|
[03 Mar 2008|04:01pm] |
I had so much fun teaching the brilliant minds of the future last week, now I've signed up to judge a middle school science fair! In 5th grade I won 2nd place at the science fair...and maybe in high school I got an honorable mention. My brother Homey R, however, now he would always win BEST OF FAIR. He got flown to the International Science Fair in Canada two years in a row! He was always doing something I didn't understand involving computers and fractals. Sigh. I guess that is why he has a PhD and a gig as a research scientist at a national lab working with the world's largest super computers and I have a BS and a grunt engineering job at a rail car manufactuer.
I still am incredibly sore from crevasse rescue practice. We were up there freezing in a white out up on the mountain and I got the idea that I wanted to see if I could hold the 225 lb man with my self-arrest position while everyone else set up the rescue pulley system. Which means I had to lay in that position face down in the snow for half an hour.
I got my eyebrows threaded! Threading is so awesome, with less irritation and mess than waxing. I look so good, my hotness level jumped from 7 to an 8.5 out of 10.
I am getting crafty and making Hayley's bachelorette veil tonight! It will be glorious. Rhinestones and white fur trim, anyone?!
|
|
| Whew |
[29 Feb 2008|03:43pm] |
Well I wasn't eaten alive! I was actually blown away by the first class of kids I taught yesterday! They were so smart...I presented them with the activity of making a ramp out of paper to launch a marble so that it stops after a certain distance on a target. First off, their ramp designs were so ingenius, way more inventive than anything I had come up with. Then everyone's marbles overshot the target, and it became apparent that even a very small incline would still overshoot the target. So then they came up with ingenius ideas to slow the marble down on the ramp, like adding flaps, crumpling the ramp surface to add friction, adding tape on the ramp surface, and constricting the marble with funnel like devices. That wasn't even supposed to be part of the activity, the activity was just retarded to begin with so they improvised. They were so freakin' smart! The second class I had was your typical insolent/bored highschool freshmen who put forth as little effort as required, but man, that first class really inspired me with hope for the future of mankind.
I had been so stressed out about the whole highschool presentation thing that I had completely blocked from my mind something way more important....HAYLEY'S WEDDING IS NEXT WEEK!!! My best friend is getting married, it is the most important wedding of all time!! I'm flying out Wednesday night! I'm gonna be staying/hanging with one of my favorite old friends in the world whom I haven't seen since the day before the hurricane- Pak! There will be lots of other cool people I haven't seen in forever it will be so wonderful to see like Celina! And gotta love Hayley's family, especially her mom and hottie stepdad. There are presents to be bought. I need to find two different pairs of shoes, black AND gold. Maybe I should get a haircut. Eyebrow wax?! Bachelorette party festivities to plan!! So much to dooooo and really I hardly have anything to do for the wedding at all! I can't wait! I have a feeling it will go down in history as the best wedding evar. Yay.
|
|
| aah |
[28 Feb 2008|09:15am] |
|
I was rangled into giving a presentation today to two high school classes of ninth and tenth graders. Out of all the engineers in my department, I got picked, cuz I am a woman, and isn't the idea of a female engineer so novel?! You know why I am not a teacher? Cuz I am a KID RETARD. AAAAHHH! So now I will go give my boring presentation and do some pointless activity with them involving marbles and paper ramps and kinetic and potential energy and it kinda works but not really. I just hope it doesn't suck too bad, for me or for them!
|
|
| MY RASH, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THEM |
[15 Feb 2008|09:26am] |
|
I got poison oak for the first time! I had been a bit cocky about it, thinking 'oh maybe I'm immune to it', but apparently I'm not. My entire upper arm is covered! It's 'weeping'! My arm is oozing this translucent amber fluid (liquid gold, I call it), which crystallizes on the surface, and the sunlight then catches so beautifully. The discomfort/itching level isn't that bad I suppose. The mess is more annoying. Although I will admit the blissful feeling of rubbing a washcloth over the rash in the shower feels so good, it just may be better than an orgasm.
|
|
| Ugh. |
[14 Feb 2008|11:33am] |
Girls giving guys flowers is downright lame. Ladies, it's up to us to keep our men manly! Just because we're strong and independent doesn't mean we have to effeminize them.
Not that anyone ever gave me flowers to begin with.
