Tag: life

Friday Fun

~ EMM

Yesterday was filled with little awesome, happy things. Here are two captured on Twitter:

First, Seth Green and co. visited Twitter to talk about their show, Robot Chicken (which I have actually never seen, but will now have to…). I was always a big fan of Oz on Buffy, and his other appearances in the “Whedonverse“…

Then, inspired by this awesomeness, I tweeted my “top five” list of people who I would love to see visit Twitter, and @neilhimself (Neil Gaiman) responded! Twitter is magic. My tweet and his response, generated a lot of responses and favorites.

The top five, in case you can’t decipher their Twitter handles, are:

  1. @NathanFillion = Nathan Fillion, another star of the Whedon-verse, known mostly for his role as Captain Malcolm Reynolds (aka “Captain Tightpants”) in Firefly / Serenity, and his current role as Richard Castle on the ABC TV show Castle (which I’ve only seen a few episodes of because it’s not on Netflix streaming…)
  2. @rebsoni = Rebecca Soni, Olympic swimmer and gold medalist in the 100 and 200 breast stroke
  3. @neilhimself = Neil Gaiman, author of some of my favorite books including Neverwhere and American Gods
  4. @ActuallyNPH = Neil Patrick Harris, actor first known for his role as Doogie Howser in the TV show Doogie Howser, M.D., more recently known for his role as Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, but also for his appearance in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog
  5. @feliciaday = all around amazing actress and writer / producer, frequently appearing in the Whedonverse (Buffy, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible, etc.), but recently better known for a web series called The Guild.

Of course there are many other actors, actresses, and famous people that I could have listed here (like J.K. Rowling, for example). But, part of the reason I picked these five is that they are all very active on Twitter and use Twitter to interact with their fans and fellow famous people. I feel like they are getting a lot out of the product, and I’d love to hear them talk about  how they’re using Twitter and what they love, or what they’d love to see, in the product.

If any of these folks ever do make an appearance at the Twitter office, it will be difficult to contain my levels of extreme excitement, and hold back my inner fan-girl “squeeeee…”

Ode to Google Reader

~ EMM

Google Reader is dying, but increasingly it appears that I am still going to be there, holding its hand, pleading with it not to leave me, until it takes its final breath and they find me staring at my laptop screen hitting refresh and quietly sobbing, or until I finally have to press my finger to the app icon and hold it there until I can bring myself to drag the app to the little “x remove” at the top of the home screen on my phone (Android, people, deal with it).

Melodramatic much? Fine. Maybe. But this is Google Reader! How am I going to get all of the many blogs I lovingly read and obsess over to deliver their contents to the same place where I can easily read, file, tag, email, and share articles on my phone or on my laptop?

Google Reader is how I keep up with my long-distance friends’ mommy / daddy blogs. It’s how I make sure I never miss an XKCD comic. It’s how I keep up with what’s going on in the wide world of technology. And it’s where I read about and draw inspiration from the blogs of several authors and one editor I admire.

Yes I know there are a bunch of alternatives, but none seem to give me the same mix of basic functionality (everything you need to have and nothing you don’t), with a clean UI. And of course, how do I know they won’t just up and leave me someday? After all, when I gave all my feeds to Google Reader, I would never have expected (the Spanish Inquisition…) the Googles to just shut it down one day.

I’ve tried paring down the blogs I follow to a bare minimum. I’ve loaded everything that’s left into “The Old Reader.” I’ve tried (when I’m on my laptop… I’m not sure Ye Ol’ Reader has an app, so I haven’t figured out how to use it on my phone…) to break my Google Reader habit by deleting the bookmark and adding one for the Reader in its place. After a few days I dug through the “more” menu on Google trying to find a link to Google Reader and finally resorted to Googling for the link. Then I just left the Google Reader browser tab open. I’m such a cheater.

This whole drama (as exaggerated as I’m making it out to be) is forcing me to think more about two topics that, in my line of work especially, you generally don’t spend much time thinking about… 1) who owns the content I create and curate, and what right do apps have to hand that content over when they decide to close their doors? … and 2) is consuming all this information (drinking from the information highway fire hose…) really that good for me?

