Respect Your Edges

My husband loves the cold and snow for two reasons: snowmobiling and skiing. Since there is no way a snowmobile could get into our apartment (once in our apartment it would have to replace our couch, which I don't really mind since our couch has golfers on it--see entry about living in a bachelor pad!--so we can't get much worse), my husband is left with skiing. Since I am the supporting, loving wife that I am (I think I just heard my husband guffaw...), I try to go skiing with my husband when he has no one else to go with. Personally, I'm not a terrible skiier, and I can at least hold my own on most mountains. But do I stick with skiing anymore? Needless to say, I have left the confines of what I know and wandered into the realm of the unknown, also known as snowboarding. Let me tell you, the unknown hurts and is much harder to master than you think! Falling while you are snowboarding is much worse than falling while you are skiing. If you fall while skiing, you just kind of crumple up and roll down the mountain. If you fall while snowboarding, your body is like a plank of wood so you have no time to crumple into a protective ball before falling flat on your face or the back of your head. Also, sometimes the only way to stop on a snowboard is to fall, usually on your knees or your wrists. Such physical trauma drove half of my class to quit midway through our lesson, and we were only on the bunny hill! Our instructer kept telling us to respect our edges, and believe me, I learned to respect my edges plenty by the end of the lesson. I have bruised knees, wrists, and skull to prove it. After seeing me go down the mountain, my husband asked me if I was sure I preferred snowboarding to skiing. Here's the funny thing, I really do prefer snowboarding. It's crazy, but despite all the pain I really like the challenge. Plus, I know if I can conquer snowboarding, I can do anything!

Heroes

My favorite new show on primetime is Heroes (my favorite character, Hiro the time traveler, is shown on the right). Those of you who know me best are probably not surprised by this. I have a history of enjoying extraordinary/fantastical/bizarre characters and plots. I love X-men, Star Wars, and most sci-fi shows, and fantasy novels are my guilty pleasure. Why exactly do I like this genre so much? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it is the combination of appealing to my belief that everyone has some unique gift that makes them extraordinary and my crazy imagination, which leads me to believe that nothing is too far fetched. Anyway, I digress. I am totally hooked on Heroes. If you haven't started watching it, you should! Plus, NBC makes it easier for you by allowing you to watch past episodes online. Pretty soon you will be wondering what kind of super power you would have if you were on the show. Lucky for you, the website has a quiz so you can find out what kind of hero you would be. My super power? Flying, of course.

I work on an island!

(I know, I know, it has been a while since I last posted a message. I have no excuse except for work, work, work. Anyways, I will try to do better in the future, but I can make no promises!)

My work environment is very isolated from the outside world. I am not entirely clear on why this is. We do not work on classified material, so that cannot be the cause. Granted we have a 'guard' who you have to pass to get into the building, but he/she only slows people down. We have internet access even if we don't have television or other sources of media. Despite all this, I don't think I could be more isolated from the outside world unless I was in Fort Knox!

Here is a great example of what I am talking about. I am sure most people who aren't living under a rock have heard about the potential-bomb-plot turned marketing-ploy-gone-bad incident in Boston. Half of the city was shut down almost all day, and all traffic was totally gridlocked. The incident was all over the news. Where was I at the time? I was blissfully unaware of all that was happening. I worked for 10 hours without ever finding out that half the city was shut down because of potential bombs scattered throughout the city. As I was commuting home, people seemed on edge, and some students wouldn't get off at certain stops. It all seemed like odd behavior to me, so when I got home I asked my husband if someone got shot at one of the T-stops (this has actually happened a couple of times this year). He looked at me like I was from a different planet and had sprouted two green tentacles from nostrils. He then told me all that had happened. I was totally floored! How could I not know this was going on!?! Then I realized my work is an island unto itself. The only way I would know about a bomb threat is if it blew up right next to my building. So next time any of you hear about a bomb threat in Boston, you should probably give me a call. Chances are I have no idea what is happening.