Bill told me to post this...

January 30, 2008, 9:28 am
Mondrian Soda?
By Stephen J. Dubner
If you go into the cafeteria at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, you will come upon a rather extraordinary display in the soda case:
It reminded me of a Mondrian painting, maybe “Broadway Boogie Woogie.”
As it turned out, the man responsible for the display was standing nearby, and we fell to chatting. His name is Derek (if I remember correctly). He is in late middle age, grew up in Hyde Park, and is himself an artist. When I mentioned Mondrian, he smiled, but said it was really Warhol that he was going for with the soda display.
It was fun to talk with someone who took such pride and interest in a work task that many people would not consider worthy of pride and interest. (Alas, Derek wasn’t interested in being photographed with his work.)
I know that the soda display drew me in, and made me buy a soda, which I hadn’t meant to do. On the other hand, I wonder if the Mondrian/Warhol extravaganza may be too chaotic for other customers, or even if some people may not want to buy a soda because they don’t want to disturb the display?

Here is a link to the actual article. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/mondrian-soda/

Running Update

This weeks total= 45.0 miles. It was a rest week, so don't expect lot.
Here is the fun fact of the week: according to my most recent 5k and 10k- the pace I held in each race is exactly the same. I should probably change that very soon. I suppose it shows how bad I am at sprinting. And there you have it folks 4 weeks down, only 12 more weeks to go- I think.

Spirit of the Marathon

We saw the movie last night and it was awesome! Everyone in the theater were big time runners- all the small talk was about what marathons they've done, or are training for, how they are going back to Boston this spring in hopes of good weather, what their trainer is having them do, body fat analysis, the newest shoes on the market, what club they run with. It was great. There were even a few people wearing their marathon jackets etc. We all laughed at the same spots (when they said that the Chicago marathon is typically on the cool side- see Chicago 2007 meltdown). We all teared when an injury was inevitable and the runner had to withdraw from the race, we all clapped at the end (you couldn't help yourself) and we all stayed to see the behind the scene interview with Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor. (Ryan Hall won the men's Olympic trials last November at the NYC marathon). It was great. They even had interviews of marathoners such as Joan Benoit Samualson, Katherine Switzer, Jeff Galloway, Grete Waitz, John Kelly, Bill Rogers, Paula Radcliffe and more.

They also had some interesting facts such as:

-they didn't allow women to participate in long distance events because they thought their uterus would fall out.

-The marathon is 26.2 miles or 26 miles and 365 yards because when they were regulating the distance during the London marathon, the Royal family decided that they wanted to see the beginning of it, so they moved the starting line back 365 yards to Windsor Castle.

-they showed Deena Kastor cooking dinner and she mentioned that she doesn't calorie count but food analysis etc, show that she eats about 5,000 a day during marathon training and 3,000 a day when she isn't doing heavy duty training. (she is about my height- 5'4").

-The Boston marathon was started because some guys from Boston ran in the first Olympic marathon in the 1896 in Athens- from Marathon to Athens (this original distance was because the Persians invaded in the bay of marathon, but the Greeks were able to fight them off, so they sent a messenger to Athens (approximately 25 miles away) and when he got to Athens, he delivered the message "victory" over the Persians and fell over and died). So the Boston guys decided to have a marathon on Patriots day, the day when Paul Revere rode his horse to deliver the message that the Brits were invading, because it was symbolic of the original marathon.

-The Boston marathon's plan to limit the number of participants backfired when they set a time limit, it became more popular and more people signed up than ever.

So if you get a chance to see this documentary, and like running, jump on it. They agreed to show the documentary one more time because tickets were in such a high demand that they will be showing it in Feb.

*The only downside the to documentary was that they didn't' show how much pain everyone was in after they finished the marathon. If you want to portray to the American public what it is like to train for and run a marathon, you should include all the marathoners hobbling away and going down the stairs sideways.

*And last but not least, Lance Armstrong will be running Boston this spring!!!

And unfortunately so will Mike Huckabee- yuck, he isn't even legit.

