Miles driven: about 900
States traversed: Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois
Time: 14 hours
Today went by pretty fast and believe or not we are not completely sick of driving yet. The day started out with a pretty quick drive into Nebraska, which is sparsely populated and had A LOT of corn. Had lunch at a picturesque rest stop, where a van had just run over a semi-truck's fuel thingie. The story we heard was that the van ran over the truck part and it killed something in the undercarriage of the car (it was leaking some sort of hydrolic fluid) and it ripped apart their tire. Later on the road a couch was sitting in the middle of the road and we nearly missed it, only to watch in the rear view mirror some pick up truck completely obliterate into a million pieces. It made us laugh. We stopped for dinner, after Mike's epic run of 336 miles without stopping, in a small town (Grinnell)in Iowa at a Hardee's (what we know on the West Coast to be Carl's). Another few hours on the road and we were in Illinois at to our sleeping destination of Princeton, Illinois. Interesting facts about Princeton: It was the home of Owen Lovejoy who was an important abolitionist. His home in Princeton was a stop on the underground railroad! And just outside of town is the home President Ronald Regan grew up in.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Epic Road Trip: Day 1
Miles traveled: 900
States traversed: Nevada, Utah and Wyoming
Time on the road: About 14 hours
Today was not as bad as I thought it would be. I learned to love the wonders of cruise control and was super pleased to see the speed limit was mostly 75 miles per hour. I felt like Nevada had a very similar landscape to desert California and it didn't really hold my interest. Mike thinks it looks a little like Arizona. Nevada also had the most construction zones with threatening ticket signs and 55 mph zones. Ate lunch at a Flying J truck stop in the city of Wells in Nevada. Once we arrived in Utah we had miles and miles of salt flats which were really interesting to watch. Driving around Salt Lake City got a little harry, especially when driving up toward the ski resorts. Semi-trucks started bolting forward at 80 mph and riding our bumper, not fun. Once over the mountains in Utah and toward Wyoming we had beautiful geologic landscape to watch. Stopped for dinner at a super cute diner in Green River, WY after getting sucked into the tourist trap that is Little America (where we just got gas and took a few photos). The full moon made it easier to drive in the dark and we pulled in to a windy Laramie, Wyoming at approximately 10:30 p.m. local time.
Tomorrow is supposed be really flat and boring, hopefully it doesn't feel longer.
States traversed: Nevada, Utah and Wyoming
Time on the road: About 14 hours
Today was not as bad as I thought it would be. I learned to love the wonders of cruise control and was super pleased to see the speed limit was mostly 75 miles per hour. I felt like Nevada had a very similar landscape to desert California and it didn't really hold my interest. Mike thinks it looks a little like Arizona. Nevada also had the most construction zones with threatening ticket signs and 55 mph zones. Ate lunch at a Flying J truck stop in the city of Wells in Nevada. Once we arrived in Utah we had miles and miles of salt flats which were really interesting to watch. Driving around Salt Lake City got a little harry, especially when driving up toward the ski resorts. Semi-trucks started bolting forward at 80 mph and riding our bumper, not fun. Once over the mountains in Utah and toward Wyoming we had beautiful geologic landscape to watch. Stopped for dinner at a super cute diner in Green River, WY after getting sucked into the tourist trap that is Little America (where we just got gas and took a few photos). The full moon made it easier to drive in the dark and we pulled in to a windy Laramie, Wyoming at approximately 10:30 p.m. local time.
Tomorrow is supposed be really flat and boring, hopefully it doesn't feel longer.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Who wants to read?!
So I just ordered a Nook and I'm super excited about reading now!!! And now that it is summer I have much more time to do so. Anyway just spent some time browsing the web for options and suggestions (Publishers Weekly, NPR, Target Book Club) so now I have a variety of options that range from light to heavy to crazy.
Here is a list of books I'm interested in and hope to read over the next year or two. Let me know if you have read any of these and what you think, or if you'd like to read any of these with me!!! (Disregard the prices, for my reference only so I know ahead of time- they are for the Nook online store).
• These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf $8.69 21-year-old released from prison after a horrific crime. Family hates her as she tries to rebuild life post prison.
• One Day by David Nicholls $9.99 An episodic story takes place during a single day each year for two decades in the lives two characters who continue to intersect
• Wench by Dorothy Perkin-Valdez $9.99 A story about slave women and their owners who vacation with them in the free state of Ohio (temptations to be free vs. relationships and security).
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson $9.99 When Melinda Sordino's friends discover she called the police to quiet a party, they ostracize her, turning her into an outcast -- even among kids she barely knows. But even worse than the harsh conformity of high-school cliques is a secret that you have to hide.