Yesterday I heard my male coworker order a dozen roses for his wife to be delivered today. She just came in here today with a dozen roses she had just bought for him. I bet he is annoyed.
|
|
| I <3 <3! |
[14 Feb 2008|09:52am] |
I took this picture this past summer in the Redwoods National Park and I've been waiting all year for this very day to show it off!
Happy Valentine's Day!
I have a new beautiful necklace on, a menu of filet mignon and shrimp scampi planned for dinner, and a froo froo heart shaped ice cream cake in the freezer. I like this holiday! F all the haters that don't, ha ha.
This day is doubly special because it's my best friend Hayley's birthday!! Happy birthday, Hayley! Here's to the most awesome year yet. :)
|
|
| Birthday Plans |
[08 Feb 2008|09:40am] |
My birthday kinda sucked last year. I got a rejection for my application to work at Nike (never giving up the dream! just you wait!), and I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do, so I sat around and was mopey and bored all day, then I went to Sonic to cheer myself up and ended up running over a raccoon on the way home. Then I felt bad cuz I felt like I was supposed to feel bad, but I kinda felt glad, because I hate raccoons cuz they helped destroy my marriage (ask me about koi pond massacre some other time).
So in order to make sure that doesn't happen again, I have come up with an awesome birthday plan! Well not my actual birthday cuz it's a Monday (Feb 25), but the weekend before. First off I'm gonna run the Hagg Lake 25K (15.5 miles for the unable to convert) trail run. It has a reputation to be totally miserable, windy, rainy, cold, and most importantly MUDDDY. But then, after I finish, I will run 3 more K, for a total of 28K on my 28th birthday! I have a secret snobby theory that long distance trail runners are all slow as shit, content to plod along as the goal is simply finishing, so I'm hoping to kick a lot of ass. I think I only got 5 girls in my age group, maybe I can beat them all!
After the race, when I am cold, soaked, dirty, and tired, I will head directly to the nearest spa, where I will sit in the soaking pool and get a massage, facial, and foot treatment. I think it will be so awesome to go from extreme ends of being all in a day, from complete suffering to complete pampering. It will be the best massage I've ever had in my life! This whole concept is one of the reasons why I like doing the things I do so much. People who sit on the couch all day, they will never know the sheer joy of devouring a wonderful, fattening meal the day after climbing Mt. Rainier. People who sit on the couch all day will never know the joy of simply sitting on a couch after backpacking through the wilderness for four days. Not to mention having access to a toilet...or a shower. Hmm I am digressing.
Anyhow that's my plan!
|
|
| I changed my mind. |
[06 Feb 2008|02:41pm] |
Eh ignore my previous whiny post about thanking you for liking me. It's way cooler to be the bad guy...the VILLIAN! So if you would instead start hating me, that would be better.
Bringin' back the hate in '0-8!!
-Evil Katie
|
|
| sno fun |
[06 Feb 2008|12:17pm] |
People that say Portland sucks in winter cuz all it does is rain, well, they're damn boring. Have fun watching TV and moping while the rest of us are having a blast IN THE SNOW which is only an hour's drive away! Portland is an ideal location...we rarely have to deal with the inconvenience of snow, but we have such great access to it.
I think the Mt Hood ski resorts have gotten a record 17 feet of it! The lodge that belongs to the mountain climbing organization I belong to is calling for an emergency work force to come in and help shovel snow off the roof because it's in danger of collapsing.
Last weekend I spent all day rolling around in the snow, bounding about in snow shoes, learning crevasse rescue, and then I got to go night skiing through about 3 feet of powder. Any day after work we have the ability to go night skiing! Tuesdays are ladies night so I'll prolly go again next week. Cross country skiing is great fun too, that 11 mile xc ski to the fire lookout was amazing awesome epic! This weekend I'm hiking/snowshoeing 4 miles in to a secret rustic lodge deep within the heart of the Columbia River Gorge that not many people know about or are privy to staying at but I AM!
I dunno. I just wanted to tell you how awesome snow is. And if you think Portland winters are boring then GET YER ASS UP TO THE MOUNTAIN.
