TAG - You're it...

As it seems, I have been tagged by Rachel! I didn't realize there was tagging allowed in blog world, but it seems pretty fun, so I'll give it a try. In being tagged I have been told to share 10 little known facts about myself and then tag other bloggers to do the same. So here we go...

1. I think sea cucumbers are about the coolest ocean animal there is. I realize that dolphins and sharks get all the hype, but as soon as I learned that they can shoot their guts out of their butts at would-be predators I determined they are way more fun. I also think it's pretty cool that you can use them to squirt people with water. You just pick them up off the bottom and squeeze them a bit and if you are lucky water comes out instead of their guts.

2. That little factoid above about the sea cucumber shooting out it's guts at predators is the only thing I remember from my freshman class biology class. Well that and the scientific name for the jellyfish - Chrysaora quinquiciera. So much for long term memory.

3. I can't remember numbers for the life of me. I have graduated from not one, but two science degree programs but memorizing numbers has just never been my thing. Thank goodness for cell phone address books!

4. I don't eat the corner crusts on bread. Anyone who has seen me eat a sandwich knows this - Maia specifically loves to pick on me about it. It's just too much bread for what little sandwich inside you get at the corner. Although sandwiches aren't the only thing - as a general rule I don't clear my plate on most meals. I don't know why, it just seems to happen. I guess I'm just not convinced that the starving children in Africa will want my scraps by the time they reach Africa.

5. If I were given a chance to be an animal it would be an otter! Have you seen how much fun they look like they are having even in a zoo. Imagine how cool it is to be an otter in the wild...well as long as you are an otter in the wild far away from killer whales.

6. The smell of diesel makes me sick. It's really annoying actually. I always hated switching tanks during 2 dive trips because inevitably the boat smells like diesel the whole time. It's also really annoying that I can tell when there is a truck somewhere up in the traffic line and yet I can't get out from behind the smell.

7. Speaking of smells - when I'm about to get a migraine, I don't see an aura, I smell really really super well. I know it's weird, but I'm not kidding. That knowing when I'm sitting behind a truck in traffic turns into knowing that in about 5 miles we are going to pass a truck. I'm serious people, this is no joke. And add the diesel smell making me sick to the sick feeling once I get the migraine and we are in for a world of trouble.

8. I ate an ant in the Amazon. It tasted like lemons. Our guide told us to try it and I figured, hey, when else am I going to eat an ant?

9. I did synchronized swimming for 5 years. Yep, it's true - I put more make-up on in those 5 years than I have the rest of my life. Not to mention knox gelatin in my hair. In the end, my duet partner and I got a really good score when we didn't deserve it and I decided that I couldn't stand the fact that now that we were known we could get good scores even though we were just as good 3 years before but weren't known and so couldn't get good scores. Kinda ironic that I quit once I was considered 'known' enough. Oh well, I never liked holding my breathe while upside down in the water for minutes at a time anyway.

10. I don't have a bone behind my left ear. When I was about 12, I had a reoccurring ear infection that my new uncle (who happened to be an ear doctor) finally diagnosed as mastoiditis (the mastoid bone is the one behind your ear). So, that year instead of going to the state swim meet I was having ear surgery and not allowed in the water for 3 months (yes, all of summer swim season). But, I now have a functioning ear drum, only 10% hearing loss, and get to freak out my uncle by going diving (which as an ear doctor he is really not happy about).

Hope it was enjoyable!

In turn, I have tagged:
Sandor
Ad
Aunt Barb
Have fun! It was actually quite entertaining.

A Soapbox Moment

Over the last few months, I have referenced a number of blog and or websites that my friend Ad has sent me. He is far more versed in searching the web for interesting material than I and so I am always very entertained to read what he feels was worthwhile sending me. Many times it is something he figures I would find interesting, but every once and a while he'll throw one in there that he knows will fire me up just to pick on me (such as an article about how there is no link between autism and mercury in vaccines...don't get me started). I'm not sure which side of the coin the most recent e-mail belonged, for while it didn't make me want to start trowing things like the autism article did, it did get my brain going on all the ways I would question this person's view on the world. I decided that since I've been rather neglectful of my blog as of late that I would include my comment back here rather than in an e-mail to Ad. If you would like to read the entire blog entry he sent me it is located here: Turing'd.