Maybe the information-age haters are right and “News is bad for you.” According to them I would be more creative and more productive if I stopped reading “news flashes” (like Twitter) and stuck to reading only things folks today would consider #LongForm or “tl;dr” (Note to Mom: that stands for “too long, didn’t read”). I don’t exactly know if the contents of my Google Reader fall into the long-form category, or if they are more “news flashes” that are just supplying me with a steady stream of information that I wouldn’t really miss if I didn’t know it was there. Maybe losing Google Reader is actually going to be good for me.

I’ll admit it, I am an information junkie. I love to read, and I love to collect information. You never know when that information is going to come in handy, or give you inspiration for a piece of writing. Tools like Twitter and Google Reader allow me to plow through mountains of information in a small amount of time, and flag anything that looks especially promising to read in more depth later, or forward on to someone I know would benefit from (or enjoy) the information.

But like any good junkie, maybe I’m just in denial about my addiction. And, like any good junkie, I’m not going to let the death of Google Reader slow me down.

By the Numbers: March 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read: 6 of 36 (target was ~9)

I haven’t had much time to read anything that wasn’t assigned for my writing classes (mostly short stories). In March I finished:

  • Blue Remembered Earth — Space odyssey that is part mystery, part family drama, part environmental politics, part technology politics, and part adventure quest. The multiple “themes” at work here remind me a little of Frank Herbert and Dune. The Descrutinized Zone and the hacker / maker culture reminds me of Cory Doctorow and Little Brother.
  • Little Brother — Read almost all of this in one sitting. Definitely YA and definitely geeky, but in a good way. Doctorow is ever the activist, and his writing is very “message-y.” I wonder how this book actually goes over with teens (if they love it or if they find it too preachy). Even though I agree with his ideals, I worry that this is more propaganda than literature. Still… if you are a fan of freedom of speech, technology (esp. Linux), and security, you should check out this book.

I also noticed that Amazon (finally) added one of my all-time favorite Sci-Fi novels (Sassinak) to Kindle. So I had to buy it and start re-reading. Anne McCaffrey rocks.

Writing

Most of my writing this month has been part of one of my two writing classes. This was the month where my two classes overlap. So I’ve been writing all sorts of exercises and impressions of stories I’ve read, and working on my own stuff. It’s been a good month for producing content.

On Tuesday I turn in my final “portfolio” from my Craft of Writing Workshop. It will include two poems, one short story, and one personal essay. After that, I get to focus 100% on short stories (fiction) for another month plus. I’ve determined that it’s way easier for me to write fiction than to write personal essays or poetry. Most of the people in my class found writing non-fiction easier, which surprised me.

As much as I prefer writing fiction to writing non-fiction, I seem to be keeping up with the blogging. I posted six times this month (if you include this post). I seem to keep coming up with new ideas for blog posts, I just never seem to have time to write them. Maybe next month I’ll finally get around to those “learning to code” posts I promised.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 20 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 29.09 miles (target was ~30 miles)

That includes three swim meets this month where I swam US Masters Swimming Nationals qualifying times in all three breaststroke events. You can check out my race times on the US Masters Swimming website here. But if you’re lazy and you just want to see my times / events from the various swim meets I participated in this month, see below:

 Date  Event  Time  Age Group Place
3/10/13 (CAL)  50 Free 32.92 4
3/10/13 (CAL)  50 Breast 38.79 2
3/23/13 (USF)  50 Breast 38.16 1
3/10/13 (CAL)  100 Breast  1:21.65 2
3/16/13 (RINC)  100 Breast  1:22.28 2
3/23/13 (USF)  100 Breast  1:21.57 1
3/16/13 (RINC)  200 Breast  2:55.23 1
3/23/13 (USF)  100 IM  DQ  —

The two events I swam that weren’t breaststroke were disappointing. I almost missed the wall on the flip turn in my 50 free sprint at the CAL Masters meet, and then I got disqualified in my 100 IM at the USF Masters meet. The DQ was a stupid mistake. I thought backstroke turns were legal going from back to breast, but they’re not. Oops. I am now practicing touch turns in preparation for the Pacific Masters Short Course Yards Championship meet next weekend. I’m swimming all three breaststroke events and the 100 IM. It’s a two day meet. So, that’s actually a reasonable number of races — two on each day.

