YAY

Hilarious Facebook ad

Also kind of offensive.

The holidays are here

When Halloween comes around here in Augusta, it always seems too early. The weather has only barely cooled off, and the leaves haven't really changed. A few weeks into November it finally, belatedly feels like Halloween, with crisp morning air, bright colorful leaves, fog rolling in across the river and Canal, and a few ghostly bare branches. But then it's already time for Thanksgiving.

This year's Thanksgiving was quite late in the month, making the transition a little easier. By the time it got here, I was ready for it.

Like last year, I decided to host. This time, I cooked everything. Cheryl is now living in Augusta again and was able to come, but she just had neck surgery and couldn't move much. I told her to just come and not worry about anything else...not even to worry about being able to eat. I didn't want her to feel guilty or obligated to do anything.

I worked out my menu well in advance. I studied Better Homes & Gardens' turkey roasting guide for the bird. The side dishes all came from my 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes cookbook. I made Green Beans with Caramelized Onions, which was said to be a good substitute for green bean casserole; Broccoli with Caraway Cheese Sauce; and Garlic Roasted Potatoes, a recipe I've used before. I also got my dessert from that book: Pear Almond Crumble, served with frozen yogurt and caramel sauce.

I started cooking at around 2 o'clock, getting all my ingredients out and arranging them by recipe and prepping and stuffing the turkey ad getting it into the oven. While I cooked I watched a couple Thanksgiving episodes of Friends, which was a great way to get into the mood. I also set up my laptop in the kitchen and did AIM video chat with Mom, so I could see everyone arriving in Kentucky and ask Mom for cooking tips. It was really neat, but it seemed to lock up the computer a lot, and I'm not really sure why.

As dinnertime neared, I realized I was running a little behind, but Cheryl and Reid ended up arriving an hour late, so it worked out. I held off on the cheese sauce and carving the turkey until they arrived; everything else was ready to go.

I'm pretty sure this was my first time roasting a turkey. Mom was really helpful with advice about the pan and setting the bird on onions since I didn't have a rack. And I think it turned out great! I am pretty proud of myself.

I am also really happy with the side dishes. The green beans and broccoli were delicious, and the potatoes turned out fine too. The only thing I was unhappy with were the rolls; they didn't rise properly. But they still tasted all right.

After dinner we relaxed in the living room for awhile, and I cleaned up a bit, until we were ready for dessert. I had put the pan in the oven right when we started dinner, but we ended up letting it stand for awhile while the food settled. Finally I spooned proper portions into bowls and added a scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt and a drizzle of caramel. It was delicious--and only 4 points!

By using heart healthy recipes and only eating a small breakfast and lunch, I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving within my points range. I am pretty proud of that accomplishment, too.

While we ate dessert, Reid and I played Wii Sports. He ended up getting really good at bowling! Unfortunately his shoulder started hurting, so we had to quit. At that point we went ahead and made Miis for Reid and Cheryl so they can both play when they come over. It's near to see them in the games when I play now :)

Finally the evening was over. We all hugged and they headed home. I felt very happy with how the day had gone.

I was pretty worn out, and my lower back was sore, but I worked away at the kitchen little by little until everything was cleaned up and put away. It was such a good feeling to get up the next morning and walk into a spotless kitchen.

The day after Thanksgiving wasn't traditional for me. Usually I spend that day eating leftovers and decorating for Christmas. This year, I relaxed, played the Wii, went out to lunch at Mi Rancho with Sean, stopped by Best Buy with Sean to get him a new mouse, went home and ordered some Ethernet cable, and finally got all dressed up and went to see the Nutcracker at the Imperial.

It was a really good performance, with gorgeous sets and costumes. I think this was my first time seeing ballet in Augusta. I was pretty impressed, especially by the special effects, though I feel the Lexington Ballet dancers are somewhat more precise in their movements. There were a few really talented dancers, though, especially towards the end.

A day later, I've still got the music in my head :)

Even though I had intended the Nutcracker performance to get me in the mood for Christmas, I'm still not quite there yet. Part of the reason is that I'm going to a Thanksgiving lunch with people from work tomorrow. Once that's over with, I'll be free to transition into the next holiday. Projects will be decorating my apartment and my office at work.

I originally wasn't planning to to home to Kentucky for Christmas since I don't have much time off, but I've been thinking about it and I would really be sad if I didn't get to see my family. So what I think I'll do is drive up after work in Christmas Eve, and drive back Sunday afternoon. I had thought about flying, but there is no direct flight from Augusta to Lexington, and hardly any direct flights from and to other airports. It's just not worth the hassle. Plus, if I drive, I can easily bring all the presents :) This year, Sean will stay home, as he has plans to do some gaming the day after Christmas.