If you didn't read the entry I'll quickly explain - the author suggests that certain professions have been turing'd (I'm not sure where this word came from, I for one while using 'googled' and 'texted' rather frequently, definitely missed this word's entry into our vocabulary), while others have not. From what I gather it means that certain professions have embraced the use of computers to accomplish what used to be accomplished by humans, while others hold out that humans still do things better. I will specifically be commenting on the last sentences of the blog which state: "Once you are Turing'd it is much easier to believe other occupations which we humans used to do uniquely, can be done by computers. You tend to be open to disruptive technology in all parts of your life. Have you been Turing'd?"

I will start my rebuttal by stating that I most definitely have not be turing'd. While I absolutely appreciate what computers can do and find many things extremely useful, I do not feel that as a general statement it can be said that computers will one day be able to do everything better than humans. They may be able to do many things faster than humans, however, faster does not necessarily mean better - please reference the childhood story of the Tortoise and Hare. I do not believe I would be as convinced of this fact if I did not have the specific job that I do. For those of you who don't know (or never knew how to explain it), my job is to provide science based information to people who are making decisions that impact coastal resources. The longer I am in this position the more I find a need to understand the discipline of social science in addition to the more classic biological sciences that I crammed in my brain in mass amounts during school. As a result I have become less impressed with technology's claim to be able to do all things than I was previously. I am daily faced with the question of 'how do I explain the many facets of this issue in a way that people can a) understand what it means and b) be compelled to change their behavior as a result. And let me tell you, a computer most certainly does NOT solve this question.

Let's take a specific example so I can make my point - I am presently setting up a workshop on wetlands. The audience of this workshop are developers, engineers, architects, planners and planning commission member who make decisions on development and it's impact on wetlands. Now, I first need to explain to these people who have not had 7 years of school specific to biological sciences why wetlands are important and why they should be protected in certain cases. I then need to let them know what regulations impact wetlands so that everyone is working on the same page regarding what can and can not be done (because believe me there is a lot of uncertainty on this issue). And lastly I need to offer up some solutions to them and help them look at these possible solutions constructively to determine if they would in fact work within their scope of work. Oh, and all of this needs to be done in about a 6 hour period, with appropriate breaks at an appropriate location with appropriate notice so that the appropriate people attend in the first place. Computers and technology greatly assist in my ability to inform the developers, engineers and architect portion of that audience group of the existence of said meeting. It also greatly assists in my finding appropriate speakers through searching the web, production of materials for the attendees, keeping track of people's contact information, keeping up to date on any changes in the political arena via online news updates and the like, the speaker's ability to add visuals into their talk through PowerPoint, the attendees ability to gather information post-meeting from my website, and a variety of other lesser things such as simply keeping track of my life on Microsoft Outlook's calendar. It does NOT however, in any way replace me in the equation. Not to act as if I'm super spectacular, really anyone who is committed and organized with proper training could do my job. But it needs to be a person. A computer will not be able to call the speakers and explain to them the intent of the course, work out with them what material should be presented, or present that material. In fact I have seen talks when people rely on PowerPoint and do not add their own 'human' touch, and it is a painful experience (with no increase in knowledge on my part by the way). A computer will also not be able to replace the interaction that is made by the 60 or so people that attend this meeting, and would not be able to map how these people may collaborate or network based simply on being in the same room, hearing the same information and starting up conversations based on their own unique personalities and experiences. A computer would also not be able to go back to work and apply this information in an effective manner, because while there are plenty of computer programs that can apply these ideas when deciding how to develop a plot of land - if there is not someone who wants to use them they are not going to be used no matter how great they are.

