-
Friday Cats!
I’m just about to walk out the door for a scrapbook convention (yay!), and took a spin around the house to catch the kids. No big surprises – they’re all up in the master bedroom sleeping.
Scrapblogging
Posted by barb on Jun 21, 2006 in Crafty Me
As if I needed more scrapping outlets, JD pointed me to Scrapblogs. It’s a site where you can put together online scrapbooks. I decided to try it with pictures from my 1999 trip to swim with dolphins with my aunt. You can see my results, just click the image below (WARNING: that link will launch flash, which, sadly, is the only way to view the scrapbook) [Scrapblog is gone – 1/2014]
The interface was fairly easy to use, but it felt a bit clunky and slow (though that could be that I’m eating 100% of my cpu running data for my thesis). I would also like more choices for stickers, frames and backgrounds. I started with a template for my scrapbook, but then you can add more frames, stickers, and backgrounds; however, the pages for adding more took a while to load. On the other hand, it’s a nice way to display pictures online with a bit of decoration and pizzazz.
-
Cool Shirt!
Posted by barb on Jun 18, 2006 in Biking
I’ve mentioned here previosly that sometimes I have trouble looking at myself as a *real* cyclist and my insecurities as a “fat” cyclist. I hate to admit it, but I also sometimes have trouble seeing myself as a worthwhile person in general, just because I’m larger than I should be (actually, more likely because I can’t seem to change that fact). On one level I know that’s stupid, but our culture has been set up to make fat people feel like lesser human beings. Never mind that I’m an astrophysicist contracting at NASA – I’m fat, so I can’t be as much of a person as the thin supermodels on the cover of Cosmo.
I don’t usually dwell on this much, or, rather, I try to bury it as soon as the thoughts pop into my head. Today, while biking, a group of cyclists passed me and Andrew, and one of the women said, “Cool shirt” as she passed me. I was wearing the cute “lava green” shirt I had bought for myself last summer the first time I made a 20-mile ride. I’m certain that this woman didn’t know the impact of her words.
-
Eclipse Scrapbook Done!!!
Posted by barb on Jun 18, 2006 in Crafty Me
I finished the eclipse scrapbook today! Actually, I should say scrapbooks – I had to use two books to fit all the pages. Yay!
Here’s the last page I did – the intro page:
-
Friday ride
Since we won’t be able to take a ride tomorrow, Andrew and I decided to take a short ride after work today. We forgot to take the bike rack out of Andrew’s trunk, so doing a ride from his work was out, so we decided to do an old favorite ride along the W&OD from the Vienna Community Center toward Falls Church. Along the way Andrew spied a bunny (see picture).
Total miles: 11.3
Season miles: 159.7
-
Friday Cats!
I took a quick spin around the house, and here’s what the cats are up to (no big surprises):
Ares is face-marking the kitchen chair
Duncan is slumbering in the master bedroom
Artemis is sunggled on my sweatshirt on the ottoman in the living room (where I’m working)
-
Detour
Posted by barb on Jun 15, 2006 in Random Thoughts
You know the saying, “you don’t need to be good, just lucky?” Well, it’s a good thing I’m usually pretty good, ‘cuz I’m sure as hell not lucky.
The traffic report on the radio mentioned an accident on I-66 this evening, so things were backed up a little bit from the Beltway to Nutley – exactly how I usually get home. Sometimes I ignore the warnings on the traffic report, and about half the time I regret it and half the time I don’t see what they were talking about. This time, though, the Beltway was backing up about three miles before the I-66 exit, so I bailed out on Chain Bridge Road.
Big Mistake.
Chain Bridge is always busy, but not usually stopped for longer than one red light, except at the first light into downtown Vienna. Today, however, it was a nightmare. In fact, it was closed in the middle of Vienna, and there was a one-lane detour around the problem. A one-lane detour that took 45 minutes for a net distance down Chain Bridge of one mile.
I can’t win. Traffic around here sucks.
I *AM* that cool!
Posted by barb on Jun 12, 2006 in Random Thoughts
One good thing that’s coming out of the change of contractor in charge of my position at work is that I’m getting the big honking raise that I requested!
When I was originally hired, I didn’t yet have my Master’s degree – I was a semester of paperwork away from it. So, they hired me as a person with a Bachelor’s degree and two years of experience, and they gave me the impression that I’d be compensated when I actually got the piece of paper for the Master’s. Of course, they were just blowing sunshine up my ass.
I looked at the change of guard as my opportunity to rectify the situation. Forunately, my manager saw it the same way, and I’m walking away with a 20% (!) raise. Yay me!
-
Weekend Bikin’
Saturday – C&O Canal
I’ve been itching to try new trails, since I’ve been getting a bit annoyed at the a$$hole cyclists on the W&OD, so I suggested that we try a piece of the C&O Canal. We drove up to Great Falls, just across the Potomac, where there’s an access to the trail in the National Park there. The trail was really quite nice. It was packed gravel, instead of pavement, which meant that biking was a bit harder. I snapped a bunch of pictures along the way.
Trip miles: 21.2
Sunday – W&OD
Another goal for the summer, besides a 30-35 mile ride, is to start doing two longer rides in a weekend. We don’t want to do this every weekend, but it would be nice to do it every once in a while (with an eventual goal of biking to the end of the W&OD one day, staying overnight at a B&B, then biking back the next day). With that in mind, we set out this morning on the W&OD from Herndon.
Immediately, my butt hurt from Saturday’s ride. Plus the wind was blowing directly at us. So, we didn’t make a 20 mile ride today, but made a valiant effort. We went to Asburn, as we’ve done several times now, then turned around.
Trip miles: 17.2
Weekend miles: 38.4
Season miles: 148.4
You’re not supposed to do that!
Posted by barb on Jun 5, 2006 in Random Thoughts
A bike. On the beltway. Not a motorcycle. A bicycle. Human powered. WTF?
On my way to work this morning, I had many things that I was thinking about committing to the blog. But just as I passed the Kennilworth ramp, I saw a bike coming on to the beltway. I did a double take. Triple take. Possibly a quadruple take (though that one might have been in the rear-view mirror). What was a bike doing coming onto the beltway? I’m scared to ride on little local roads. The rider must have gotten there by mistake, right? But in my second, third, and fourth looks, I couldn’t see any look of “oops” in the cyclist’s face or posture. He should have realized his mistake and turned around, but he kept going.
What I can’t figure out is where he thought he was going to go. The next ramp off was at the BW parkway – another road it is illegal for him to ride along. But it’s morning rush hour, so if he wasn’t getting off there, he’d have to cross through the merging traffic to continue on. But at least he was wearing a helmet. As if that would do any good against the traffic travelling at 70 mph along the beltway.
I just hope he doesn’t take anyone with him when he dies in a messy accident. And I hope whoever hits him on the beltway can forgive themselves – he’s the one who isn’t supposed to be there.