a music video kind of day

This video is a little bit old, but I hadn't seen it before. It's Johnny Cash's "Hurt". I really like watching the still life images and the videos of him as a young man.

This is a new video from the Scottish band Camera Obscura. The song's called "Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken", and it's an anwer to an old song by Lloyd Cole called "Are you ready to be heartbroken." It's fun to sing along with and also has tons of fun dancing. In John's words, "You'll sing the tune day and night and dance your pants off, Yeah!"