new leaves in march - ramblings

Chicago X 12

2008-06-25T13:37:00.003-05:00

I saw the Rogue Wave when they opened for Guster and Ray Lamontagne in Chicago a couple of years ago. They were good, but didn't really catch for me as a band then. Cut to the present when I've been listening to their song "Chicago X 12" in what could be described as an obsessive manner over the past couple of days. I would think coworkers would be annoyed, but luckily my music is drown out by the obnoxiously loud training going on in the nearby conference room.

Newest Additions

2008-06-08T21:50:00.003-05:00

There is the stigma of a single female growing old and having a lot of cats. Being somewhat allergic to cats and dogs (some breeds cause a worse reaction than others), it's really the combo of the allergy and not wanting to deal with poop that has kept me from becoming a pet owner. Instead, I have plants. Twelve to be exact with the latest addition. I was at Ikea in the kitchen accessory section when I saw the eggshaped container (Asker). The intended use is for the container to hang on a rack and hold silverware and such, but throw a dish underneath to take care of the drain hole and it makes a great small planter. I opted for a jade plant since it is slow growing. And no, I haven't named any of the plants (yet)...

The plural in the title is that I bought a new camera which was used to take the photo. As my friends know, I tend to carry too much stuff in my bag, including a camera. My smallest one isn't all that small or lightweight and while the iPhone can take photos, they aren't the highest quality. My very first digital camera which my folks gave me for Christmas one year was a Canon Elph (S100 I think). I loved that I could take the little but mighty (at the time) camera with me everywhere. So with that in mind, I picked up the Canon SD870 which is in the PowerShot/Elph line. Time will tell how I like it, but I know for sure that my back will thank me.

Chop Chop

2008-06-08T20:32:00.003-05:00

Well, I did it again. While there was a slight moment of hesitation, on Friday I had nearly 10 inches of my hair cut off. The timing was right with the Houston summer heat setting in. I had initially been growing it out for my brother's wedding which was back in January and since then, I just hadn't made an appointment for a trim knowing that it wouldn't be much longer until I had enough length to donate. The last time I donated in 2003, it was to Locks of Love. This time around, I'm sending the bagged ponytail to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. Their required length is only 8" which with my layered hair, I figured would be a better choice as I wanted shoulder length hair after it was all said and done.

Will I do it again? Maybe, but for now I'm going to enjoy not having to wrangle tangles in the morning, get attacked by my hair at night, and performing surgery on the vacuum roller every other time I clean.

Rock. Rock. Outcrop. Rock. Coal. Rock. Oh look, a flower.

2008-06-04T00:17:00.005-05:00

Figured that some of you might be getting tired of looking at the ammonite. Well, all of you other than Hana.

Can you spot the ammonite?

2008-05-26T20:47:00.004-05:00

While I typically don't write about work, I spent most of the past week on a field trip to look at outcrops and road cuts in the San Juan Basin. Really, after taking a geology class in college I've never been able to look at a road cut in the same way. It's an excellent way to get some perspective at what is down below the surface of the Earth. As far as working in the industry goes, I've been fortunate to have fields that outcrop in the same vicinity. Although I'd gladly work a field that requires me to travel to Turks and Caicos or Spain like a couple of my coworkers/friends recently did.

The trip would be four days, ten people, and 3 SUVs. Monday morning we all flew into Albuquerque and loaded up to "drive" to Farmington where we spent the first night. And by "drive" I mean we would stop every so often to look at the formations that make up the basement rock to the San Juan Basin. Day 2-4 would be more of the same, but the formations would be ones we produce out of.

I'll be posting a few photos throughout the coming week, but I couldn't not post this one first. On Day 2, we had once again stopped along the side of the road on the way to Shiprock, maybe the Pictured Cliffs hogback? We had walked along the road to look at some of the cross-bedding and other such exciting geologic features. I was heading back towards the vehicles and looking to take a few more photos along the way when I saw it. All I knew was it was a fossil and when I pointed it out to my coworker Valerie she urged me on to grab it. It was a bit of a reach, but I soon had it down and was showing off my find. Evidently it is an ammonite, and quite an impressive one at that with quite the detail and 3.5" x 4" in size.

