The Best Thing to Happen to Air Travel

If you were thinking the ability to purchase an exit row seat for a nominal fee, given you are comfortable shuffling people down the giant yellow slide in case of an emergency that is less likely to happen than you getting struck by lightning while checking your mail... you might be right.

But I was thinking the Sky Mall magazine.  

And this post is brought to you by the following song: 

I may have gotten a serious eye roll the other night when I broke in to "kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty. . . "

The video made me nostalgic for all the times I have been on an epic flight and entertained myself by making fun of the products in the Sky Mall.  And the funny thing about some of the gadgets is, not only can you kind of understand the purpose and a use for most of them, you know someone who either has or needs that item. But I haven't flown in a while, and I was feeling a little Sky Mall deprived.  Luckily, they have a website, so Sky Mall can become Couch Mall, or my favorite, Bored-in-Class Mall.  Here is a collection of interesting things I found in my recent foray* into Sky Mall's website:

The only thing that would make this lovely sculpture classier is if it was 7 feet tall rather than the 2.5 feet it is advertised as.

The Bug Vacuum, because regular vacuums can't suck up a spider. . . ?

Only in America. . . 

Yes, because I always wanted to wake up, sit at my computer in my underwear and tennis shoes and pump some iron.  

That massage better feel really good, because you look like a doofus. 

I love this.  This is the Nose Aid, designed to stop bloody noses by applying pressure to the outside of the nose.  Maybe I am wrong, but is this not a clothespin with those little felt furniture feet on it?  I think this gadget retails for 12.99.  I can make you 50 of them for the same price.  And then you can go around punching all kinds of people in the face and leave them with a Homemade Nose Aid! 

Nothing says "I'd like to flush $70 down the toilet" like the Richard the Lionhearted Throne Toilet Seat.

This is my absolute favorite.  You can go all Obi-Wan Kenobi on your veggies and just Zap! away all the germs.  This makes healthy eating pretty bad-ass.  

*I didn't realize what a great word foray was until I Googled it to make sure the spelling was correct.  It means "to ravage in search of spoils."  And as you can see, some wonderful spoils were certainly found.

The Day in Which She Purchases New "Those Sweats"

I hope you read the title and were horrified that you were going to spend the next 5 minutes reading about my pants.  Because you totally are, but it's about more than just sweatpants.

So I, like most young women, have a pair of what I call "those sweats."  The ones that seem like they were mass produced for a thousand people built exactly like you.  They are the sweats you dream of in the 3rd hour of a boring meeting/class/formal event.  And recently, they have been the sweats you are afraid to wash because they might unravel completely.  They are the sweats that don't keep you warm because they have holes in the knees and butt.  They are the sweats that you have had to repeatedly cut pieces off the cuff because they are paper thin and disintegrating when they slide along the ground under your shoe.  They are stretched out in odd places, warn out in darn near x-rated places, and the lettering has faded beyond recognition.  They are the sweats you wear everyday because you just love them.

 And, maybe most importantly, these sweats come from NDSU.  They are my undergrad pants.  And for weeks I have been complaining about their sorry state of disrepair.  And today, I decided to do something about it.  I bought new pants.  U of M pants.  When you buy sweatpants--hoping  they will become "those sweats"-- from an institution, that's when you know you are in a seriously committed relationship.

And I came home, said sorry to my NDSU pants (but I haven't thrown them out just yet. . . ) and put on the new pants.  And they aren't quite yet molded perfectly to me like the old ones.  But they were soft and fuzzy.  And they are warm.  And they do say "PUBLIC HEALTH" all the way down the left leg.

They could work out all right, I suppose.

Logic Models: Making Chaos Make Sense

This is what my Saturday morning/early afternoon looked like, as I built a logic model for the program I am going to be evaluating for my Master's Project.  What I love about logic models is that the finished product is a very orderly set of color coded boxes containing succinct and direct text with arrows that connect only the directly related boxes.  Things make sense.  It is easy to follow.  It is easy to see gaps and mistakes.  It just takes the above-captured level of disorganization and resource chaos to make it happen.  Luckily, the process is made better by later color coding.  Life is always better with labels and color codes. 

Bob Costas is a Crappy Commentator. I am Better. See?