With that decision, I'm feeling more and more ready for my favorite holiday.

I'm also going to have a Christmas party. This year, I've been trying to observe all the end-of-year holidays more. I dressed up for Halloween, I roasted a Thanksgiving turkey for the first time, and now I'm going to host a Christmas cookie and gingerbread house decorating party. I'm going to invite dozens of people and let them bring their kids, and I'm going to set up decorating stations all over the apartment. It's going to be a blast!

I'm glad I'm taking the time to really enjoy the holidays. It's a lot of fun :)

My view :P

Ready for the show

Not too bright in here...poor iPhone camera.

Thanksgiving timeline

2:30: Prepare stuffing, stuff and baste turkey, begin to roast (325).

3:30: Start rolls.

3:50: Let dough rise.

5:00: Start potatoes.

5:15: Put potatoes in oven.

5:20: Punch down dough. Let rise again.

5:30: Remove aluminum foil from turkey to crisp skin.

5:45: Begin steaming green beans and making sauce on stove.

6:00: Remove turkey from oven. Form rolls and bake (375). Start on pear crisp.

6:10: Begin steaming broccoli and making sauce on stove.

6:20: Remove rolls and potatoes from oven. Bake pear crisp (375). Carve turkey. Add sauces to vegetables. Eat dinner!

7:10: Remove pear crisp from oven and put in dishes with frozen yogurt. Eat dessert!

Boat parade preps

Can't wait to see all the beautifully lit boats sailing down the
Savannah!

An overcast day on the river

Sent from my iPhone

Classy

I wish I'd gotten a closer picture of this--the billboard left of center is for a lawyer, promising "Aggressive DUI Defense".

Sent from my iPhone

Fatitude

Actually, this post is about losing weight, I just thought the word "fatitude" was funny.

Check out what I looked like back in July!

And now look at me from two days ago:

Can you see the difference in my face? I sure can. Wow.

Sandwich

I may have to remove the bacon.

White Elephant

Course #1: side salad

Obese people are people too

Canada has ruled that people who require two airline seats can have them without paying extra.

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Canadian airlines of a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that people who are "functionally disabled by obesity" deserve to have two seats for one fare.

My friend posted to Twitter, "This is kind of ridiculous. If you're wide enough for a second seat, you ought to pay for it."

He doesn't believe he's being unfair, because he's one of the people who might be affected by this sort of ruling. However, there is a fundamental fallacy in his argument, and that is

Obese people don't have the same rights as people at lower weights.

If you think of each airline seat as a commodity, it seems unfair for one person to get two while others only get one for the same price. But that's not really what's going on here. The obese person isn't enjoying a luxurious extra seat, with room to lounge or lie down or spread out. The obese person is simply getting enough room to actually sit down. To say that a person must pay extra for a seat because they require more room is nothing more than prejudice. Should a person in a wheelchair pay extra for the room her chair takes up?

This brings me to another fundamental fallacy. This fallacy is what breathes life into the first.

Obese people choose to be obese.

How many obese people do you know who say, "I love being obese! I wouldn't change a thing about myself!" I doubt you know anyone who says that. No, what an obese person is more likely to say is, "I'm obese because I'm lazy and don't eat right."

That argument may or may not be true. I'm not trying to diminish the importance of personal responsibility for one's health. But the fact of the matter is, our society makes it ridiculously difficult to escape obesity.

We are less active

We hardly have to walk anywhere. We drive our cars straight up to the buildings we want to enter, even if they're right next door. There's a negative connotation associated with walking. When you see a person walking down the street, do you think, "Oh, how healthy!" or do you think, "What a vagrant! Get a job!" Yes, there is laziness involved here. But our country's transportation fundamentals--the way we organize how we get from place to place--are heavily skewed against healthy options.

We have evolved into car-addicts. We zone our towns so that it's often impossible to commute by any way other than car. While large cities may have subways or buses, these seem to have a negative connotation. Smaller cities may or may not have public transportation, and certainly not enough to make switching a viable choice for most people. The "ideal" is to have your own car and drive it everywhere.

We also have an obsession with "convenience" and "efficiency". Americans have always been about innovating in order to save time and money. It somehow seems more efficient to us to drive everywhere than use other methods of transportation. It's certainly more convenient. We can carry more things in a car, and we can stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We can drive right up to wherever we're going and be inside in a flash.

