Beth Barnett Boebel

Landscaping Project - Day 1-5

2008-09-10T18:40:00.002-05:00

We are under construction! Making the yard drain properly, be less dangerous and more usable! It is a total mess around here, but Jess' plans are coming to life finally!

Check out the progress so far

New York Rocks Smokers

2008-07-03T11:53:00.003-05:00

New York is on a roll with the health policies. I found on David Hunnicutt's blog that New York has added a $2.75/pack tax on cigarettes!

Click here for the link to the short article.

Really?

2008-06-24T07:12:00.000-05:00

If you have mad rock, paper, scissor skills you can go to Vegas and try to win $50,000. This years winner is off to China for the international competition.

Really, $50k for rock, paper, scissors?

Post Office

2008-06-24T04:59:00.002-05:00

The United States Post Office can't figure out why they are loosing the game in shipping, it's pretty obvious to me. I ordered a pylon pole yesterday for Bill's boat so we can properly wake board (we were towing from the hook that you use for skiing and tubing, which doesn't work well for wake boarding). I received an email from USPS with a tracking number - this email seemed a little different than ones I had gotten in the past from USPS claiming to track packages. So I had hope that maybe they figured out how this nifty tracking feature worked. Nope, still pretending like they can track packages. See below the message you get:

"The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper on June 23, 2008 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later."

Basically it's just a technical way of saying at some point, like all other mail, your package will arrive. I'm sure the next time my package gets scanned will be when it arrives at the house and the website will be updated 1-2 days later to inform me my package arrived. Which may or may not get here before we leave for the lake trip this weekend. Guess I'll just have to hope that it will get here in time.

ps. Normally in a time crunch situation, I will opt to pay the extra shipping through UPS or FedEX, but that was going to cost somewhere around $60-$80 vs. the $40 for USPS. I had no choice but to put it in the hands of hope.

Saying Goodbye

2008-06-20T10:28:00.003-05:00

Bill and I's beloved iguana, Stinky, is no longer with us. I knew at some point this day would happen, but I thought it would be a few more years so I think that's why it hurts that much more. When we returned from our trip to Germany I noticed he wasn't really eating, was hanging out in parts of his house that he normally doesn't go and had lost weight. I immediately called the vet and in the meantime Stinky and I hung out outside - this perked him up a little but not enough. The next morning we went to the vet and he really didn't protest to the poking and prodding so I knew something was wrong. I left him to get xrays and blood work. X-rays just showed a lot of gas, nothing significant. I picked him up after they had given him fluids and some food and he wasn't much better. I started to prepare myself for the worst. The next morning we got the call from the vet and his blood work was all off - nothing was within normal levels - all pointing towards the kidneys. They were shutting down and quickly. Since Stinky was appearing to be worse that morning despite the fluids and the banana he ate the night before (his absolute fave thing to eat) I knew there was only one option. So me balling like a baby we took Stinky back to the vet to be put down. Having worked at a vet hospital during college - I have always been on the other side of seeing someone putting their animal down. It hurt as much as I thought it would now being on the owner side of the situation. His ashes will be sprinkled over an apple orchard somewhere.

I will deeply miss my Stinky-poo and will never forget all the times he couldn't figure out that I wasn't a female iguana and he tried to mate with me and when we moved down to Georgia my plan that he would quietly sit in the back window for 6 hours would go horribly array somewhere on 85S.

You Are What You Eat

2008-05-20T09:27:00.003-05:00

If the saying "You Are What You Eat" holds true, that means the vast majority of us are fake.
Meaning we are eating fake foods (aka foodstuff) all the time - food that if you looked at the ingredients you wouldn't be able to pronounce most of them even if you took organic chemistry. As I remember learning in junior high, the last thing you want to be is fake.

It's time to be true to yourself and stop being fake, become real.

A couple of tips on how to be real, not fake.

At the grocery store - stick to the perimeter and only dash into the isles for whole grains, beans and few other necessities that are tucked away with the foodstuff.
Visit your local farmers market - Blacksburg has an amazing one that is full of locally produced foods (even animal products)

Some good reads on the topic, Micheal Pollan has two books out
1) In Defense of Food
2) The Omnivore's Dilemma

stairs

2007-10-05T06:53:00.001-05:00

orange lily

2007-10-05T06:35:00.000-05:00

Canon Rebel XT $999

Simga DC 17:70 Lens $300

Photography class $250

Finally figuring manual mode on camera - priceless!

Resurrecting the professor

2007-08-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Today I am resurrecting my professor self. After my two semester stint at teaching 3 sections of the same class three times a week about a year ago - I said never again. Those kids wore me down and left me jaded. I had little hope for the future of college kids - unless the new official language of America was going to be IM lingo. But, given the fact that I really, really dislike not doing well at something I decided that I would give one more go at teaching to college kids. Oh did I mention that the class I teach is an Intro level nutrition course that counts towards a mandatory wellness core credit? That's the mentality I'm up against - give me my A for this and let's move on.

So today I will besiege upon my class the new Beth style of teaching - I will still teach the necessary objectives that have to met with this course but I will do it with flare and will take it beyond this is what a "carb, protein, fat, etc is and this is what it does and this is what happens when you eat too much or too little of it." My students will hopefully leave the semester demanding change in our current agriculture system for providing food; they will know how to be healthy without having to 'diet'; they will look back on their college career and say damn I learned a lot from that crazy food professor.

