Finally an excuse to purchase big time music

Yes, the blogging drought is temporarily over. Summer's over and so is my vacation. I'm back at the computer daily, so I should be able to type a few thoughts here and there.

I love buying music. The chew_daddy discourages it. Now, I'm not talking about buying Kat's CD at her concert; but rather, for example, the new Kasey Chambers CD that I just got and love! Anyway, out of respect for dumping my sugar daddy's hard earned goods in a way he dislikes, I resist as much as possible. I'll be happy to go on about this respecting one another thing later, but this really isn't my point.

My point is that I finally have an excuse. Thanks to Richard Branson's commitment to give billions of his profit to fight global warming, I can have less guilt if buying from his company Virgin. I realize my logic can be picked apart here, but the point is "feeling" less guilty about the purchase...just try to argue with my fragile female emotions!

Chewies tour de France

We are back home and just barely getting back into the swing of things, and, as of last night, unpacked. With respect to updates, details and pictures are on the family website, so my posts will contain mostly summaries and thoughts. A couple friends actually requested a slide show, you know like Sunday night missionary service, so maybe we'll have a slide show party some evening in the next couple weeks!

All in all, our France trip was fantastic. We flew into Paris, out of Nice, and stopped in the Burgundy region in the middle. Our travel agent managed to give us small headaches by failing to reserve us a crib at any of our hotels. Fortunately, it worked out and lil-M only had to sleep with us 1 night...she's the only one who gets sleep when that happens. Despite the crib episodes, lil-M was great. She happiliy went from place to place, slept wherever, and made lots of international friends.

The goal of our trip was to "experience" France. We felt that we passed with flying colors. In Paris we took in the typical sites, Notre Dame, Latin Quarter, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Champs Elysees, and Arc de Triumphe. I could almost imagine the cyclists circling the Arc de Triumphe...maybe someday I'll get to see it for real! Although they are typical tourist sites, we thoroughly enjoyed them.

Since lil-M doesn't enjoy sitting still long, our time sipping wine in sidewalk cafes wasn't as frequent as many visitors, but we managed a couple long lunches. We did, however, eat lots of panninis and patisseries in the many parks while lM made friends with the other little kids. We were pleasantly surprised at how kind people were to us with having a kid. I think we expected them to throw us out of the country, so when they actually were accommodating, we were thrilled.

We left Paris on the fast train, heading for Beunne. It's pronounced Bone. Beunne is the capital of Burgandy, although it is quite small. Here we stayed in an amazing B&B in the country, and an equally amazing hotel in town. This area was beautiful. You could see the alps in the background, and there were rolling hills of vineyards in the foreground. The town was clean, the people were kind, and the best of the French culture was alive. We did a very fun wine tasting in an old church. The tasting winded us through the cellar and the church with lots stops for tasting along the way. Beunne was my favorite of our tour.

Next, we took a longer, but still fast train, ride down to Nice, on the Riviera. We spent time in Nice and visits a few other small towns nearby. The culture here was very different than in Paris and Burgandy. I would describe it as Mediterranean....I know, how original. Anyway, the Mediterranean Sea was beautiful. We swam in it once and gazed as much as possible. One enjoyable part of Nice was the broad mix of people from lots of different countries. It's the beach, and like in the States, everyone vacations there.

I'm ready to go back. I'd make a few changes....1. No travel agent, 2. More time in the countryside, 3. Hit the other coast, 4. Take a nanny along!

Garden

I'm planning to get the garden planted this week. I love the whole veggie garden process. I get to pick out all my plants (I've given up on planting seeds - that's way too much work), hang out in the dirt and sun for a couple hours, watch everything grow, nurture my little youngsters, get pissed at bugs and weeds, then finally reap the benefits of my labor through extra yummy eats!

We probably won't use all of our garden plot, so if anyone is interested, you are welcome to plant a few things. We promise to water it all on a somewhat regular basis...if you're lucky on a nice day I may even pick a few weeds, although that will be mostly up to you. Otherwise, around mid-July through mid-August, stop by for some yummy tomatoes, peppers, and whatever else we get this year.

Mojitos will also be "in-season" starting in June! mmmmm....fresh mint mojitos, I can't wait.