I could go on, but I think I have more or less made my point and do at some point have to actually get back to doing the work that goes into said wetlands workshop - because I promise my computer will not do it by itself. But I would like to summarize my opinion. I have not been turing'd because I think that at our core humans are social creatures and for that reason our culture will not allow social interaction to be done away with even if it is more efficient to do so. We have been trying to have computers do quite a number of things, and yet I am not convinced they even do them better than the people they replaced, so why would I propose they do more? I have yet to receive a call where I hear the pause caused by a computer dialing the number and transferring me to a person that I did not hang up on. I have yet to find an automated call number that didn't frustrate me enough to want to throw my phone across the room (that is unless in the very first menu it gave me the option to push one button and get a real person). I absolutely LOVE the fact that I can drive up to a gas pump, scan my credit card, pump my gas, get back in my car and head off. I would not however, be very psyched if I pulled up to a doctor office, scanned my thumbprint, listened to an automated recording of what may be wrong with me, was given a bunch of colored pills I was supposed to take and put back in my car. I personally will always prefer a real human doctor on this one, even with all their possible mistakes. I LOVE the fact I can keep up with my friends via blogs so that the major points in life are cataloged and I don't forget to ask them about theirs or tell them about mine. I would not however, like if my only way to speak to my friends was through totally unspecific blog entries posted through the world wide web. I prefer sitting down with coffee (that was made by a person by the way, I'm picky with my coffee) and chat about life.

So, I may be the only one left, but I am very happy to have not been turing'd and hope that others join me.

Social Butterflies

Sandor and I were quite the little social butterflies this weekend. Saturday we headed to church for the Eggstravaganza at which we helped with egg painting, egg hunting, egg relays - all things egg! It was quite entertaining, and being that the weather was beautiful this weekend, it was quite a nice day to spend outside. On Sunday we headed up to Columbia to attend Griffin's 2nd birthday party a-la-zoo style. The Griffin man was quite entertained by the entire experience, although he seemed to be a bit confused by the whole animals hanging out with people thing. My favorite animals of the day were the giraffe and the meerkats. I have been to the zoo a few times, but never realized they had meerkats - man those little guys are hilarious. I loved this one who was literally sitting in the sun and hanging out.

You could feed the giraffes, which was entertaining for us adults - Griffin however, was not amused.
Not until Dad helped him by moving him a little further bad from the large giraffe head :)

After our trip to the zoo, we then headed to Caleb and Michelle's for a St. Patrick's Day celebration of sorts. As always is the case at their house, while everyone else smoked and grilled, I played with the kids. We had a grand time swinging on the swingset - have you ever tried to swing 3 kids while swinging yourself? It is actually quite entertaining. At one point I decided my hips really did not fit in the swing although I had tried for about an hour to pretend that I wasn't cutting the blood off to my feet - so we moved over to the chairs and the kids took turns showing me pieces of dirt and grass while I commented on how interesting each piece was. When the one little boy decided to bring Caleb a piece of dog poop we stopped that game. Notice I was not brought the dog poop - while I definitely appreciated. After a lovely dinner of brats we headed in to watch a bit of Dora the Explorer before the went to bed - all in all a very calm evening. Apparently I have been deemed the kid whisperer.

So now back to work - at least I got my weekend in the sun!

Chuck E. Cheese

So, as you could see from my mobile post from this weekend (by the way mobile posts are brilliant!) Brandy celebrated her 27th birthday this weekend. It was going to be a rainy weekend, so Friday night after scrapbooking, we were trying to figure out how else we would celebrate. We had decided on coffee and Hollywood gossip magazines in the morning and then lunch in Asheville, but when we got up it was snowing and 27 degrees in Asheville so we decided to rethink that idea.

Somehow she thought of Chuck E. Cheese, and thus it was immediately decided that skeeball and pizza was definitely the way to go. So after some catching up on Hollywood dirt we headed to the same place half the 6 year olds in Hickory were also heading. We both remember going there (well same name, different location of course) when we were little and getting 10 tokens or so which we had to use very thoughtfully in order to play all the games we wanted. So, we decided seeing as how we now have jobs that we were going to splurge on the tokens and we bought 100 for the 3 of us. It was glorious! You could just keep playing skeeball over and over and over and never even pay attention to how many tokens you had left!

We did play a few games in addition to skeeball, although we continually went back to that wonderful game when we were tired of the other ones. Brandy playing this weird game that we never could figure out what the point was...


We also had fun cashing in the tickets. While the poor 6 year olds were being told by their parents they only had enough tickets to get one thing we were rattling off about 10 things. You can now get cotton candy with the tickets, which is exceptionally wonderful, and we each have a little squeezy stress ball thing for our office. Plus we got some bracelets for ourselves and Nikile (who we found out only got 4 tokens the last time she went to Chuck E. Cheese - poor child). One thing about playing kids games when you are not a kid is that the height and length of stuff it of a bit, so our backs were a bit sore. But it was well worth it.

