This sounds weird but...

I kind of agree with the political views of Charles Barkley.

K2O

Has anyone else noticed the poor marketing choice by Kellogg to call there new protein water K₂O? I'm not really a chemistry guy, but upon hearing the name I immediately thought of this hazardous substance.

I had a hamster once.

This made me think of my hampster.

Quick Ride

Tonight K went to a knitting function. At first I thought I'd just play video games all night. Then I remembered that I liked to do other things when it's nice out. So I went on a bike ride around the lake. Gotta start training for RAGBRAI sooner or later. I was cruising through the first half of the loop. There was a good number of people out but I still had stretches were I was going full speed in the highest gear. At 9 minutes 40 seconds, I turned the corner and got hit in the face with a blast a wind. No wonder it was so easy going. The return part of the loop was grueling. It took me an extra 3 minutes. I hate the wind. I don't mind hills or rain, but the invisible wind gets me down. But tonight was still fun!

Pocket Full of Nickels

My brothers', dad's, kenna's, and gary's band has released their first self titled cd. I am so proud of them. Very awesome.

Linkies:
Digstation mp3

My space site

They are really doing it!!!!!!!!!!

Rockin' Robin

Today as I left the house 3 hours later than usual, I saw a robin on the fencepost. At the time I thought "The first robin of spring!" and ran in to tell K as much. But then, on my bike ride to work, I saw at least a dozen other robins. So either I'm completely out of touch with the season due to my early rising and late coming home or a whole flock of robins descended on the town overnight. Either way, SPRING IS HERE!!!

Required Listening

Back in the Saddle Again

Today I biked into work for the first time since late last November. I don't know if it's the new latitude, the new bike, or if this was just a harsh winter, but this is the first winter in 8 years that I didn't make it through on the bike. At least now I can start getting my two 10-minute exercise sessions in again.

OMG

Just saw the announcement on Digital Free Association. Tried to leave a comment but it didn't seem to take. Congrats congrats congrats!!!

Two minutes later: Oh, well, noooooow it's working. So does that render this post moot?

Spring Break (woot)?

This week is Spring Break (woot!), but it's hardly been a break so far. It's still cold and I have a bunch of work to catch up on. As I like to joke: "My job's so flexible, I can work on weekends!" Or in this case: on vacation.

Hey, Lazy House, what are you doing?

As many of you know I am living this bizarre lifestyle that I struggle to define. Am I a homemaker? Do I sew things and sell them in my mom's shop? Am I a struggling writer? Am I lazy? One good answer is that my job is to not spend money.

In a new town, meeting new people, I have to answer these questions a lot. What are you doing? Are you working? etc. etc. I really struggle with it. After some soul searching, I have discovered that I shouldn't feel guilty. It is what it is.

Part of my soul searching involved me renovating a blog I started a while ago called Lazy House.

I really think our generation has the ability to choose quality of life over consumption. But it is not easy. I know it is not easy for me.

On top of it, other people think you are odd. There is peer pressure to work. There is even more imagined peer pressure to work.

One of my main hesitancies for making the blog public is summed up in these thoughts:

I can't be adding a layer of pretend on to my life, or a layer of sentimentality. I can't be marketing myself through this blog. But what I can do is enjoy what I am doing.

I really want to be honest with myself and have a place to organize some ideas and have some accountability. I think blogs are a great organizational tool and a good record.

The blog is called Lazy House.

Patrons can't be picky.

Dear Library,
I love how you have dozens of shelves of DVDs and videos. I also love that there are consistently 10% of the DVDs in stock. How else could I have watched Santa Claus 3, Cocoon, Best in Show, and Adaptation in one week.

How do you see right through me?

This Slate article got me greedy... but what about ME!!! Do me next, do me!!!!

I took a quick test here.

Mine was really accurate, at least at this point in my life.

**Edited to add:

I scored INFJ, and Aeryk scored ISTJ

Goodbye Old Friend

Before Christmas we drove to Richland Center, Wisconsin to trade in our 1995 Ford Escort, white stationwagon for a 2000 Ford Focus, white stationwagon. It is happy sad.

From Outer Space

I'm back from a professional development activity at THE Ohio State University. I was an invited speaker at the Number Theory seminar. It was all good. Gave a talk that went well, got to meet some cool people, got a little bit of research done, but most importantly, I met up with my mathematical brother CZ. It was good to see how he and his wife were doing in their transistion out of grad school. But now I'm back at my home institution with the students and the office hours and the grading and the committees. Sometimes I wish I could live in a fantasy world, but then I think I'd probably get bored there.

I Have Cast My Love Story

I love the story Pride and Prejudice. I watched part one of the BBC's adaptation last night on Masterpiece Theatre. I also love Colin Firth, so this is particularly nice rendition. I couldn't just be content to go to sleep after Part 1 so I grabbed my copy of the book and skimmed the rest (this is the second time this year I have done this- what is wrong with me?). I fell asleep late (and alone because Aeryk is out of town), probably dreamed of Pride and Prejudice all night, and awoke to a realization- not a dream but a realization. Aeryk is my Mr. Darcy. We are definitely in love, but I had not thought our life very romantic or story-book like. We were friends before we dated... boring... boring... boring...

