Happy Earth Day!

May we all try to consume a little less and be more efficient in our daily routines so as to preserve the beauty around us.

Daily astronomy pic from APOD

Explanation: As midnight approached, a spectacular sky appeared. Such was the case last month from the shore of Lake Salda in southwestern Turkey. In the above night sky panorama, rocky sand covers the foreground, while building lights are visible across the lake. Looking up, the stars of Orion lie just ahead, while Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, appears to Orion's left. To Orion's right, just above the horizon, lies the Pleiades open star cluster. Arching across the sky is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. High in the center, the stars Castor and Pollux are visible. Lake Salda is famous partly for its blue color that is slightly discernable even in the above image.

What's up with your grill yo?

Before

After

Indeed, I am every 12 year olds worst nightmare...braces AND glasses. And just to substantiate how cool I really am, here's a picture of a wicked sweet bruise I got from snowboarding.The best-looking bruises never hurt.

P and his darn links again

This time, it's the near-perfect mix:



How do I rate something as a near-perfect mix? Here are some criteria:

1.) Great music. Obviously, gotta be number 1.

2.) Great music I haven't heard before. Like the first four tracks, had me googling like a crazyperson trying to track down who, exactly, these people were (results: gotta get a clean mix of "Jack", but I'd take any of these home today).

3.) Great music I have heard but don't hear often enough. "Windowlicker (Acid Edit)" by Aphex Twin fits the profile.

4.) Guest spots by DJs who rock. Morgan Geist fits the bill, being one-half of arrangement deity Metro Area. If you ever want a master class in how to arrange stuff for maximum vibe/dance effect, listen to a local Metro Area track near you. As you'd expect, hid DJ set here is particularly nice. And when he's acting in half-capacity (i.e., solo) he still rocks.

5.) Truth spoken by the DJ -- I have to agree about Prodigy (I presume he's talking about "Invaders Must Die"), it's too "rave" in a bad sort of way.

Those last two parts are optional, but done correctly they do up the quotient of niceness.

Being an aspiring good DJ myself (if nothing more than a selector), I give you a most excellent track by Juan MacLean (man I gotta score this on vinyl) "By The Time I Get To Venus":

My conversion to the juice box

I don't really remember eating too many fruits and to a lesser degree, vegetables while growing up (except for oranges at soccer games). This is probably due to any number of reasons including, 1) I have blocked painful memories 2)I really never ate fruits or vegetables. Hence, I don't like juice drinks, or the fruits where they originate from or most vegetables.

About a year ago I decided to eat healthier, exercise regularly and try to drink enough water during the day to see if my migraines would decrease. This means eating 2 servings of fruits and 3 servings of vegetables. The veggie part was kind of easy because ranch dressing makes salads taste better and Andrew does a fabulous job of coating all the other veggies in butter.

Fruit was a whole other issue. I really don't like most fruits. Little by little I started to eat an apple in the car (so I would be plenty distracted) or after a long bike ride (when I am super exhausted).

This past week I made a quick dash to the store to get "kid food" for my nephews. By the time my nephews left i still had 8 apple juice boxes left. That night I grabbed one (merely to confirm that I still don't like juice) and I sucked down the whole thing- it was pretty tasty! So I drank the 7 others within a day and a half and having been craving them ever since. So I think I finally like juice! Well, apple juice.

Unfortunately my migraines have not decreased-but at least I am a bit healthier.

The rest of my Spring Break
There were a ton of wind surfers out.



An impromptu day with my nephews
Daniel

Spencer

Ping naturally wanted to investigate her new friends


A new edition to the garden!

St. Patrick's Day!

When I was growing up my mom would always dye everything green. The best St patrick's Day was when she decided to dye the mashed potatoes and gravy. A little food coloring isn't going to stop me from eating tons of mashed potatoes but no one in the family touched the gravy because it was chunky and green.(If I remember correctly, my brothers ended up putting it in a plastic bag and attempted to throw it into the neighbors yard...)
Anyways-I decided to carry on the tradition so I made Andrew a green breakfast including green pancakes, milk, orange juice, and eggs. I think he was mostly excited because I fixed him breakfast for a change.