The Temp

The weather man said "Today's high will be well into the negatives!" (This of course counts windchill)

Translation Today's high is:

-20

Car=Communication

In our last ward, Bill and I taught the Marriage and Family Relations class. It was really fun. We decided to open our class every week with a quiz to see how well you knew your spouse. Questions would consist of listing you and your partners 5 favorite books and 5 favorite hymns and other such things. This would (we hoped) encourage couples to talk more. Well Bill and I like to do our major getting to know you in the car. Road trips are perfect, you are trapped in a car for many hours so we talk about all sorts of things. Some of my favorite questions are:

"Would you still like me if......."usually I say things like: I only had one eye, I had a huge mole on my nose with hair growing out of it, I had no arms, I had 3 legs (I'd be one fast runner)!, I were French, but was still the same old freckly me, my hair grew like a horses main, or had a giant goiter.
You get the picture. I'm sure you'd all like to know the answers to these question, well the answer is no- he probably wouldn't have dated-married me. But some things we did find out or decide from these long conversations:

-Our boys will never be in ballet

-Bill never ate exotic foods like- Indian, sushi, tomatoes, sour cream, Thai .... until he met me.
-One frivolous purchase we are going to make when we get out of law school is a Dyson vacuum.
-Bill tried to race me down the mountain the first time we went skiing together- I had no idea he was racing.
-We will have a trampoline and a swing set, you can't be a respected Mormon without at least one of the two.
-We realized that our official song is Changes by 2Pac.
You get the picture: So what have you discovered about your spouse since you've been married?

Ostriches in the Trees

Did you know that ostriches live in the trees here? I know, it was news to me too. I mean, the trees are pretty tall, and it's pretty cold here. But they do, they mainly stay perched on the branches that hang over cars. I would know, because when I walked out to my car the other day there was so much bird poop on my car. Only ostriches are capable of doing that much damage to my car with one shot.
Speaking of poop. The other night, I went to bed at like 9:30 pm, and then I was woken up by Bill turning on lights while trying to find his cell phone. Do you know why, he was in such a frenzy looking for his cell phone? Because there was water spilling out of our light fixture in the guest bathroom. So he finds his cell phone and makes a call to maintenance and what do they say "woweee, the water has made it down to the 26th floor- it started on the 31st floor!!!!" So they come to clean it up. Anyway, so the next day I asked the doorman why so much water was leaking down from the 31st floor to the 26th floor. It was because a guys toilet on the 31st floor was overflowing and they couldn't get it to stop. Yummy hu?

Running Update

I did a total of 47.9 miles this week. How do I feel, pretty good, how are my feet- just the usual blisters. Ready for next week? Yep, bring it on.
Since it was 5 degrees outside (with the windchill -10 at least), I did my long run on the treadmill which wasn't too bad. Here are a few artists on my iPod that helped me through it:

Leslie Feist
Spice Girls
Changes - 2Pac
Rilo Kiley (of course)
Black Eyed Peas
Franz Ferdinand
Ozzy Osborne
The Killers
Neal Diamond
Wilco
Outcast

Ivy League Kids

I know the U of C isn't considered Ivy League, but it still has the same kind of students...and I'll tell you Ivy League students are a different breed. (this may make me sound really shallow, but I came from BYU the capital of high maintenance, where girls spend at least an hour on their hair alone, they are all blond, and wear the latest and ugliest fashions whether they should or should not).

Here we go:

They don't care what their hair looks like- hair straightener...what is that,

clothes and latest fashions are not of huge concern,

lots of them smoke, it's soooo cool to pop in a cigarette after class- didn't you know that?

they love to talk about international business and economics of obscure little countries,

they yell at you for eating meat and for animal cruelty,

they get in heated discussions about mathematical equations,

Today I heard a couple discussing their badminton teams, and who was on collegiate teams.