• The Wednesday Sisters $9.99 A story about five women over generations defining family (Palo Alto based)
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova $11.99 A story about early onset Alzheimer’s
• Invisible Wall: A Love Story that Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein $9.99 A story about Jews and Gentiles at the outbreak of WWI
• The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond $5.99 Tale of woman who goes missing on a walk, and a woman’s obsession with the mystery
• The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers $9.99 Story of two sisters who are ultimately affected by their father’s murdering their mother.
• How to be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward $4.79 Perfect family loses child mysteriously, family unravels.
• Incendiary by Chris Cleave $9.99 Woman loses her husband and four-year-old to a suicide bombing at London soccer game.
• The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall $9.43 Golden Richards, a fundamentalist Mormon with four wives and 28 children, flirts with infidelity in this tragicomic family saga with a cast of flawed, perfectly realized characters.
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy $11.99 Cormac McCarthy's masterwork, Blood Meridian, chronicles the brutal world of the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the mid-nineteenth century. Its wounded hero, the teenage Kid, must confront the extraordinary violence of the Glanton gang, a murderous cadre on an official mission to scalp Indians and sell those scalps.
• Faithful Place by Tana French $12.99 Woman man plans to elope with disappears, thinks nothing of it until years later it looks like she didn’t leave on her own free will.
• A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read $8.99 Beginning of mystery series staring former socialite and journalist Madeline Dare
• The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt (YA) $10.99 A story about brotherhood, never measuring up and what war can do to a family.
• What is Left The Daughter by Howard Norman $7.28 A story told through a series of letters about how one father’s past has shaped his entire life
Here is a list of books I'm interested in and hope to read over the next year or two. Let me know if you have read any of these and what you think, or if you'd like to read any of these with me!!! (Disregard the prices, for my reference only so I know ahead of time- they are for the Nook online store).
• These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf $8.69 21-year-old released from prison after a horrific crime. Family hates her as she tries to rebuild life post prison.
• One Day by David Nicholls $9.99 An episodic story takes place during a single day each year for two decades in the lives two characters who continue to intersect
• Wench by Dorothy Perkin-Valdez $9.99 A story about slave women and their owners who vacation with them in the free state of Ohio (temptations to be free vs. relationships and security).
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson $9.99 When Melinda Sordino's friends discover she called the police to quiet a party, they ostracize her, turning her into an outcast -- even among kids she barely knows. But even worse than the harsh conformity of high-school cliques is a secret that you have to hide.
• The Wednesday Sisters $9.99 A story about five women over generations defining family (Palo Alto based)
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova $11.99 A story about early onset Alzheimer’s
• Invisible Wall: A Love Story that Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein $9.99 A story about Jews and Gentiles at the outbreak of WWI
• The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond $5.99 Tale of woman who goes missing on a walk, and a woman’s obsession with the mystery
• The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers $9.99 Story of two sisters who are ultimately affected by their father’s murdering their mother.
• How to be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward $4.79 Perfect family loses child mysteriously, family unravels.
• Incendiary by Chris Cleave $9.99 Woman loses her husband and four-year-old to a suicide bombing at London soccer game.
• The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall $9.43 Golden Richards, a fundamentalist Mormon with four wives and 28 children, flirts with infidelity in this tragicomic family saga with a cast of flawed, perfectly realized characters.
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy $11.99 Cormac McCarthy's masterwork, Blood Meridian, chronicles the brutal world of the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the mid-nineteenth century. Its wounded hero, the teenage Kid, must confront the extraordinary violence of the Glanton gang, a murderous cadre on an official mission to scalp Indians and sell those scalps.
• Faithful Place by Tana French $12.99 Woman man plans to elope with disappears, thinks nothing of it until years later it looks like she didn’t leave on her own free will.
• A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read $8.99 Beginning of mystery series staring former socialite and journalist Madeline Dare
• The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt (YA) $10.99 A story about brotherhood, never measuring up and what war can do to a family.
• What is Left The Daughter by Howard Norman $7.28 A story told through a series of letters about how one father’s past has shaped his entire life
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sad ending
So someone in our condo complex passed away last week, and unfortunately his body had to "be discovered." That meant one of the neighbors called the police for a welfare check after enough flies collected in the unit to concern them.