Starting up again

2007-08-17T06:51:00.000-05:00

I took a little hiatus from this blogging stuff but I am back.

Here's a recap since I last blogged:

Finally finished the dietetic internship, so I'm done with school! Studying for the RD exam - taking that Sept 20th. If I pass that I get to put fancy letters after my name :)
Had a couple of real-job interviews. These were my first real-ones in the sense that I was applying for a job that didn't require serving food, making coffee, or touching a cash register. Those, while they were needed jobs both for the employer hiring and for my bank account, I never considered 'real interviews'. It's funny I thought I knew what I wanted and where I was going to start my career, and than the most perfect opportunity came from the most unlikely source and I jumped at it. I am part of a start up company and I do Corporate Wellness. A follow-up post will explain what all this is. Basically I have started my own company like I always wanted but I draw a paycheck and check in with some hire-ups once a week. It's great, just hoping to land some clients so my profit/loss margin moves to the positive side
The summer has felt like I live in Texas again - sans pool at the end of the day to make the heat all worth it. Bummed mostly because we're not going to have a pretty fall this year.
Bill and I are buying our dream house. We schedule to close next Thursday. It's coming down to the wire as to whether or not we will actually close on that day, but I have faith that it will get done. Oh it turns out that I'm really good at buying houses - I have gotten folks to do things for me in a time period that I was told was nearly impossible. Just because there is a typical time period - doesn't mean you have to settle for it.
Finally started physical therapy to fix all of my running woes. Turns out I have dead butt. Yep the non-technical term is dead butt. So because my butt muscles decided to go on vacation they screwed up my hips and my knee. I'm basically fixed now, but will have to be extremely diligent in keepin' the butt alive.
Start teaching at Radford again next week. I have high hopes for this semester. I think it will change my views of teaching.
Finally, photography is entering back into my life and I plan on taking it to the next level. Starting next Weds I am taking a photography class. I resisted for the longest because I thought I had the time to teach myself the more complicated stuff about photog, but I really don't. So be on the look-out for new work.

That's the short of it.

15 days until FOOTBALL SEASON!!!!!

Please support VT

2007-04-20T15:26:00.000-05:00

I went to www.time.com today to find an article written by one of the VT Norris Hall survivors. In looking for the article I came across this one: "Viewpoint: Va Tech's president should resign" Furiously I clicked on it and read it. I don't agree and I will never agree unless someone can prove that the VT president knew that Cho was going to kill all those people and didn't act. Not gonna happen.
I sent a link of this article to some folks and a classmate of mine replied back with a link to sign an online petition in support of both president Steger and chief Flinchum. I encourage you to sign it and pass it along to others that feel the same way! www.wesupportvt.com
Thank you for Danielle for sharing the site where I can express my support without having to deal with the wretched media.

1st Anniversary!

2007-03-12T07:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary (don't mind the fact that it was around the 7 1/2 year mark for us actually being together)! The celebration began on Saturday enjoying a bottle of wine given to us when we got married to drink on this day (thanks Marisa) and then we ate at Bookbinders in Christiansburg (awesome restaurant recommended by jenny c). Sunday, after breakfast I did something I've been dying to do for months now.... I put my wedding dress back on and wore it around the house for a little while. It was great! Bill wore his tie with his regular clothes and robe since he rented his suit for the wedding.

Finding a dream job

2007-02-20T21:17:00.000-05:00

Before I moved back to Blacksburg almost two years ago I was convinced I would never find my dream job unless I created it. Easier said than done, especially in the nutrition field. I have seen my significant other do a marvelous job at being a successful entrepreneur and feel like I have the drive and creativity to do it myself. But that fear of not being successful (ie for me at least breaking even) really gets to me some days and I start thinking of settling for a job, any nutrition related job, just to say I have a job with a paycheck that can actually pay bills.

Every now and again I will search job postings and a find fabulous job that I would love to apply for, but it is 3+ hours away. I'm not big on commuting great distances, so those jobs are out. Then I go back into the cycle of well I guess I will have to create my own job here in Blacksburg. I mean don't get me wrong, I have some GREAT ideas but the things I really want to do require resources that I don't have and partners that I haven't discovered yet.

However, I'm currently doing a rotation at The Nutrition Resource in Roanoke (only 40 minutes away) and I love it. It's a private nutrition consulting business that has a weight loss program, individual counseling, consulting in nursing homes/assisted living facilities, plus other projects they are developing. Super, sounds great... only problem they aren't hiring. I've been dropping hints like no ones business, so just because they aren't hiring doesn't mean I'm not working it. (side note I was going to say trying but I recently heard a quote that trying is failure with an excuse) In all actuality working for this company would allow me to be able to do my dream job (for this stage in my life) with less the risk, because the company name and current programs are established, I would just help to expand their reach in neighboring communities as well as expand nutrition services (that part of my great ideas). I still want to accomplish my other entrepreneurial goals, just not as my first "real job."

So I'm on a quest to get hired at a company that is not hiring.

