Happy Halloween

I realize its not yet Halloween but Otto has been very excited so we went and got his costume last weekend and he has been wearing it all week!

Okay. That's not really how it happened. I had a party to go to and so I went to Goodwill to get some fixin's for my costume (I was bacon and eggs. Sorry no picture, but see below for my bottom quarter). While there I discovered this gem of a costume and thought Otto could round out our paleo Halloween!

He got to go to the party too! And as you can well imagine he was the hit of the party!

Losing My Sex Appeal

A couple years ago, after becoming an auditor, I wrote a post about how much sexier it was to be an investigator than an auditor (see here for a recap Titles) and how much more interesting people found the job investigator than auditor. And that has remained true throughout my audit career. Telling someone you're an auditor is an automatic conversation killer. Sometimes that's an advantage. But, if I'm speaking to someone I'm actually interested in, I frequently relive the glory days when I was an investigator and just give that as my job description.

Well that's been the last two years and now things are getting worse. I just accepted a new job in IT. Now, I realize that IT and IT nerds are kind of ironically cool these days. But, unfortunately, I'm not working in the sexy part of IT. I won't be designing smart phone applications or hip websites or computer games. I won't be hanging out with twenty something hipster geeks wearing tight jeans and flannel shirts with dirty hair. NO, I'm working with data. Not only data, but data quality. If you try to place the word 'sexy' in a sentence with the word 'metad....'

 Ack, look what happens!

Metadata. Metadata is what I will be working with. When you google metadata, you find it's 'data about data'. That's about 10 levels of unsexy. But guess what!?!  I'm super excited. And, as always, Otto will still love me.

Let's review this story in pictures.

The original me. 

My brethren, the current me.

Soon to be me.

And finally I will leave you with what every IT nerd dreams of being........ And maybe some day I will achieve. (Of course, I'd probably have to give up crossfit!)

I design apps!

    

Octomom Obsession!

Somehow I discovered this website called explore.org. They have all these cool live streaming videos where you can see thinks like polar bears and brown bears fishing for salmon in Alaska. They even have a leaf drop foliage cam, which shows fall leaves, well, falling. But, the very coolest cam of all, is the PUPPY CAM!!!!

Eight great dane puppies were born 2 days ago. They will be raised to be service dogs for people with Multiple Sclerosis, individuals with Friedreich’s ataxia, and veterans with disabilities. And I have become completely obsessed!  They don't even do anything yet and I cannot stop watching! Something about it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside! I tune in at least once an hour to check in!  I'm sure you all want some pictures.

The mom's name is Chaos. She's a rock star. So much cooler than the (in)famous octomom.

If you look really closely at the two by themselves in the front, you'll see one has it's arm over the other! How could this not be exciting?

I don't think poor Chaos gets to sleep. At all times at least a few of the puppies are eating! Or trying to get the proper placement to eat, which seems to be challenging. (Their eyes are closed and their legs aren't really working properly yet).

Is there anything about this picture that isn't cute cute cute!

All 8. Their stomachs seem to be about 90% of their bodies, they move with a swimming motion. Sometimes they get stuck on their backs and have to figure out how to get upright. OMG!  That's the best part.

Anyhow, I'm sure you're thinking how could all that be interesting and I will admit that not much is happening, but I cannot stop watching!

In other dog news, I was on jury duty this week. this dog was chosen for the trial. I was not, fortunately! 

And finally, we'll leave dogs for a minute for some food news, I finally made paleo pad thai from my very favorite cook book, Well Fed. Uhm, wow, crazy good!!!! the noodles are spaghetti squash and the sauce is made from almond butter.  Once again I wonder, why everyone doesn't eat this way!

  
I think that might be my exciting week! Well, actually there was some more excitement, including one night where I stayed up PAST MIDNIGHT ON A SCHOOL NIGHT, but alas for you, none of that made it into pictures.

It's All Right Now

So I'm really not sure how this happened, but somehow last weekend was my 25th college reunion. No, it is not possible that I graduated from college 25 years ago (someone much have gotten the dates wrong), but despite the error, the event went off anyhow. And i went!  Last time I was back at Stanford was 1992 (yes, must have been 5 years). Between the 5 and the 25 I have been carefully avoiding all reunions. Somehow, the thought of a reunion brings up many insecurities. I'm sure I'm less successful, less happy, less beautiful, less smart, less whatever than everyone I went to school with. They all must have the perfect job, perfect marriage, perfect bright smiley kids. I don't feel this way about the normal people in my life, but somehow a reunion brings up all kinds of craziness. But I went, dreading it the ENTIRE time, I went. And guess what???? Fun!!!!  Who knew.

I'll share a few photos of my walk down memory lane, these probably won't mean anything to any of you, but whatever, my mom well appreciate them.  BTW, most of these photos were taken the first day when I was still in 'what the hell am I doing' mode. In fact, at this stage I was studiously avoiding anyone from my class at the risk that I wouldn't remember how I knew them or them me or they'd hate me or whatever.

This (second floor) was my freshman dorm room window. I lived in Donner, all freshman and extra fun! (No, it didn't get any more or less ugly in the last 29 years!)