It's the Olympics, baby!  Wahoo!  The opening ceremonies have been on for 2 hours now, and I needed something to do to co-entertain me.  So here are my reactions to the opening ceremonies, at the time (Central, of course) in which they occurred.  It's two and a half hours of commentary goodness, so it gets kind of lengthy.  Like all my other posts.

8:27 pm: Hot pants, Azerbaijan.

8:27 pm: Bermuda actually wore Bermuda shorts.  Awesome.*

8:29 pm: Brazil has a president with one name (Lula)? Who does he think he is, Madonna?  Not until I see him in the cone bra do I believe he earns the prestige of going by one name.

8:30 pm: Cayman Islands.*

8:32 pm: McDonald's sponsors Team USA? McDonald's sponsors some of the greatest athletes in the nation?  Well, if that doesn't send mixed messages...

8:36 pm: Ethiopia.*

8:37 pm: Finland competes in the World Sauna Championships each year.  Yes, I could do that.  WHOA! Update: last year the temperature of the sauna got to 230 degrees.  Nevermind, I could not do that.  Could not, could not, could not.

8:38 pm: Georgia enters, having lost an athlete from a training accident today.  No jokes about this one.  To have a delegation of only 8, and to lose an athlete at the young age of 21, I have great respect for this delegation continuing to participate in the opening ceremonies.

8:41 pm: Ghana's first winter athlete enters. Very cool.*

8:43 pm: Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places on earth, sending one athlete.*

8:44 pm: Iceland has never won a medal.  Strange, as they have almost the most winter on the planet.

8:46 pm: SHOCKED that Iran is sending more athletes than Ireland.

8:48 pm: The Jamaican bobsled team didn't make it this year?!  Well, this Olympics is a total bust now...

8:49 pm: The stylistic similarities between the Japanese and Canadian flag made for an actually pretty cool display when Japanese athletes came in to BC Place waving both flags.

8:53 pm:  I can't believe they put a commercial over the entrance of Kyrgyzstan!  Blasphemy!

8:54 pm: Mexico's only athlete is a 51 year old skier.  Very cool!*

8:56 pm: Montenegro.*

8:57 pm: Morocco.  One of five African nations at the Olympics.*

8:58 pm: Kudos to Nepal for bucking the flag system and not having a rectangular flag (It's two triangles, side by side).

8:59 pm: What do you get when 99 blondes enter the room?  Norway.

9:00 pm: Pakistan also here for their first time.*

9:01 pm: Portugal.*

Sometime during the McDonald's commercial: Senegal.*

9:09 pm: Switzerland.  Meh, I have neutral feelings towards them,  Apparently though, they have an athlete that looks JUST like Harry Potter.

9:10 pm:  Dear China, they're Taiwan (not Chinese Taipei).  And deserve to fly their own flag at the Olympics.

9:12 pm: Sharing the longest friendly national border in the world (with Canada, of course!)-- The USA!  Proudly sending 216 athletes, with Minnesota the most represented state.  Wooohoooo!

9:14 pm: Poor Uzbekistan.  Shoved between the US and host nation Canada.  Poor Uzzies.

9:14 pm: The Canda-hoovians.  Who apparently only want to win the hockey medal.  Sounds like they forfeit the rest of their events, eh?

(Musical performance with a Disney-like "Go get 'em, buckaroo" beat and lyrics.  Also of note, the First Nations cast members have been jumping/dancing for over an hour at this point- yikes)

9:26 pm: It's all dark, foggy, and a deep-voiced actor speaks mythically.  Every Olympics Open Ceremony has a scary part.  Why?

9:30 pm: Ooooh, a starry Bison!  Go NDSU!!

9:34 pm: The "whales" going across the stadium floor are phenomenal.  Even though we only ever saw them from the shore, watching the whales migrate off the coast of northern California was one of the most amazing things from the natural world I have experienced.

9:44 pm: Interesting that they are giving homage to Quebec, seeing as that region has attempted to separate itself from Canada several times.

9:50 pm: a punk-rockin' tap dancer with mountain man beard?  Only in Canada.

10:06 pm: Feeling a very subdued mood compared to China's raucous Opening Ceremonies in 2006.

10:19 pm: Ooooh, a feel-good speech.  I like this very much.  Even if it is only for 2 weeks, the nations of the world seem to hate one another a little less during the Olympics.

10:23 pm:  I feel like Canada is the world's "favorite uncle."  Just the nice guy in the family, who doesn't really do anything rude or overly exciting.