I'm an M and M

2007-02-04T17:58:00.000-05:00

The almost death of an iPod

2007-01-31T22:19:00.000-05:00

Just moments ago a panic, near histeria, was occuring here at the Boebel house. It all started this morning I was cruising along to work listening to a podcast of an NPR show "All Songs Considered" (features new music) and right before I arrived the host was talking about some European artist and how great this song was and how he had such a hard time deciding which song to play. Well, this would have to wait until I got off work so I could enjoy on the way home. However, this was not to be the case. Come 5ish I get the iPod all ready to go so I can finally here this great song and nothing, no response from my most important gadget -- no signs of low battery, no error messages, nothing. So just before I am getting ready to go to bed I plugged in the pod to charge the battery (even though it was 3/4 full this morning). NOTHING. Holy crap are you serious? How could this be? So I start screaming to Bill, who is downstairs, about what a horrible situation this is and I don't understand, telling him all the things I had done with the pod this morning (as if bill is tech support for apple).

My brows furrowed and I might have felt a lump coming on in the throat thinking about how I would no longer be able to listen to my favorite podcasts and music, drifting off into my own world of thoughts as if I am part of some songs or laughing hysterically by myself in my car to shows of This American Life or getting so jazzed up by an album playing on the weekend I'm actually motivated and excited to clean the house. This would no longer be my life if the iPod was no more. Luckily, bill is the level headed one and told me to go on to Apple's website.
Phew, there was a solution for this horrific problem. You simply hold down the enter and middle button at the same time for 6-10 seconds until an apple appears. It was a long 6-10 seconds wondering what I would do I didn't see that perfect black apple....

Rasterbator (aka GIANT picture) project complete

2007-01-30T21:39:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, I showed the cool things that the Rasterbator program can do. I mounted and (with the help of Bill) framed my giant picture and it is now a perfect addition to the bedroom. It's pretty big - 54.5 inches tall and I believe 46.5 inches wide.
LOVE IT! To fully test my theory on the program's ability to do colors I ran a picture of a strawberry through the program (but I didn't print). It worked better than I thought, doesn't have fully saturated color (except black backgrounds). It gives an image a totally different feel, when I can get some extra cash to buy some more ink I'll print out the strawberry and post it.

ps I have abandoned my photo challenge, for now. I have tons of excuses as to why it is not feasible at this time, but none are really good enough to justify putting off something like taking photos that brings me so much joy. such as life.

Last Day in Alexandria/Fairfax

2007-01-25T09:11:00.000-05:00

My last day commuting is finally here- oh my goodness, best part of the whole day is knowing that. Since my great conversation on the bus last week with the man that may or may not be homeless, I started walking from the office to the metro and visa versa in the morning-- I did this because it was the only way I was going to get my exercise in (~25min each way depending on how fast I could walk in the shoes I was wearing) and so I could save the $2.50 a day to ride the bus. Yes, I'm that cheap but when you factor in the metro is $3.90 x2 + $3.75 for parking every day, that $2.50 is what can keep you from enjoying a great cup of coffee or having a little something extra at lunch.
Oh back to the dude from the bus last week.... well I have seen him out and about on Washington St several times. I have concluded he is homeless, there is no may or may not. This morning I wussed out and sucked up the $1.25 and rode the bus -- while going down Washington St I saw the guy doing a jig on the sidewalk. It was hilarious. Unfortunately, I didn't get to watch the whole thing because the bus kept on going. Maybe he was practicing his first dance that he'll have with Michael Jackson at their upcoming wedding.
In the time thatI spent on one week day commuting to and from Alexandria I will be able to drive back home to Blacksburg tomorrow. That "commute" will be well worth it!

Riding the bus in Alexandria

2007-01-17T08:41:00.000-05:00

I wrote up my first day working in Alexandria at the School Nutrition Association on my train ride home:
Day seemed pretty normal for starting a new rotation in office and the people here, the commute here was like a dream couldn't ask for better transition from train to train to bus, albeit took 1.5hrs. The trip home proved to provide me with some interesting conversation waiting for the bus back to the Metro. A gentleman who may or may not be homeless was standing with me. After a minute or so he initiated conversation by asking for the time; from there I found out (all of the below may or may not be true I'm sure you can guess the questionable one's) he grew up 3 blocks from where we were standing; where he was headed to on this bus and then he would be somewheres else (West is all I got); where his children are and what they are doing. His son works for the Tampa Bay Buccaneer's - this is how he (the man with me) got the current RedSkins quarterback hired...goes something like this... he got his son to sell cocaine to some other quarterback and subsequently he lost the job. He figured if they were called the Redskins they should have a black quarterback. He moved on to his upcoming marriage with Michael Jackson and somehow Bill Gates was involved and Condoleezza Rice is going to be the Maid of Honor. He also was the one that told Merriam Barry, former DC Mayor, to run for Mayor.... his next two accomplishments of helping important people become important have escaped me.
We're now on the bus and he sits in front and to the side of me and this is where his major odor spills up my nose and I'm gasping for air. I continue to learn that that he went to Howard University and later to Harvard. Harvard is where Johnny Cochran went to law school, said school is also the one that killed Johnny for winning the OJ Simpson case. He, the odoriferous man, was represented (pre OJ) for car theft. I think that may have been the last comment in the 4-5 blocks we travelled. I could be wrong because that was a lot of information to learn about a complete stranger wanting to know the time in a ~10 minute time span.
Rest of commute home was going well until I accidentally switched over to the wrong orange line and realized 3 stops later. Finally arriving in Vienna and exiting the parking lot, I realized you can longer pay cash to get out you have to use a Smart Trip card, which I didn't have. So I had to re park go buy a card and than try leaving again. This time it took me 2.5hrs to get from point A to point B.

