Where I didn't get hurt snowboarding...

I tried snowboarding for the first time in January. People said I did well, but one bad fall on my tailbone left me in pain for the next two weeks. I begged off the next few opportunities to go, but with our Colorado vacation fast approaching, Friday night I decided it was time to give snowboarding a go again.

This time I was a little better prepared, with my new oh-so-sexy, grandma-panties tailbone guard. (Just what a girl wants -- padding to make her butt look bigger!)

So, Friday after work, we headed back up to Wilmot in Wisconsin. I was nervous, and the conditions were really icy. Let's just say I got off to a very hesitant start. There was probably even a little cursing at my husband and Kyle over their persistent offers of advice. The fun quotient started out at virtually nil.

But at some point in the evening, I loosened up and actually had a little fun. Bonus: I actually came down the learning hill executing something that resembled the beginnings of turns and stops. And most importantly, my falls were controlled and there were NO INJURIES.

There may be hope for me yet.

The best part of the night was the après-ski. And who knew that après-ski translates to "cheap buzz"? I do now.

Eclipsing moon

This is my best shot of the moon at some point during the lunar eclipse last night. Not wonderful, but better than I expected considering I wasn't prepared and didn't even know how the particular tripod I was using worked. Some lessons on how to use the camera might help also. :)

This was looking up through some tree branches.

Stealing a kiss

While I had the big lens on the camera, and the camera was still on the tripod, I decided to torture my dogs a little by taking more photos of them. I was disappointed in the blur, especially in the middle shot, but then decided I like the way they work together as a set.

Just sit there and look cute...

Yeah, I know, more dog photos. But I can't help myself! This time it's just Thor.

Snow, cold and fog

We're deep in the throes of a Chicago winter. One day we get dumped with a ton a snow, then it warms up to the 50s and gets all foggy and dreary outside while the snow melts, then a few days later we get dumped with a ton of more snow, then the temperatures plunge and today we have single digits and gorgeous blue skies.

I think the only beasts enjoying this weather are my two Bernese mountain dogs (think Swiss Alps).

I'm not really complaining (OK, just a smidge), but in weather like this I can't help but sing "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" with lyrics reworked by a former coworker (Briggs) years ago. The only relevant line you need to know replaces "Let it snow" with the more colorful phrase "F*** the snow". You get the idea, I'm sure. :)

Storytime with BRK

It's bright and early Monday morning. How about a few funny stories to wake up to?

No. Not my stories. (I don't claim to be funny.)

These stories belong to BigRedKitty, who is one talented blogger, storyteller and World of Warcraft hunter. Yeah, I started going to his site BigRedKitty.net to learn how to play my own hunter character better, but I find myself coming back every day just because I love his humor and his distinctive voice.

He's had a few posts that are not at all WoW related that had me laughing out loud. Check them out:

We Haven’t Used a Chainsaw Since (a summer as Billy Joel's houseboy)
and
The Story Where We Use the F-Bomb (Air Force nuclear payload?)
and
Story Time - Non WoW, But We Promised (Air Force ORI in Japan)
and
Do Not Read Before or After Eating (Air Force dentistry)

Schmap!

Ever heard of Schmap? I hadn't until a few weeks ago. Turns out it's a digital tourism and travel guide. Kind of neat, with photos of popular destinations placed on a map for easy browsing.

Why do I know about Schmap? Because a few weeks ago they contacted me asking for permission to use three of my photos in their guides. No money. Just a photo credit and a link back to my Flickr page.

After some thought, I said "Yes"!

The new editions of the guides were published today. So, check out my three "published" photos:

The York Minster Chapter House Ceiling
The Rivercenter Mall along the San Antonio Riverwalk
The Bar at the Australian Hotel

Oh, and here are the handy-dandy widgets for the three guides I'm published in:

Watch The Guild

I've been meaning to post this for a while. The series is already at episode 6!

Anyway, The Guild is an internet-based, original program detailing the life of a fictional group of people playing a World of Warcraft-type game. The main star is Felicia Day, who played a slayer in the Buffy television series (and is currently in a Cheetos commercial).

The episodes are short (only 5-6 minutes) and play off of stereotypes to hilarious (I think) effect. No special knowledge of World of Warcraft is necessary to appreciate them. :)

Here's episode One:

Where I think I'm a 13-year-old boy...

