R.I.P. Lappy

So, after a fun-filled Saturday afternoon, our Saturday night was really tragic in that Lappy, my beloved laptop that I have had since I started my Brandeis doctoral program 4 years ago, died. Back in February, I had taken him in to get his power jack fixed and it was working quite well but it just stopped working on Saturday night. I went into panic mode and managed to get all of my updated research burned onto disc before he died. But, I have to say that Lappy is a fighter. Later that night, William was able by positioning him on the floor and placing the cord in just the right position that lappy could be charged. But, any slight move would make him turn off. Sadly, this means that while Lappy is still technically alive, there's no way that I can use him on a daily basis. Thus, we are placing him into retirement for emergency use only since we did manage to transfer the rest of my data- photos, music, and a few programs- onto my new laptop. I knew that lappy was a great laptop and this proves it that he was able to hang on long enough to make a complete transfer. Thanks for helping me make it through the past 4 years Lappy! And I will make sure that you stick around for a little while longer.

LAPPY
2004-2008

Out of this World Weekend

On Friday, William and I went and saw WALL-E which was definitely out of this world. It was so good- even though there was limited dialogue. They made the movie so engaging that it didn't need dialogue. We went to at 5:30 showing (to get the discount) and the theater was PACKED- luckily, we got there a few minutes early so we were just off center on the side. I must admit that I am the biggest cry baby as I lost it at the end of the movie (not as bad as Titanic or Walk to Remember) but enough that William had to lean over and say- "Are you going to be ok?" Yeah, embarrassing.

For our next out-of-this world adventure for the weekend, on Saturday we went to the Ames/NASA Research Center and Exploratorium. It looked like it had some really interesting exhibits and programs on their website and so I was looking forward to going to it. And, best of all, its FREE.

The exhibits opened at noon so William and I got about right on time and we were quite nervous because there was only 1 other car in the parking lot. And, there was only this tent- which looks pretty small and fairly uninteresting.

We both gave each other a look and I said "I'm sorry- it looked much better on the website" and I kept thinking "What have I gotten us into". At least it was free and we could leave if it wasn't good. Three and a half hours later, we left. Needless to say, there were some REALLY great exhibits there.

But, there were some that were lacking- they had a bunch of old space items and demonstration items like this future space suit

However, the other exhibits more than made up for this. They had a big live narrated theater show where they took us on a 3-D tour of Mars and explained the new space probe that landed on the moon. Additionally, they took us through some of the other galaxies that exist. They also took us inside the 3-D imaging of one of the mummies that we had seen at the Rosicurian Egyptian Museum! I was so happy we had been there and seen the mummy "in the flesh" (hahah) before seeing its interior in 3-D. Make sure that you stay and catch this show because it is definitely worth it. There were 2 other exhibits that we spent most of our time at- one was about our current aviation system and some improvements they are making. What I tend to forget is that NASA isn't just about space but also about aeronautics. It is crazy to think that over 2 million people fly around the U.S every day. What was slightly disturbing (especially for William) to learn is that there are multiple controllers monitoring each aspect of your flight. And they then pass on your flight to be monited with only a piece of paper. We had thought that everything was computerized but I guess some things just need a human touch.

Our favorite exhibit was about current experiments that are currently being undertaken on the international space station. We watched this for at least an hour and wished that they had more of them because it was so fascinating. They illustrated how pure water acts like bubbles on the earth where it can remain suspended in the middle of a ring. They then took all of these elements and experimented to see how things function in space. Also, they showed how they have beverages on board. They eat them with chopsticks because they come out and float around in little globs. Also, they showed them eating peanut butter mixed with honey and the astronaut made it into a little space creature by pulling part of it out of the can and said the classic line- "only when you are in space can you play with your food and call it science". We wish that they would have had more about what life is like on the space station.