Our transportation issue has evolved into a self-feeding cycle. We drive everywhere because city planners zone commercial and residential far away from each other, because we like the convenience of driving and the "safety" of neighborhoods secluded from commerce. We can't stop driving everywhere easily, even if we want to. It takes too long to get to places by foot or bike. It's less safe. And we don't have any other options, except perhaps a bus that doesn't quite go where we need it to.

We don't eat right

This point hardly needs to be made. Everyone knows by now that human beings are not supposed to eat as much as we eat here in America, and certainly not the types of food we eat. The majority of us are built to store fat to keep us from starving when times are rough. As many have noted, though, our cheapest food items nowadays are the ones that are the worst for us. It's harder to eat fresh vegetables because we often don't have time to cook, so we pick up something quick (and loaded with fat and salt) and the veggies go bad in the fridge.

Why don't we have time to cook, if everything is supposedly so convenient? Because we don't actually save any time doing things the way we do them. We sit in the car driving to work on the other side of town. We sit around for 8 to 12 hours trying to make more money. Instead of setting convenience as a means to an end--a healthy, joyful life--we've made convenience our goal.

Our relationships, just like our health, suffer because it's inefficient to spend time working on them.

"I deserve it"

The sheer amount of time, energy, and money it would take for an obese person to work themselves down to a healthy size are the reasons more of them (us) aren't doing it. We basically have to fight basic precepts of our society. We have to teach ourselves that convenience is not good. We have to teach ourselves that it's okay to spend more money. We have to teach ourselves to spend less time on things we enjoy so we have more time to exercise. And all of these things run completely counter to the "pursuit of happiness" we are indoctrinated into growing up.

We're told we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. That this is our privilege as Americans. We believe that we have a right to convenience. We have a culture of entitlement, and if things don't go our way we feel it's perfectly acceptable to pitch a fit. These underlying assumptions feed our quest for more, more, more, now, now, now, whether that be a faster route to school than walking or the bus, or as much food as we can scarf for the least amount of money.

We are, essentially, training ourselves to be lazy in all things--making it appealing to be selfish and miserable.

The inverse

Many of us recognize this sense of entitlement in ourselves and others and find it repulsive. We don't want a handout, we'll say. We don't want special treatment. We want to be treated like everyone else.

The problem is, sometimes we go too far. We'll state that it's only fair that obese people pay for as many seats as they need, for example, because they shouldn't get more of anything than anyone else. We'll buy into a logical fallacy because we don't want to be identified with our gluttonous society.

Obesity is not something we can turn off like a light switch. It is a fundamental problem in our society that everyone--individuals, businesses, and government--needs to work together to eliminate. But while we're working on it, the fact of the matter is, people are going to be obese.

Obese people are people too

Giving a person a chair that is the right size is not special treatment. It is not saying, "You are entitled to be obese." It is saying, "I want you to be just as comfortable as everyone else."

Marginalizing people due to their size ignores the fact that obesity, for many people, is not a choice. Poor education, societal pressures, convenience and "efficiency", genes, the slow death of the community, and factors we may not even be aware of yet have all combined to thrust Americans into an unhappy, unhealthy world. We can no longer simply blame the fat guy for being fat. We have to take a hard look at everything we do as a society.

We need to educate. We need to reform our transportation system. We need to offer more healthy options. We need to put an emphasis back on communities, on taking care of each other. We need to do all of these things and more to get ourselves back on track.

And in the meantime, we need to treat the ones who are affected most with the same dignity and respect we give everyone else. No more...and no less.

Lunch

It's a beautiful, perfect fall day. The sky is a rich, ripe blue and
the air is cool, not cold. Everything's covered with leaves. The sun
tinges the trees with gold, and a soft breeze and quiet birds are all
that pepper the lovely stillness.

Well, those, and the distant sounds of traffic. But I'm ignoring that ;)

Obsess much?

Me: Did someone turn my light back on when I was in the webinar?

Jeff: You worry about the tiniest things.

Me: Yeah, I know.

Jeff: I think you turned the light back on, then forgot about it.

Me: ...you could be right.

Nerd joke

Here's a joke from my coworker Ed:

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar.

One of them approaches the bartender. The bartender asks, "What'll you have?"

"A beer," the mathematician says.

"And for you?" the bartender asks the next mathematician.

"Half a beer."

The bartender pauses, then moves on. "How about you?" he asks the third mathematician.

"A quarter of a beer."

The bartender stops. "You're all idiots," he says. Then he pours two beers and walks away.

Cold

Thoughtdump

Twitter is performing database maintenance. How am I supposed to regale you with snippets of useless information about my day?

Oh, that's right, I have a blog.