I realize that a crappy iPhone photo doesn't give it justice either, but it will have to do until I have time to do a better job. I also need to find someone to have it cleaned up and shellacked to preserve it. I should mention that I grew up looking for fossils, agates, yogos, and rocks. Dad even taught me how to pan for gold when I was a kid, so really, while I'm not a geologist, rocks are in my blood.

Community Coffee

2008-05-18T22:11:00.002-05:00

A photo from the trip I took over to Lafayette a few weekends ago for Festival International.

Will Hoge @ Warehouse Live - 5.1.2008

2008-05-06T22:26:00.004-05:00

More photos here.

It all started with a pair of shoes...

2008-05-06T20:25:00.000-05:00

This is a tale of carpet, shoes, and lack of sleep.

Let's start with a Tuesday, because really, that's a good place to start. I mean, I could start with Monday, but I don't think the fact that I couldn't get to sleep until after midnight had anything to do with this story and I would have to go back and change the title of this post. Plus, who likes Mondays anyway?

So Tuesday morning, I decided to "dress up" for work and by dress up I mean wear an outfit with shoes that are not associated with hippies, California surfers, or the Dutch. By the end of the day, with sores on both my Achilles, I remembered why it is that Birkenstocks are a fashion statement I'm more than happy to make.

Wow, this is getting boring. Let's skip ahead. Battered and Bandaided, went the gym, came home in the evening. Decided that I would return to my sandaled ways, but before bed why not touch up the nail polish on my toes. Tiredness + nail polish = disaster.

That's right. Just when I was done and setting the bottle back on the night stand I fumbled and the bottle went with gravity and fell to the carpet. The carpet that I had installed when I moved in nearly 2 years ago. Shit. SHIT. Shitshitshitshitshit. Did I mention this was bright green nail polish?

As quick as I could with wet nail polish on, slipped out of bed, moved the night stand, and grabbed for the bottle before it poured out into a large green blob. Acting fast I tried dabbing the green swoops with nail polish remover. It helped a bit, but not much. With workout weak legs I wobbled down two flights of stairs to grab the Little Green Machine. I would get plenty of use out of it over the next hour and a half.

Armed with the knowledge of a couple of Google searches, I proceeded to try the following: rubbing alcohol, hairspray, hydrogen peroxide, Windex, and Goo Gone. Having exhausted my options at hand I went to bed after 1am.

At the suggestion of a coworker, the next night I gave Oxyclean a try but the result is the same as you see above (maybe slightly lighter). In the end I moved the night stand over just a tad more and was resigned to the fact that I'll have to have it replaced/patched when I move.

Obligatory Green Photo for Earth Day.

2008-04-22T08:38:00.003-05:00

mossy tree - Bellingham, WA

Here's what I've done this year to become a little more eco-friendly:

I ask for no bag when buying only a few things at a store and use my own canvas grocery bags (you'd be amazed at how much more then can fit in one of those as compared to a flimsy plastic bag). I will admit to still getting the plastic bags at Target, but I reuse them as garbage bags in the bathrooms and office at home.

I switched to using a Sigg bottle both at work and at home. I also use a small Nalgene every morning for my "breakfast" drink. Nalgene recently announced that they are phasing out the use of BPA, but I'm not sure if I'm going to switch out those yet.

I've offered plastic recycling to my coworkers since it won't be available at our office until later this year. That fact is a big disappointment, in that it has taken this long for them to figure things out, but at least they are getting there.

Posting because I don't want Hana to melt.

2008-04-21T22:18:00.003-05:00

Daffodil Askew - Skagit Valley, WA

The photo in the previous post was taken in the Pacific Northwest on one of my many visits there. The title alluded to the fact that I would be making yet another trip up there to see some friends that had moved up to Bellingham.