And what would an out-of-this world trip without me posing in one of the cutouts- they're trying to mimic the shrinking of my mass in space :-)

My "Talent"

Everyone has their own unique talent- something that they are really good at. What's my talent? I think that my parent's explanation of mine and my sisters' talents illustrates it best. I heard my mom explain to some people at a party once about her 3 girls. She started off with my youngest sister, Sarah who is the dancer of the family- a cheerleader in high school and graduated with a degree in dance education. Next, Cynthia is the singer and actress of the family- she has majored in vocal performance and is currently acting in musicals in L.A. Finally, Cheryl whose talent is going to school and traveling. Yup, TRAVELING is my talent. And I have to say that I LOVE it. Europe is definitely the place outside the U.S. that I have been the most- 8 times. I LOVED living in Boston for 5 years in that I was NEVER bored and continually traveled around Boston and the New England area. My friend Dan and I have been travel buddies for a long time- we have thought about opening up a travel agency together where I plan the itineraries and Dan makes the logistics work (plane tickets, hotels, trains, etc). This is kind of my other dream- I think that it would be amazing to be like Rick Steves- that man knows Europe and has lead me to so many wonderful places. His guidebook, Mona Winks, which provides the highlights and details surrounding the most important works of art in the museums of Europe has been such an enhancement to my trip. My fellow travelers and I have bonded so much with this travel guru that we refer to him as "Rick" and say "Let's see what Rick has to say about it" and if Rick recommends it, we generally go.

Following his model, I have to admit that I really LOVE to put together itineraries for my family and friends who visited Boston. I made sure that they got to see all of the major sites that they wanted- with a few recommendations from me- and jam packed their days full of sightseeing. And the best was being able to show them the city that I love so much. That being said, my friend here in Cali, Inger, asked me if I had any recommendations for her since she is going to Boston in a few weeks. Needless to say, I pulled out all of my materials and I know that I overwhelmed her with suggestions. We met up for lunch today and discussed many of the different options and it brought back a longing for me to be able to show her around Boston too. But, that won't be happening, BUT I will very happily be back in Boston at the end of July-beginning of August for some national sociology conferences. How perfect that they are back in the city that I love so that I can try to finish up a few loose ends that I wasn't able to do.

I am nowhere near as familiar with San Francisco and the surrounding Bay area as I was with Boston, but I am working on it. Thus, I don't quite have my tour list of highlights made up yet for when people come to visit so please come and visit us so that I can start to better think about it!

Over 1,000 Articles Coded

Today was a DELIGHTFUL day for me in that I FINALLY finished coding my sample of over 1,000 newspaper articles for my dissertation. This is my primary source of data for my dissertation and it has taken countless hours over the past 6 months (this being my main focus) to get this done. What is coding some of you may ask? Well, I have a computer program that helps me to be able to organize the massive amounts of data so that I can easily identify trends across the articles as well as retrieve specific quotes. The program is only an organizer- it doesn't perform the analysis for me. So, I still have my work cut out for me, but at least it should be much easier now. I also have a better sense of the contents of the data since I have been through it all. Hmmm- I'm not sure which will be harder. Doing the 1,000 articles or writing up the findings . . . I sadly suspect the latter but at least now I have material to work with. The next question that people ask me is when am I going to be "done" with this. It totally depends on how fast I can analyze and write. My goal/current expectation is to be done with a draft by January (I left a fairly generous amount of time to keep my sanity). I am so happy that one of my fellow PhD candidates from Brandeis is acting moving out to the area in July! She is working on her dissertation too has the same goal of graduating by next year so we are forming our own study group to encourage each other along. After my last post about my work, I am happy to announce that things are looking much better.

Frostys

I have had a long love of Wendy's chocolate frostys (not the vanilla ones- they aren't that good at all). For lunch at high school, sometimes we would go and get kids meals from the nearby Wendy's to eat back at school. I always thought that the best part is dipping the fries in the frosty. My Brandeis buddy Seth and I would frequent the Wendy's near the Brandeis campus where I would again get fries and a large frosty. But, I started going to Wendy's on a weekly basis during my last year in Boston (2006-2007) while I was tutoring/mentored youth in a program called Books and Basketball. I have to admit that Tuesday nights became my favorite nights of the week because I would get to see my sweet girl Esther Jackson. Esther was one of the sweetest, kindest people I have ever met.
Isn't she so beautiful! I was lucky enough to tutor Esther for 2 years and stay with her from her move from Cambridge to Dorchester. This is Esther with her Christmas gift of a deluxe makeup kit (I totally know what every 11 year old girl wants)

I felt so honored that I was lucky enough to be able to take her to the Cambridge Side Galleria the night of her birthday so that we could spend an evening together. I bought her some cute clothes that she picked out and some jewelry. We ate some Chinese food (her choice) and then went to CPK for some dessert (I was going to have the waiters sing but she made me promise not to).
This is probably my favorite photo of the two of us- just looking at it brings tears to my eyes because I really miss her. I had tried to keep in contact with her after I moved from Boston- talking with her once or twice- but then her phone number was changed and I lost contact with her. I hope that she is continuing to do well in school and is still the same, sweet girl who loves to laugh and dance
I know that this is a tangent from my original post but I can't eat a frosty now without thinking about her. After Books and Basketball, every week (except when they strangely closed the Wendy's for no reason) we would stop there with Astrid, another girl that I gave a ride to tutoring. We would get frostys and sometimes fries with them- and they always were looking for this "cute" worker Manny yet they were too embarrassed to ever talk to him
So so cute. What great memories are had of us talking and laughing at the table (we usually sat at this same one) as we ate our frostys.