What a sad way to go that you are that much of a recluse that no one notices when you are gone. I have no idea who lived in that unit (it was a building over, so I don't see those neighbors too often), but it makes me sad for the person living their life in that condo. Once we knew that the unit was unoccupied, Mike and I looked through the second bedroom window (which had its shades partly open). Apparently this person was a bit of a hoarder, but a hoarder of books. The second bedroom was piles and piles of books everywhere.
The fact that this person was an avid reader made me even more sad, because I felt some sort of connection (albeit really tiny).
One really gross thing about this whole mess is that after the body was removed (by the police and hazmat) nothing else has been done with the unit. There are still flies, a neighbor said there was a rat and the above neighbors claim there is still an odor.
You would think the HOA, even if this was a rented unit, would be able to contact either the owner (if the deceased was not the owner) or at least an alternate contact (as HOA papers require all the owners to have).
I'll be very sad to think that this person owned the unit and had no alternative contacts. What will happen then? What happens to those people who honestly die so very alone?
What a sad way to go that you are that much of a recluse that no one notices when you are gone. I have no idea who lived in that unit (it was a building over, so I don't see those neighbors too often), but it makes me sad for the person living their life in that condo. Once we knew that the unit was unoccupied, Mike and I looked through the second bedroom window (which had its shades partly open). Apparently this person was a bit of a hoarder, but a hoarder of books. The second bedroom was piles and piles of books everywhere.
The fact that this person was an avid reader made me even more sad, because I felt some sort of connection (albeit really tiny).
One really gross thing about this whole mess is that after the body was removed (by the police and hazmat) nothing else has been done with the unit. There are still flies, a neighbor said there was a rat and the above neighbors claim there is still an odor.
You would think the HOA, even if this was a rented unit, would be able to contact either the owner (if the deceased was not the owner) or at least an alternate contact (as HOA papers require all the owners to have).
I'll be very sad to think that this person owned the unit and had no alternative contacts. What will happen then? What happens to those people who honestly die so very alone?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Am I getting older....
Am I just getting older, or are people getting less tolerable in general?
Last night, which also happened to be Fat Tuesday, Mike and I had the displeasure of sitting behind this four most obnoxious people at the Shark's game.
These four, seemingly drunk and reeking of cigarette smoke, guys cared more about making themselves a spectacle than what was going on with the game.
Our seat neighbor (who sits by us at all games) asked one of these guys if they could lean back in their seats so he could watch the game with an unobstructed view. Now I'll admit, our seat neighbor comes off as kind of rude when he does this, but the this guy just pretty much ignored him.
Then they got into a verbal confrontation and it was almost like they were going to fight. Seriously guys?! It is not attractive nor comfortable for anyone to be around two people with awful tempers exploding over something as simple as LEANING BACK IN YOUR SEAT. The Pavilion asks you to do so at the start of the game. Why can't we keep our tempers even and just comply, rather than blow up at each other and create a spectacle. It makes you no more a man to get in a public argument; actually it makes you look like a 12-year-old junior higher. And that sight isn't pretty boys, not at all.
After a pretty uncomfortable first period, our seatmates found better seats far away from the d-bags in our section – I don't blame them.
For the rest of the game, these guys butted into other people's conversations, leaned as FAR FORWARD as they could and made sure everyone around them paid attention to them. During overtime, they tried to start the wave. Seriously! It's overtime people, the game hinges on these last five minutes and you are trying to distract everyone in our section by starting the wave?!?! SIT BACK DOWN AND SHUT UP! These minutes count and we didn't come to the game to watch you and the show you insist on creating in section 221.
Anyway, these guys were seriously the best example of how not to act at a Sharks game. Thankfully I most likely won't have to deal with them again, seriously though they ruined the atmosphere of the Sharks game for me last night.
Last night, which also happened to be Fat Tuesday, Mike and I had the displeasure of sitting behind this four most obnoxious people at the Shark's game.
These four, seemingly drunk and reeking of cigarette smoke, guys cared more about making themselves a spectacle than what was going on with the game.
Our seat neighbor (who sits by us at all games) asked one of these guys if they could lean back in their seats so he could watch the game with an unobstructed view. Now I'll admit, our seat neighbor comes off as kind of rude when he does this, but the this guy just pretty much ignored him.
Then they got into a verbal confrontation and it was almost like they were going to fight. Seriously guys?! It is not attractive nor comfortable for anyone to be around two people with awful tempers exploding over something as simple as LEANING BACK IN YOUR SEAT. The Pavilion asks you to do so at the start of the game. Why can't we keep our tempers even and just comply, rather than blow up at each other and create a spectacle. It makes you no more a man to get in a public argument; actually it makes you look like a 12-year-old junior higher. And that sight isn't pretty boys, not at all.