(no we did not eat that entire cookie cake alone - we had taken it to scrapbooking the day before where a major dent was made in its delicious-ness)

The Impossible is Happening

It's actually true - they really are fixing our pool. It's amazing!

Attempting Exercise

Perhaps I overdosed on exercise in my younger years, perhaps I have overdosed on focused effort at work leaving none for other areas of life, perhaps I am just lazy, but let me tell you, for some reason me and exercise just don't get along anymore. I mean come on, I ran cross country and track for 4 years in high school, swam for 12 years including in college, ran 5 years worth of the bridge run, the Chicago marathon a few years ago and the Kiawah half-marathon recently, and climbed Rainier. You would think that exercise is not that big of a deal in my life...but you would be wrong. I just have lost the discipline to deal with it.

So, in my attempt to restart some semblance of an exercise regime Brandy and I have decided to run a 9 mile race at Biltmore this summer. Perhaps a goal can refocus my self control, we'll see. Yesterday, Brandy and I went for a walk with the pups before I left their house, and due to a lost Dudley situation we ended up with a 2 1/2 hour walk instead of the 45 minute walk intended (as a side note, the Dudley dog is safe at home). So, I figured I should build on this effort and decided to do a little exercise ball and weights today. First let me say - wow, my stomach is pathetic. When I was swimming, I used to have to do 100's (I'm not kidding, triple digits people) of crunches and on the order of 50-60 push ups daily. Now, I'm having issues with 2 sets of 12. But we'll work up to it...I hope.

Second let me say - do not attempt floor exercises with a dog in the room. Kaylinn felt that me laying on the floor clearly meant she was supposed to lick my face and climb on my head. At the same time Leia decided that the unfolded poster of exercise ball exercises was a living animal that needed to be attacked. So while attempting to do sit ups and leg lifts and pelvic tilts, I had the dog attacking my head and the cat attacking that paper that was giving me directions on what to do next. It was an entertaining experience to say the least.

But, I did in fact finish, which means 2 days in a row with some sort of exercising. Go me! Now to see if I keep the momentum going during the work week...I can't promise anything, but I will hopefully at least earn an E for Effort.

Brandys birthday party!

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The pups playing with the same toy

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My Alarm Clock

I am not fond of waking up. I am in fact a morning person and am far more efficient in the mornings, but the actual act of waking up is really not my thing. I'd rather just lounge around in bed. When Kaylinn was a puppy I would drag myself out of bed before the alarm went off because she was awake and let her out and then come back in and lay on the couch while she played in the living room. Now that she is older she will generally sleep until we get up, which is very thoughful of her.

She does, however, get up with whoever is the first person awake and now that Sandor leaves for work before me she is awake with him instead. What this means is when Sandor brings her back in she comes running down the hall, leaps onto the bed, and paws at my head to let me know it's time to wake up. Generally I can convince her to at least lay still on the bed while I sleep a bit longer, but she is most definitely not asleep. And so on those days when the kitten decides she is also not tired there is a constant battle between the dog that is ready to play with the cat and me who doesn't want to hear them (or feel them running over top of me). Generally after a bit I give up and get out of bed, but it doesn't make it any nicer to wake up to Kaylinn and Leia "playing". So, this morning I taped their playing experience. This was towards the end when I was a) awake and out of bed and b) alert enough to go get the camera, but you can get the gist of it. It's a little dark, but the sound is pretty much the same. Oh and don't feel bad for Leia, she instigates the whole thing!

The Many Tides of Ft. Johnson

There are many reasons I love my office - the window being one of them. I hate those overhead lights, so the fact I don't need to turn my lights on except when it's really overcast or early in the morning is nice. And of course the view isn't bad. But one of the most fun things to do is watch how one place on earth changes so much in just a few hours. When I learned how to dive I remember the instructor telling us that sometimes instead of swimming around and looking at things when you go, sometimes it is interesting to stay in one spot and watch what comes in and out of that area. And in fact, it is pretty cool. Granted you don't see as much big stuff, but you start to notice really small things that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. And having a window out on the world is much the same. You see a big group of pelicans hanging out in the water, the cormorants come and go, dolphins frolicking and one day we saw a mink from my boss's office pull a toadfish out of the water, beat him on the rocks and run off with him (yep, it was pretty intense). But one of the most obvious things which I rarely even take the time to notice is the tide. It's pretty amazing what a huge tide we get there, but when you are sitting at one spot you can actually see the difference. So I bring you the tides of Ft. Johnson...