10:27 pm:  I would like to someday be President of the International Olympic Committee.  Even if just for a day.

10:31 pm: I understood way too much of the French... whoa, kickback to high school.  It's like those ridiculous listening and comprehension exams, except not on a dilapidated old cassette player that skipped every other word.

10:36 pm: I thought I loved "Hallelujah" when Rufus Wainwright did it, but k.d. lang's rendition tonight was pretty darn powerful.

10:45 pm: Interesting that Gen. Romeo Dallaire chosen as a "highly respected" individual to carry in the flag.  Gen. Dallaire has done a lot of good things for Canada, and even the world, but his position within the UN at the time of the Rwandan genocide in the early 1990's makes him an interesting candidate on the global stage tonight.

10:48 pm: This is an epically long ceremony.  I was interested in climbing into bed, oh, an hour ago.

10:56 pm: The idea of the "mystery cauldron" for the Olympic flame makes this feel suddenly like a Harry Potter event.

11:02 pm:  I have been watching this since 6:30, blogging since 8:30, and I am exhausted.  Good night all.  And good luck, athletes!

* Countries with only one athlete.  I can't imagine it is easy to be the only person your country is hoping will bring home a medal, but what an honor for these athletes.  The global community should be proud of these brave trailblazers.  

The Rules of the Game: Extended Edition (Now With Bonus Cussing!)

Earlier this week I shared with you a little rant about how horrible Minneapolis is at enforcing their own Snow Emergency parking rules.  If you missed it, the gist is this: snow emergencies are designed to clean the road "curb to curb."  Thus, cars are not supposed to be parked along a curb line if that side of the street is scheduled to be plowed.  But, at least in our area, Minneapolis has not been ticketing or towing these cars, and instead plows around them, leaving ugly snow and ice barriers and ruts that make it extremely difficult to drive on the street and worse to park.

(Warning, I may drop, but censor the f-bomb in the next section)

But of course, since they failed to actually enforce their own law, which 95% of us follow because we like to have access to good street parking, they have enacted a whole new unholy terror of parking rules.

No parking on the even side of the street from Feb. 11 until April 1.


Why?  Because the streets got too narrow that it is dangerous to drive down them and emergency vehicles cannot pass.  This is valid.  But why did the streets get so narrow?  Because the City of Minneapolis failed to plow curb to fucking* curb when they plowed around cars that violated snow emergency routes.  And who is punished?  The rule followers who dutifully move their car every goddamn night for three days so the plow can zig zag around everyone else.

Boo.  City of Lakes, I am angry with you.

Although... in all fairness, who's to say they will enforce this rule any better than the last...?  Meh, I am not taking my chances.  To the odd side I go.  And don't be surprised if I do ANYTHING to wiggle out of driving so as to not give up my primo-supremo non-even parking space.

*That strikethrough is meant to act like those censor bars TV shows put over boobs, but apparently only works as well as tying floss around a lady's chest.  Meh, I tried.

The Rules of the Game

It's a snow emergency in Minneapolis (after what the northeastern United States would call a "snowmaggedon," but we just call Monday).  Snow emergencies are a funny thing, as it doesn't really mean there is a serious, life threatening emergency.  It means, to the best of my knowledge, that the city is attempting to do two things:
1.  Thwart nasty phone calls from disgruntled citizens complaining that the roads have some snow on them.
2. Collect as much money as possible by creating parking rules that require a Masters Degree in Reading and Understanding the Common Language of Civic Assholes

Minneapolis calls these "special" parking rules, and they really aren't that awful, but they certainly aren't designed to make it easy to remember where your car should be, and when it should or shouldn't be there.  For those of you unfamiliar with Mpls Snow Emergency Rules, they are as follows:

Day 1:
The Snow Emergency must be declared before 6 pm.  Occasionally, this means a declaration at 2pm.  Often, it means 5:58.  On this day, you must move your car off a "snow emergency route" from 9pm to 8am.  What's a snow emergency route?  Good question.  There are several ways to know if your car is on a snow emergency route: the street sign is blue, there are handy "This is a snow emergency route" signs tucked behind the bushes and trees along the street or completed painted over in graffiti, you  can look it up on the city's poorly managed map, or you may notice that no one else has parked there.  When in doubt in Minneapolis, if there seems to be an overabundance of parking spaces in which your car would actually fit comfortably, it is probably too good to be true.  Easy enough.  You can re-park here when the road has been plowed curb-to-curb.

