So this past week I have been sick. I'm blaming Chris since our friend Tori (one of the friends we saw in San Diego) also got sick roughly the same time as me. Chris was sick before either of us got sick, so...I'm betting he started it all! It's been a not fun week between GP (stress) and being sick with the worst cold I've had since I got my tonsils out. In fact, this is the sickest I've been since I had my tonsils removed a little over two years ago.
Anyway, last weekend Chris and I went to Hollywood Park! Mike Smith (Zenyatta's jockey) was signing autographs and they were having a Zenyatta stein giveaway with paid admission. So I talked Chris into going. :) I want to go to Santa Anita next (winter/spring meet is Dec 26th to mid-April!) and I'm in luck since Todai (Asian food and sushi buffet Chris likes) is practically next to the park. :P Anyway, it was fun! I had a LOT of fun seeing the paddock, seeing the track, seeing all the people stand up and start cheering as the horses approach the finish line, etc. There's just something about the racetrack! It might also have to do with all the BEAUTIFUL horses there, but I liked it. We didn't place any bets and I doubt I ever will, I would go back to a racetrack for sure. I think I have decided going to the racetrack on big meet days might be fun, but also more of a pain than fun. I don't know...I might have to witness a big race day and then decide. :)
I'm SUPER excited for the Breeders' Cup races coming up next weekend too. Zenyatta is going for 20th straight win (North America record), finish her career with a perfect record, and become the first horse to win 3 Breeders Cup races (Ladies Classic, Classic, and the Classic again this year). So it's big. Goldikova is hoping to win her 3rd straight Turf Classic against the boys (a record and Goldi is a female). The Classic this year is pretty big by itself. Zenyatta, Lookin' at Lucky, Blame, and Quality Road are in contention for Horse of the Year and whoever wins the race will likely determine who is HoY. I'm hoping Zenyatta wins (she's my fav!), but I'd be happy with Lookin' at Lucky or Quality Road too. Between Blame and Quality Road (the two top Older Male horses), Quality Road is my pick. So...It should be a good race and also completely nerve wracking for me. I started to cry when Zenyatta won her 19th race and I watched it live on TV. Yup, cried. Never done that while watching a horse race before! She's so pretty too. :) HUGE too. She's a very tall horse.
Anyway, with that, gotta head to the store to bunker down for the Halloween weekend here in IV/SB.
Hollywood Park photos
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Movies
Secretariat - I saw Secretariat the weekend it opened. It was a good film for the entertainment and race shots, but there were some weird moments. For example, for the final stretch run of the Belmont, gospel music starts to play. Wha...? It totally killed the mood for me! There were some things they changed that I liked and there were simply some that made me scratch my head. I liked some of the racing shots though since they used real horses the entire way. Unlike Seabiscuit where the store was about the jockey, trainer, and owner, Secretariat is more about the owner (Diane Lane plays her). The story feels a little incomplete on the end of the family/husband end, but it's okay I suppose. Riva Ridge was also removed completely from the story, makes sense not to confuse people since Riva Ridge won the Derby and Belmont the year before Secretariat, but Riva Ridge also helped in the recovery of the farm. So...historically accurate this is not, good entertaining film it is. :) I'm going to buy it, but that's probably more to do with the fact Secretariat is my all time favorite Thoroughbred and watching his races on YouTube give me the goosebumps and I know how it's going to turn out! Grade: B for shear entertainment
Karate Kid (2010) DVD - Gotta hand it to Will and Jada Smith's kids...Will already stared in a film and has a CD coming out and now Jaden started in Karate Kid. It's a good remake. I enjoyed it. I will be honest and say I've never watched an entire Karate Kid film before (I've seen pieces here and there) so I can't really judge it as a remake, but I thought it was good. You could tell Jaden REALLY worked out hard to be in shape for this film because it's seriously scary what he could do physically. Seeing different places in China was also fun. It was a good film and probably good for a 10-year-old boy. Grade: B