Wedding and Baby Showers

What do people think about showers? I go back and forth on it all. I've had lots of phases in my life on this topic. First, I wanted nothing to do with them...it just seemed like a waste of time. Then I went through the they must be co-ed phase, because if I had to suffer through it, then my s.o. should as well. Next was the, forget co-ed, don't put everyone through the pain phase. I'm coming around slightly on showers as a whole. I think they are a good idea, you are helping jump start a couple's home, or a baby's life, with useful stuff. (I won't go so far as to say necesssary).

Besides the helpful factor, both weddings and babies are things to celebrate, so I'm good with a party. My problem is that these "parties" often aren't fun. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe I'm just a jerk and don't enjoy sitting around, eating off china, and getting giddy over house items or baby clothes.

Here's my philosophy. Instead of showers, people should just be generous. In fact, this happen with lil-M. We had some gracious friends throw us showers and lots of generous friends give us helpful stuff. However, we got TONS of useful baby stuff outside the shower. If that was the standard, then we wouldn't need showers for people to feel forced to give us stuff. Then, all we would need to worry about is the celebration. Just throw a party! We don't need to spend hours opening gifts, because there won't be any, people have just been generous in general. Simple, pure, celebration of the life of a new couple or a new baby. As a bonus, there's no thank you notes to weigh down the new couple or parents.

The problem with my philosophy is the multiple generations. I'm not sure how to handle that aspect in my utopia world of showers.

I just spent my whole Saturday preparing, attending, and post-attending a shower. It was relatively fun, but I would have rather dropped off my gift at my convenience and gone out for a bike ride on an amazingly beautiful Saturday. Then after the sun went down raise a toast to the new life ahead.

Decision Made

We'll have to "settle" for French wine. The plan: a few days in Paris, then on to Nice, with day trips to other parts of the Provence region around Nice.

2 more days before grades are due....I *think* I'll get it all finished!

Final Exams and Graduations

I'm writing this while giving the final exam to my students. It's amazingly difficult to write an exam that actually lets the students who know the stuff prove it, without making it crazy hard or too difficult to grade. I always mess up at least one question. I forget to include something I assumed while solving it and end up with as many solutions as students. My poor TAs. I'm also feeling sorry for my students. This really sucks. Here they are on a beautiful sunny Saturday taking a really difficult exam. It sucks almost as much for me, but at least I don't have to think much. However, I'd much rather be out celebrating Joy's graduation.

Speaking of graduating. Congratulations to all my smart friends who are getting their degrees...Abbey, Joy, LPR. I'm proud of you and hope you sit back and enjoy this moment between life's phases while relishing in your respective accomplishments.

Election day

Don't forget to vote today! Step up, be a good citizen, and use your voice. Your vote really does count in local elections. In particular, they only anticipate about 3000 voters at this election and the mayoral race is likely to be very close!

3 council seats and the mayoral seat are up. Therefore, this is an important election for Blacksburg.

Don't know who to vote for? Information and links to candidate webpages are at the Citizens Frist webpage.
Don't know where to vote? That too is on the Citizens First webpage.

Should wine seal the deal?

Last night was a great wine tasting at the university club, sponsored by vintage cellar. The stats: 7 importers, each with 9-10 wines. I made it through 5.5 importes before the time ran out. I believe nji tasted every one! Comparing Italy to France last night, I'm partial to the Italian wines. Although they were all quite good, and I certaintly didn't spit any out like those too-good-to-swallow tasters. (I know, given my entertaining demeaner last night, maybe I should have.)

So, the question is, should we make travel decisions based on wine preferences?

Narrowing our options

We've narrowed our trip down to two options. Each option consists of two locations, so we'll spend about 3-4 days at each destination.

1. Venice + Italian Riveria(exact location TBD)
2. Paris + other France (Bourdeux, other wine region, mini-tour-de-france, ?) or another city(Amsterdam, Brussels, ?)

Still looking for your opinions....

Where should we go?

The chewies need your help. We have roughly 6-10 vacation days to take. Where should we go? We just got Malayna a passport, so we're thinking we should take advantage and leave U.S. soil for a change.

A few general places on the list so far are the following: Mexico City to visit my brother and then possibly on to South America, Northern Italy, France and/or Spain, England, Ireland. I know we're all over the place and have significant narrowing to do once we pick a region...hence the shout out for help!