Any time I visit that part of the world - Eugene, Seattle, Portland, and now Bellingham - I wonder why I don't live up there. There's the mountains, moss, rocky beaches, beer, coffee, and people that wear fleece and ugly shoes by choice. Then I remember the paycheck and why I'm here for now. It's not that I dislike Houston, it's just not where I want to spend the rest of my life.

It was really great to spend time with my friends and see how much their kids have grown. It's such a contrast to my lifestyle being single and sharing my house only with plants and gnomes. The days were filled with adventures, games, snacks, Dora and the Little Einsteins. Oh and let's not forget Monsters, Inc with a constant stream of questions being asked and all you can do is laugh (Erin, your patience is amazing). It wasn't all fun in games though as I had to perform reattachment surgery on a sockmonkey (it was a success and Sockmonkey should regain full use of his arm).

As for our adventures, they included driving in a minivan (A MINIVAN! oh the excitement) to see the blooming fields of daffodils and tulips (our timing was perfect) as well as mountains, rocky beaches. There were walks to the park, lunch at Taco Time (at my request), and Erin running a very hilly 1/2 marathon that ended with rain.

More photos here: Bellingham, WA

Looking forward to the four day week.

2008-04-06T21:58:00.002-05:00

Best-laid plans....often go awry.

2008-03-30T18:38:00.003-05:00

We last left off with my attending Body Pump class on Tuesday. Felt pretty good come Wednesday, a bit sore, but that was to be expected. What wasn't expected was what came Thursday. A day filled with feeling tired, sneezy and headachy. My intent was to attend class twice a week, but I by the time I got home from work, I downed some vitamins and crawled into bed where I pretty much stayed for the next 16 hours with brief periods of wakefulness to check my temp (100.6), drink water, and take a large dose of ibuprofen. Let me just say now that reading Alice in Wonderland while drifting back to sleep lead to some weird dreams. Down the rabbit hole indeed.

Friday was my day off, which I intended to spend cleaning the house and getting around to my taxes and instead I spent most of it not moving around much. By Saturday I was feeling a bit better and ventured out to be social with some psuedo-strangers via Twitter. Later in the evening I helped celebrate a friend's birthday and officially found out that he and his wife are moving back to Bakersfield. Sad to see them go, but I know that they both miss it.

As for Sunday, I stocked up on sleep, clean laundry, bananas, and Claritin. I've only had hay fever once, 10 years ago when I was moving to Midland for the summer, but the pollen count is extremely high here in Houston this year, so I that could be part of my problem lately. Oh, and the taxes? Still not done.

Ve are goinck to pump... (clap) ...YOU UP!*

2008-03-25T22:12:00.001-05:00

I wrote the following about a month and a half ago.

A common basketball drill is "suicides" which is sprinting from baseline to free throw and back, to half court and bad, to the far free throw and back, and finally to the far baseline and back. During high school, I had a volleyball coach that put a little twist on this drill. Added to the mix would be a short span of 2x4, wrapped in a towel. Laid flat, grasped with two hands, we would have to push up and down the court using the basketball baseline and the 10' lines on the volleyball court. Luckily there weren't enough space or 2x4s to go around, so while 4 of your teammates were on the court, you would be doing wall squats. Oh, and you'd do this for a couple of rounds. When done, your legs would be shaky-shaky like the Scarecrow trying to walk for the first time. This is how I feel having gone to Body Pump at the Downtown YMCA tonight.

Since moving here a year and half ago, K has been trying to get me to join the YMCA Downtown. I agreed that I would, once they moved the office which I work into our downtown location. This was supposed to be in the near future, but it seems that the future is always near, but never here. The latest party line is either the end of 2008 or the end of 2010. It seems when left to my own devices, more often than not I find an excuse to not go to the gym at my current office ("ugh, I just want to go home"), or just sink my bum in the couch indentation ("aaahhhh, cushy").

Pretty sure making it down the stairs come morning will be my first challenge of tomorrow.

