traffic skills 101

Sometimes I wonder if I subconsciously see this blog as a place to air my nerdiness. It's possible. That being said...

I took a 9-hour bike traffic skills class this past weekend. 

The first four hours were Friday night at REI, learning about bike mechanics, crash avoidance techniques, etc. Then from 8-1 on Saturday, we met near downtown for the on-bike portion of the class. Surprisingly, the whole thing was pretty awesome! I guess really the overall goal of the class was to become more confident riding on the road in traffic. We did lots of parking lot drills first, to practice stopping really fast without flipping your bike, turning really fast to avoid head-on collisions, maneuvering around crap in the road without falling, etc. The recurring theme was not dying.

Then we moved to a long ride through downtown, which was physically pretty undemanding but did a good job of testing out our confidence (frontage roads are a scary thing). We learned how to change our tires, took a written test, and called it a day.

Look, our instructor even took a "graduation" picture!

Looks like I need to get me a pair of those fancy pants the other girls have. 

I'm happy to say that as ridiculous as the whole endeavor was, I feel a LOT better about riding in traffic. This is a pretty major accomplishment since I swore off bikes after a bad accident when I was 12. Baby steps to the center lane, baby steps to the stop light, baby steps through the intersection. It will take a little more practice until I'm 100% confident, but I definitely think I'm moving in the right direction. After the class, the scariest thing about my ride home on MLK and Airport (2 very busy, unforgiving streets) were the people I passed. Hookers, anyone?

tiny taste of freedom

I had a great surprise on Wednesday. After an entire morning of enduring the typical stomach knot that I get every time class is in session, I checked my syllabus to see which campus my class was on that night (clearly I'm very prepared), only to find that class doesn't start until next week!

The ridiculous rush of freedom I got afterwards just highlighted what life is going to be like for me once school is done. I mean, if I was elated to not have to do homework for another six days, I cannot even imagine what it will be like to never have to do homework again ever ever. Grad school has become such a constant presence in my life (3.5 years now...) that sometimes I forget what it was like to never have that little nagging voice in the back of my head anytime I do anything fun because theoretically, instead of doing that, I should be studying. Such an inconvenient little reminder. 

For now though, I have another weekend of freedom, which is fantastic! I doubt it can beat last weekend in Memphis, which was deliciously full of nonstop catching up, but I don't know ... my 8-hour "bike traffic skills" class will be a pretty close second. 

memphrica

Come this afternoon I'll be touching down in the land of the Delta blues, Amen sista! I love returning to the 901 for so many reasons: 

- This always involves Katie and Jackie. Everything involving Katie and Jackie makes for good times. You do the math. 

- Bar. Be. Cue.

- Rosemary Lane! We may be sleeping in our new pad next door (J, like how I call it "ours"?) or maybe in the old homestead, not sure yet. So many great memories here. 

- Pitchers at Zinnie's...a beautiful thing.

- May or may not require sneaking into the Rhodes pool and then feeling really, really old. I like it.

- Seeing (and being scared by) a Piggly Wiggly.

- New/old Raiford's. I imagine the odds of us ending up here are poor to very poor, but that's nothing a couple of 40s can't conquer. 

- The Boonie! I feel super guilty for not being his mommy anymore (I'm sorry though...the cat couldn't ride 10 minutes to the vet without dijar-ing all over his box...how would he have made the 10 hour drive to Austin???), which I compensate for by spending most of my time snuggling with him and/or blow-drying him.

Yay for a great weekend ahead!

 

TT dub

Most of you know I've been somewhat obsessed with The Time Traveler's Wife and have been eagerly anticipating the movie for months now. My Austin friends haven't read the book and my Memphis friends have mostly, so I'm not really sure how to "review" it (so to speak), especially after considering other reviews online that address what it's like to watch the movie if you haven't read the book. 

So I'll just take it from my perspective (never fails, right?) and try not to spoil anything if you haven't read it: the movie was pretty different from what I expected, but I cried sufficiently enough that I walked out feeling like they'd done the book justice. I felt like they didn't flesh out the build-up of Henry & Clare's love enough before launching into their life together, but because I had the blueprint of the book in mind, I didn't feel totally jipped out of the chick-flick-iness that this part of the story could have afforded. Otherwise I thought they did a really good job of sifting out the most important elements of the book, which is nice to see in a translation that's as tricky as this one. 

I also thought they did a great job of conveying the whole sci-fi element of time traveling, although I did read that this was confusing for viewers who hadn't read the book. I've tried unsuccessfully describing it to non-readers who I think are now turned off by the confusion....but really, it's not that hard. So like, let's pretend I'm 26 right now (I am), and it's 2009 (it is). Let's say *poof* I time travel and find myself in 1988. I'm still my 26-year-old self, I just happen to be wandering around in 1988. In 1988 I would have been 5, so if I run into myself in the past, it's my 26-year-old self bumping into my 5-year-old self (who won't even know who I am). My 26-year-old self may suddenly realize that I remember this day - the day some weirdo older girl kept staring at me when I was little - but just couldn't make sense of it until now. In the same way that I appeared backwards in time, I could also time travel into the future. So maybe then I appear in 2015, and I can see myself as a 32-year-old. 

Somehow this just works. 