Broken Rules

So we went away last weekend, but we didn't get back until Monday morning, so I'm really not too far overdue. I have a couple of excuses...although not very good, but potentially entertaining.

1. When Mark and I travel, we take the P.M. (pre-M) travel time and add 30% to get our current travel time. Therefore, since we are talking about traveling here, this applied to the 48 hour rule, I get an extra half day. Guess I'm still late!
2. I tried to post on Wednesday and Blogger wouldn't let me log in.
3. Pictures were posted on the msn space.
4. It was technically a work trip.

Anyway, we recently returned from a trip to Ocean City, NJ. It's nice to have parents living at the beach. I think it's slightly making up for having to grow up far from the beach. Although, I bet my surfing skills would be considerably better had I learned as a kid! Then I'd really be addicted. Unfortunately the water is way too cold to go surfing right now, unless you have the incredibles wetsuit.

The excuse for the trip was spring cleaning on the house. It rained much of the weekend, so we actually made progress on the house. Big-M played "computer-guy" and set up networks, lil-M played her usual entertainer role, and I just flew the kite and ate pizza on the boardwalk when the sun came out. We all played skeeball, including lil-M. I think big-M and mom both scored high enough to win free games. Quite the value at 10 cents a pop! My dad and I were both terrible. I'm always thoroughly entertained by the boardwalk, but the beach and the waves are still my favorite. I would argure they are the keys to the boardwalk's success.

We also had nice pit stops on the way up and back with Mark's fam in otherwise crazy NoVA. Mark's brother's wife is about to pop out a cousin for lil-M, so it's fun to see the growth!

A few pics are posted on the Space.

Fair Weather Excercisers

Sometimes I'm a real jerk...Yesterday I was annoyed at what I would call fair weather excercisers. That is, all the people who excercise a few times a year, and it's on days like yesterday and today when it's the first warm weather in a while. My annoyance was initiated becaues of lack of trail etiquette by fair-weather excercisers. Then I just got annoyed at the whole idea. It's like trying to get your summer tan all in one weekend.

How do I know who is a fair-weather excerciser? Bad trail ettiquette (as already mentioned), Bad gear, e.g. running in sketchers and too much clothing for the weather, and finally the look of death due to lack of breadth.

Okay, now before you all really think I'm a jerk. Let me say in general I love it when people exercise or start a new excercise. Just think of the benefits: Less people stressed, and therefore, less crazy violence, road rage, etc; healthier population, and therefore, lower healthcare costs; healther people make alternative transportation easier, e.g. they actually CAN ride a bike.

Anyway, get out and excercise in this beautiful weather, just don't let this be the only time you do it.

Politics on Cspew's behalf

Since cspewer is busy this week, I suspect he might not post about the next political conversation. However, the next conversation with the candidates is this Wednesday, at 4pm at the Public Library, with mayoral candidate Don Langrehr. I personally believe he has a reasonable perspective and he should be interesting to hear. I am going to try an make it out, so feel free to give me a buzz if you want to join me.

Color Observation

So I've noticed around campus that the color turquoise is appearing at increasing rates. I'm not saying that turquoise is the next black, but it is playing more of a role in accesories: bags, jewelry, shoes, etc. Does anyone recall in the late 80s early 90s those Berrettas that were turquoise? Back then I thought they were hot, thank goodness I didn't act on that impulse reaction! Anyway, my prediction is we'll start seeing turquoise in cars again, and of course in other places as well.

Fibonacci Inspired homework

Inspired by comments on Jil's most recent post, let's have a little quiz from the teacher. Seeing that most of you have had some basic math classes, this should be cake. Thanks to R, we all now know the fibonacci sequence begins with 1,1,2,3,5,8,.... Each number in the sequence is simply the sum of the previous two (after being given the first tw0). That is, we begin with f(1) = 1 and f(2) = 2, and then f(3) = f(1) + f(2) = 1+1 = 2. More generally, f(n) = f(n-1) + f(n-2).

Now here is the question:
Form a new sequence X of numbers by dividing each number in the fibonacci sequence by the previous number in the sequence, starting with the second number in the fibonacci sequence.
e.g. X(1) = f(2)/f(1), X(2) = f(3)/f(2), ..... X(n) = f(n+1)/f(n).