A break

2007-01-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be working in NOVA for the next two weeks and I won't have my photo software or high-speed internet (yes, people still use dial-up out there :( So I won't be posting pictures until I get back. I will still be taking photos while I'm there, but I'll have to share later.
I hate leaving Bill and Simon (the cat) for so long, but it will be an amazing experience.... I'm going to be working at the School Nutrition Association.
Tootles!

3 days worth

2007-01-15T07:58:00.000-05:00

I was out and about taking pictures, just didn't get around to posting them.

First picture- Friday the 12th I was walking on campus and noticed that the daffodils had bloomed. Normally these are a late March early April bloomer, but with our weird weather they were ready to be seen. It's not a fancy photo, just wanted to share the madness of our weather.

Second picture (Saturday 13th): I've always been fascinated by the Smart Road bridge that goes across Ellett Rd, so I finally went out and took some photos.

Last set (Monday 15th): Every morning when I get up I lookout my bedroom window to check what the weather is doing and if the sun is rising what it looks like. It's just a habit I've picked up since we moved into this house. But I'm thinking I developed this habit because we live on a ridge and have great views of the sunrise, so here was this mornings.

Just a crow I caught as I was walking back into the house.

No I haven't abandoned the challenge

2007-01-09T17:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm a bit of a slacker. Can't even keep up with something for 8 days in a row. In my defense, I had some distraction. Saturday (day 6) I spent the whole day decorating and preparing for the party we had that night. Sunday I spent the morning cleaning up and the rest of the day with friends that had come into town. Monday (day 8) SHEER LAZINESS. The thought crossed my mind to leave the comfort of my office to go take a picture of something. But that was all, just a thought. So today, I come back with a photo.

Slight deviation of challenge

2007-01-05T05:53:00.000-05:00

Day 4 (continuing into day 5): I found a cool program on jpgmag.com a couple of weeks ago, rasterbator. Upload a photo and you can make it as big as you want, the program will splice it into however many pages (common page size is letter or legal) to get to the giant size you desire. So if you want a wall covered in a particular photo, this is your program. Rasterbator is not perfect, it's mostly a black and white thing and you can see some- to- a lot of pixilation, depending on how long you want to be printing the pages. Another thing is you can't really use color photos- the program will use an average of the color pixels. I had an altered photo in mind, but it didn't look good in just black and white and slightly pixilated. I'm guessing that's because the image was altered quite a bit from the original. So instead I chose this photo. I didn't want to try to fit together 25-30 letter sized pages to make the whole massive thing. Maybe another day I will take that great leap, but my patience level will need to be at maxium levels. Instead I used 19X13" paper and got the whole thing printed in 8 pages. It looks amazing, as it should it took 3+ hrs to print. This will be going on the bedroom wall sometime in the very near future.

Printing time is quite variable, I used the smallest amount of dots/mm so this made my file HUGE.

What's with that tree?

2007-01-03T17:40:00.000-05:00

Day 3: I disovered that the tree just beyond our fence in the back (which I have a love/hate relationship with) has some interesting qualities. Besides the obvious weirdness that one of it tree "limbs" appears to be a rope, the tree appears to be smirking about it.

Mmmm, Mmmm

2007-01-02T20:20:00.000-05:00

Day 2 of my challenge. To be honest it was about 6 or 7pm when I realized that I still had to take a photo today.... it's a good thing I remembered because it would have been really sad if I couldn't of even made it 2 days :) See, that is why I call it a challenge and not a resolution.

This picture is of food. Now that the holidays are officially over it's time to get back to healthier cuisine. No better way to kick it off than with seared tuna topped with mango salsa, and brussel sprouts cooked in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. This is probably my first meal in ages without a starch, my body is probably a little confused. Tomorrow I won't wait until the last minute, so I will not be taking Bill up on his clever idea to take a picture of every dinner for a year (like the guy that takes a picture of himself everyday).

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

2006 was a dang good year, can't wait to see what all 2007 has in store. Here's what I know so far for my year ahead: finally finish all my schoolin' & get aJ-O-B, get mostly out of debt, see lots of friends get married. What I would like to also accomplish (goals that are in progress from 2006): get down to at least 18% body fat and to beat my draper mile time by at least 10 seconds, which would be a 5:37 finish.

I don't start my years with resolutions per se, because that never seems to work for me or most others that make them. I do, however, have some goals-- that I will write about later. Something I have wanted to do for awhile, is more of a personal challenge, is to take a photo every day for a month. This will force to me to go looking for photo-ops and to develop more photography technical skills. Hopefully, some good shots and some learning will come out of this month.

The first photo (see below) is of a bunch of coral that Bill and I found in Florida during our Christmas travels and 1 piece of coral that we found during our honeymoon in Mexico. We are going to bring the coral back to life by starting a salt water tank. Before we can really get the tank going we have to cure the coral for 1-5 weeks. This is to make sure we get any bacteria or other funk off that could damage a future habitat. It will be quite a bit of work, but if the coral is still alive and not diseased it will be absolutely beautiful. I'm glad that we're only starting with a 10 gallon tank.

Here's Bill starting the first day of curing (basically creating the salt water and changing it twice a week or so up to 5 weeks)

Happy Holidays

2006-12-18T20:55:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays!