Yay!
|
|
| haters |
[06 Feb 2008|09:03am] |
I just wanted to say thanks to all who haven't judged me and continue to be my friend, or at least deign to still talk to me. Divorce can be quite polarizing to friends of the couple, and it kinda sucks when you realize someone you haven't even said anything or done anything to suddenly doesn't like you anymore, without having heard your side of the story or even given you a chance.
Thanks to all the non-haters!!
F all haters!!
|
|
|
[05 Feb 2008|11:40am] |
Hmm so one king cake turned out alright...the traditional cinnamon filled one...it's a bit lopsided, and a crescent instead of a ring, but it was good.
The cream cheese-filled one was a disaster! The cream cheese filling was too liquidy for some reason, but I dumped it on there anyway, and when I tried to roll it up it just splurted everywhere and fell apart. I baked it anyway and it seems to taste ok, it just looks like some horrendous cancerous disfigured tumor that nobody would want to eat.
So in summary, I took the first king cake to work and everybody loved it. The second one stayed at home for 'private use'.
|
|
| Mardi Gras woooo |
[04 Feb 2008|09:40pm] |
|
I spent all night being domestic! I made Kevin's signature gumbo, which I haven't eaten in mebbe two years, and never have tried to make myself. It came out grand! I'll be dishin' that out tomorrow. Also, I have dough rising for my attempt to make king cakes! I never even really liked king cakes. They're kinda boring, just like a crappy giant cinnamon roll. But for some reason I miss them...guess I just miss NOLA in general. There isn't crap going on tomorrow for Mardi Gras, just another normal bleak rainy day in Portland. I'll bring my king cakes to work (fingers crossed they come out) and throw some beads at my coworkers and I guess that's it. SIGH.
|
|
| I don't know nuthin' |
[24 Jan 2008|03:34pm] |
|
I don't know nuthin' about economics or anything, and I do like free money, but doesn't the government randomly giving every single person $600 to go out and blow seem...well..retarded? I'd really like someone to explain to me how this is a good, logical, makes-sense idea!
|
|
| NOLA visit |
[05 Jan 2008|09:40am] |
|
The past three days I have gone home every night and sat on the couch and watched When the Levees Broke (cuz Tami told me to!) and been depressed. What I know about Katrina was one big jumbled mess, the documentary helped to straighten that out. I realize I've been operating with blinders on...once I was in Portland, New Orleans was no more. I immersed myself in Portland activities, keeping myself so busy I didn't even have time to think about New Orleans.
When I went to Mardi Gras in February I didn't get much of a sense of what the city was like. I took a peek at my old apartment and it was nice and fixed up so that was that, we were too busy going to parades to do much else. This past visit over New Year's I wanted to get out and do some normal stuff...but I couldn't, cuz it wasn't there to do. My old neighborhood is nothing like it once was. My FAVORITE Big Lots? Razed, the entire shopping center it was in is now a vacant lot. The big awesome Thrift City is now some vacant remodeled fancy shopping center. The hardware store and daquiri shop on the corner are boarded up. The Sav-A-Center is vacant. The Winn Dixie has been turned into some weird Home Depot...it still looks like a Winn Dixie but the sign says Home Depot. I was looking forward to going to brunch at the uptown Martin Wine Cellar like we used to do every Sunday but it's not there anymore, we had to go to Metairie. The Pho Tau Bay near my house never came back, but my friends were kind enough to take me to the one on the westbank where the food was just as delicious, the best Vietnamese food I've ever had. I finally got to see the hot half-Vietnamese guy who works there that Hayley insists is my soul mate (cuz we're like...the same! half-white/half-Vietnamese children of the war) but I couldn't mack on him because I felt my robotic-gladiator dress was too weird so I had no game.
Like I said, I've been operating with blinders on. I just assumed my old mid-city neighborhood was back to normal, but it's not at all. My house has been fixed up and some brave entrepreneurial restaurants have moved in, but hardly anything else is back. It was weird having to ask my friends..."HEY I want to go do this...uh...can we do this...is it still there?"
I was suprised to see in the documentary one of my old professors as one of the primary interviewees. Dr. Calvin Mackie, he taught me advanced fluid dynamics. I always thought he was way too cool to be an engineering professor. His brother was the rappin' main villain Papa Doc in Eminem's 8 Mile. I wonder what Dr. Mackie is doing now. Tulane dumped my entire department as well as others, claiming they had to downsize after the storm, although I hear this year was their largest freshman class of all time. I wonder where all my professors went. What happens when you're a tenured professor and your department is eliminated?