After a pretty uncomfortable first period, our seatmates found better seats far away from the d-bags in our section – I don't blame them.
For the rest of the game, these guys butted into other people's conversations, leaned as FAR FORWARD as they could and made sure everyone around them paid attention to them. During overtime, they tried to start the wave. Seriously! It's overtime people, the game hinges on these last five minutes and you are trying to distract everyone in our section by starting the wave?!?! SIT BACK DOWN AND SHUT UP! These minutes count and we didn't come to the game to watch you and the show you insist on creating in section 221.
Anyway, these guys were seriously the best example of how not to act at a Sharks game. Thankfully I most likely won't have to deal with them again, seriously though they ruined the atmosphere of the Sharks game for me last night.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Looking back....
So I recently looked back at my LiveJournal chronicle of my life from 2001-2008. Wow did I use to write! My goodness. Mostly it was to keep in touch with my friends from home, but somehow it eventually turned into a real account of what was happening in my life at that time.
I thought it would be prudent to save these thoughts, in case one day I want to share them with my future children (probably not). So far I have gotten through Jan. of my freshmen year of college.
First observation, I had the worst grammar, spelling etc. I have no idea how my friends read what I wrote and didn't constantly critique my writing. Whoa. I have really grown as a writer, in some ways.
Secondly, I am so glad I don't live in dorms anymore. While it was quite the experience for one year, there is no way I could handle that type of living again.
Also, wow, I was so self obsessed and melodramatic. I don't miss being that way at all. Reading my old posts really shows me that with age comes maturity, I have grown leaps and bounds since then.
One thing I am proud of is that a lot of the people I reference in my posts are still in my life – Kelsey, David, Maile, Mira, Raj and Ododa... to name a few.
Looking back has taught me a thing or two I didn't like about myself back then, but I also envy how unfiltered I was in my posts. I shared anything, no matter how fleeting the thought. Why don't I do that anymore? Because I don't think anyone will care? I don't know, as I read along in the years, I became very proud of my posts and descriptions of my day to day.
I would like to start that again. I really do hope to continue to post more often. I am keeping an idea book next to my desk for ideas for future blog posts. So keep coming back, because I am hoping to blog again like I did in yesteryear!
If you read or not doesn't really matter, I want something to look back on one day to remind me what I was doing when I was 28.
I thought it would be prudent to save these thoughts, in case one day I want to share them with my future children (probably not). So far I have gotten through Jan. of my freshmen year of college.
First observation, I had the worst grammar, spelling etc. I have no idea how my friends read what I wrote and didn't constantly critique my writing. Whoa. I have really grown as a writer, in some ways.
Secondly, I am so glad I don't live in dorms anymore. While it was quite the experience for one year, there is no way I could handle that type of living again.
Also, wow, I was so self obsessed and melodramatic. I don't miss being that way at all. Reading my old posts really shows me that with age comes maturity, I have grown leaps and bounds since then.
One thing I am proud of is that a lot of the people I reference in my posts are still in my life – Kelsey, David, Maile, Mira, Raj and Ododa... to name a few.
Looking back has taught me a thing or two I didn't like about myself back then, but I also envy how unfiltered I was in my posts. I shared anything, no matter how fleeting the thought. Why don't I do that anymore? Because I don't think anyone will care? I don't know, as I read along in the years, I became very proud of my posts and descriptions of my day to day.
I would like to start that again. I really do hope to continue to post more often. I am keeping an idea book next to my desk for ideas for future blog posts. So keep coming back, because I am hoping to blog again like I did in yesteryear!
If you read or not doesn't really matter, I want something to look back on one day to remind me what I was doing when I was 28.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
I like what I do...
Today reminded me why I like what I do for a living.
About an hour ago I was on the phone with Senator Simitian. We were chatting about the Kindergarten Readiness Act and he was explaining to me one of his colleague's opposing view of it.
Since so often I write on a very local scale, I forget that I can have a larger impact. I usually write about this local program or what the local board of educators is working on. Today made me feel important, like others out there value what I write.
Simitian has a million people to call, tons of legislation to work on, but had the time to spend twenty minutes on the phone with me. Why me? Because what I write impacts support for his work.
Sometimes I forget the power I have as a journalist. The most easily remembered feedback about my writing are the negative comments which oppose what I write. It is nice to know that people higher up, such as Simitian, read our paper as a way to keep in touch with the local community.
Hearing that made me proud, I help represent the local community. What I write has meaning to those who are in power politically. It is nice to remember that and makes me feel a little more important than say, writing about a new program at a local school.
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