Dude I Got a Dell

2006-12-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

Shocked that it came today, especially because they never sent Bill a shipping notice email-- I guess we really messed up their system by ordering a monitor mounted speaker without a mounitor.
So far so good, going to take awhile to get used to typing on a regular key pad again.
Can't wait to test out the dual-core processor! Photoshop won't be able to slow me down anymore :)

Vote for my photo

2006-12-17T01:23:00.000-05:00

JPG magazine is a website for photographers to upload and/or vote on photos that will be published in a print issue. Only those photos with the most votes will be printed. Each issue has several themes and one of the current themes is 'Street'. I chose a photo that I did in Athens. So far I have two votes (by strangers :) so please check it out and vote for the photo. Please feel free to pass along the link for others to vote ;> http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/30194

If you have some spare time I really encourage you to check out other photos on the site.

Google & Dell not so good with customer support

2006-12-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

I switched to the new beta blogger by google and I use sFTP to publish so I can link it with my website. I wasn't able to publish once I switched to the beta, after searching and searching Bill finally found a contact us to report the problem. 3 days later I got a response with the standard try x, y, z. Replied that all of the possible problems had been checked and it still didn't work. Never heard from them again, it's been about a week or so since I replied to their standard email. Bill was able to rework something to allow me subscribe, just not able to do so linked up to my website. I opened a second help ticket, we'll see what happens. I'm not holding out a lot of hope for a resolution anytime this year.

While I'm on the topic of great companies with not-so great customer support. I ordered a new CPU from Dell, when we checked to see when it was coming there was no sign of the order ever existing. Again, an email to customer support with a standard response from the company. Finally, someone responded and said I have to call in the order, it can' be done online. Not sure how companies get on top and stay on top with crappy customer services, but such as life.

The Reverend Still Kicks A**

2006-11-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

This past weekend Bill took me for a very early birthday celebration in DC. One of my favorite bands, Reverend Horton Heat, was playing at the 9:30 club. We started the evening watching the VT/Wake Forest game at Irish Times-- in a packed bar and 3 big TVs showing various NCAA games, Bill and I were the ONLY 2 people in that bar watching football. It was awesome!
Next we headed on over to the 9:30 club-- this is when I learned to appreciate going out drinking in Blacksburg--Bill ordered a guiness (that he had to drink out of a red solo cup) and I got a bottle of Mich Ultra.... $13! Thankfully I was fighting a major head cold so I was only able to drink 2 $5 beers.
The opening band was someone we had never seen or heard, The Legendary Shack Shakers. The first couple of songs were alright not fantastic, but was still enjoyable. Then somewhere after the 3rd song the singer rips of his shirt. This dude was super skinny and pale as hell...not exactly anything to get arroused over. Anywho this is when the FREAK show began. He proceeded to rip clumps of his red chest hairs out and throw them in to the crowd, this was later topped with a fist full of pubs. After the end of one song he SPIT into the audience. BLEH. From then on the water works continued to out of his mouth and even better the snot rockets. It was disgusting. But the folks in the very front didn't waiver from their posts they just kept on getting spat and snotted on. To each their own, but I ducked everytime I saw something coming in the off chance some of the fluids had some extra oomph behind them.
Finally the freak show ended and we got to totally jam out to the Reverend. It was a really great show, he played nearly all my favorites. What makes seeing this band live SO incredible is the fact that how they sound on CD is pretty much how they sound live. Totally rocks!!!! If you ever get a chance I recommend checking out RHH. Thanks Bill for an awesome B-day present :)

Going to go see the Reverend!

2006-11-16T21:01:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let everyone know how psyched I am for this weekend.
Bill is taking me to the 9:30club in DC to go see Reverend Horton Heat for a really early b-day present. RHH is a rockin' ass band from Texas. The music is described as "country-flavored punkabilly." If you ever get a chance to see them live, I highly recommend it! The bass is an upright bass and the dude whales on the thing like it's actual bass guitar (see the photo on their website... blogger couldn't upload the photo here, sorry). Not to mention the Rev' himself usually wears a suit with flames on it through the whole show.
Maybe to entice you a bit to check the music out... one of the songs is called "Big Red Rocket of Love" :)

2006-11-08T21:13:00.000-05:00

Not many folks actually understand what I've been doing for the last two months so here is a recap.... I'm doing the dietetic internship through VT so I can become a registered dietitian. The question that always follows-"what will you do with that" Well it could be a number of things: -

-The first two weeks of rotations I was at Catawba Hospital (1 of 5 state mental hospitals) where I gave diet instruction to schizophrenic's that were getting discharged, checked on the Alzheimer's patients that were there to ensure they were eating alright, and tried to explain to a few mentally ill people the importance of their low something or diet while in the hospital. For sake of brevity and HIPPA violations I can't go into details. Needless to say I saw some pretty cool stuff and wish I could have been there longer just to observe.

- Next I headed on over to Salem for three weeks to work with outpatient diabetes patients. This is more my cup of tea. Folks need your help on keeping their blood sugar under control, how to monitor, etc... and you help them for an hour and you move right along. Taught a bunch of group ed. classes on various aspects of nutrition. Who knew you could keep 12 adults entertained for 2 hours talking about fiber? I didn't think it was possible 'til I did it... turns out I should really reconsider my disliking of teaching.

