Haha

Madeline MOSTLY ignores my Christmas tree, but maybe I should try this. She definitely won't touch the most expensive cat toy I've ever gotten her. It's the same thing with her food - she won't eat the expensive stuff, but chows down on the cheap food.

---

I saw this article in the Post today. I like the explanation provided by the Ohio governor's office:
"The governor supports abstinence education," Keith Daily, a spokesman for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D). "What he does not support is abstinence- only education. We are asking to put the money toward abstinence in the context of a comprehensive age-appropriate curriculum."
Amen to that! It's just stupid to not teach kids about STDs, contraception, etc. Because even if someone abstains from sex until marriage, you still need to know all that stuff! Some of our politicians are so narrow-minded when it comes to issues like this.

That's why I read the comics, too!

My favorite section of the newspaper.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a warm, happy, peaceful Thanksgiving :)

I'm Back!

Hi Readers, I'm back! I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Here's what's happened in the last few weeks. Well, actually not much, which I guess is part of the reason I haven't blogged. I've been taking tennis lessons again and sucking at them more than usual. Andrew and I went to an Edgar Allen Poe storytelling thing at the Allerton Mansion, which was cool. And I've run three races:

Oct. 21 - Columbus Marathon- 3:59, my first sub 4 hour!



Oct. 28 - Allerton Trail Race - 45:24



Nov. 4 - Rattlesnake Master 10K - 49:40

These last 2 races felt slow, but were fun. I'm sheepish to admit I've already nearly killed the native prairie plant I won in the 10K. But I think Madeline helped. Either she or the 50 million lady bug-like beetles invading my apartment have been chewing on it.

Here are some things that made me laugh when I was in a bad mood today:

Jenna vs. Dad

This is a great opinion article from today's Washington Post. I wonder if Bush has bothered to read his daughter's book. And if he has, when will it sink in? Also, I think Jenna was mistaken in her comment to Newsweek that her dad's policies in Africa are in line with hers. Doesn't she know about the disastrous Global Gag Rule? Many clinics in Africa don't have condoms (or even exist anymore!) because of her dad. Consequently countless numbers of HIV infections, unwanted pregnancies, and abortions have occurred because of her so-called pro-life dad. But anyway, back to domestic policies, I can't believe he once AGAIN appointed someone to oversee HHS family planning who opposes insurance coverage of birth control! It's ridiculous. Geez, even Bush Sr. (I didn't know this until now) was rational and thoughtful on this issue. Maybe if they team up, he and Jenna can pull W's head out of his ass.

Swiped from Alicia's myspace...

...and I think Jozi swiped it from icanhascheezburger.com. Kate, I think this site may rival stuff on my cat!

Blog Action Day

Oops, I missed "Blog Action Day", which Blogger developed "to highlight some of the many Blogger-powered blogs that are focused on the environment, climate change, and sustainability." Sounds good to me. I haven't checked all these out yet, but they seem to have good themes:
http://buzz.blogger.com/2007/10/environmental-blog-roundup.html

And now, here's a picture from this oddball cat-lovers' site my sister introduced me to:

The Homosexual Agenda

This is absolutely hilarious. I especially like item 6 of Agenda #3: "6. BAN DIVORCE. If the institution is so in need of protection, seek a constitutional amendment to ban divorce. One marriage, once."

On a slightly different topic, I always thought "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was the most stupid, senseless embarrassment to our country's military ever, even more of an embarrassment than its commander-in-chief. But this really frosts Sandra Cookie's cookies: did you know that from 2003-2006 the military allowed 4,230 convicted felons to enlist? "Here, Convicted Felon, take this gun! You've been convicted of a homicide? That's okay by us, as long as you're not gay!" How many agree that this is f***ing ridiculous? Please comment!

Interesting search engine

I don't know if I'm convinced it saves substantial amounts of energy, but just in case it does, I'll use it: www.blackle.com

Although, I just realized this is a highly-filtered search engine with a definite bias (a bias I support, but still a bias). Compare the results you get from blackling and googling "Bush". It's interesting.