Spring Break: Day 1

Snowboarding with Andrew: Pretty nice conditions in the mountains, an almost vacant slope and a 4 hour pass.
I thought I'd challenge myself by conquering some jumps.

Andrew had a hard time capturing all the air I caught so here's the before and after.

Jumps are definitely what I have been missing in my snowboarding experience-they're so much fun!

Concrete Gardening

Andrew and I have been wanting to grow our own veggies for quite some time. This week we made a goal to get started. Andrew and I have been battling over the location. We have a "backyard" space but it gets little to no sunlight. We get plenty of sunshine on the front patio though. Andrew is afraid that we will get in trouble with the HOA for putting plants out there. I'm willing to risk it. So here's what we accomplished!



We're trying out 2 types of tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and a variety of already-grown herbs.


We haven't quite figured out what we are going to do in the backyard. We looked at some stellar low growing plants at Armstrong Garden that might mesh well with the chi of our backyard. Here's what we're working with.

P sez -- Happy Birthday Mr. Caterpillar

Even Google is in on the act (confession -- that's how I found out about it). Read more here. I figure I've eaten enough in my life to become a beautiful butterfly -- what happened?

Linkage

So, there's this composer named Galt McDermot. He wrote the music for "Hair", among other things. He also happened to record some of the funkiest music of the 70's. It turns out that he's still around, and if you're so inclined you can stream all of his albums online:

Go Galt

Right on -- more artists should take advantage of the free radio that is the Internet.

Funding for Stem Cell Research!

"This order is an important step in advancing the cause of science in America. But let's be clear: promoting science isn't just about providing resources — it is also about protecting free and open inquiry," said the president. "It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient — especially when it's inconvenient."

"Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident," said Obama. "They result from painstaking and costly research — from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit — and from a government willing to support that work."

A President who acknowledges science-now that is a change.

Breakin'

Anyone else in the fam remember that? We had the soundtrack on vinyl, I think I was eight or nine at the time.

And some Kraftwerk, just 'cause it's cool and I really like the visuals:



Modern design and electronic music work so well together.

Instant Music Video

Step 1: Go here -- Ikea demo site

Step 2: Upload any song

Step 3: Thanks, Ikea!

P goes hunting...

...and look what he found:



See, B, I'm not afraid of pink.

The Kitties & Us

The Fluff

The Muscle

luvs

cuddles



incognito

puzzle action

And now for an update: Since Andrew didn't take any time off during the Christmas holiday he decided that he would take this past week off to relax. This has mainly consisted of internet surfing, lusting after electronic devices, music making, and snowboarding. The conditions were perfect in the mountains after the last storm hit so cal. I had trouble at first because I'm not used to boarding on POWDER here in southern california but Andrew took to it and was off on his own after that. We were super sore after our trip but it was beyond worth it!
I didn't have any classes this past quarter so as to focus on getting my thesis research started. It's been fun to figure out everything pretty much on my own. That's about it! How has everyone else been?!

P strikes again

That's two for this week so far:

Within Tolerance

I gotta say, B's suggestion that we reapportion the "Temple of Boom" space for a dining room has made it much easier to write stuff. There aren't so many distracting shiny objects about.

P presents fresh bread

More offerings from my kitchen to yours:

Around Wire Breaks

Cooked up late on Saturday, dunno if it'll make the album or not (I'm undecided on Corners too).

J doesn't let many things get in the way of him lounging in the computer chair.

That's change I can believe in -- the whitehouse.gov website is already up and running under new management. And, quite possibly, the President might even understand how it works. More importantly, he understands how we work. May God bless Barack Hussein Obama.

It's a New Day

and it feels GREAT! For the first time since 9/11 I feel united with this country and proud to be a citizen. The best part: watching Bush leave in a helicopter.


Also, it is ward conference season in the Pasadena Stake and so each Sunday I've joined the rest of the Stake Primary Board in visiting with the various wards. This past Sunday we visited Eastmont ward and I heard the best thing ever. The music leader suggested we all sing a couple patriotic songs. She then asked the children if they knew what was going to happen on Tuesday Jan. 20th. Amongst all the correct answers I heard, "It's Obama day!". Kids are great.