Thriller - Lego Style

The music world (and maybe even the lego world) will never be the same. Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009).

Learning to Run: Sprints

Despite feeling the beginnings of a cold coming on, I went for a run with Scott yesterday. I've heard that germs can't hit a moving target, and that sweating is good for you, so even though I wasn't feeling in top form, I got myself out there.

Surprisingly, it felt really good to run. Scott and I decided to take it somewhat easy and aim for just a twenty minute run. I fully embraced the "taking it easy" approach, while Scott on the other hand surged ahead after about the first 10 minutes of running together. That's kind of become our running method: start out together but then each find our own pace. I don't want to hold him back, so I don't mind it when he goes running ahead.

Scott has also embraced the running ahead then doubling back routine. He runs ahead maybe twenty feet then turns around and heads back toward me. After a few words of encouragement and running with me for maybe 30 seconds he surges ahead again. This repeats multiple times during the run, so he's probably running double the distance I am.

Yesterday I was feeling a little silly (perhaps caused by somewhat-sickness), and so after about the third time of Scott looping back, I changed things up. As he was turning around to run beside me I surged ahead, kicking it into high gear and leaving him in my dust. I laughed evilly ("Mu hahahahah") but he quickly caught up again, and I began to get winded and had to slow down. After I caught my breath I decided to play around again. "Look over there!" I said and left him behind again. We kept this up for the rest of our run, gassing it then slowing down again and again.

We finished on our final hill and I was pretty out of breath at this point, and happy to slow down and go back to walking. "That was fun," I said, to which he replied, "You know, we were pretty much doing sprinting drills." I of course refused to acknowledge that. I didn't want my fun tainted by the possibility that we were doing actual training. :)

This morning I can really feel last night's run in the backs of my legs. It's been a while since I've really been sore the day after a work out (which probably means I'm not working out hard enough). Might have to incorporate these "sprints" more in the future.

June 22nd DC Metro Crash

You've probably heard by now about the horrible DC metro crash that happened last night. I heard about it when I was walking home from the gym; my roommate texted me to see if I was okay (he didn't realize I don't ride the red line to work).

It was a pretty terrifying crash, with the fatality number continuing to creep up (so far nine people have been killed). For me this tragedy hits close to home because I commute on the metro every single weekday and often on the weekends. I know that metro is ridiculously safer than driving (the last major accident metro had was in 2004), but its still frightening to think about.

I've been following the coverage on the Washington Post, but also on DCist (which I prefer). DCist has updates that are easier to follow, and also a more intimate tone. It's like your friend is telling you the news while saying, "Can you believe this happened in our neighborhood?"

Here are some of the recent updates from DCist:

- FEMS, Metro Trade Barbs on Crash Communication

- Death Toll Back Up to Nine, Five Bodies Removed From Wreckage

- NTSB Points Finger at Metro

- METRO eAlerts Not Well Equipped to Deal With Fatal Crashes

- Obama Statement on Deadly Metro Crash

- Morning Roundup: Deadliest Crash in Metro History

But for as frightening as this story is, it's tempered by the beautiful stories of courage and decency that this crisis elicited. Like from this one man the Post interviewed:

Martin Griffith, a civilian employee at the Pentagon, also was inside the train that was struck. Afterward, he said, "I looked out the window. I looked up. I could see the wreckage hanging over the door. There was a woman there, too, trying to hang on."

He hit the emergency release and opened the door out onto the track. "That's when I realized people had been ejected out. They were lying on the ground next to the car," Griffith said.

He said he helped one woman who had fallen near the electrified third rail, collecting other passenger's T-shirts to stanch her bleeding.

After the power to the live rail was turned off and rescuers reached her, Griffith said, he found a teenage girl. He said it wasn't clear whether she had been ejected from the train that hit his or had climbed out on her own. Her legs looked broken, Griffith said, and he sat with her while firefighters used the jaws of life to open the doors on a nearby train so she could be taken to an ambulance.

"She said, 'Tell my boyfriend . . .' " Griffith said, and then he cut her off. "You tell him yourself. You're breathing. You can see me. You don't need to give me any last messages."

He then used her cellphone to call her mother. Ernice Beasly picked up: The injured girl was her daughter Lanice, 14. Later, she said that her daughter was at the hospital, unconscious and badly cut but alive. She said of Griffith: "Thank the Lord for him."

Griffith then walked to the Fort Totten Station and took the Metro home to Northern Virginia, still wearing the black pants and white dress shirt he'd had on at the crash scene.