And here are a few of my favorites: they have the weirdest sense of humor:

They wear shirts that say, and I quote "If I wanted all A's, I would have gone to Harvard"

They laugh about previous interviews where they have to correct the person interviewing them,
And one night I was watching Throw Down with Bobby Flay, and he went to Boston for a competition with a Harvard grad who makes awesome sweet rolls. Lots of Harvard students came to watch the cooking competition, and Bobby made a mistake and one of the Harvard undergrads made the comment "That's how they do it at Yale-hahahahahahahahahahahha" All the Harvard kids were laughing up a storm.

These kids are weird.
Ivy league humor......it's interesting.

Our Sunday Debut

So like I mentioned in a previous post, the Church sent a camera crew to come and record our ward sacrament meeting. It was really interesting and rather comical.

We got there at about 8:25 and there were already quite a few people there. In fact, there were lots of people that decided to make an appearance at this special sacrament meeting. So many people I'd never seen before. One friend mentioned how surprised she was to see some people there at the 9 am sacrament meeting, because she hadn't see them come to the the first 2 hours of church in months. Needless to say, we had a great turnout. The chapel was crammed and the cultural hall was opened up and full. I've never heard our congregation sing so loud and full ever, I could have sworn we were sitting amongst the MoTab.

But before the actual meeting could commence, the Bishop read a legal disclaimer that pretty much said, if you don't want your name mentioned, face shown, voice heard etc, than please leave this sacrament meeting because the recording will be used by the Church for various purposes.

So the meeting commenced, and it was relatively normal. There were cameramen wondering up and down the aisle getting close ups of families helping their children to sit quietly, young men passing the sacrament and the congregation partaking, close ups of the women in the musical number, close ups of the Bishop sleeping- just kidding, he was very alert the whole time. And that was it. It was a great meeting, everyone was excited to be there and was dressed up for the occasion. We were most definitely what the cameramen wanted- a diverse congregation.

If any of this is confusing to you or you want to know more, leave a comment, and I'll send some friends over to your house to explain.

Running Update

Here is my weekly running update, forgive me for being late (stupid Internet hasn't been working). So here goes. Last week I did a total of 42.2 miles. And I guess having to report my running is helping because on Wednesday I didn't want to get up, so I slept in, but since I knew I would have a blank on my running log- I worked out that evening- and believe me, it sucked. My long run on Saturday was great- it was relatively warm outside, and I felt better on this long run and held a faster pace than I did on my 4 mile runs this week. It is so much easier to run outside. So there you have it.

I just decided to post these pictures to show that we are bad to the bone- oh snap!

And for those of you waiting for a post on our Sacrament meeting this past Sunday, it is coming soon, so don't get your panties in a twist!

Happy Birthday My Little Cabbage!

Happy Birthday Bill-

And happy 25th year! Now you can do some many things:

rent a car
be a lawyer (you are at least one year closer)
insurance rates drop (so they say)
stay up past 10 pm
vote (viva Benito Juarez)
you are the same age as Atari
be a man
grow a beard
buy me a puppy
eat what ever you want
you are a quarter of a century old
learn to speak french and use terms of endearment like cabbage, flea, and weasel.
Well my little Cabbage, I hope you have a great day, and most of all I'm glad you were born, because now we can celebrate you every January 14th! Hurray for Bill!

I just got my tickets!!!!

Every time I find something that I want to go to, I wait too long to get my tickets (Rilo Kiley concert and the Magic Flute). But not this time, I got my tickets to this movie and I'm so excited. Call me lame, but this is going to be great!

How to say I LOVE YOU!

Since I am the love aficionado, I thought I would do a little post on "How to say I LOVE YOU." I saw something like this on the internet and thought, "do people really not know?!" But then I read it and it was totally corny (no surprise) so I'm going to do my own version, and yes, I am a copy cat, but only at times and I usually only copy one of my favorite bloggers, Ms. Haphazard.
So here it goes:

1. Say I love you at appropriate times. IE- don't confess your love with your mouth full of beef wellington, when you are breathing nasty morning breath into their face, and don't say it after you crack a mean joke. An appropriate time might be: on a love sac, watching the sun go down, when you have a dozen roses in your hand, after finishing the best hot dog ever, or before you go to bed.