Obviously I didn't post the above until now. You see, by the time morning came, my muscles had staged a revolt. I literally had to roll out of bed which was no easy task. And you try shampooing with arms that hurt even when hanging at your side. My long stride was transformed into hobbling and I will spare you the diatribe of profanities that ran through my thoughts as I climbed and descended the stairs at work. While I did some stretching the following days and tried to walk a bit after work to loosen up, it took a good week for me to recover and even longer to return to the class, but tonight I did just that after officially joining the Y on Saturday. Having learned my lesson I took it a little bit slower and lighter tonight, but I hope with time I'll build up my strength and endurance and with it, lose the weight I've been carrying way too long.

*Hans and Franz, in case you didn't know.

lawnmower (lens)baby

2008-03-19T21:19:00.003-05:00

Each year, when our bonus comes in, I do the responsible thing with most of it, paying off bills and investing it. I say most, because I do splurge on something of a gift for myself, you know, for all that hard work pushing buttons and playing with numbers.

When I bought an iPhone earlier this year, I told myself it was my bonus gift, and a practical one at that. My then current phone had gotten to the point that even a 30 minute conversation would nearly drain the battery and it may or may not have been dropped a few too many times. My envy of a coworkers shiny gadget coupled with the fact that they bumped up the size to 16GB, I caved. And I'm glad I did since I can now carry all the power of the internets in my pocket. The mapping feature was quite useful while in Austin this past weekend too and trying to meet up with a friend.

By now I'm sure you can guess that the iPhone isn't the only "gift" I bought myself. Although I've wantd one for a while, over the weekend I spontaneously decided to buy a lensbaby. It's a selective focus lens that allows you to move the sweet spot around. As you can see from the above photo, only the "AI" in the upper left is nearly in focus with the rest of the frame filled out with blur. I need much more practice with this lens, but besides being fun to use, it also forces me to slip the camera into manual mode rather than rely on the presets.

Home projects with the folks.

2008-03-19T21:02:00.002-05:00

I failed to mention that my folks were in town for a few days on their way back to Montana. It seems that my brother's wedding in Florida was a perfect excuse for them to avoid the cold snow this year and besides getting to spend time with them, an added bonus was doing some home projects with them.

The big group project was doing yardwork. Last year I received a certified letter from my HOA chastising the weeds growing inside the fencing. I had tried to keep up with them, but with all the rain Houston gets, vegetation grows like crazy. Mom and Dad took care of transplanting some grassy tufts from the target area while I cleared off the ground under some trees and fought with the brommeliads (I think they won from the looks of my arms afterwards). Two trips to Lowes,eight bags of cedar mulch and a roll of weedstop later, the job was done. The weedstopping effectiveness is yet to be determined.

Oh, and Dad fixed the doorbell. Turns out it was the ringer button that needed replaced.

Will you be wearing a sweater tomorrow?

2008-03-19T08:20:00.001-05:00

Open.

2008-03-09T21:18:00.002-05:00

align=justify>Open. Bakersfield, CA. 2.29.08

Orchard in bloom.

2008-03-06T22:06:00.002-06:00

I lived in Bakersfield for 7 years and never really got a good photo of the orchards and have long been envious of friends who have. As I mentioned, I flew back there this past weekend to visit some friends and they happen to live a couple houses down from the orchard you see here. My timing was perfect, with the trees covered in snow-like blossoms. And the smell - divine.

Going back to Cali.

2008-02-27T20:44:00.003-06:00

While only Wednesday, it has been a doozy of a week but mercifully I have to survive only more more day until I board a plane for out west. Sure, there are a lot of other California cities one might select when going for a weekend trip, but my destination is Bakersfield. Why you ask? This is why.

.:. Finally get to pinch this little girl's cheeks.
.:. Also get to hang out with her parents.
.:. Get to see Near Miss Mallet play at Dagny's.
.:. Hopefully see a few other friends at the show.
.:. Screw Tex-Mex, I get to dine at La Costa.
.:. Trader Joe's - if you've never heard of it, you have no idea what you are missing.
.:. Topography- I won't call them mountains but it'll be nice to see some visible elevation changes.
.:. Spin the globe - it was a tradition to take visitors to the Hogan globe, so I might have to give it one more spin.

How was my weekend?