"People were looking at me strange," he said. "I had blood all over me, none of it my own."

It's always inspiring to hear about people who rise to the occasion when dealing with catastrophes and life threatening situations. I follow a blog by Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable, a book that looks at human behavior in extreme situations. When talking about the DC metro crash she says, "As is so often the case in disasters, people did remarkable things for one another. Survivors [of the DC crash] report fear, confusion and kindness--but not panic."

My heart goes out to the families of those who were killed, and for all of those who had to experience this yesterday.

Mistaken Identity

Oh wrong numbers. They're funny, sometimes awkward, and often disconcerting. Who is this stranger calling me? And why do they seem annoyed when I'm not the person they meant to call? Not my fault!

I had a really random wrong number experience the other day. A call came in from a number I didn't recognize, but for some reason I decided to pick it up. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?

Caller: Has Jason been by?

Me: Um, excuse me? Who's calling?

Caller: Has Jason been by?

Me: I'm sorry, I don't know who you're talking about.

Caller: Lis?

Me: Yes.

Caller: Liz Jackson?

Me: No.

Caller: Oh. Sorry. Wrong number.

I know there are a lot of Lis/zes out there (I used to hang out only with Lizes), but this was still strange. To have someone call you by your name, but then it still be a wrong call. I kept wondering if I was being pranked (though, least interesting prank ever).

Of course these days not only do you get the pleasure of people calling you accidentally, you also get them texting you accidentally. Here is a for real text conversation I had no less than 30 minutes ago. I present it exactly as I received it (and exactly as I sent it back), with no changes in spelling or CAPITALIZATION:

Texter: KEVIN Y U ACTIN LIK DAT 4?! DIS IS ISIS

Me: I think you have the wrong number

Texter: Who dis?

Me: Not kevin

Now I'm thinking I played that wrong. I should have played the part of Kevin, kept the conversation going and making a better story. Maybe I could have responded with something like:

U no how I roll. Sk8er boyz 4eva!!!!

Happy Thoughts

Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens are all well and good, but sometimes it's all about the videos of cute animals. Here are two of my favs that aren't new, but never seem to get old (to me).

Sneezing Panda



Tickled Slow Loris



If you need more of a cute fix, go to Cuteoverload.com Grandma loved cute and furry animals in any form: real animals, stuffed animals, digital animals (all made her smile).

To Grandma, July 29, 1923 - June 16, 2009

My grandma passed away yesterday at 10:55 am. She leaves behind her only child (my mom), son-in-law (my dad), my brother and I, her sister Bea, her nephew Jeffrey, extended family, and many loving friends.

After going to see her one last time yesterday, my parents, brother and I spent the day together. We cried, we ate (and later ate again), we told stories both funny and sad, and we went through dozens of photo albums looking back on my grandma's life.

While I've always loved and respected her, the older I've gotten the more this love and respect has grown. She was a really interesting and classy lady. I've always been impressed by her poise and style. Over the past few years she's changed, losing memories and forgetting faces. But through all of this the core of her stayed the same: sweet, nurturing, easy going. I feel blessed to have known her and to have spent the time we had with her.

Yesterday, after going through pictures we uploaded them to the computer, and I'd like to share a few.

Grandma and her younger sister Bea and older sister Betty.



A beautiful woman, who loved my grandfather very much .









The woman who taught my mom to be such a great mom.




Three generations. From the left: Aunt Bea, my great-grandma, Aunt Betty, and Grandma. And of course, my mom seated in front.



When my brother and I came along my grandmother spent time with us, sharing in some of our mutual favorite things, like:

Reading



Naps



And being silly





Thanks grandma for being a great part of my life. I love you and will think of you when I hear the 1812 overture (which always made her cry), participate in tea parties, or meet anyone as nurturing and kind as you.

Cranking Up the Nom-o-meter

Have you ever eaten something and thought, how did someone come up with this recipe? Sometimes I think that one ingredient must have just fallen into another, and someone went with it. Like bacon pancakes.

I could see it happening. You're making pancakes one Saturday, as one does, and you've made a side of bacon. Maybe you're on the phone, maybe you're still sleepy, maybe you have twitchy hands that accidentally punch things, and suddenly, WHOOPS! You knock your bacon into your pancake batter. At first you're distraught, and then... it dawns on you. THIS IS BRILLIANT.

