In the Beaufort Sea, of course. Well, ok, one of the boats, but they're hoping for some well-preserved artifacts. Pretty dang cool! It just took Fraser and Kowalski a little longer than they planned cuz of all the honeymooning they had to do on the way, of course.

And yes, now I have Stan Rogers in my head, which has made me realize he's not on my phone. Music is weird in these times of thousands of songs there, but sometimes none of CDs that I purchased.

Oh for Just One Time...

Despite weather drama last week, all of the snow went south of us. Not that it's exactly Spring-like out there with negative low temps, but I'm enjoying the not-shoveling :). Poor Ontario is getting to the point where water mains are breaking in Toronto because it's been so dang cold for so dang long (and those folks aren't exactly weather wimps). So, yeah, I'll take this, as long as I remember not to wear capris while biking to the gym tomorrow morning, that was Stupidly Cold today.

We had the first Crossfit Open workout! I was bumming heading into it, because it started with double unders - y'no, where you jump once and swing the jump rope around and under your feet twice. And I'd Never gotten ONE of those, not in all of my years of punk rope classes and crossfit. There's another woman from my gym, Tricia, who was doing it in the same boat (although she'd gotten a few ages ago), and so we commiserated as we warmed up grumpily and failed every attempt. Our favorite coach came over to pep-talk us and made it worse, because she said something about how we just had to get one to continue, and we both took that to mean that we might somehow be disqualified if we couldn't do this thing, though we'd never heard that before. And it wasn't like we thought we were contenders or anything, but we figured we'd get to continue to participate and compete. We were both wishing we'd stayed in bed - we could get a score of zero from bed, and it'd be a lot cozier.

I went in to my 10 minutes not expecting anything and promising to do my best. Between my judge and a friend both coaching me, I finally got one, maybe 4 minutes in. Neither my judge nor I was totally sure, but we looked at each other with big eyes and agreed that it Seemed like one. Soon thereafter I heard a roar from the other side of the room and I knew Tricia must've gotten one, too. I got a few more, although never consistently, and it was frustrating in that I couldn't figure out what was different between getting them and not. I looked over awhile later and saw that Tricia had moved on to the barbell snatches that came after the first 30 jumps and was Thrilled for her and heartened for my getting more. At 10 minutes I finished with 14, and was completely pleased (my judge wrote it as "14!"). Yes, "good" scores were well over 150, and the leaderboard has people with scores well over 400. But for me 1 was a victory, and 14 showed that I hadn't rested on my laurels, I kept fighting the whole 10 minutes. So, once again - even a workout where I had Super low expectations led to new heights.

Oh, right. THIS is why I signed up for the Open again this year. Because of what we learn about and for ourselves. I'll have to remind myself of that again on Thursday night when this week's workout is announced and I'm filled with dread and wonder again :).

Tomorrow is June 1! Which is a very important day! I'm hoping to be climbing Mount Osceola with folks from work, so I'm posting this today:

Back on June 1, 1963 two young bears got married in Cleveland, loving each other deeply and adorably. One cat, Two kids, Three cities, Four dogs and fifty years later we're all wishing them a happiest of 50th Anniversaries.

Happy Anniversary, PBs! May the celebrations be numerous, small enough for you to enjoy, and filled with lots of love. <3 <3 <3!

I've continued with my trend of lazy weekends, though this last one I did bike to my brother's for the first time since starting Crossfit (those 16 miles felt good \o/). We watched Fritz Lang's M at home (cool!) and did get out and to see Django Unchained, which was fun, but [spoilers!]( Read more...Collapse )

But, hey - still talking about it, at least here, which is more than I can say about a lot of the movies I saw this year.