Day 2:
You can park on the snow emergency route after 8 am.  Or on the odd side of the road.  How will you know it's the odd side?  While, it's like your cousin Larry, it's just always been a little, different.  Oh, not that kind of odd. . . It's the side with the odd numbered houses, or houses with an address that ends in an odd number. It shocked me in some ways that wondering what side of the street was odd and even came up in the city's FAQs about snow emergency parking.  Really, Twin Citizens? You don't know what the odd side of the street is?  So, just in case some of my readers are wondering, odd numbers are: 1,3, 5, 7, and 9.*  Again, if you can't tell the odd side of the road from the even, just park where everyone else is already parked.**

Day 3: A lather, rinse, repeat of Day 2, except the even side (2, 4, 6, and 8). Although, by this point, if you have been on the odd side the whole duration, because let's say you take the bus a lot of places, the snowplow has essentially buried your car every way from Sunday and created some mega-ridge that you have to attempt to Baja your way out of right onto an icy road.  There is no way you will accomplish this without at least one neighbor muttering what an ass you are.

Okay, somewhere in there are rules about parkway parking, but they are basically null and void because:
1. Parkways have all numbers on them: even, odd, and imaginary.
2.  No one knows what the hell a parkway even is, although evidently it is not somewhere you can park.  Which seems ironic.

The point of this blog was not to give you a Mugwumped synopsis of the parking rules of the Minneapolis Snow Emergency.  But you got 'em.  It was like bonus material.

The point, is to dispel the myths about the reasons Minneapolis declares a Snow Emergency in the first place.  Let us be reminded of the reasons the city does this:

1.  Thwart nasty phone calls from disgruntled citizens complaining that the roads have some snow on them.  

2. Collect as much money as possible by creating parking rules that require a Masters Degree in Reading and Understanding the Common Language of Civic Assholes, leading to everyone getting their cars towed

These are terribly false and misguided.  Here's how I know.  

About 95% of people follow the Snow Emergency rules in my area.  A handful of people seem to think they are entitled to park wherever they want, regardless of the emergency status of the snow.  And when you see these cars parked in what is sure to be the plows direct line of curb-to-curb snow evisceration, you just chuckle and think, "Poor sucker is gonna get his car towed."  

And then the plows come.  And the car is still there.  No tow truck, no parking patroller, nothing.  And the plow just slides around the car.

This may seem like the nice thing to do-- maybe the owner of said car is out of town, has the swine flu, is carrying for an elderly relative, has lost their ability to drive but holds on to the car for sentimental value.  Who knows.  And it is nice to give people the benefit of the doubt.  Except in parking wars.

Here's the problem, City of Minneapolis: you aren't towing anyone (and thus not makin' any money off them), but more importantly to me: YOU'RE NEVER GETTING THE ROAD CLEAN CURB TO CURB BECAUSE YOU ALLOW THEM TO STAY PARKED!!


And, sure, eventually they move their car and create parking spaces, but it's been plowed around so much that the space becomes all packed in with a frozen plateau of ice and snow that no one can park in.  And even if you can get in, forget trying to drive out through the Grand Canyon sized ruts the idiot left when he casually decided it was a nice day for a drive 6 days after the snow emergency.  And you know what Minneapolis?  You NEVER come back to clean those spaces up.  And they become ruined for the whole of winter.  


The website says "not following snow emergency parking rules will result in the vehicle being towed to a Minneapolis Impound Lot."

No, it will not.  Not following snow emergency parking rules will result in nothing.  It's arbitrary.  It appears to be an optional law in my neighborhood!  It totally sucks.  And now, I want to be the people the city is attempting to thwart in the first place, because it didn't do it's job.  It is a relationship we have here, that I "pay" taxes for.  I move my car, Minneapolis makes a clean space for it and make my road safe to drive on again.  I maintain my end of the bargain every time.  So far, Minneapolis does not.  Ever.  Seriously.






Just tow the goddamn cars.
  

*Nine is the only non-prime number in that bunch.
**This is meant to imply that there is no chance on God's white barren wasteland of a winter earth you are going to find a parking space during Snow Emergency.  Move your car and you might as well stay wherever it is you were going.  

You Better Be Moving

"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up.  It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive.  Every morning a lion wakes up and knows it must move faster than the gazelle or it will starve.  It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle.  When the sun comes up, you better be moving." 