I believe this is also how frickles, fried candy bars, and the assortment of other fried delights came about out there. One clumsy cook plus one deep fryer equals happy hungry carnival goers.

But okay, sometimes things don't fall into other things. Sometimes things sit next to one another and you think, "Well, that's right next to that, let's combine." I believe this may have been how Christine started eating french fries dipped in McFlurries, and it's definitely how I came up with this last night:

Tortilla chips

Cool Whip

YUM

Seriously. Try it.

Learning to Run: Adventures on the Treadmill

Yes, dear readers, I've changed the "Learning to Run" title format yet again. So many weeks! So hard to remember which one we're on! I believe it's week 11 at this point, but now that the 8 week program is complete, what week we're on seems less important.

As mentioned in the last running entry though, running post-8 week plan has been a little challenging. Without that strict schedule, it's been easier to say, "Oh, I'll just run tomorrow."

But I'm turning over a new leaf, and reigning in my role as a "we're run later" bad influence. Last week I only ran twice, but this week I plan on doing twice that (Dear Scott, please hold me to that, and get me to push it on those hills!). Also helping my motivation are people who were originally motivated by me (like Alex's friend Erik! Hi Erik!). Hearing that they're excited about running reignites my excitement, creating an endless loop of running enthusiasm (everybody wins!). Oh, I totally planned it this way (cough, cough, tooootally). I even wrote out a step-by-step plan...

Step 1: Blog about running.
Step 2: Motivate others with said running.
Step 3: Be motivated by those who've been motivated.
Step 4: Take over the world.

So what's new in my running world (besides taking Scott down with me in my laziness)? The treadmill. I've tried it twice now, and I've concluded that it is weird.

I understand the benefits: no getting rained on, no dodging traffic, all your exercise needs in one place. But it's weird. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I definitely know that regular punching of the console probably isn't recommended, but that seems to be an issue for me. And then today my flailing hands did one better and hit the emergency button. This resulted in the treadmill shutting off completely and coming to a moderately abrupt stop. I didn't know what had happened at first, and I looked around, expecting the power to be out or something (that did happen at my gym once before). But no, I looked around to see all the other runners near me were doing just fine, their emergency buttons entirely untouched. I nervously laughed to myself, started the treadmill up again, and tried to keep my fists of fury to myself.

It is good to know that I can manage on the treadmill for the most part (I'd been nervous about trying it for a while), but I much prefer hitting the trails with Scott. I'm a fan of the company, the scenery, and the feel of real ground beneath my feet. So while the treadmill is a good option, it's definitely in second place to running outside.

In other exercise news, I'm trying to set myself on a daily 8 minute arms and abs schedule. Ideally I'd like to do these 8 minute workouts every day, but I'm going to try and not be too hard on myself if I miss a day here or there. It's just like being fiscally responsible. You're gonna get off your budget plan once and a while (just like you'll get your workout plan once and a while), but just cause you have a misstep doesn't mean you have to scrap the whole plan. Ah, wise words. Okay, they're not totally mine, check out this really good article from Get Rich Slowly, where the author compares the mental toughness you need for running (or any exercise plan) to the mental toughness you need to get out of debt: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Debtor.

Alright then. Till next time, keep up the running plans, and lend me some of your motivation when you get the chance!

Birthday Brinner!

Yesterday, June 1st, was Kelly's birthday! And what better way to celebrate then with breakfast for dinner and movies in the backyard? Thank you camera phone for capturing it all.

First, for the food:

We started off with a delightful appetizer of peanut butter Capn' Crunch:



Also in the pre-made/manufactured category, was an excellent selection of donuts (does the box with the Christmas theme bother anyone else? Or is it just me?):



To keep the meal well-rounded we did have fruit:



And things stayed in balance with two types of bacon (turkey and awesomeregular), with a side of coffeecake:



Of course there were pancakes, and these were special crepe-like ones, designed for maximum shove-them-in-your-pie-hole ability:



In the baked category, Miriam supplied baked French toast. Mmmm:



For dessert there was the customary cake (this one with funfetti icing!!!) and Sian's famous peach bellinis. Unfortunately, I was in such a food coma at this point that I neglected to photograph any of this (though I did not neglect to eat any of it).

Everyone ate and was merry:



Including the birthday girl, of course:



And what's the best way to finish off an evening full of breakfast foods and champagne? By collapsing on the grass and watching a movie.

Will and Miriam set up the screen:



And once it was dark enough the show began:



I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time. Thanks for existing Kelly!