Movies

In addition to my usual busy schedule, Greg was out of town for a week this month and I was sick. So this ended up being a big movie watching month.

  • Total Recall — The original. I hadn’t ever seen it and Greg hadn’t seen it recently. Hello totally 80s! We’ve come such a long way in both special effects and… acting!
  • Ted — Funny. Mostly. A nice evening distraction. Also, I’m a sucker for Mila Kunis. Pretty sure she plays the same part in every movie, though…
  • Anna Karenina — Started watching this with Greg who lasted about 10 min and kept saying “is this a musical?” It’s not a musical, but it is “interpretive” in a way. Greg couldn’t handle “Anna” and her hysterical screeching. I watched to get a “Cliff’s Notes” version of the story and to admire what the Russian classics do with character and narrative. Also because I’m a sucker for Keira Knightly… who also pretty much plays the same part in every movie… huh.
  • Pretty in Pink — saw that Netflix added this to Instant and couldn’t resist re-watching. This was one of my absolute favorite movies as a teen. This was for me what War Games was for Greg. Now they are both on streaming, so we’re both happy.
  • First Position — Ballet documentary? Yes please. Of course. Watched this the night before my USF Masters swim meet to get a little inspiring athletic kick-ass drama.
  • LOL — I could just say I’m a sucker for Miley Cyrus and leave it at that, but that’s embarrassing… true, but embarrassing. Miley Cyrus may have been the hook, but this movie surprised me a bit… better than I expected. I will admit, the emo-boy love interests all kinda looked alike, but whatever.
  • Mona Lisa Smile — I remembered liking this one and was looking for something to watch while I was sick. Also I’ve been thinking a lot about gender issues / sexism lately. There are aspects of this movie I really like, especially the part where the teacher has to realize that part of feminism is that everyone gets to choose what’s right for them. Sheryl Sandberg, as inspirational as she is to many, takes a lot of flack for making a similar mistake… (Also, I’m a sucker for Julia Stiles…)

It’s not a goal of mine to watch movies, so you may wonder why I even bother including them in my monthly “by the numbers” post. I think it’s interesting to review the list of movies I watched in monthly snapshots. Movies are like little drama snacks for me. When I don’t have time to read a book, I watch a movie. Particular movies appeal to me more than others depending on my mood. I’ve been known to use both movies and music to “balance my brain chemicals” when I’m in a mad / sad / bad / whatever mood.

I definitely think these particular movies give some additional insight into my state of mind this month. Maybe the streaming ones more so than the ones I watched with Greg, but they all have some common threads. It would be an interesting exercise to trace the emotional / character / narrative links back to Pretty in Pink… maybe some other day.

By the Numbers: February 2013

~ EMM

Books

Total read: 4 of 36 (target was ~6)

I know February is a short month and all, but it seems like this February went by at an unbelievably fast pace. It went by so fast, in fact, that I didn’t have enough spare time to finish *any* books this month. I find this particularly hard to believe, but I’ve actually been slowly chewing my way through Blue Remembered Earth for an entire month. Yikes!

It’s not that I don’t want to finish it — far from it. I’m really enjoying the book. It’s long, but not long enough to justify an entire month of casual reading for me. Even though I haven’t finished it yet, I will say that I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction adventures with political / social sub plots. I have been thinking of it as “Dune crossed with Little Brother / Homeland…” Which isn’t entirely fair because I haven’t actually read either of those books by Cory Doctorow (yet). I have heard him speak a few times and have a general idea (from Greg) about his novels.

Writing

My writing class that started at the very end of January has been occupying almost all the free time I’ve had outside of swimming and work. And, if you remember, I have a second writing class that starts this month and overlaps briefly with the one I’m currently taking. I am just beginning to freak out about that.

I did more writing than blogging this month (only 3 blog posts!), mostly due to free time and my writing class. I wrote two poems for a class assignment — the first time I’ve written poetry since high school. I also attempted to write a short story.