I'm in that discontented mood that I seem to get a lot. Usually I need to make some sort of proactive life change, or at least come up with some plans to do so, in order to shake the mood. Unfortunately, one change I had wanted to make has been vetoed--I had hoped to set up a treadmill at my work station, but the higher-ups don't like the idea. I don't know if they thought I wanted to jog, and get all sweaty, or what. All I really wanted was to stay moving, at 1 mph or less, rather than sitting all day. I'm considering asking if I can just raise my desk so that I stand all day instead. We'll see.

I've been thinking a lot about my poor blog, and how I keep neglecting it. I think I want to give myself writing assignments and stick to a posting schedule, at least for awhile. I also want to get better about reading more.

A big problem is that I don't want to spend a lot of time sitting around--which of course is why I wanted a treadmill at work. So I am thinking about ways I can incorporate exercise into the typically stationary activities I do at home.

Sean's been wanting to move our computers into the second bedroom (which is what I wanted from the beginning, but whatever ;>), so I'm thinking about what I could do in there. Maybe a treadmill desk; maybe a desk that can be used with my bike on its stand; maybe something that can do both.

These days, when I get home I don't feel like doing anything productive. I'll get online and read a few things or watch TV until bedtime. I think having a regular desk instead of using the coffee table would help. You have to kind of settle in to really work on a computer, and leaning over from the couch or sitting on the floor kind of precludes that. So hopefully the move to the second bedroom will help too.

A friend mentioned yesterday that someone he knows has lost weight by making small changes, like not sitting down when he watches TV. I have used the Free Step on the Wii Fit while watching TV before, so I think I'll try to keep doing that. (Unfortunately it maxes out at 30 minutes, at which point I have to change input back to the Wii and turn it off or start it over.)

I'm hoping I can get to the point where some sort of activity is built into everything I do...and I'm hoping that that will give me the energy to do even more things. I'm always talking about being tired of being in a rut, but I never seem to actually try to get out of it. Part of it is a lack of motivation, part of it is not having the right tools, and part of it is just not being sure of what I want to do. I can at least solve that last problem by thinking about it, by going ahead and trying different things and seeing what sticks.

Another thing I really want to do is find and stick to a good calendar/project organization system. I want to be able to track what I'm doing and what I need to do, to pat myself on the back and keep myself on track. I want to accomplish things that take longer than a day.

Here's hoping I can figure something out about all this.

Beautiful fall on the Canal

Sent from my iPhone

William Bartram Trail

And me.

Lake Olmstead area of the Canal

Sent from my iPhone

Christmas Made in the South

Sent from my iPhone

How?

It's so cold!

True fall

Sent from my iPhone

Martintown Road

I started at the golf course today, so I'm turning around here.

A (very) late lunch

Sent from my iPhone

An explanation of my mood

Some of you might have been a little concerned by my tweets a little earlier in the evening. Thought I'd give you an explanation.

Tonight was Brooke's last night in town, and we met up downtown for First Friday. That sentence makes it sound a lot easier than it actually was. I found a parking space and called her, and she had parked on the other side of downtown, so I moved my car and then walked, and then decided I didn't like where I'd parked the second time so I walked back and moved it again, and finally headed down to the area of Elduets Treasures of the World, where Brooke had met up with Mari.

The whole time I was walking up there, all I could think of was how socially crippled I am. I did not want to be there. A few times I was on the verge of tears and I didn't know why. I felt stupid and uncool and overwhelmed.

I think a big part of it was that I'd had a long day and a long week and didn't really have the energy for a night out. Usually when I go out at night I need to be rested. I'm the type who spends all her energy on preparing and then is totally worthless at the actual event. So it probably wasn't a good idea to try to go, really.

I was also a little disappointed that we weren't doing what we'd originally planned, which was something far more my speed: sitting at home watching anime. And that made me feel even more like a loser--if I was a regular person, I'd be fine with going out on a Friday night and enjoying all the happenings downtown.

So all of that made me keep thinking more and more depressive, self-pitying thoughts.

I felt a bit better after having a chili dog. I probably shouldn't have eaten it, but it was comforting (and delicious).

Brooke and I are actually on the phone right now talking about how the night didn't work out the way we wanted. She's going back to England tomorrow, but she'll be back in five weeks, so we're both looking forward to that.

Dog

I get the feeling his owners are waiting for something...

Bread from Oasis Garden

Plus one of the pears I bought yesterday.

Oasis Garden

Sent from my iPhone

I will be shopping here again :)

Sent from my iPhone

New North Augusta Kroger

Big and beautiful!

OMG

Beautiful Christmas dishes!

Well, that's odd

Sent from my iPhone

Fall color

Sent from my iPhone

Martintown Road bridge

Sent from my iPhone

End of the road

Went "the other way" to start since I have more time today. Here's the
end of the old route. Turning around!