2008-02-24T21:52:00.003-06:00

The weekend is finally winding down and oh my, what a weekend it has been.

Set the alarm off on my house. I thought I saw the garage door go down, but wasn't completely sure so I had the alarm company (who called me) call it in to the police. I made it home before they arrived and realized I had not completely closed the door.

Sustained my first sunburn of the year. I received it while sitting outside on a beautiful Saturday afternoon with some friends and meeting several psuedo-strangers.

Bought a wooden typography set. Similar to the ones pictured above, I wasn't planning on buying anything at the Houston Urban Market, but being a fan of typography I had to. I also purchased a mirror framed in teak which I was about to walk away from when the vendor dropped the price by $50 - sold.

Locked myself out of my house. My intent was to run a quick errand to CVS to buy some aloe/after-sun product. Of course I see the irony after not closing my door only a couple nights previous, to pull it shut without keys in hand. No problem, I thought, I'll call my friends that have a spare key for when I'm out of town or in such an event like this. Unfortunately, they were unable to find the key so I had to call a locksmith and one hour, fifty-six minutes later I was finally back inside.

More photos from today's trip to the market.

Little pod things.

2008-02-20T06:21:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite photos from the Butterfly Pavilion.

Meet the Ciembronowicz'

2008-02-17T21:37:00.003-06:00

It's not that often that I have to travel for work, but when a conference came up in Keystone, Colorado, my first thought was to give my college roommate Belk a call. I owe her a long overdue visit, having never been to her house since she moved up into the mountains of Colorado from Denver several years ago. That visit will have to wait though, since timing and schedules didn't align. Second thought was to drop by the Ciembronowicz household. I've known Hana since college, although we weren't really friends, and then we both ended up in Bakersfield working for the big T and living in the same apartment complex. I think it was mutual friends and book club that drew us together as friends.

Hana's already blogged about my visit, but I figure I ought to also, seeing as I've not been blogging much lately. I flew in on Saturday, and was greeted by Hana and the front range. Oh how I've missed the mountains. At least in Bakersfield they were nearby, but Houston...not so much. The memories continued to come back when we had lunch - homemade pasty (pronounced passtee). I realize that you'll have no idea what I'm talking about if you didn't grow up or spend some time in Butte, Montana but trust me when I say "delicious meat pie."

After spending some time meeting the newest member of the Ciembronowicz clan, R2, we headed out to the Butterfly Pavilion. I haven't been taking photos all that much lately, so it was inspiring to be around all the beautiful flora and fauna. You can see more photos from the pavilion here.

The rest of the weekend was spent as follows:

Delicious dinner at Village Tavern - Hana's suggestion of the Ahi was spot on.
Body rumbling demonstration of Mike's home theater.
Watching a couple episodes of Stargate Atlantis on the very large screen.
Sleeping in!
Puffins! (the cereal kind) for breakfast.
Sitting way in the front for the church service.
Chinese for lunch.
Being wisked back to the airport with R2 sitting in the front of the car.

I'll save you from rehashing the rest of the week seeing that it was spent at a work conference save for a dinner with Belk and Sam (who it was good to finally meet). I'll be spending a good long weekend up at Jackalope Ranch with them later this summer.

I like suburban wuss rok.

2008-02-04T20:10:00.001-06:00

Yes, I keep an Excel spreadsheet database of almost all of the concerts I've been to since 1999 which is when I moved to California. Well, I also included the '98 Horde Festival at the Gorge Ampitheatre where I slept in my Bronco II in a hotel parking lot when I was too tired to continue driving home after the show. Of note, it was also my first time to see Guster live (you'll see why soon it is of note). Over the past 9 years I have gone to 213 events, seeing 443 bands if you include duplicates, 270 if you don't, in 41 cities, and spread out over 13 states (AZ, CA, CO, IL, MA, MD, NV, NY, OR, RI, TX, UT, and WA).

Let's take a closer look at the top 3 4.