Now I'll post a random picture I took of a nauplius:

Phillies Win the NL East!!!!!!!!!!

Collapse is Complete and the Mets Are History

Thank you Tom Glavine!

I'm getting super-excited for the post-season! So now the regular season is over, but Andrew and I managed to squeeze in one last game - we went to see the Cardinals vs. Astros last last Saturday:

Oops, maybe not that accurate

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070914/ap_on_re_us/us_iraq

This is great (and pretty damn accurate)

Articles from The Onion

U.S. To Re-Hang Saddam Hussein
Fucking Yankees, Reports Nation (the last paragraph is the best part).
And I support Barry Bonds more than most people do, but this is still funny:
Destruction of National Pastime Given Standing Ovation
I think the rest of the Onion's baseball articles are also pretty good.

Djokovic

Novak Djokovic is now my favorite tennis player, not just because he's a great player and cute but also because his impression of Sharapova is hilarious. After he beat Carlos Moya today in the U.S. Open quarter finals he treated viewers to his impressions of some tennis greats. You can also find him doing impressions on You Tube, as well as a video of him singing an awful (but funny) karaoke version of I Will Survive.

Pretty

This past Saturday my mom and I went to Rockome Gardens in Arcola. It was kind of an odd assortment of attractions (I liked the haunted cavern!), but it was a beautiful day and the gardens were pretty:



Throughout the gardens they had these little placards with bits of wisdom. Here are some of my favorites:

Blocked Memory

Sorry loyal readers for the long silence....I haven't had internet at home for >2 weeks. I'm actually blogging at work now, which I feel funny doing but I guess it's okay because it's after 5 and I'm done working (for now). Anyway, regarding certain sporting events of August 22, 2007 ...too many of my so-called friends have mentioned said sporting events to me, causing great trauma, so I have been forced to block my memory. Now I have no idea what you're talking about. My memory of that day now ends after this point:

To Adam...it is NOT a "fanny pack"!

...it is a hydration system. Cool people don't wear fanny packs :)

@#$%*&!!!

The Cubs just beat the Phillies 5-4 (the score of the night.) Brett Myers wild pitched in the winning run. *&^%$#@!!!

26.2 #3

Last Saturday I ran the Grand Island Trail Marathon, along with Don, Tony, Ellen, and Andrew. It was my 3rd marathon, 1st on a trail. It was kinda tough, but I did okay (4:31). One thing I liked about it was it was small and most of the runners were pretty laid back and not overly concerned about their time. In fact, this one nice couple running the race saw me taking pictures at an overlook around mile 19 and suggested we take each others' pictures. Here's the one they took of me:



Of course another thing I liked about the race was the beautiful scenery. It helped me forget about my knee pain!





The rest of the pictures I took during the race can be found here (I carried a disposable camera, so they're not that great).

God dammit, the Orioles just lost to the Red Sox! So close, too (5-4) :(

Some Stuff By My Ponds

Blooming American Lotus




Turtles (see it?)



Cute Little Green Frogs



Cute Big Green Frogs



Big Ugly Beetles



Dead Carp :(

From The Onion...

15 strikeouts!!

It's not everyday you hear about an Oriole pitcher pitching a "masterpiece"! Yay for Eric Bedard and the Orioles' 2 hit shutout vs. the Rangers:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20070707&content_id=2074389&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Baseball on July 4th!

There's nothing like a good baseball game on the Fourth of July, especially when your team wins! Andrew (AKA Cable Guy) and I went to Chicago to see the Orioles at the White Sox. Andrew's also an O's fan (although not as much as me :), so it was fun cheering them on at an away game. Some of the fans around us were a little annoyed - especially some dude 2 rows back - but whatever. U.S. Cellular Field is the 16th major league ballpark that I've been to. It's a pretty nice stadium, but not as nice as Camden Yards.