Perhaps not as grandiose as a pod of dolphins, but pretty cool I think.

Something Here Doesn't Belong

Something about this picture just doesn't seem right. Oh, that must be it - the grill sitting in the middle of my living room. That's because they are supposed to be pressure washing our building, but because of how windy it has been they have not yet done it. And thus our grill continues to sit in our living room...

Some Views of the World...Party that is

The World Party was great fun! Cookies, safas (platters Ethiopian dishes are served on), red lentils, wall hangings and coffee beans were in great supply:





We showed up at 9am to start the set up. This involved turning the empty hall into a decorated and organized place to hold the grand shindig.

Jordan and her friends made a bunch of tissue paper flowers that Brandy and I arranged in vases filled with red lentils and then filled the rest of the table with some fabric, napkins that one of my aunt's friends sewed (now a small undertaking by the way to make napkins for 100 people!), and glasses. My dad meanwhile had to get the enormous kitchen in the back working (thankfully he was a dishwasher at a restaurant way back when so he knew how to use it all) so that we could get the safas and glasses cleaned before going on the table. Then Laird and Sandor finalized the sound and projector so that we could show a slide show of pictures with sound, in addition to showing scanned pictures from a children's book Laird read to the kids that night. And John and Brandy set up an entire kid's region in the hall to contain a bit of the craziness. Then back to the kitchen there was mass cookie making. The food was all prepared by Tana, an Ethiopian restaurant from Pittsburgh, but the dessert was provided by our hands...literally. We found out after starting that there was no mixer in the kitchen which left us improvising and Jordan mixing with her hands!

This may look gross, but I'll tell you Snickerdoodle dough is possibly the tastiest dough I've ever eaten...I mean what is the purpose of making cookies if you don't eat the dough! We finished up cookies around 3:00 and headed back to the hotel to relax for a few hours before heading back for the main event...which was very well attended!

The guests were gone by 9:00 or so and then the cleaning began. My dad took charge in the dishwashing room again, Brandy and I took control of the main floor - unfortunately there was no broom which left Brandy vacuuming the entire place while I moved chairs to open up the room and John wiped up all the stuff that a vacuum couldn't take care of. By 10:30 we were heading out after a very long, but fun filled day!

Snowy Morning

Apparently when you have 6 months worth of training happen in a 6 week span you tend to lose track of life outside of work...so sorry for the major gaps in life, but alas, when you do outreach you go with the flow as far as when people can attend events. As such, I was happy to escape work life and head to West Virginia for the World Party. On the way up we found out that it was snowing in the mountains, but we never actually hit anything other than slushy rain (thankfully! anyone who has driven in the dark, up mountains, past 18 wheelers, and then add snow to the mix would agree). However, the next morning we woke up to big flakes of snow quickly filling the parking lot. By the time my dad and I got out to the car to drive to my aunt's and help load up the supplies the view from the car was fun (because I never see snow anymore), but a little daunting (because I never see snow anymore...i.e. never drive in snow anymore).

I took this while my dad cleaned off the car with a piece of paper that was on the floorboard - another thing about not seeing snow is that you don't have things to clean off snow with. And yes, my dad still cleans the snow off my car :)

After a very calm drive to my aunt's house (I was impressed at how well the Saturn handled it's first trip in the snow). We found Jordan outside playing with their dog Zimmer, and the Kaylinn pup who was quite intrigued by this interesting thing falling from the sky. She was cracking us up with her attempts to bring her ball back to you (in her unending need to play fetch) and yet her hatred of how cold the ball was and specifically how cold the snow on her ball was. She would roll it around with her paws trying to push off the snow and then grab it and throw it forward, run to where it fell, grab it again... It was awesome.

In the end she determined she would rather just sit in the snow and relax. Crazy dog!

By the time we were ready to leave and head to the church to set up the snow had stopped, and by the time we had set everything up, made an insane number of cookies, and headed home to rest before the event started, there was no snow left on the ground. Short lived, but very fun!