First I start playing World of Warcraft, then I take up Guitar Hero III, and now I try snowboarding. What am I, 13 years old?

Snowboarding! What was I thinking? I have a sore tail bone that's been reminding me all weekend that it's been 25 years since I was 13.

Let me back up. We're planning a week-long vacation in Colorado. Doing the whole rent-a-chalet-for-a-week-with-friends thing. So, Kyle says: Why not snowboard? I'm thinking that it's been 20 years since I tried skiing, and that didn't go so well (big dramatic wipeout on an intermediate slope, which I only tried because it was the easiest way to get back to the lodge), so why not snowboard, indeed?

Kyle has been snowboarding half a dozen times. Dave has been twice. Both warned me that learning involves lots and lots of falling. It's just the nature of the beast. I'm prepared for that...

Friday evening after work, we head up to Wilmot in Wisconsin. I rent my gear, and because the last classes have finished for the night, Kyle takes over the post of instructor. We head to a mini hill in the beginner area (really, nothing more that a mogul, at best) and Kyle teaches me how to stand on the board and how to slide down the "hill" on the board. Evidently, all the workouts I do with a personal trainer are working, and I have excellent balance. I don't fall. Dave and Kyle say they are impressed.

Then Kyle shows me how to turn to the right. Gulp. OK.

I head down, try to turn to the right, overcompensate and fall backward. Straight backwards. Both feet strapped to a plank of wood, back straight, tail bone and head making contact at almost the same instant. It's a bone-jarring, knock-the-headband-off-my-head, hurts-like-the-dickens fall.

I rest for a minute, then a minute more. Shake it off, stand up, fix my headband, climb to the top of the "hill" and try it again.

My next two falls are a little better coordinated. I remember to bend my knees, at least. And these are in the forward direction, so I don't really hurt myself.

Now it's time for the tow-rope up to the beginner hill. I hate tow-ropes. They suck. Wrench your arms out of their sockets and all that stuff. I somehow make it to the top without wiping out on the tow-rope. Even better, I manage to snowboard to the bottom of the hill without falling, although I didn't do much turning at all.

Second trip up the tow-rope, again I manage to make it to the top without falling (although a few kids on the slopes seem to be having issues in that area). Amazingly, the second trip down the beginner hill goes better than the first. I don't fall, and I manage to turn myself a little bit. The guy operating the tow-rope politely agrees with Dave and Kyle that I'm doing really well for having been on a snowboard for only an hour. I think I fell all of four times total (another one snuck in there when I was just walking...).

At this point, Dave and Kyle decide they want to try the bigger beginner hills (which actually involve a chair lift), and I decide that it's best to quit while I'm having "fun". The place closes in an hour anyway.

So it's back to the lodge to turn in my gear and fortify myself after this grueling workout (it *was* hard work). After a while Dave comes tottering in, ice packs in hand. Turns out he had a major wipeout (lots of air and rolling involved) and his neck and wrists hurt big-time. Evidently, he needs to work on his turns also.

Somehow, we manage to make it home. Both of us feeling decidedly old and achy.

So, all weekend, Dave and I have been popping the Advil at regular intervals. I can't sit in any position that involves lounging (it's either perfectly straight in the chair or totally reclined, no in-between, because that hurts way too much). Dave keeps complaining about tingling in his fingers.

What happens when I walk into work this morning? Kyle asks when we're snowboarding again. And what is my answer? Well, it's not the resounding "No" you would expect.

Um. I think we're busy this weekend. And the next, too. But after that, maybe. By then the aches and pains may be gone, and I might be back to thinking I'm 13 years old again...

Pray for me. :-)

As for my other 13-year-old passions?

In Guitar Hero III, I've finished 14 songs on hard level, with my 11-year-old nephew informing me just this weekend that he's quickly catching up to me. Time to start practicing again.

In World of Warcraft? Lasaire is now a level-70 beast-master hunter on the Proudmoore server (Alliance). I'm saving gold to buy my epic flying mount, trying to get my leatherworking to 375 so I can make nether armor, plus working on getting keyed for Kara. Oh, and Kitty is still my best friend (the pet I first tamed at level 10). I've got alt-characters that include a level-10 mage and a level-10 druid (Alliance side) and a level-19 priest (Horde side). Unfortunately, I've decided that the next character I'd like to level is a priest, but I want to go Alliance, so I have to start over...