Reason #74902 I love Crossfit: today trainer KP (my faaaavorite) saw me grabbing a light bar and asked what I thought I was doing. I told her it was a backup for the overhead squats, because we had to do 30, and I was afraid that holding anything overhead after the burpees, rowing, push presses, etc, was going to be tough. She watched me do a few with the heavier bar I'd had and said I was fine, and that she'd bring me the lighter one if I needed it. Nice push to challenge myself! And then, 20 reps into the overhead squats, my form started to suffer. I watched her go get that lighter barbell, taking her time clipping on the weights I'd set on it, and ambling back to me - and I was damned if I was gonna take it. So I pushed to improve my form (ie, not fall over backward) and finish where I would've slacked, otherwise. When I was done she confirmed that I'd actually completed the set, cheered, and I pantingly thanked her for "threatening" me with less weight. Such a difference from my old "why bother trying" or "safety first, shouldn't take on too much" ways. \o/

Today there have been things on all my websites about how vicious the flu is this year in MA. Several people have been out of the office more than a week. And I guess they aren't restricting ERs yet, but they're talking about it if the high volume of plague-ridden increases. Yikes! Stay healthy, all (or, recover well, if you've been hit), and here's hoping the shot I got for my mom's birthday present helps me avoid it, too. Health in the New Year!

When you compose a post, but it doesn't post due to varnish errors, so you've lost it. You vent your frustrations to a new (private) post, then realize that the "post" button is grayed out because it's the "new" version of the posting page, which is frequently screwy for you. So you hit "switch to old version"... and lose the second post.

Oh, LJ. I'd head desk, but I'm pretty sure that'd make me lose this post, too.

We take so much for granted today, environmentally. Or sometimes we believe the fearmongering that we live in the most Toxic environment ever, and should just buy some detox drink to fix that. But the reality is that good governmental regulation and our tax dollars have done things like take the Nashua River and make changes like this:



Thanks, Clean Water Act - and all the people who made it work!

- I walk out the door at work and I'm more likely to hear a European language than English. The tourists are back!
- The MIT sailboats were out on the Charles River yesterday. Crazy kids, it was like, 20 degrees and windy. But, hey, Spring!
- The frog pond ice skating rink is melting today.
- There are snow drops in bloom everywhere I go looking for them.
- It's 20 degrees warmer than yesterday, and yesterday is to be 20 degrees warmer again.
- The bike room is busier at work.
- Daylight Savings is this Sunday!
\o/.

Overall I approve of this trend toward goofy hats. It's like a large proportion of the population is joining me in embracing their dorkitude. The animals are nice, but today I saw my favorite thus far: a knit cap with a brown edge, then a bright orange top with a curling stone handle knit out of it. Oh, and of course, some variant of Rule 34, I can find something like it online.

Awesomesauce. The internet's long tail of headwear for every interest is a Beautiful thing.

I've heard any number of people say they were out shopping for other people and found something for themselves instead. This usually doesn't happen to me, largely because I'm usually shopping for legos and spices. But I was in my local Ten Thousand Villages for the second time this season, and this guy caught my eye Again. But I told myself (again) that I don't Need a changepurse, I probably have several kicking around the house that I should dig up and use with my (no longer new) little purse instead. I took my purchases up, and the guy said it was $5.13, so I started digging for change... and after having to half empty the purse, Again, I exclaimed, "no, wait, add this to the bill!"

And, well, it just Keeps making me happy. I'm frequently making him peak out at any indulgent person (usually Grant) near my purse. I grin every time I look in my purse. Sure, $10 is kind of pricey for a change purse, but he's fair trade... and he keeps making me giggle. He looks a little more psychotic and little less cute here (no, you're not allowed to note how things start to be more like they're owners), but Look!
( Bunny!Collapse )

Should you have stopped by the Parent Bears' Saturday night, you'd have found five cop cars, the police shift supervisor's SUV, and, eventually, a fire truck. Now, Grosse Pointe is a pretty nice neighborhood, and the septuagenarian PBs aren't really known for being troublemakers, but, hey, maybe they were finally throwing that wild party we've always teased them about having?

( Bad Grrls Bad Grrls Whatya Gonna Do?Collapse )