I guess the bottom line is if you haven't read it, read it, duh. And if you can't read, then fine, go see the movie and salivate over Eric Bana. His tiny mouth gets less annoying the more he takes his shirt off, I promise. 

colorada make you holla

You know what they say...a video's worth a bajillion words. 

sheep

I have tried to keep this blog a little bit on the DL for the past year and a half, but I'm warming up to the idea of knowing who's keeping tabs on me, so please boost my self-esteem and add yourself as a Follower (on the right side)! It's like the one time in life that it's acceptable to be a follower, so take advantage. Baaaaaaaa. 

neighborhood watch, part deux

The ensuing dialogue from our sniper poster is too good, I have to share. 

After My Favoritist Post Ever, a third party jumped in to chastise the guy for making assumptions:

WOW! Never occured to you old stick that the guy in the black jump suit might be one of the perps? Better just to think he was a "bad" person defending their home. Probably clingin to a gun and bible while doing it. 

But, sure enough, Crazy posted back and confirmed that he was, in fact, the dude in the jumpsuit. But make no mistake about his flashlight. 

For your information, That was not a Plus 2 Maglite, whatever that is. I have the MAGLITE ST3D016 3-D Cell LED Flashlight, used by law enforcement officers throughout the country.

Then later...

I'm headed out to the garage. I'll let everyone know how things go tonight.

I'll be honest, it's to the point that I check the blog several times a day to see if Crazy has any updates. Now the neighbors are jumping in with suggestions, too. One guy said that since the burglaries are occurring in the afternoon, maybe he should stake out at 3 p.m. instead of 3 a.m. and disguise himself as a piece of wilting grass. Then another guy said he just noticed that someone stole his IRA, so he'd be sitting by his computer waiting for the next theft to occur. 

Excellent.

neighborhood watch

So Mueller has this blog of sorts, really more like a site where you can post and respond to forums on different topics. It's got its fair share of serial-posters and I-just-like-to-see-myself-post posters, but in general it's a pretty interesting little conglomerate of neighborhood input. 

There are a lot of event awareness posts, mostly things requiring exclamation marks: 

"Movie Night!" 

"Splash Night!" 

"****4th of July Parade****It's On!"

Then there are the standard advisory posts:

"Don't forget to send your tax appraisals in"

"Watch out, there was poop in the pool yesterday" 

And then there are the theft posts - car break-ins, garage break-ins, etc. It's a good way to keep the community actively looking out for suspicious activity. It's also a good way to flip people's crazy switch. 

The thread on thefts had been dormant for about three weeks when I posted that my bike had been stolen out of my garage. 

Backstory: I accidentally left the garage door open and when I went back 24 hours later to get in my car, I realized the door was open, immediately looked over at the space where my bike used to be, and then started on a manhunt around the adjacent neighborhood, looking for someone anyone riding around on my bike. I'm not sure what I'd planned to do when I found them, but it was going to be rough.

Anyway, so being the good neighbor that I am, I posted about it so people would be reminded to shut their garage doors, especially since the exact same thing had happened to my friends next door. This woke the Beasts of the Blog, and in the last 2 weeks since then there have been 24 posts. First, people were simply noting the importance of making police reports, the usefulness of automatic garage door closers, etc. 

Then enter user C. Frimire. Here's the logo on his profile, just to let you know what we're working with. 

C. Frimire, who has never been burglarized in Mueller, decides to host a stake-out. 

Hi. 

Last night I left my garage door open and waited til 3am for someone to try and rob me. No luck last night, but I'll keep trying, and when I do catch one of these guys just stepping into my garage I'm going to make damn sure he learns how we all feel about thieves stealing our stuff. Hopefully he'll go back and tell all the others that it's no longer worth it. I'll keep you posted.

I'll be honest, his gameplan sounds about as solid as me driving around looking for the hoodlum who stole my bike. I mean what's the guy going to do, give the thief a stern talking to? Preach on the socioeconomic underpinnings of theft? Club him over the head with a weed wacker?

But Justice is patient.... 

Another eventless evening last night. But it's just a matter of time. 

And today, a response post from another user. 

Look dude, if that was you I saw crouching in the black jumpsuit the other night while I was looking for my mom's cat, you need to cut that craziness out. You scared me half to death. And I don't know what you think you're going to do with that +2 Mag Light, but you're officially out of your mind. 

Neighborhood Watch at its best!

what $40 will buy you

Last Sunday, Brian and I were on the way to church when we realized we were egregiously late. We were deciding how futile it would be to drive half an hour for half a sermon when we saw a sign for an estate sale. 

6 hours and 4 more sales later, we had accumulated this: 

Counterclockwise from the top: Some rummy game, an early 1900s cigarette pack holder, wooden salt&pepper shakers, a weird card game with no directions, a brooch, a bat, a 99 Beers on the Wall puzzle, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, an old Ritz cracker tin, an Emmy Lou Harris record, 2 classical records, and a DVD of ESPN Scene-It.

Not pictured: a workbench, a set of metal shelves, and 2 mini cooler bags.

Pretty random in all, but there are a few interesting things about our finds. 

1) Everything here besides the bat and the brooch were between 25-50 cents. CENTS. 

2) I have a matching Saltines cracker tin. This may mark the beginning of an unfortunately useless collection of metalware.

3) The bat turned out to be a stellar find, a rare left-handed original Louisville Slugger from somewhere around 1916-1920.

4) That cigarette holder thingie is now officially a candy holder. I blame its inherent addictive properties for my unbelievable Snickers intake. 

5) After a coat of paint, the workbench and the shelves look ah-mazing in the garage, and we've already used the cooler bags twice. Which equates to approximately 6 cents per bag, per use. Beat that, sucka!

We tried to go to a few more sales this past weekend but only found crap on top of piles crap. A crap sundae, if you will. But hey, you win some you lose some.