I say “attempted” because the process was messy and I’m not entirely pleased with the result. I wrote two different versions of the same scene that I was attempting to turn into a short story. But then I realized the story would have to be longer than I intended, and I had no ideas about how to make it shorter. So, I abandoned both versions to my “drafts” folder and pulled out something I’d written previously but never submitted to polish up for class. I need a lot more short story practice. Lucky for me, we’re working on short stories for the next two weeks in class.

Swimming

I didn’t compete in any swim meets this month, but I did hit it hard in the pool. My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

  • 18 of 28 days (target was ~20 days)
  • 27.13 miles (target was ~30 miles)

I surprised myself by swimming a couple of sets at times / pace faster than I though I would be able to swim. I’ve had several people at the pool that I don’t know comment to me about how fast I am. Compared to the competitive swimmers, I’m not that fast yet, and I know how far I have to go before I’ll admit to being “fast.” However, to regular lap swimmers that just swim for fitness or as practice for a triathlon they’re training for, I probably do appear to be “fast.”

Sometimes I will admit I am the fastest person in the pool at my gym (including the guys). But there are two women (both appear to be younger than me, and significantly taller), that are faster than me — except in breaststroke. I don’t think there is anyone that I’ve seen at the gym that’s faster than me at breaststroke.

You might think this would make me feel good, or confident. However, I don’t get any great joy from swimming faster than and/or intimidating a bunch of casual lap swimmers. At the same time, I worry I won’t get substantially faster unless I have someone faster to compete with and to push me. So, I’m beginning to seriously consider joining a masters swim team in the summer or fall. We’ll see how this season goes and how I perform at the meets coming up in March. I’ll decide after that.

Movies

I spent some of my book reading time watching movies. This month we watched:

  • Celeste and Jesse Forever – Disappointing. I was expecting this would be funnier. 
  • Perks of Being a Wallflower – This was better than the book. Emma Watson was fantastic in this. We were probably almost 30 min into the movie before I realized she was speaking with an (flawless) American accent.
  • the entire first season of House of Cards – This was way better than I expected. I had only 3 gripes with the first season: 1) Francis has terrible rowing form making him less believable as an ex-rower (#CoxswainProblems), 2) I noted one plot loophole that didn’t quite tie out (but I’m now having a hard time remembering what it was…), 3) The last episode was frustrating for many reasons that I won’t get into here so I don’t spoil it for those that haven’t watched yet…

And that’s February 2013…

By the Numbers: January 2013

~ EMM ~ 1 Comment

And now for a summary of January… consider this a public status update on progress toward personal goals…

Every January for the past few years I have opted to refrain from drinking and eating desserts / sweets. This concept was borrowed from a friend and initially began in a “solidarity” fast. But I liked it so much, I’ve made it a tradition. Typically, the not eating sweets part proves to be more difficult than the not drinking part. This January was no different. I easily made it through all 31 days with no alcohol, but a handful of “special” occasions caused me to bend the rules a bit in favor of partaking in some sweet stuff (coworker won a pie from the Chef and decided to share, another coworker brought back sweets from his holiday visit to Iran, the Chef made cookies and I forgot I wasn’t supposed to eat any… basically, sweets at work are my weakness…).

In January I started to step up my swimming both in terms of days per week and miles per workout. My goal for the year is 250 miles. That works out to about 5 miles per week with 2 weeks off. For now, while I’m competing during the short course yards season (January through April), I’m aiming for 5 swims per week and about 1.5 miles per swim. January’s swimming stats:

  • 19 of 31 days (target was ~21 days)
  • 22.87 miles (target was ~21 miles)
  • 2 swim meets (Santa Rosa Flower Power and Fog City Quadrathon)
  • 6 events (details below)
 Date  Event Time Age Group Place
 2013-01-12  50 Free 32.09 4
 2013-01-12  50 Breast 40.26 1
 2013-01-12  50 Fly 37.43 6
 2013-01-27  50 Free 31.22 1
 2013-01-27  100 Free  1:10.45 1
 2013-01-27  200 Free  2:44.24 2
 2013-01-27  500 Free  7:15.24 2

Usually I read about 36 books each year. That’s about 3 books per month, on average. This year I’m off to a great start — I finished 4 books in January. Below I’ve listed the books I finished with a 140 character or less summary (Twitter-style):

  • Glaciers — Portland. Alaska. Books. Librarians. Bikes. Postcards. Thrift stores. Finding beauty in the little things. 
  • Howl’s Moving Castle — Contemporary fairy tale that throws all the cliche fairy tale bits out the window. Can’t wait to read this with @CEOlmetti when she’s older.
  • The Dog Stars — Post-apocalyptic fiction featuring a plausible future. Humanity depicted without sugar coating, our best and worst all wrapped up together.
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower — Too old for this book, but glad it exists. Should be given to any teen who is undervalued by their peers. Now I can watch the movie.