- Since I left Salem I have been at good ol' Montgomery Regional Hospital. This is more clinical rotations whereI'm learning how to help mostly old folks that have congestive heart failure, COPD, renal failure, pneumonia, lung cancer and poorly controlled diabetes with their specific nutritional needs while they are in the hospital. Many of the people that get admitted here are old, overweight and most likely aren't going to do what they need to do to stay out of the hospital. It's sad, but I'm already recognizing the "frequent flyers." Every once in a while I get to help figure out how someone is going to get fed through a tube. If I were at a hospital in Roanoke or other bigger town I would have some pretty cool diseases to learn but for now I'm stickin' with the old folks and the people that get half of their colon taken out.

- For one day a week during November I head down to Pulaski Hospital and work at the NRV Cancer Center, mostly dealing with the patients receiving radiation, not so much chemo. I got to watch how they set pts up for their radiation - involves grids and tatooing, patients actually getting radiation treatment (lining up the tatoo points on another machine's grid), and talk to the folks getting the radiation to make sure they can still swallow their food after neck treatments or keep the food in the system after pelvic treatments.

'Bout sums up my fall... I have 5-6 weeks left of clinical rotations before break and I head out to do community rotations.

cows

2006-10-20T21:07:00.000-05:00

had to shoot cows for a project i'm working on for someone... these cows followed me wherever i went and did a fabulous job of posing :)

Method Products

2006-10-05T18:08:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago I saw advertisements for this new product called Method. They had a really hilarious ad campaign so it caught my eye to read the little informational booklet in the magazine. Well Method products are environmentally friendly cleaning products. If you've been to our house and have washed your hands, you've probably seen the bottles. I use as much of their stuff as possible because it smells good and it isn't harsh chemicals. When their laundry detergent first came out the packaging was good in the theory, but bad in practice. I emailed the company to tell them how much I liked their stuff, but really hated the packaging. Well they sent me tons of coupons.
A few months later they asked me if I would become a Method advocate and by doing so they would send me a t-shirt (which is totally cute for cleaning products) and a bunch of sample kits. Then yesterday, unexpectedly, I get in the mail samples of their new products. It was a kit of microfiber cloths and the cleaners for wood, stainless steel, glass and window, and granite. Super cool. The only bummer is our 1987 townhouse didn't come with granite countertops or stainless steel appliances.
Anyhow, you should check out method products! The company was founded by 2 guys that went to Stanford-- they are based in my beloved city San Fran! You can buy the products at Target and the hand washing soap is also at Kroger.

ps. the laundry detergent bottles did get a face lift

2006-10-04T20:19:00.000-05:00

The final flowering scallions project

2006-10-04T20:06:00.000-05:00

so this is the final product for the new art for the bedroom... I will have them printed on canvas! The three will be hung up side by side.

Gotta love America!

2006-10-03T21:04:00.000-05:00

I'm currently finishing upt the rotation at the National Diabetes Pharmacy in Salem. Today I was in with a patient until about 12:45 and had to teach a 3 hour diabetes nutrition class at 1. But doing that would mean I would of skipped lunch -- which really would not have flown with me :) Well I got someone to start the class for me so I could eat lunch. I'm in the lunch room with a bunch of folks that work there that I don't know -- sitting next to me was this girl about 5' tall, overweight and was eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked ice cream. I saw her cut her banana up into it and then kept thinking she's really not going to eat that whole thing for lunch is she... oh yeah she did, the whole damn pint and nothing else but her 32oz soda. Another girl in the lunch room was like is that your lunch? She responded yes, but I put a banana in it. And she goes did you know there is a nutritionist sitting next to you? B&J eater responds with "I had the same thing for breakfast yesterday." I just looked at her and smiled. I mean really how do you react to someone that works with diabetes patients 40 hours a week and is eating several pints of ice cream as meals during the week?
The other thing that has absolutely floored me while doing my rotation at this Diabetes Pharmacy is the number of people that work there that are very overweight... not just 15-20lbs overweight we're talking 50+lbs overweight. I mean they talk to diabetes patients day in and day out of people needing some 2-3 oral medications + some that need insulin + testing supplies + all of the patients that come into the building for education classes. You would think they would all be aware of the major risk factors of developing the dang disease. Guess not or they think it won't happen to them.
I have even heard of people driving to the Wendy's drive through that is NEXT DOOR to this building.

Part 1 of my new wall art

2006-09-22T00:26:00.000-05:00

Rearranged our bedroom-- so I feel the need to also change the art in our room too... so this is my latest creation. One picture is the original and then after a bit of alteration in Photoshop, the final product. This is 1 of 3 that I will likely hang up. Oh the picture is of a flowering scallion.

Picture of Man in Bug

2006-08-10T21:23:00.000-05:00

Natural Bridge, VA August 2006

if you look out the car window you see strange things like this

New old photos

2006-08-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

Mazatlan, Mexico March '06

To sell out or not to sell out....

2006-08-10T15:37:00.000-05:00

.... that is the question.