Fast forward to this past month when I have been wanting a chocolaty frosty since I heard that Arby's had bought Wendy's. I had not seen any Wendy's near where we live so I got on Google maps (with its amazing business search tool) and found some of the nearest locations (about 15-20 minutes away). This past Friday, we were headed out to dinner and I asked if we could get a Frosty for dessert on the way home, since we were headed in that direction, and William was sweet enough :-) to say that it we could just go there for dinner. Unfortunately, since I had only thought of this while we were in the car, I only had a vague idea of where it was located. Again, another blessed Google product- Goog 411- saved the day. This is an AMAZING service that you can access for FREE on your phone and so it will give you the address/contact info of the nearest business in a specified area. And with this tools help, we found the Wendy's!! I enjoyed every bite of my LARGE chocolate frosty (since I don't get them very often, you just have to go for the largest size- and its ice cream even :-) and then dipped some fries in the frosty. I was such a happy woman- its amazing the power of ice cream with me. And it brought back such amazing memories of my times with Esther and Astrid- I am definitely going to try to get back in touch with her again because she was such a dear friend. I love the power of food not only to bring people together but can bring back memories of that as well.

"You won't like me when I'm . . . hungry"

Our summer movie mania continued this week with our seeing The Incredible Hulk at our favorite Saturday morning $6 showing. I had seen one or two episodes of the original tv show ages ago and I had forgotten the main plot and everything. So, fortunately, our favorite site for online tv, hulu, has episodes of the series online. I am glad that I watched the first and second episodes because it gave me a feeling for the story background, which they do not spend a lot of time in this movie. The movie was a classic action flick- with several very humorous lines (like the title). I thought they did a great job of portraying the relationship between hulk and his girlfriend/colleague. All in all, I think that you should see the show, especially if you are a Marvel comic fan, but should probably wait until it goes to the dollar theaters or on dvd. And unlike Iron Man, they give the key teaser at the end of the film so you don't have to stay until the end of the credits.

And speaking of the hulk, did anyone see the American Gladiators episode where Titan became the green hulk? They built it up like it was going to be this huge deal but he only competed in one event like that. I guess that its just another way that people are "going green"

Comforts of Home

I love going home to Utah mainly to see my family- they are so much fun. They always have me laughing and later filling William in on the stuff he missed. Besides the family, there are some other benefits to going to Utah. I made sure that I went to CAFE RIO once during my stay. That place seriously is SO GOOD. It is rare that I crave things other than sweets but I definitely CRAVE Cafe Rio. And this time was just as delicious so much so that I ate the entire salad! Normally, I have some left over but not this time- I had to enjoy every single bite. Needless to say that I didn't eat anything for the rest of the day but I definitely got my fill of their salad. I also went to ICEBERG and got my favorite grasshopper (mint and oreo) shake. These are REAL shakes (not frappes or milk with a little sugar). They are super thick, huge, and tasty. Since I wasn't able to go to the Scooper Bowl this year :-( , I made sure that I was able to at least have my giant shake. The other thing that I loved is that my parents have cable and so I stayed up until 2 am every night I was there to watch 2 episodes of my favorite all time show- MURDER SHE WROTE. Truly classic tv- I would stay up that late every night to watch them. Oh wait- I generally get fairly close to that anyways and we don't have cable. At least now it is a special treat for me when I go home :-) Also, my dad takes me to the grocery store and lets me buy some special things to eat while I am at home- anything that I want. And my puppy Spankie is always so happy to see me- she even stayed with me in our study one day while I did work. (However, that was only the first day- the other days she was off on her own since she is an independent woman). Finally, there is something about sleeping in the bed you grew up in. I have slept in that bed ever since I graduated from the crib. Like they say, "there's no place like home" so good thing I will be going back there two more times this summer . . .