This new sequence X converges to what number as n approaches infinity?

The rules of this quiz are that you can only use a paper, writing utensil, and calculator...no spreadsheets or web searches!!! The first person to post the correct answer wins something.

Kiteboarding

What is kiteboarding? Here is an explanation, and here is a video. Video comes complete with girls in bikinis! More on the video, the guy in it, Dimitri, was boarding "with" us, or at least next to us. In reality he was over us. We were in the boat and this guy jumps right over
us, probably 20ft in the air...amazing stuff.

So anyway last week, big-M and I tried our hand at kiteboarding. As many of you know, we have a trainer kite and it was finally time to utilize our skills for some travel. We had a great time, but this is not a sport for the periodic vacationer. We worked really hard and barely got it. However, I'm feeling pretty good about our progress. In kiteboarder magazine, they list how you should progress. After 2 sessions, we are about where they say you should be after 5....looks like we'll just have to go again!!! It is quite a thrill. I was nervous/scared much of the day.

I've attached a few pictures for your enjoyment. Unfortantely for big-M, all the pics are of me because I didn't touch the camera, mostly because it was really wet and I figured I'd end up dropping it in the water.

Here is the kite:



Ok, next I need to get the kite in the air:

The next step is to gett the board on my feet while keeping it up and depowered so it doesn't yank me out of the water:

Finally, ready to ride, just need to control the kite's power enough to get me out of the water and not so much that it takes me flying (not yet anyway).

dowp! Too much power, ripped me right out of the board.

The goal and the pro, Demitri, flying high:

Kiteboarding anticipation

We signed up for kiteboarding classes. We've been wanting to do this for a couple of years now and I can hardly wait! Details, including exaggerations of the multiple feet of air I'll get, will follow.

Blogger Tagging

Is there really such a thing as blogger tagging? Seems to me it's like a forwarded email, but extra pressure to forward it on. Instead of threats of bad luck if I don't forward the email, I'm tagged in front of my blogging community and everyone then knows if I break the chain or not. Those who like the forwarding game think I'm evil for breaking the chain and definitely destined for bad luck.

Anyway, for whatever reason I'm willing to play along. I guess I enjoy reading these types of posts about others, so in case anyone is reading this and cares about random details about Nastiness, then here goes. Props to J and ML for actually getting me to play along. However, I'm drawing the line at the tagging. Sorry, but I can't get myself to "forward" it.


Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Sailing Instructor
2. Lifeguard
3. Graduate Research Assistant (way too many years)
4. Fulfillment Manager (aren't you curious what that means)
   

Four Movies I can Watch Over and Over:

1. Jackie Brown
2. Princess Bride
3. I really don't watch movies more than once, so you'll have to settle for 2
   

Four Places I've Lived:

1. Bloomsburg, PA
2. Upland, IN
3. Soddy Daisy, TN (more curiosity, huh?)
4. Raleigh, NC
   

Four TV Shows (Events on TV) I Love:

1. Arrested Development
2. Jay Leno
3. March Madness
4. Olympics

Four Places I've Vacationed:

1. Telluride, CO
2. Camden, ME
3. Portland, OR
4. Salzburg, Austria

Four Of My Favorite Dishes:

1. Drunken Noodles
2. Mushroom Korma
3. Tomato, basil, and mozzarella - all must FRESH
4. Pasta w/ Hot Sausage
   

Four Sites I Visit Daily:

1. VT Blackboard
2. College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education
3. Amazon
4. At least one blog in my extended blogger community

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:

1. Whister, BC snowboarding
2. Seal Beach, CA surfing
3. New River Gorge climbing
4. Hatteras kiteboarding

Based on this final question, I've concluded I have issues sitting still.

Congratulations

Congrats to the newly wed and happy couple, B & N! We had a blast in Tempe with all your wonderful friends and fam. Hopefully they'll be some excellent pics to remember the event by.

It only took 8 years

So 8 years after transitioning from the trunk rack to the roof rack, I finally ran my bike into something....my garage. My brother's done it and you here lots of people say they've done, but I'm so careful about my bikes that I never really thought I'd forget they were up there.