Guitar Hero III mystery

Considering I'm *old*, I think I'm pretty decent at Guitar Hero. I'm part way through solving the hard level in career mode. Kilr Bunez, FTW!

We have the game for the Wii and I'd only ever played on our own system until last weekend. Then Saturday night, we went to the neighbor's house to play on their Wii. Two guitars in face-off mode, lots of fun.

Here's where the trouble started. I sucked. I failed at easy songs in easy mode. Tink. Tink. Tink. WTF was wrong with me? Same thing happened two nights later. Something was seriously off with my game.

Everyone else played fine. In fact, the elementary-school-age neighbor girls played amazingly well (but then again, they play the real guitar, too). Apparently it was just me. Perhaps it was the television, we pondered. Perhaps I can only play on a 70-inch HD set like we have at home? (How spoiled is that!)

But then my moment of redemption came on New Year's Day. The neighbor girls came over and we played again. I was back to my normal self, cruising through a medium-level song, then plowing my way through a hard-level song (it's not pretty). This time, it was the girls who had problems. Tink. Tink. Tink. They missed note after note after note.

It's not me! Yeah! Instead, it's some difference between our Wii systems - or perhaps it really is the 70-inch HD television.

Has anyone heard of such a thing? Is there some known issue like this? I tried Google, but no luck.

On a side note: Thanks to Guitar Hero III, I now love, love, love "Miss Murder" by AFI, and my joy with "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour and "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson has been reaffirmed -- BUT, if I never hear or play "Slow Ride" again, it'll be too soon. ("Talk Dirty to Me" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" are becoming close runners-up. In fact, that whole first set is a little dodgy.)

BTW, my husband took the above photo the first day I had the game. I can't begin to describe how amused he was by my fascination with playing. :)

History lessons

This is one of my favorite photos from a weekend excursion with Jules and JC to the Chicago History Museum. Wait, I can't decide between the one on top or the one at right? There's just something I like about that bronze bull's head. Opinions?

Regardless, we finally visited the museum after it was overhauled, redesigned and renamed a year or so ago. Out the door went the stodgy "Chicago Historical Society" moniker and in came the new "Chicago History Museum".

It was a fun time. The exhibits were interesting, although the Crossroads audio tour got a little bit long at times.

Particularly memorable aspects of the museum? For me, it's the same thing that stuck in my memory after my first visit as a Brownie Girl Scout 30 years ago: the melted glass-and-metal artifacts from the Great Chicago Fire. (To view the rest of my photos from the museum, visit my Chicago set on Flickr.)

S-Factor afternoon

Oprah featured it, so that has to make it safe to write about, doesn't it? I mean, otherwise, why would I want to confess that I'd taken an exercise class based on the arts of pole-dancing and lap-dancing? Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

A few years ago, Jules saw the S-Factor book somewhere and gave it and the accompanying exercise video to me for Christmas. I admit that I'm not very motivated by videos, but I did give it a few tries at home, but no more.

Then last year, Jules treated me and JC to a one-off intro to the S-Factor class at a studio in Chicago. It was lots of fun. An hour of yoga-like exercises, followed by an hour of bruising our legs trying to swing around a pole, and then learning a routine to take home with us.

This year, she treated us to another one-off class, this one called Santa's lap-dance. Again, an hour of yoga-like exercises, followed by an hour of learning how to crawl all over a big armchair.

Lots of fun, but talk about awkward. I mean, it's so totally hard to get into the moment when you're there with friends, because the key seems to be forgetting your fears and letting yourself go.

Now, this seems like the place where I should break into some internal dialog (or real dialog) that was occurring during the class. But I'm not going to go there. I think it's sufficient at this point to admit that I took the class at all.

Perhaps if Jules treats us to a class again next year...

Happy New Year!

Looking forward to new things in the New Year. Productive writing. Continued health. Welcome changes. What are your resolutions?

New camera

My Dear Husband gave me a wonderful gift for Christmas, and even let me have it a few days early: A new camera! (And he was in the first photo I took with the camera.)

A Nikon D40x -- a digital SLR.

Is it the year of the digital SLR camera? Perhaps.