- Maurice Greene

I was looking for some running inspiration this morning, and found this gem that I think speaks much louder to the other aspects of my life than running.  It is a good reminder that no situation gives us the privilege to stop trying, to stop working for something.  

Idioms for Idiots: Grad Student Edition, Vol. 1

To get the ball rolling is to get something started so it can begin to make progress.

I am not always a ball roller. . . sometimes I am ball nudger, moving things at whatever pace I choose and just enough so that the ball is in a slightly different spot than before so other people tend to stub their toes on it and go, "Huh.  Where did that come from?"  I also have a tendency to not nudge the ball until it must be nudged, and more regrettably sometimes a day or two after it was supposed to be nudged.  I would like to think time and deadlines are fluid, and open to interpretation.  But they really are not.

But, in the last semester of my graduate program, there was still a looming ball that had not even budged since I started the program.  The dreaded Masters Project ball, roughly the size of a VW van, I thought the Masters Project ball (from now on we will call this the MP ball) assigned to me must be defective, flat-bottomed.  Because it certainly wasn't rolling.  And for some reason, when I blew on it like it was a spoonful of hot soup, it just sat there all unmoving-like.

A few weeks ago, I panicked a bit about the MP ball.  For a few months I had been tripping on it and just walking around it, but with the final semester ahead of me, all of a sudden no matter where I turned I was running face-first into the behemoth that seems to separate the haves from the have-nots (as in I have a Masters degree, or I have not done anything worth my time and money in the last two years).  So, I launched a Hail Mary email to a professor, hoping she would be able to light path for potential projects, or at least throw a tantalizing enough flashlight down the dark cave of possibilities that I would chase it.  Turns out, she had the perfect project for me.  This is when the MP ball got a swift kick, shaking a little of the moss off of it, and making a few clumsy revolutions.

Fast forward to this week.  I met the staff that is currently working on the project.  Excellent people.  Exciting to be moving forward a little bit, but there is this wedge stuck at the base of the teetering MP ball-- putting together my committee.  It is sort of a no-no to start much by way of your project without getting all the paperwork done.  Which means having 800 signatures, timelines, approvals, exemptions, and a detailed map of your toeprints.*

Talk to academic advisor: check.
Secure non-program faculty: check.
Get a project advisor: as of 2 hours ago, check!

To say, at this point, that the ball is rolling is an understatement.  I should be up for exempt IRB review, which is a good thing, and my staff is super excited to have me on board and get started.  Not to mention that in addition to being asked to publish by August, my project advisor thinks defense in June is not only doable, but should be accomplished (as in, "Katie, I really see no reason why you shouldn't be defending this in June.  are you getting married?  Going to Aruba for a month? No? Then June is now your expected date of defense.")

The MP ball is hurtling uncontrollably towards degree completion, adulthood, and (at least temporary**) release from the academic world.  This is extremely exciting, although I have already picked estimated dates of mid-semester meltdowns and anticipate some late nights, high volumes of coffee and tea consumption, and a pleasant mix of Oh Shit! and Aha! moments.

Get ready, you are about to hear all about Emergency Preparedness modules, regression analysis, and logic maps.  I hope you can handle it.  Come to think of it, I hope I can handle it.

*Well, no. . . not really.  But kind of.  I think I may have promised my first born to someone along the lines. 


**If you ask me whether or not I have considered returning to school at some point for a PhD and/or Masters in Emergency Preparedness/Crisis Communication/etc, I will probably not tell you the truth because the truth makes me think I am an absolute glutton for punishment and clearly have no desire for things such as an income, my own living habitat, and social life.

Groundhog Day a la Mugwump

February 2nd.  The day that seals the seasonal destiny of temperate climate zones everywhere.  And it's all left up to a skittish overgrown gopher from Pennsylvania.  I've never even been to Pennsylvania.

So this year, I'm deciding.  I am the maker of my own winter destiny! And guess what?  I was up and out the door before the sun even got a chance to wave it's shadow casting finger at the metal and glass creatures of the downtown, much less myself, and certainly not a rodent.  No shadows.  No frightened mugwump.  No hiding in my Mugwump Cave for another 6 weeks.

It's official! you heard it here first! Winter is over!

(Never you mind the 2 inches of fresh, slippery snow that fell last night.)