The story:
I'm pulling into the garage and I hear a crunch. Of course I immediately recall that my bike was up there. I look up through the sunroof and think, huh, maybe it's not so bad, the front wheel is up against the door. I back up and I watch my bike fall to the side and dangle by the wheels...maybe it is bad! hmmm...maybe I can buy a new bike! Mind you lil-M is in the car.

I hop out to inspect. The arm that holds the downtube slipped completely off, but the straps were still on the two tires. I look inside, looks like M is falling asleep, so I actually have a minute or two to fix my problem. I go to take my bike off and the back wheel comes free. It's a bit difficult because I'm holding the bike sideways while undoing the straps. On to the front wheel. This one is totally jammed. Now I'm really stuck. The rack is mangled, so I can't put the bike back in, I can't easily let it go unless I want it to dangle against the car by the front rim. Oh yeah, the car is partially into the garage, so I'd have to let go to move it to close the door and not let all the freezing air into the house.

At this point I need help. I call all my neighbors and of course no one answers. Fortunately big-m is on his way home and lil-M was sleeping by now. Big-M to the rescue. We separated the wheel from the bike so we could move the car into the garage. Then with some pliers were able to free the front wheel as well.

The net was amazingly good:
The car is fine.
The crossbars are fine.
The tray (that the bike sits in) is a mess, but the other rack parts are salvageable.
My bike appears to be okay, worst case is I'm looking at a new front wheel.
Lil-M slept through it all.
And my gracious husband has been way kind about (much nicer than I would have been to him) and hasn't harassed me at all!

Snow and dog licks

Two news for lil-M this weekend, touching snow and a dog's tongue. Actually I'm sure she's experienced both before, but both were prior to her being able to clearly voice her opinion in both "words" and actions. She was a bit stunned at both of them, but all-in-all positive experiences!

I loved this snow, beautiful, but not disruptive.

Pareto's Law in real life

Pareto's Law of Economics roughly states that 85% of the world's wealth is owned by 15% of the population. It is often generalized and referred to as the 80:20 rule.

It has MANY applications:
In manufacturing and production, 80% of the production is accounted for by 20% of the products.

80% of the world's polution is caused by 20% of the population

80% of my time in my house is spent in 20% of the space (the kitchen and bedroom!)

80% of a group project is done by 20% of the group's members.

N used it once in a class presentation and got harassed by an unsuspecting international student who was later "destroyed" by the rest of the class.

So why blog about it, I came up with another yesterday that is a bit depressing. Teaching this one class accounts for 80% of my work time and only 20% of my income.

Feel free to add to the list.

Classroom management 1000

Semester group projects. Is there anyone out there who actually prefers to have had the professor select the groups? As a student I hated being assigned groups. You always get at least one slacker who barely contributes and really just makes it more difficult for you. So here I am on the other side about to assign groups instead of letting them select their own.

Why?

1. Because if I don't the groups will end up along the lines of ethnicity, gender, GPA, or some combination of these. The GPA is the one that worries me. I don't want one or two groups of slackers. They won't have a clue. Every group needs at least one person who knows a little or the whole thing falls apart.

2. In 99% of the jobs these students will take, they will have to work in teams where they don't like others and they don't get along, or even more annoying, they will carry the weight of the slackers on their team. The other 1% won't ever get a job.

Academics have come up with all kinds of crazy schemes for forming student groups. Some will give personality tests and try to get a spread of personalities in any one group, or mess with them and for experiments sake put all of one personality together. Seems over the top to me.

Any opinions from the regular people out there.

Happy Birthday M

You rock. Looking forward to the celebrations!

does everyone hate skaters?

Ok, I know it's been forever, so if anyone is actually reading this, thanks for not writing me off completely.

So I have this in-class assignment in which the students had to pick an item and create some IE type charts regarding how the item would be produced. I gave them three choices, a hamburger, a skateboard, or an item of their choice. Just to make it easy, I brought my skateboard so they could see how it is constructed. All five groups selected the hamburger. I see a few possible explanations:
1. They were all hungry (the class is at 12:20).
2. There is not a single creative soul in my class....might be a long semester
3. No one wanted to 'kiss-up' to the teacher...can you really have a class without a few tools?
4. They all hate skaters.

Monday I made them talk about the logistics of the Tour de France, so maybe they just think I'm a lunatic and that's why they didn't pick the skateboard.