Greeneway with Brooke

Sent from my iPhone

Made it...

...from the Activities Center to the end. (Glad I don't have an Obama
sticker on my car...the Activities Center is a polling place!)

Eating lunch in my car at Riverwalk

It's kinda cold out!

Fall arrived over the weekend

Sent from my iPhone

Greenway

Sent from my iPhone

The setting

The story takes place two generations after near-apocalypse. Humanity has turned back an alien invasion at great cost and is now working to repopulate and to build safeguards against future invasions. To the first end, cloning has become a major industry, and the Mazarin family are at the top of the heap. To the second end, science, technology, and warfare academies have sprung up everywhere. The most elite of those is where we find our characters. The school gets plenty of private donations from industrialists, including Neville Mazarin himself. This is a school for commanders, so obviously it's where everyone wants their child to go. Tuition is astronomical, but there are a fair number of scholarships available. Some students are there on recommendation of an industrial titan or politician. It's unclear why others are there, especially the ones who seem to have little interest in classes.

The boarding school is part of a self-contained city that can, thanks to alien technology, move, although this is not frequently done due to energy costs.

Character sketches

Celia Mazarin: Popular, drop-dead gorgeous, and wickedly intelligent, but doesn't have any real friends and considers herself shy. Doesn't know how to relate to anyone as her background is so different--she's the daughter of the richest man in the world, so none of the other students can really compare. Sophomore who has attended this school since kindergarten.

Natalie "Byron" Ryan: Unpopular, beautiful but slovenly, antisocial, theatrical, and a brilliant musician. Byron is more likely to be cutting class and smoking than paying attention to teachers. Sophomore. Transferred in freshman year.

Mick Allen: Seems rather uninteresting at first. Newly-transferred sophomore, but keeps to himself and doesn't excel or fail. Tends to stress out privately.

Julien Straub: Quiet senior with few friends, most of them girls. An artist.

Amaris Martin: Child of diplomats with a gift for languages. A junior. Plays the flute.

Maran Martin: Amaris' older brother, a senior. Plays piano.

Bill Anderson: The quintessential nice guy. Student body president, baseball player, senior.

The Franks

Milla Frank: Bill's on and off girlfriend. Makes decent grades but hasn't really found her calling. Senior. Eldest Frank child. Feels like she should accomplish something great, but isn't sure what that would be.

Phillippa "Phil" Frank: A junior. A genius in physics, especially electromagnetic phenomena. A marriage has been arranged for her with a college-age boy, but she's having him wait until she's satisfied with her education and life experiences.

Thaddeus Frank: Phil's twin, a junior. Often makes fun of his sister about her arranged marriage. On the baseball team.

CD Frank: A sophomore.

Josephine "Joey" Frank: The most outgoing of all, Joey is also the baby of the family. She loves anything and everything cute, but surprisingly is rather timid around animals. She also has an insatiable sweet tooth. A freshman.

Raquel Pella: A loudmouthed sophomore.

Serena Midler: Alpha female of the main sophomore clique.

Mindy Clark: Serena's number one. Dresses perhaps too sexily when not at school. Has most guys at the school wrapped around her little finger.

Stacy Keane: The rather sharp-witted member of Serena's clique.

Beth Wagner: A shy girl who seems somewhat out of place in Serena's group.

Chad Birkenstock: A freshman who has become something of a gofer for Serena.

What does your browsing history say about your gender?

This guy uses known demographics about the visitors to certain sites to check your browser history and guess your gender. It's kind of interesting to see the male-female ratio of visitors to some of these sites!

Here are my results:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 92%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 8%

Site	Male-Female Ratio
google.com	0.98
myspace.com	0.74
youtube.com	1
mapquest.com	0.83
amazon.com	0.9
facebook.com	0.83
blogger.com	1.06
imdb.com	1.06
flickr.com	1.15
weather.com	1.08
nytimes.com	1.13
allrecipes.com	0.57
noaa.gov	1.41
wachovia.com	0.87
snopes.com	0.74
cbsnews.com	1.17
mininova.org	1.63
barackobama.com	0.68
zillow.com	1.13
bhg.com	0.55
feedburner.com	1.11
godaddy.com	1.17
payless.com	0.47
pandora.com	0.9
rollingstone.com	1.08
johnmccain.com	1.27
tinyurl.com	0.83
usanetwork.com	0.59
pair.com	1.08
yousendit.com	0.9
kw.com	0.77

(I only visited rollingstone.com to tell them to stop sending us their magazine. I have no idea how we got subscribed. :P)