I may not have done as much writing as I’d intended to this month, but I did blog… 7 posts this month, which is more than the one per week target I sent. Most of these posts are short, but take me a disproportionate amount of time to write. I also started my third UC Berkeley Extension writing class — The Craft of Writing.

And… just for fun… Here are the movies I watched this month, again with 140 character or less summaries:

  • The Lady — Long movie. Moving story. Another reason why “Defend and respect the user’s voice” is my favorite core value. Democracy and Luc Besson FTW.
  • Looper — If you don’t like to geek out on time travel, making diagrams with straws, you might not enjoy this movie. Unpredictable, good ending.
  • To Rome With Love — Disappointing. All the funny bits are in the trailer. Woody Allen is hard to watch. Reminded me of @cornetteb ’cause he’s a big fan of Rome.
  • Premium Rush — The cheesiest. With cheese on top. Reminded me of Hackers. But with bikes. And eye candy. Also, Third Rock Guy. Again.

And there you have it… January 2013.

Happy Groundhogs Day!

~ EMM ~ 1 Comment

Groundhogs Day is my Mom’s favorite holiday. Happy Groundhogs Day to the true believers!

Groundhogs Day is also my friend Preston‘s birthday. Happy birthday to Preston!

Here are my #Countdown2Phil tweets from this week (in case you missed them):

You can follow my mom @sisterfrog … she doesn’t really tweet even though she’s probably been on Twitter longer than you have, but I’m proud to say that she just started responding to tweets! Progress…

You can follow the @Twitter chef @Birdfeeder … He’s got some great Vine videos (make sure you turn on the volume when you watch) that were recently featured in an article by Business Insider. Chef Code for beginners: MP = Mouth Party!

Hope you all enjoy your early spring!

Crazy

~ EMM

I might be crazy.

This fall I…

  1. started a new job…
  2. crammed one third of one semester’s worth of MIT OpenCourseware’s Intro to Comp Sci class into one week…
  3. started Coursera’s Python class (a ten week online course)…
  4. started a Writing Skills Workshop offered by UC Berkeley Extension as part of their Post-Bac Certificate Program…
  5. joined a gym and started going two to four times a week…
  6. signed a lease on an apartment and moved all our stuff out of storage…

To say I’ve been busy is a bit of an understatement.

But I like to be busy. Inertia is bad for me. Once I stop, it’s hard for me to get started again. So, best to dive in and start swimming and not stop.

Still, at times I have found myself wondering what the hell I was thinking. It’s not like my job is a nine to five gig. I’m sort of never not working… Yet, balance is good and, since I can’t really talk about work, I need to have hobbies to talk about, right? Or is that just me rationalizing my crazy?

Whatever. Everyone else my age is busy raising kids. I have a wonderful hubby, but we decided not to have kids. Instead we have jobs and hobbies and certificates. We like certificates.

I am a Certified Supply Chain Professional through APICS, and I’m certified in Wine Fundamentals by the International Sommelier Guild. Why not work for a Post-Bac Certificate in Writing from UC Berkeley? I’d love it if my coding classes would earn me a certificate, but I’ll settle for being able to code…

Tonight I should be wrapping up my final paper for my Writing Skills Workshop (I’ll get to it when I’m done here…). I have only two weeks remaining in my Python class. I should be excited about wrapping things up and taking a little break from busy.

Instead, I just signed up for two more writing classes.

I told you. I may be crazy.

The first one doesn’t start until the end of January, so I’ll still have a break (maybe enough time to finish that MIT OpenCourseware class I started?). The second class only overlaps the first by a few weeks… it doesn’t start until mid-March. I seriously hope I don’t come to regret this moment of insanity…