I used to work at this frozen yogurt place.  Of course, at the time it was called the Corner Pocket (Co Po, as in get Fro Yo at the Co Po). I told the girl who worked there that I had worked there, she was thoroughly unimpressed. 

Uhm, our student union now has a Starbucks??!!??

Memorial Church. AKA Mem Chu. In the quad. I have no memories from this place. But it's in the quad and it's pretty.

Rodin, the gates of hell. Somehow there is an entire Rodin sculpture garden on campus.

But don't worry, I ate normally!  Phew!

Me dolled up for the big event on Friday night.I certainly don't look like I graduated from college 25 years ago!

Friday as I was walking around campus, I decided there was no way in hell I could possibly wear anything I brought. So I had to go out and spend way too much on these boots. Unfortunately, they didn't make the picture above. I wore them with socks and I'm pretty sure I looked kind of cool and hip!  Go me.  

 And then it all started.........

The dollies were at every event, dancing their cute little hearts out. I don't know how they did it. This was about 11 pm Friday. They hit all the parties. Then they danced before the game (Saturday), for 4 hours during the game, and at all the tailgaiters after the game (there was a reunion and tailgaiter for every 5 year class so 62, 67, 72, 77, 82, 87 etc etc). That's a lot of throwing your legs up to It's All Right Now! (All Right Now, Bad Company and Stanford theme song.)   

Did I mention that the foot ball game was FOUR HOURS LONG and went into overtime! Stanford won 54-48!  

The tree, Stanford's mascot, came with the dollies

And I saw people I hadn't seen in forever (two on the left, freshman dorm) and made new friends (on the right).

These people were all fellow Donnerites (freshman dorm!!)

 FUN!!!    And finally I'll leave you all with this chilling possibility........

Ack....... They must be in their 90s!

Yes

I must blog. It's been way too long. I've been way too busy. It will happen this weekend. In the meantime, I will tide you over with a picture of Daisy and her new love! (Ever since the cat app, she's been madly in love with the Ipad. It's kind of sweet, but it makes doing anything on the Ipad a little tough!)

I love you!!!!  

Bonus points to anyone who can guess what I was trying to watch!

Living the Dream

A girl tackles Seattle's latest traffic obstacles.

The stereotypical American lives away from work and spends their week commuting alone in a car, stuck in traffic twice a day, as they make the slow grind to work. For most of my life, I have lived 3-5 miles from work and ridden my bike. Occasionally, particularly when it's pouring rain, I wish I could just give in, hop in the car and make life easy. Sometimes I consider apply for jobs at a particularly large corporate in the eastern suburbs, but I usually talk myself out of it, primarily because driving there on a daily basis sounds like hell.

Well, this week I got to see how the other half lives.  I had a training in Bellevue and I wanted to go to the gym before hand. So, it was hop in the car drive to the gym and drive out to the suburbs. In addition, (no, the excitement doesn't stop there!) Seattle has revamped some of their primary traffic routes, giving 520 a toll and making Mercer street two ways. I got to test BOTH those new adventures.

Mercer has been one way for about forever (more than my life time) and two ways for about two weeks now. I ride my bike through the intersection of Dexter and Mercer every morning on my way to and from the gym. And it looks like a mess - particularly with the new two way pattern. At 8 am when I leave the gym, traffic is stacked up Dexter with cars waiting to turn onto Mercer and get onto I5. On Wednesday, with much trepidation, I jumped into the mess in my car. And guess what...... not so bad. It looked bad. But once you were actually in it, things moved pretty quickly!  Win Seattle. The next test was 520.  520 has a toll now. So for me, without a 'good to go' pass, it cost OVER $5 for my little one way trip to Bellevue (that's about $1 per mile). That seems excessive. But, I have to say, it was pretty much smooth sailing the whole way. So far win win (especially since my work will pay the 5 snaps).

While in Bellevue, I realized that unlike the good Seattlelite that I am I forgot my coffee mug. Swallowing my Seattle liberal guilt, I headed to Starbucks for tea in a paper cup - two cups, of course, because tea is so hot.  When in Rome......

Fast forward 8 hours of a REALLY boring training later and it's time to go home. First of all it seems to drive to work and park in Bellevue for the day one must pay $18!  Yeesh. For the trip home I chose I90, home to the masses now the 520 has a $5 toll. The 5 miles that took about 15 minutes on the way to Bellevue grew to 45-60 minutes on the way home. I got excited when my speed soared above 10 mph! Oops. It seems perhaps the 520 toll didn't reduce traffic, but merely moved it. 

Conclusion. The American dream sucks!  I'll take my 30 minute bike commute any day - well, most days.

In other new traffic news, when I was driving over the pass on I90 last weekend i saw signs for a new speeding camera.  How does this work?  Everyone who speeds gets a ticket????        

Best Ever

Okay, this picture does not do it justice, but my pink tomato finally ripened. I think I'm only going to get the one. But it was SO GOOD.  It looked like a peach. Eating it was like eating a delicious piece of fruit. It was well worth the effort, even if I only got one.

Now if I can only remember it's name.