I have spent this summer working on my photography business, taking new photos, learning more about manual functions on my new camera and the biggest one of all is how to make this into a money-making business. Hell, breaking even would even make me excited. I have been torn on whether or not I should pursue only the fine-art side of the business or try to sell shots for very little money and go stock photography. At first I thought I only wanted to do fine-art, but it wasn't until I was in Target a few weeks ago picking out picture frames and a couple of the picture place holders in a very modern frame by Umbra looked nearly identical to a photo I had taken 3 years ago, but never did anything with. NO kidding I stood there with my jaw on the floor wondering about a number of things in bewilderment. Then once I got over that I was cruising through the home-office section and 3-M had a wall calendar with a red or pink Gerber (pink Gerber is flower in my logo) in the background. GRRRR. Needless to say my photos could and should be the ones on these products, but do I want to "sell out" for very minor profits. But when you sell out, very rarely are you actually recognized for your work- you don't see on the bottom of the picture inserts or on the 3-M wall calendar the name of the artist. And let's be honest if your creative work was on a national/international product wouldn't you want your name to be at least in size 4 or 6 font?
Even after all this wondering, I still just don't know. So I guess I will dabble in both and see what happens.

ps stayed tuned for the next series of photos which will be a sexy, but not pornoish or even erotic as they call in the biz, bathroom series.

Running Regrets?

2006-08-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

If you know me personally, then you know that I am a runner and I always have been -- minus a few years during my late teens. For the past 8 weeks Velvet and I have been training for the Draper Mile - the goal was to get a 6:00 min mile. Did we accomplish our goal? Oh yeah and it was great! I got a 5:48 (best time in HS track was 5:36) and Velvet got a 6:02. It was hard and I felt pretty bad until about 5 minutes after the thing ended. But had a felt any better afterwards, that only would have meant I didn't run my hardest. So, I'm elated.

But all of this improvement in my running at the age of 27 has been creating a bit of regret. I have been running since the 7th grade (1991) and for the most part loved it all, with the exception of the 2mi in track. I can honestly say that I despised that event. It is awful, I attempted to get slower and slower at it so I wouldn't have to run it anymore, my antics did not work. Any how I would do well in practice and come time for the meet, whether it was cross country or track, I kinda choked. Performing ok, but definitely not at my potential. During the 10th grade I was starting to party pretty hard and still try to maintain during track. I did alright - that's where I got the 5:38 mile, but after that race it went all down the tubes. I became a full time fun-time girl. Looking back, I wonder if all that fun was worth what I could have accomplished as an athlete. Yes, I do have some regrets; however, you can't move forward in life if you are full of regrets. So I have to remind myself of the good things that came out of my wild ways. I met Jackie my senior year in high school who brought me to Virginia Tech. And all that has come out of that puts 98% of my regrets to rest.

NCAA athletes follow up

2006-08-05T08:16:00.000-05:00

I guess I wasn't the only one noticing the large number of problem football players. Yesterday ESPN.com wrote a pretty good article about this issue. In fact they were able to create a whole team, offense, defense and special teams, with players from various universities that have been suspended temporarily or have been kicked off of the team.

What is going on with NCAA football athletes?

2006-08-02T16:58:00.000-05:00

I love college football. I love watching the games live or on TV, tailgating, and reading about players and teams as they grind out 12+ games throughout the fall. During grad school my iE homepage was NCAA Football because I didn't have time to watch ESPN. Well now that I'm all hip and stuff I RSS the ESPN.com College Football page. And today my disgust with news about these great players has brought me to this post.
Since June 20th there have been 24 stories, doesn't include follow-ups, of NCAA football players being arrested for a variety of crimes, accused of rape, accussed of academic cheating, and being shot. I'm sure that I missed a crime or two in there but you get the point. By the way all 4 RSS feeds today were about the wrong doings of players.
What I don't get is these people have a talent, their talent is rewarded with a scholarship to a University and then they act like the bottom of society theivin' , rapin', and killin'. I'm sure what actually makes the "news" is not all of the madness that is going on with various players. Some may not get caught or the University may be good at covering things up. Why do these men feel the need to treat people like shit when so many fans and University staff are rooting for them and helping them succeed in life? I'm totally disgusted and have little faith that the situation will get much better. I mean why go play ball and potentially get an education with a full-ride scholarship when you can lure people on Craigs List in order to rob them. That seems like a logical approach to succeeding in life to me, how about you?

For sake of brevity I won't tell you about the experinces I had with a few athletes at UGA while being a TA- let's just say it adds to the disappointment.

Just so I don't seem like I'm hatin' I know there are plenty of athletes who keep their head on straight and succeed at both academia and football or just football. Bryan Randall was starting his first year of grad school his final season at Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech players don't get to slack on a Friday AM engineering exam just because he had to start in a Thursday night game.

Basically, I'm just fed up with so many of these folks that are treated like royalty because they play football and they behave like animals.

Invisalign

2006-07-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

I AM FINISHED WITH MY INVISALIGN BRACES!!!!! Went to the dentist today got my buttons taken off and got molds taken for my retainer. HELL YAH! Here are some of my before and afters of my trays. I only have a before of my actual teeth - I will update once I have an after. I highly recommend these to ANYONE. I love not being self-conscience about smiling anymore. People used to say my teeth were"cute" and they suited me, I personally think they
were lyin' regardless I'm super happy. For those that have just minor gaps or crowding there is invisalign express, so not as many trays and not as expensive. I started wearing them Aug '05 was initially only supposed to have 16 trays on top and 17 on bottom and be done by April. I needed a bit more adjusting so got 4 more on top and three on bottom. For a total of 20 trays top and bottom. Couldn't have done this without my dad, best present ever!!!!!!!!