Before the game some sailors rolled out this big flag, which was cool:



Speaking of the White Sox, today's doubler header was pretty crazy. Game 1: Twins 20, Sox 14...Game 2: Twins 12, Sox 0!! Poor Sox fans.

INHS on CNN

Okay, I know that on my sidebar it says "CNN is Crap", and that's still mostly true, but I do give them kudos for doing a video on Asian carp, for which they interviewed people from the Illinois River Biological Station at INHS. Visit http://www.cnn.com/video/ and search the video for "When fish attack" (yes, my job is so dangerous!). Carp do hurt when they klonk you, but David Mattingly over-acts a bit. It's still cool that CNN thought Asian carp were newsworthy!

High School Reunion!

This past weekend I went to my 10 year high school reunion. I had such a good time! It was totally worth the plane ticket. Here's a picture of Kate, me, and Erin at my mom's house where we had dinner before the reunion:




And here's Mike, me, and Chat. I actually know these guys from elementary school!



The rest of my pictures, plus some from Erin, are here. I should've taken more, but oh well.

Fun weekend!

This weekend I went to Amanda and Matt's wedding, my friends from grad school. It was a beautiful little ceremony by Lake Michigan:



Barley the ringbearer suppressed his urges to frolic in the lake (with a little help from the bride's brother) and successfully carried out his ring-bearing duties:



Before the wedding I wrangled this poisonous snake that I came across in the wilds of Chicago:



Okay, maybe it's not really poisonous (it's a Mexican milksnake). And maybe the wilds of Chicago are actually the Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park. Besides reptiles, this museum had a very cool butterfly garden where I took many pictures. Below is one of my favorites; view the rest here.



Then on Sunday I went to my first Cubs game at Wrigley Field! I went with my friend Kyle, who I hadn't seen in ages. The Cubs beat the braves 10-1. It was exciting - several home runs, including DeRosa's grand slam.

Moonathon

I can't believe I only had to run 15 miles to win this cherished trophy! I am honored. I know I am supposed to pass this on to the next MoonMaster, but I'm afraid Madeline won't let me. See gallery:

Madeline Snuggles with Buffalo


Madeline Whispers Sweet Nothings In Buffalo's Ear


Madeline Softly Kisses Buffalo


Madeline Imitates Buffalo

Baseball update

The Orioles are still below 0.500, but at least they're in 2nd place in the AL East, while the Yankees are next to last!



I'm excited about going to my first Cubs game this weekend. However, I'm bummed that I can't go to the Phillies game this Sunday instead. The reason is not just because they're my NL team - it's because I'm gonna miss this sweet giveaway:



Yes, it's a Shane Victorino Hula Doll!! If you're going to this game and your kid doesn't want it, please let me know and I'll buy it from you!

Changing subjects, here are some pretty pink roses in front of my apartment:

The best for last

It's the first time I've ever finished dead last in a race:
http://www.twincitiestwosome.com/results/2007_twosomeRunFemale.PDF
But interestingly, 1:08:01 is not my slowest 5K time. I've done the Race for the Cure in D.C. in ~2 hours! Of course, we were having so much fun at the expo we started the race 45 minutes late.

Anyway, nothing else interesting to blog about except I'm getting excited about going to Chicago for a wedding and a Cubs game in 2 weeks, and my 10 year high school reunion is in 25 days! I'm of course looking forward to seeing old friends, but I'm also excited about meeting new people. Montgomery Blair High Class of '97 had >500 grads, so I haven't even met most of my graduating class!

Ankle Update

My ankle is much better:



I think I'm gonna try running on it (very gently) tomorrow.

My foot isn't the only thing that's gotten thinner; Greg says he can tell Madeline has lost some weight. So her diet is working! Here is Madeline showing off her sexy bod:



Okay, maybe she's not that sexy, but she sure is cute.

Sorry I don't have something more exciting to blog about...

My ankle really does feel better! But with the healing process has come interesting colors (which have faded a lot since yesterday):





It's kinda weird how the swelling and coloration keeps shifting!