But there are also some very Pride and Prejudice like aspects to our relationship... I think the big clue was in hearing that Jane Austen's original title was First Impressions. Like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, our first impressions were not favorable.

1) I did not like Aeryk upon first meeting him. And here is the interesting part for me. I would have SOOOOOOOOOO liked Mr. Darcy upon first meeting him. I would have liked all the pride and arrogance and smoldering quiteness. I would have been head over heels. It would have never worked.

But I thought Aeryk to be quite odd and someone who liked to be different for difference sake, something I do not admire at all. There were many core things about him that I did not like that I had misunderstood entirely, just as Elizabeth misunderstood Darcy.

2) I came to admire Aeryk as I knew him better.

3) Aeryk did not find me beautiful upon meeting me, but later found me to be very beautiful. (And I overheard him saying as much about the not beautiful part, just like Elizabeth overheard Mr. Darcy at the ball (but I wasn't at a ball))

4) I remember saying that I would never ever ever date Aeryk. It came up several times, with several different people. And I meant it with all my heart. And I was serious, serious, serious.

5) When Aeryk professed his love for me I was SHOCKED out of my wits and I rejected him

6) I later came around and accepted his profession of love... of course in this century professions of love are not the same as proposals... but it is similar enough I think

7) Others were shocked out of their wits when we announced that we were dating

8) I like to loathe the rich higher class, while completely forgetting how I have a higher standard of living than .9999999% of the world, like Elizabeth Bennet.

9) My middle name is Elizabeth. Aeryk's middle name is Fitzwilliam or at least it starts with a F

I guess my main point of all these ponderings is -- that love works at all is an amazing thing.... Yes, I am secretly (and now publically) a little pleased with these similarities between my personal love story and my favorite love story of all times (... Sorry Jane Eyre, but I definitly don't wish that Aeryk has a deranged wife in the closet... And Scarlett O'Hara, I do not wish to be you, despite how wonderful Rhett is.)

It is mostly just incredible that love exists at all. It is a wonderful gift. Whatever the love story, how seemingly simple, or tragic, or romantic, that love exists at all is wonderful.

I miss my husband... boo... hoo...

To all our single readers- I guess your Mr. Darcy will (probably) not look like Colin Firth and will (probably) not have the same qualities that Mr. Darcy had. Find someone you can bring out the best in and go with it...

When the animated version of Aeryk and my love story comes out Aeryk will be played by Milo or Waldo (this is who his students think he looks like). I DON'T want to know who I will be played by. At the begining I will think Aeryk has qualities similar to Earnest or Weird Al. Later I will think him to be the most wonderful person ever in the whole wide world.

P.S. This is a funny interview between Bridget Jones and Colin Firth. Especially begining here: "BJ Right. I'm going to start the interview now."

P.S.S. Aeryk this is your valentines day card

Super Bowl Star

I recently found my old freshamn year college roommate on Facebook. Turns out he's in LA now and doing a variety of comedy related things. (At Iowa he went on to host No Shame Theatre his senior year.) One of the things he did recently was star in a Super Bowl commercial (last year). Here it is:



I can't believe I didn't recognize him (he's the one on the right). Unbelievable. This was the lead-off commercial during last year's game. Wow. I know that guy!

Here's another video of his, from which you should have enough info to google him and find his highly inappropriate web comic and more videos.

First Winter

It's been cold here and snows a lot. The locals assure us that this is not the norm (or at least hasn't been the norm for the last 15 years). Anyway, since it must be a fluke, we decided we'd better take pictures to help us remember what our first winter was like.

Here I am using our previously-owned snow blower for the first time. When I bought it (for only $75 at a Salvation Army), I joked that now I owned one it'd never snow again. Boy, was I wrong. (It's even snowing again right now!)


Here's a few shots of the house and how the snow has begun to pile up against it. Getting in and out of the drive way is a precise exercise in fitting the car through a snow tunnel. The lovely model K provides a good sense of scale.







One day last week, it actually got up to 50 degrees! The snow was melting and water was everywhere. And out from the darkness arose a figure. Standing over 5 feet tall, I didn't think he'd last the week.




Of course, the next morning I woke up to -12 degrees (a record shift in 24 hours). Looks like Frosty will be with us just a while longer.

Grand Opening

After 350 posts, it was time to start anew. A lot has changed since October of 2003 when we started the old blog and now K and I are in a new phase of our life. Also, we decided it was best to start moderating the content closer (especially since I am somewhat of a public figure now) and leave less identifying traces. In a lot of ways, though, it'll be the same old stuff and we still promise to live up to our old motto: Blog, at its worst. So without further ado, I present to you the new and improved El Ka-Blog!

My Secret Place

This is my secret blog. Yes, it's public, but no one knows about it.

For now....