Yes, I have seen Guster 32 times in 8 states and 16 cities. That number is nothing if you compare it to some of my Boston friends who are well into the triple digits. My most spontaneous concert going moment occurred with the opportunity to see Guster's sold out performance at Radio City Music Hall (where I ended up in the front row). With less than 24 hours notice I booked flight and was headed to Baltimore to be picked up by my friend Viv and Kat (a stranger at the time) for a show that night, a midnight drive to New Jersey, and eventually my first visit to NYC that lasted less than 24 hours. The show was incredible and the fridge in our shared hotel was insanely stocked. A crazy weekend indeed. UPDATE: Read more about the trip here.

You may not have heard of Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, although you may be familiar with The Refreshments (Roger Clyne & PH Naffah's former band). Arguably the hardest working band in rock and roll, they have a tremendous fan base and have managed to be successful as truly independent band. RCPM recently headed south to Mexico for the Turbo Ocho Sessions where the idea was to write and record an album in 8 days. The event culminated with a concert, with 500 strong in attendance. While I've seen a band on back to back nights, for no other have I decided after seeing them in LA on Friday to drive to Vegas for the next nights show and drive back in the same night.

Near Miss Mallet is local Bakersfield band with singer Melissa Wiggins and her husband Brock that I actually saw a few times before they were even named such (or married). While being at the number 3 position is somewhat a result of being a local band, it's not at all an undeserved slot. I'm pretty excited that they happen to be playing in a couple weeks when I'm back in Bakersfield visiting (drop by Dagny's to see the band and say hi to me and them).

I was going to stop at 3, but then I noticed that Matt the Electrician will actually be tied with NMM (if only for a couple weeks) after I see him and Southpaw Jones at Anderson Fair on Friday. Those of you in Houston would be remiss if you don't catch this duo who drive all the way over from Austin to bring a little bit of weirdness our way.

The Dining Room, now with more rug!

2008-01-21T20:14:00.000-06:00

Dusty Turquoise Fedora Flor Tiles

If you've watched any of those home decorating on a budget shows, you probably already know about Flor carpet tiles. Even Martha Stewart is getting in on the action lately. I had been looking at rugs to put under the dining table, but MY GOD they are expensive for that size. Or if a reasonable price, they were ugly or made from the bristles of a wire brush. That's when I started looking at the Flor tiles. I had ordered some samples and really liked the Fedora style which has the added bonus of being made from 80% post-consumer fibers. Problem was I wanted a blue or green color, but the chartreuse, well, there's a reason why no one's favorite color is chartreuse. As for the blue, there wasn't one at the time. Patience paid off though, and eventually they came out with Dusty Turquoise.

The boxes showed up a couple weeks before Christmas, but with the folks coming with Boone the wonder dog in tow, I opted to wait until after they left and the house was de-haired. Of course, being the procrastinator I am, that means I didn't actually get around to putting the rug together until this weekend. My OCD and I laid out the tiles first, and then went back through with the sticky dots to put it all together. The most painful part of the whole process was crawling around the hardwood floor on my knees. Other than that, the carpet tiles went together quite easily.

Crockpot Challenge - White Bean Chili

2008-01-20T19:42:00.001-06:00

white bean chili - ingredients (sans celery)

A few years ago my folks gave me a crockpot for Christmas (which reminds me, I need to blog about the dehydrator I got this year) and my first attempt at using it was disastrous. When Keely put forth the crockpot challenge I figured it was a good reason to give it another go. After looking through a recipe book, I decided on White Bean Chili, but swapping the chicken for beef.

The recipe:

White Bean Chili
1 lb ground beef (lean)
1 med onion, coarsely chopped
3 cups celery, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp ground allspice
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 can (16 oz) whole tomatoes, undrained, coarsely chopped
1 can (15.5 oz) Great Northern beans, drained, rinsed
1 cup beef broth

Heat skillet over medium heat. Add beef and onion, cook until beef is browned and onion is tender. Drain fat. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 5.5 to 6.5 hours or until celery is tender.

The results:

Served with a bit of cheese and a corn muffin; made for quite a tasty dinner. I'd maybe add another can of beans and some tomato juice, but it really doesn't need anything.