2. Facial expression are important when you are confessing your love. Never ever ever say those three special words when you have your ugly face on. Try to reserve your confessions to times when you have a composed face: a smile, a wink, pursing lips, even a half smile will do. Just as long as it melts your special someones heart. 3. Be creative. Make a poster of candy bars "you are my "Big Hunk", I like to call you "tootsie Roll" I fall to "Reese's Pieces" when I see you. I want you to be the mother of my "Kinder Buenos" and boy do I "conversation heart" you (or use a conversation heart that says I love you)! You could even go so far as write I love you with glow in the dark paint on your bedroom wall (how romantic) or to carve I love you into a tree, or your kitchen table. You decide, it's your confession.

4. Learn how to express those three magical words in different ways. TI AMO, TE QUIERO, JE T'AIME, ICH LIEBE DICH, IK HOUD VAN U, I LOVE YOU. But what ever you do, it has to be capitalized or said it great emphasis so that the person you are confessing/expressing your love to knows that you mean it.

5. And last, but certainly not least, don't forget the I. You want that person to know that it is you that loves them, not the infamous they, or your cute wiemaraner...the point is to proclaim your love like William Wallace proclaimed his freedom. Be strong and proud and be...lovable, so that your certain someone will know how to say they love you back.

Get This...

So on Sunday, the Bishop came into RS with an important announcement. The announcement was that next Sunday, the 13th, a church film crew will be coming to film our Sacrament meeting. I think it is hilarious- well maybe not hilarious, but rather amusing. They like how diverse our ward is so they are going to be recording it.

They are making Sacrament first and we have to be in our seats no later than 8:45 am for our 9 o'clock meeting. I wonder if this will be like devotionals at BYU when Pres. Hinckley comes, because on those days, people arrive for the 11am devotional at 8:30. If that is the case, we will have to be their no later than 7am. Oh yeah, and there will be ushers to direct us to our seats. Does this mean no kid families make it to the front row and the more kids you have, the farther back you sit? We shall see, (you all know I'm just kidding....right?).

Now I just have to decide what to wear. I mean, this is a big deal. Our ward could very possibly be immortalized on KBYU's Sunday Services. (Bill likes to watch these while we are getting ready for church). Or better yet, we could be in a church video. Regardless, we'll be sitting front and center so start watching the Sacrament services on BYU.

Running Update

Here is my running update. I almost hate to do this but I need to keep myself accountable. So here goes:
Total mileage: 35.8 miles.
I was a slacker and didn't run at all on Wednesday. Slap my wrist- this week I will run everyday.
How am I feeling: okay, I expected to feel much worse but my feet hurt- a blister on each big toe.
Until next week.

Christmas!!

The week before Christmas, my mom and I were at Target, and she said "I want to get all the boys (all the men that is) Nerf guns so they can have a Nerf war." I said "Are you serious, you know there will be utter chaos all day every day with those guns, and you know they won't just shoot each other, they will shoot all the innocent bystanders (aka the women)." She said "I know but they will have so much fun." So we picked out 4 Nerf guns and got my oldest sister in on it and she bought her 2 little carrot sticks Nerf guns too. And my mom was right, the guns were a success. There was an early morning fight between my dad, D-rock and the Bill, and then an afternoon fight with all the men/boys- sans CA brother (sorry brother, you guys should have come out). What am I doing referring to men, they were all little boys down in the basement and it was utter chaos!Christmas morning Nerf fight. Crane your neck to see.

The boys concluded that Dad watches a lot of action movies because he was a sure shot- he got Bill in the neck and D-rock in the mouth.D-rock crouching in the corner.

The afternoon Nerf war when the Lunch Lady's family came. Bill on N taking shelter behind an overturned table.

D-rock shielding himself with an ironing board.

M and D-rock (and my mom ironing in the background)

Bill and N.