LBL Trail Marathon

On Saturday I ran the Land Between the Lakes trail marathon. It was my fifth marathon and my second trail marathon. The weather on Friday and Saturday was highly atypical for western Kentucky in March. There was about 5-6 inches of snow on the ground and a temperature of ~22 F when the race started at 6 am! But actually it turned out to be a really nice day. The clouds cleared out, giving way to a beautiful sunny blue sky, but it stayed cold enough that the snow didn't melt. The sun on the snow-covered trees was really pretty, and at times I wished I had a camera during the race. Despite the snow, the trail wasn't that difficult to run on. By the time us middle-of-the-packers got going on it, it was packed down. It did get a little slushy and muddy by the second half of the race, though. The trail was fun, but parts of it were quite hilly, and so I was pretty pleased with my time of 4:49. It was my slowest marathon ever, yet the miles really seemed to fly by! Maybe this was because I was running with friends part of the time and I didn't look at my watch ONCE during the race. Usually I check my time at least every mile, but with my gloves and running jacket it was kind of too much effort to look at my watch:) I felt pretty strong when I finished, but I had absolutely no desire to try for the 60 K distance (you're allowed to switch events during the race - 23 K, marathon, 60 K, or 50 miler). Even if there had been a 50K option, 26.2 was plenty. Today I feel pretty good. My foot was bothering me this morning, but it feels fine now.

After I had finished the marathon, I rode around with Cuzn Don and Byroni to different aide stations along the course to catch Ellen on the last loop of her 50 miler. While we were waiting at one of the stations Cuzn Don and Byroni built this lovely snowman. I just helped touch it up a bit:



Note its gel packet ears! Also, here is the lime-green shirt we all got in our race packets. It's too bad it's such a boxy, unflattering cut, because it's a nice fabric and color:

27 Days Until Baseball Season!

Madeline's String Toy Art

I came home yesterday afternoon and found this. I was very impressed with Madeline's perpendicular arrangement of two of her favorite toys:



She should be featured in volume 2 of Why Cats Paint.

Yesterday my friend Adam and I went cross-country skiing at the Allerton Schroth Trail. I feel lucky to have gotten to ski twice this winter! The conditions weren't the best - the snow was a little wet and melty in the sunny open areas - but the majority of it was fun. When I was running this trail a couple weeks ago, it was flooded. So lots of the trees by the river had these "ice skirts" - sheets of ice stuck around the trunk, remnants of where the previous water level had frozen. These pictures didn't turn out that well, but they looked pretty cool in person:

Long Weekend

I flew to MD this past weekend for my mother's big 60th birthday bash. It was much fun to see relatives I hadn't seen in years. I'm not sure if they all want me posting pictures of them, so instead I'll post the cake...



...and the kitties (Mooch and Hobbes):





Aren't they cute! I also got to see my friends Erin and Kate this weekend. We went to the Body Worlds exhibit in Baltimore on Sunday. Then on Monday, after running 18 miles in SUNNY 70 DEGREE WEATHER IN FEBRUARY, I hung out with Pasha, my mom's neighbor's cat, who apparently considers our porch her second home:





Then my mom and I went to see the frog exhibit at the National Geographic museum:



Let's get it on!

Mucus Haikus

Chin to the sky. SNEEZE!
Slimy yellow booger string
Flies splat across nose.




Tongue cannot reach it
Try to wipe off on Mommy
No, Madeline, no!

Greg Craven's video

If you haven't yet seen this geeky science teacher's You Tube video "How it All Ends", take a look (it's about 10 minutes). Even if you don't agree with his risk-management logic and ultimate conclusion (ahem, CG), it's still entertaining!



Here's his website.

February!

Happy Birthday to me! I got 7 inches of snow for my birthday, and so the next day Andrew and I went cross-country skiing. It was a gorgeous winter day and we had a blast:





Then afterward we went to KRR's Fat Ass party where we each won a Mardi Gras shot glass like no other:



I have updated my "current reads" in the favorite book list part of my profile. I am reading (or rather listening to in the lab) a really great novel that I randomly picked up in the library. It is called The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, and I highly recommend it. It's fiction, but it actually goes quite well with the non-fiction book I'm reading When Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce. On the lighter side I'm also reading Stephen Colbert's I Am America (and So Can You!), which I got for my birthday.

HaHa

Bush the Repairman

Yummy

Does anyone else out there have a kitty who likes to lick bars of soap? Or is Madeline just weird?



Sweetheart, did that taste good?

Holiday Review!

Egad! Sorry for the long silence. My internet connection at home STILL does not work! I can only handle such primitive conditions for so long. Anyway, I had quite a fun-family-n-friends-filled Christmas/New Years break, some of which I will recap for you. Madeline and I drove to MD. Here is the Cooke living room in all its Christmasy glory:



Here is Madeline playing with her new teddy bear:



Here is me trying to look sexy with my new toy - a pasta maker:



...and here are the results of my first attempt at pasta. Not bad!





After Christmas I visited lots of friends and relatives, which I always look forward to. I also went to the InToneNation reunion and discovered that I still remember most of our songs! One random thing I promised in my last post was a picture of a hawk. It's not that great, but here it is:



This hawk got caught in some vines in our yard. My mom handed me oven mitts and said "go free it!" Fortunately, the hawk freed itself.

And of course, I must conclude with yet another piece of photographic artwork from www.icanhazcheezburger.com:

I hope everyone had warm, relaxing holidays like I did. Once my internet connection at home starts working, I'll post some pictures of Madeline, pasta, a hawk, and other interest tidbits of my time in MD and PA. For now, I wanted to point out this excellent opinion piece appearing in today's Washington Post.


(this is TOTALLY something Madeline would do!)

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: