Once an Engineer

Today I was told that the Ragnar (a 24 hour relay race) was 100 miles.

I reached for my calculator to see if that's really true (it can't be... that means the participants are averaging 4.17 mph, ie a 14.4 minute mile. Even I can do better than that).

Today I was told that the new hybrids get 600 miles to a tank of gas.

I reached for my calculator (assuming a 12 gallon tank, thats 50 miles per gallon).

Today I was asked how old I was.

I reached for my calculator.

I am an engineer.

Something Purple

Nice purple blouse.. right? Useful for many occasions.

But if it happens to match a certain scar, there's really no need to mention it, whether at work or at church... or at the store.

Just FYI.

Halloween 2010

I love Halloween. Its a chance to use my crafting/sewing tendencies to something that is actually somewhat productive.

Somewhat.

So here is my trunk-or-treat production for the year 2010.

Meet... Harimad-sol!Harimad sol... you know, Blue Sword? Robin McKinley? sigh.. doesn't anybody read anymore?
Yes, it was awesome. Random people kept coming by and taking pictures. So finally I texted my wonderful VT to come take pictures with MY camera. She send over another friend from the ward since she was busy handing out candy.

Then I took a couple pictures of key elements of my set up for future edification.

Thank you Mother and Father for bringing me a new bed last week... complete with new decorative pillows. In the book, the tent was white and filled with colorful rugs, cushions, and decorative boxes. Those "rugs" were $2 place mats at Walmart... and of course one of the 2 horse blankets Neita asked me to buy 14 years ago that I never delivered.
Um... Ahem.
Moving on.
I only had that one decorative box (my sewing/ribbon box) so I made a construction paper top on a wicker basket. One of the little witches asked me if it was real.

Real what?

I used my bike drop cloth for the tent. Easy to rip a door and holes for the tie backs... and made it look like the tent had been run over. Unfortunately I forgot to put a blue jewel on my sword.Of course, this was just a practice sword so it wouldn't have had a jewel.
A wooden practice Medieval broadsword.
45" long.
"No, I don't participate in the yearly Renaissance fairs here in Vegas. Why do you ask? Oh, I asked my father to make a wooden sword for my costume. He ordered this on Amazon."
He was so excited when it came. Remember the "death to the dressform" picture from the last post?
The sword now hangs proudly over my mantle where Alec kindly put up pushpins to hold it.
I do have a corset. Mm... No.
I also tried to do this year completely real fire free. IE, battery powered candles stuck to the window,A flickering LED light by my side, and a glowing campfire.
I had high hopes of a fan blowing tissue paper shaped flames but the little fan I bought at Radio Shack wasn't powerful enough running on 2 AA batteries.
Christmas lights under red tissue paper (what did we do before the internet?) with those LED flickering lights made it glow but unfortunately I set up right across from the parking lot floodlight.
This is a picture without the flash. Washed the whole thing out. It ended up that all you could see under the "logs" (dried sunflower stalks) was the flickering lights. It still looked cool with kids skipping out of the way when I said "watch out for the fire!".
A couple princesses and witches asked if it was real. When I asked "What do you think?" I got a long look, then a small, slow shake of the head. One tiny black cat said "yes!" and immediately reached out to check. Mother yelled,"Don't touch! It's hot!"
Bethanie, here's my flag. Gotta be authentic.
In the end, I was left with 2 questions:
1. How will I ever top this next year?
2. Why, in my circle, are there no social situations when a turban is acceptable headgear?

Pumpkinman 2010

This is going to be a documentary of pictures. Why? Because I didn't get pictures off my parents until Friday (Emily took a few with my camera but it got full and I forgot to tell them they could erase the pictures from Christmas), I'm a lazy bum, I've already talked the race over with the parents, Emily, Alec (cuz they were all here to watch) and Melissa, and I really just want to blog about Halloween.

Ready to go... into the wild blue yonder. (that's Mom's texting face)
The racers. My cap is orange cuz I was originally competing under the "fat ladies under 39" category but changed it at packet pick up so I could start in the same wave as Melissa.

The first time we ever started together! (She always did the Olympic distance)
They announced the water temperature as 66 degrees but once we got in I think it was more like the 76 they had posted at the entrance.
My wonderful cheering section ('cept Emily is taking the picture). Dad thought all the body marking strange and apparently told Melissa marking your transition area with chalk was strange. It was a new experience for him!

Emily took a video of me coming out... I wasn't going to post it cuz it looks like I'm pushing people out of the way but I'm not really. We'll see if blogspot will actually upload it.

The goals of this race were 1. to really push it in the swim since that's what I actually enjoy (hence the running out of the swim) and 2. to run the whole 5k. Notice the trail of water to my spot.
Go Melissa!
Mm.. we can tell which one is a real biker.
I did beat Melissa on the swim but she passed me right when we got on our bikes. So my next goal will have to be to push it on the bike.

Note to self, don't put your T2 stuff in a drawstring bag inside another drawstring bag. It takes a while to fish it out.

Man, I was feeling it. I tried to lengthen my stride on the run.
I was actually pretty proud of myself when I saw my average was almost a 10 minute mile.

Especially after seeing Melissa on her way back when I was only a few minutes into my run. Talk about discouraging. Although, the expression she was directing to her brother who was running alongside telling her to push it... priceless.
Alec considerately ate the free dinner they provided for the athletes cuz I didn't feel like it.
I took 20 minutes off my time from 2 years ago, which means if I had stayed in the "fat ladies under 39" category I would have placed 2nd. I think I'm going to stay fat.

Previously my time goals have always been overly achievable so this year I tried to be more reasonable. Unfortunately I swung the other way.. by a lot. I'm not going to tell you by how much because there will be much snickering. The problem with doing races again and again is that now I feel pressure to do better. The first time I had no clue and didn't know how to push, so the second time is easy to improve upon... now I need to decide what I'm going to continue with.

That was a bit more commentary than I had planned. Strange that I had lots to say.

Now some random pictures (cuz I didn't take my camera out again until Sunday).

I took a picture of our Sunday dinner cuz I was pretty proud of it. French dip sandwiches. (my FAVORITE), jello, a beautiful honeydew from Emily's garden, and a random assortment of drink choices. Food=love Then Emily and Alec packed up

And they drove away.
Dad killed my dressform with the sword he had bought me on Amazon,and they drove away the next morning. Then I missed my guests and needed to find another purpose in life. Enter.. Halloween.

The Best Laid Schemes

I had a plan this week to prepare for the triathlon on Saturday.

Swim Monday morning. Mandy was possibly staying at the Mel hotel (everyone welcome!) Monday night and I knew I wouldn't be doing any preparing that night... other than eating ice cream. I also knew it was more likely I would get up to swim than run. Running is my least favorite. Ick. That's why I had to buy an ipod... to distract from the fact I'm running.

Then run Tuesday (if I didn't get up I could run that evening), swim Wed, run Thurs, rest Friday, race Sat.

The plan was going fine (I even ran (in the loosest sense of the word) Tues morning AND evening)... until Wed.

It was cloudy that morning and I saw flashes of lighting in the distance but figured since the pool is indoors I was safe.

The dumb thing was closed. Apparently their pump had given out.

I drove back home. I looked at my running shoes left in the front room from my run the night before. I looked outside. The rain had started to fall.

I looked at the treadmill in the clubhouse across the street. It was being used.

I went upstairs and got back into bed.

Of course, the thunder and rain kept me up until I finally got up and went to work.

I think the exercising gods are conspiring against me.

PS. I just looked back at some of my posts and I can't believe this is my 4th year of doing triathlons (I've only done 5.33 triathlons (counting this coming one), 1 half marathon, and a couple official bike rides during these 4 years, but that is quite different than what I was doing in the years before). Who'd have thunk I'd ever actually do this type of thing? Truth be told, I only do it for the medal everyone gets for participating... but still, me? The crocheting couch potato? And even more surprising, one surgery later I'm still sticking with it! Again.. who'd a thunk?

Chrocheting Decision

In the last few weeks, I've given away 3 girl blankets (before that, it was all boy blankets), two of which came up rather sudden.

My stash is seriously depleted in the pink department. I'm thinking my new goal needs to keep at least 2 blankets of each flavor on hand.

So I started this:Yellow. I love yellow.

I know, I know, it's pretty 70's and not at all pink or blue, but I'm trying to use up the blankets I already have edged as well as using up this:which doesn't even count the drawer underneath full of sparkly thread I bought when I was doing all those angels and snowflakes.

I might have mentioned before that yellow is my favorite color.

I did start another one of these: which will give me one pink blanket. I have already made one with the other half of this flannel but forgot to take a picture before I gave it away. It turned out really cute... if I do say so myself, but u'll have to take my word for it.

But in order to keep my goal I should really undo the yellow edging of the white one and go for pink.

Otherwise it will just add to this: My pile of random blankets and useless baby layettes and hats that sit in my closet gathering dust... which are mostly yellow.

But I really like yellow and think that bold golden color will look cool on the white blanket.

But then there will be no one to give it away to and the whole point of making these things is recieving the accolades and thank you notes.

But I won't have to buy any more pink thread for a couple of days.

But it will probably take me a while to finish because I will be sad I'm not doing yellow.

I like yellow.

Decisions, decisions.

Field Trip

The other day I got to take a field trip out to see where some construction machinery had run into my wingwall.

I love field trips!! Even if Arvid asks me 5 minutes before going.

Perhaps I am an afterthought.

But no worries, I have hiking books at the office and socks in the car. He has no excuse but to take me.

What is a wingwall you ask? This is a wingwall.
It's at the ends of the bridge and holds the dirt back as the bottom grade comes up to meet the top grade.

And they are usually pretty large. That's me back there. I'm borrowing some of Arvids pictures cuz he takes better ones than me... of me.

But even 1.5ft thick wingwalls can't stand up to some big truck running into the very end of it.. especially when the force is in the opposite direction its design to. Here's some quarters to show the scale.
I even got on top to get a better view.

The main curtain of steel is in the back of the wall so the crack stops there.

Don't worry, we'll probably just fill it with epoxy and call it a day. Once all the dirt is piled up behind it and the road laid on top, the pressure will close the crack. We just have to convince NDOT that that's the case.

Then we climbed along the formwork to see the pier cap (this is actually a picture of the second span but I didn't get a picture of the first) .
It is MASSIVE. I design things all the time that are 6 or 7ft in dimension and forget how big that is. See that 6.5ft column steel sticking up? Its that circle of steel right behind the random piece of wood. This is a single column cap, that's why its so big.

I used a drink some worker left behind to show the scale of the size of the rebar.
Man I like rebar. So useful. So strong. So pretty.
OK, so I had the bridge inspector take my picture by the steel girders we went to see because they were erecting them the next day. I might be just a bit vain. Don't all those bolts look like something out of a toy connector set?

I like field trips I'm brought along as an afterthought. Then I get to see other stuff Arvid would have seen without me.

And I can take funny pictures.

Tandra and I were coming up with titles for this picture. Mine was, "Don't jump!", but Tandra's "Melanie.. get down RIGHT NOW!" was better. Any more?