Anyhow it's Saturday and I'm at work, which just adds to my depression.
|
|
| New Year's in New Orleans |
[03 Jan 2008|08:58am] |
|
Highlights of New Year's Eve in New Orleans: -skipping down the street trying to drink spumante straight out of the bottle and having it spooge all over my face, hence earning the name 'spooge-mante'
-group photos in the rape ditch
-wesley willis wanna be terribleness at circle bar
-pho tau bay!
-my rockin' new year's outfit i.e. robotic gladiator dress
-the phillips sisters in matching metallics
-getting deluged by so much confetti my drink was rendered inedible, coming home to find it all down the front of my dress, and later finding more confetti in my purse pockets on the plane ride home
-that insane manic dancer guy during the Quintron show that grabbed me by the hands, pulling me around in circles, all the while screaming in my face "ARE YOU READY?!?! ARE YOU REEEAAADY?!" I dunno if he meant for 2008 or the next song, but whatever it was, I AM READY.
|
|
| i no feel good |
[07 Jun 2007|10:08am] |
|
I’ve been enjoying smack talking with my Hood to Coast (12-man 197-mile relay race from Mt. Hood to the coast) team. They were all ‘oh, who is going to run the dreaded leg 5?! Not me! I’m in the van!’ Basically leg 5 is up and over the coastal mountain range, a grueling soul crushing uphill run during the hottest hours of the day. I’m all ‘better give it to a mountaineer, sounds like you flatlanders are skeered of a little elevation!’. Which of course means now the dreaded leg 5 is mine. Which means I need to start running up hills. All the time. Tuesday for lunch I ate a giant philly cheeseteak. Why I didn’t just eat half, I dunno, pure gluttony, I suppose. Then Tuesday night I went on a terrible hellish 90-min hill run. My stomach hurt bad. Wednesday my stomach still hurt bad. All day long. I really messed it up. I had made plans to go out that night. I had put on a cute outfit, fixed my makeup, and as I was about to step out the door I thought ‘ugh, I don’t feel good. What the hell am I doing.’ So then I went and laid down on the couch, in my cute outfit, with my makeup still on, and slept from 6 PM till 7 AM this morning. I never even moved to the bed. Sometimes you just need to slow down to catch up.
|
|
| how does this work again? |
[03 Jun 2007|11:07am] |
Ok maybe I will try journaling again...if I remember...how...
I am sitting on my ass with nothing to do (which is a rarity) because my Mt. Hood climb got cancelled due to horrendous weather. I am bummed as it was going to be my first...more difficult climb? More actual climbing, less actual hiking? Might need two ice axes instead of one? Mixed snow, ice, and rock climbing. Oh well. I will just bide my time, I will be a badass one day, no rush. I should clean my mess of a house. Which is never clean, because I am always too busy climbing or getting ready for a climb or unpacking from a climb.
I'm feeling a little lopsided though. While I abhorred how much time roller derby took up, at least it gave me something else other than climbing. I like to have something else to keep me well rounded so I don't get all obsessive over one thing. Which many would argue I now am with the mountains and all. I heard wind of an all asian (well two of the band members are white but we don't talk about that) dance rock band that wants some asian go go dancers to dance with them on stage. I contacted them and said, "Hmm...how bout...half-asian go go dancers?" They seemed to think that was still permissible, so maybe I'll go check them out tonight. I'd rather be dancing for a surf band, but all asian dance rock band still sounds fun. Or maybe I'll just wallow in cancelled climb depression.
Last night I ran a 5K before a parade that you're supposed to wear a costume for. I dressed up like a ninja. Really I just wore normal black running clothes, but also put my mountain climbing baclava over my head and tied a dollar-store ninja sword to my back. Damn baclava nearly killed me but I kept it on the whole time. It's all about fun, not function. And the cries of joy from the little 5-10 year old boys "GO NINJA" made it all worth while. I think I may have discovered a secret training trick...putting a baclava on your head equals instant high altitude workout because you're sucking so hard to get air through that fabric. Not to mention how friggin' hot you get.
Guess that's it for now in the land of Katie.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
slickninja's journal