My sister, my sister-in-law and I all have the same camera now all purchased within the past few months.

It's been years since I used an SLR -- way back before my first digital camera. I think the digital SLRs have finally come down enough in price, and more people are switching over again.

Expect to see lots more photos in the coming months. I burned through at least 500 of them over the holiday weekend (many were instantly deleted because I was just playing). The nice thing about digital SLRs? Pixels and 1s and 0s don't cost money to develop.

So far, my favorite photo I've taken is this one, also of my Dear Husband, this time holding his new nephew:



And here are some runners up:



And of course I had to experiment with some abstract and artsy photos, which are not necessarily my best, but I had fun:



What do you think? Anything here worth saving?

I have a lot of technical things still to figure out on the camera (using lighting better, using the auto focus better, etc.) but that's what classes are for. Wolf camera is nice enough to offer free courses in January. I'll be there.

In the mean time, here are some more photos I like:

Merry Christmas!

I hope Santa brought you nice treats and your stocking was stuffed with everything you could hope for.

Not the best photo I've ever taken...

But it's nice to see that somebody could use it. :)

See Monday Miscellanea on The Londonist.

11-8-07: My sister asked me how the photo ended up on The Londonist site. Here's what I told her:

When you post a photo to Flickr, you have the option to make it public or you can make it viewable only to contacts whom you have designated friends, family, friends & family, or yourself. There are various permission levels.

Plus, when you post a photo, you can either reserve all rights to the photo for yourself (meaning no one is allowed to use it without your express permission), or you can apply a Creative Commons license to it, which allows various uses of the photo.

Some of my photos are public and I've retained all rights to them (especially if someone I know is in the photo), but some photos I've allowed others to use for non-commercial purposes if they give me attribution. Plus they're supposed to link back to my Flickr page.

So, in the case of The Londonist above, they were searching for photos of David Blaine in London, saw my picture and used it based on the Creative Commons non-commercial with attribution license.

Why do you do this to me?

Loki got her stitches out yesterday. The vet seems happy with her results. He thinks he got the whole mast cell tumor and doesn't recommend any follow-up treatments at this time. But, we have to keep a really close eye out for future lumps that Loki may develop.

Also, where the tumor was removed, some fluid has been collecting. The vet said this is normal when a large amount of tissue is taken -- fluid collects in the opening. He drew off as much as he could, and said the rest will resolve itself over time.

So, even though the stitches are out, Miss Loki must keep away from her incision for a few more days and must still wear the T-shirt.

How cool is that?

I was playing with some Flickr add-ons tonight, and found a little feature that prompted me to search for my own photos on blog-monitoring sites. (Appropriately titled "ego surf"!)

Anyway, it turns out that two of my photos were posted on a Nature's Wrath blog back in August.



http://natures-wrath.blogspot.com/2007/08/sunset-after-storm.html



http://natures-wrath.blogspot.com/2007/08/suburban-sunset.html

The benefits of uploading photos in a timely manner with some description of what's happening, I guess.

Code Monkey

It's probably because it has familiar characters in a familiar setting with a love interest and a lot of humor, but I really like this song: Code Monkey.

Dave and I stumbled on the song on Friday, and it's already a favorite.

Code Monkey have every reason
To get out this place
Code Monkey just keep on working
See your soft pretty face
Much rather wake up, eat a coffee cake
Take bath, take nap
This job "fulfilling in creative way"
Such a load of crap
Code Monkey think someday he have everything even pretty girl like you
Code Monkey just waiting for now
Code Monkey say someday, somehow

If you follow the link above you can listen to the song online.

"What's a code monkey?" you ask? See this definition.

My new most viewed photo -- Feet?

A lot of people must be searching for photos of feet on Flickr, because in the space of 24 hours, this photo became my most-viewed picture. When you look closely at it, the photo isn't even well focused.

I like the photo because it's of my family and it represents all of us being on the beach together in Australia. I posted it because I was looking for a photo to represent the letter "U" for a Flickr group called By The Letter.

Oh well. Any guesses which foot is mine? ;-)

On a side note, I've been meaning to post for a while. I have topics in mind, including My worst nightmare actually turned out kind of funny and My first business trip and Huh. CVICU has been redecorated. Yea.

Oh, and then there are those cute kittens to write about.