For those of you unfamiliar with invisalign this is what it's all about. Go to a dentist - take some very close up pictures of the mouth and get some molds... dentist decides if you are a candidate; luckily I was because I had metal braces in elementary school and didn't want to go through those again. Then your molds are sent to the invisalign company, they do CAD models of your mouth from start to finish - tray by tray. This helps see what the progress will be 2-weeks at a time. Once you see the renderings of your mouth and like it - all is ago. A few weeks later trays come in and the dentist will put tooth colored "buttons" on certain teeth. These buttons create pressure points to guide the movement of the teeth, I had 12 total - 3 on each side upper and lower. Every two weeks you change out trays and the first day or so of the new trays are painful. Super sensitive - hurts to put them in, hurts to take them out, hurts to eat, you get the point. But after a few days the teeth are in their new spot and all is well.
If you have crowding of teeth - well this part is not so great. To create room for the teeth to shift I had to endure a couple of hours (broken up in to 2-3 sessions) of teeth shaving. Yes teeth shaving. The best way to describe it is picture using metal floss that is the same thickness but is about 1/2 wide. This was the worst part of the process, not because it is painful (only mildly uncomfortable), but because it is one of the worst noises ever. And eventually your mouth locks up and for TMJ suffers you know what I'm talking about here. That pretty much sums it up.

Third of July BlowOut

2006-07-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

It seems as though our group never actually has a party on the day of the holiday, it's either a day before or the day after. The Minnick's threw a great seis de mayo party and on the third of July they threw one of our best non-tailgating parties. We had some key ingredients to make it so dang cool 1) Fire-works purchased in South Carolina (means MUCH cooler than the ones sold here in VA) 2) a 36' slip and slide. Yes a slip and slide. Haven't been on one since the third grade and it was every bit of fun last week as it was nearly 20 years ago. We all have the bruises to prove it!!!
Below are some pictures of the slip and slide action (taken by Bill) , the fireworks we set off and Jordan, Velvet & Kevin's daughter, playing with her sparkler. The fireworks are fuzzy because I didn't use a tri-pod and I may have had a few beers in me at that point. The sparkler one is so cool because I had a shutter speed of 30 seconds - so it captured all of the movement she did with the sparkler. Next year I will use a tri-pod to get clear shots.

why i love blacksburg in the summer

2006-06-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

because my electric bill is only $61.85! Compared to my electric bill in Georgia at the same time of year ~100.00

Fun Weekend & More

2006-06-19T15:20:00.000-05:00

The four girls I run with all came over Saturday night for the First Annual Runnin' Ladies Spa Night. It was fantastic! We drank wine & champagne while giving ourselves facials, manicures and pedicures. The mani and pedi proved to be quite difficult because at that point there were 3 empty bottles of wine. Marisa noticed how bad they were during Yoga on Sunday and said "It looks like a drunk 5 year old painted my toe nails." We topped off the evening with the Britney Spears drinking game, based off of her recent interview on Dateline, it was a difficult hour to say the least. So thank you ladies for a fabulous Saturday night. I will post pictures soon. Sunday I sat on the couch the entire day and night watching TV, napping, and pretending to nap-- well minus the 2 hours I left the house to go to Yoga. I haven't been that lazy in months- it was great :)

Thankfully, I was able to snap out of my laziness and finish updating my photography website today. Pictures of food is my latest project/series using my AWESOME new camera, Canon Digital Rebel XT. I used my own photos of food and manipulated them in photoshop. The pictures are printed on this fun new material/paper I recently discovered, Lazertran inkjet transfer paper, and then adhered to canvas. The only downside is if you want to get more of the canvas texture you have to use real turpentine for it "melt" into the surface. For the most I really enjoy working with this product, but it can be very tricky because you have to move fast (which causes problems for getting the prints on straight), it tears easily and if you use too much turpentine the image will disintegrate. But you can use a water based medium -- which is good for winter projects since I have to open up all the windows and blast a fan when using turpentine. One other issue I'm having with the product I can't get non-manipulated photos to print without either too much ink deposited (image greatly distorted with blurred lines, etc...) or the printer lines appearing (happens when reduce quality and deposit less ink). So I have designated the product to my "alternative" pictures. With said problems above, I still love the product maybe my printing methods are wrong?

The food series was a fun one for me because food not only tastes good, but it is pretty with all of the vibrant colors and intricate details in each fruit or vegetable. I have a photograph above our sink of asparagus. I truly enjoy looking at it several times a day and really focusing in on the details of the spear heads... simply amazing.

p.s. If you live in the Blacksburg,VA area the food pictures are hanging up at the Sigma Grill in the VT Corporate Research Center.

Here we go

2006-06-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

"Never say never" is a quote that i really should listen to. The first major never say never... I would not go to a Virginia state school, I would still become an Aggie. Two years later I happily applied to Virginia Tech after a fun-filled visit. It was the best thing that ever happened to me! * I claimed I'd never run a marathon as running 26 miles would be absurd, a half-marathon maybe -- but was still quite doubtful(as I was currently only running 3 miles a day and obsessed with cardioboxing). Within a year I was easily convinced that running a marathon would be great. And it was. All 26.2 miles of it. * I never wanted to move back to Virginia- well I've been back for just over a year and not sure when I will be leaving again. Once again the quote has bitten me in the arse - I never wanted to blog, still not sure that I do, but here I am blogging.
So welcome to my life moments and my journey to a professional life of being a dietician and a photographer/artist. Who says we can't have it all? Probably not the same person that said 'never say never'!