Robin Hood (2010) DVD - Something was "off" about this film to make it truly good. I don't know if it's the fact this version is more the "prequel" to Robin Hood and not the typical Robin Hood movies. It essentially plays out how he met Marion, how he became an outlaw, why the people love him, etc and then stops once he becomes an outlaw by King John. The Sheriff of Nottingham has basically no role at all, but you can see his greed and lust for power in the 2 scenes he's in. So, it's different story wise and super long (2:20 hours), but there's just something off about it! It's got a really strong cast too (Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, etc), but it just didn't work for me. I'm not sure if it's because Crowe is so much older than you typically see a Robin Hood or the accents were off. I don't know. It just didn't all "click" for me. On the other hand, Crowe's horse through the movie is simply GORGEOUS. Blanchett also has a beautiful horse and the main antagonist too. Crowe's by far is my favorite of the 3 though. It does the high leg gallop so it just looks powerful, regal, and majestic. Oh yeah. Lots of horses! So, anyway, if you want to watch a 2:20 hour long prequel to Robin Hood (not a whole lot of fighting as you'd expect for this type of film; they're pretty short scenes when they are present), this would be the film to watch. Grade: B
Karate Kid (2010) DVD - Gotta hand it to Will and Jada Smith's kids...Will already stared in a film and has a CD coming out and now Jaden started in Karate Kid. It's a good remake. I enjoyed it. I will be honest and say I've never watched an entire Karate Kid film before (I've seen pieces here and there) so I can't really judge it as a remake, but I thought it was good. You could tell Jaden REALLY worked out hard to be in shape for this film because it's seriously scary what he could do physically. Seeing different places in China was also fun. It was a good film and probably good for a 10-year-old boy. Grade: B
Robin Hood (2010) DVD - Something was "off" about this film to make it truly good. I don't know if it's the fact this version is more the "prequel" to Robin Hood and not the typical Robin Hood movies. It essentially plays out how he met Marion, how he became an outlaw, why the people love him, etc and then stops once he becomes an outlaw by King John. The Sheriff of Nottingham has basically no role at all, but you can see his greed and lust for power in the 2 scenes he's in. So, it's different story wise and super long (2:20 hours), but there's just something off about it! It's got a really strong cast too (Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, etc), but it just didn't work for me. I'm not sure if it's because Crowe is so much older than you typically see a Robin Hood or the accents were off. I don't know. It just didn't all "click" for me. On the other hand, Crowe's horse through the movie is simply GORGEOUS. Blanchett also has a beautiful horse and the main antagonist too. Crowe's by far is my favorite of the 3 though. It does the high leg gallop so it just looks powerful, regal, and majestic. Oh yeah. Lots of horses! So, anyway, if you want to watch a 2:20 hour long prequel to Robin Hood (not a whole lot of fighting as you'd expect for this type of film; they're pretty short scenes when they are present), this would be the film to watch. Grade: B
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Fun times! And stressful times...
Last, last Saturday (the 9th) Chris and I went to the Santa Barbara Harbor and Seafood festival with a friend of mine and her mother. It was fun. It's like a harbor street fair. There are booths for people to sell their stuff and lots of food booths. The maritime museum was open for free and they had some boat rides along with a tall ship present. I tried a mussel for the first time and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I guess they didn't get all the juice and stuff out of them and biting into it was a big burst of saltwater -- ICK! Yeah, didn't get to swallow it. It just wouldn't go down...Chris was slightly amused. I did order albacore and got 2/3 of that down before my system (possible mental state) just couldn't take it anymore. :P I did get a strawberry shortcake and strawberry lemonade and those were REALLY good! Anyway, it was fun! Chris says it should happen every weekend. LoL
Last Wednesday I saw Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction - Interpreter of Maladies) and got a book signed. It was one of the quickest book signings I've been to and there were a lot of guys. Most signings I go to (perhaps with the exception of Neil Gaiman...) there are not a lot of guys. Lahiri read from Unaccustomed Earth and took some questions. Some of the questions were just "odd." Like one lady asked about how positive thinking is a big movement right now and Lahiri's books aren't so "positive thinking" and what she thinks of it or something. It was odd. Basically she was saying what Lahiri thought about how most books these days have to have a happy ending at the end of them and Lahiri's books don't always have a happy ending, but something more realistic. Lahiri's books are usually about immigrants or moving from one area to another and everything that goes with that -- positive and negative. Anyway, it was weird and Lahiri asked back, "Are you saying my books are depressing?" It made us all chuckle. She seemed tired, though. So she wasn't as chatty as you'd imagine someone like her would be. Or, maybe that's just her personality. Who knows.
Last weekend, Chris and I went down to San Diego and visited our friends Tori and Andy. :) It was fun! We went all around San Diego on Sat and Sunday we all went to Medieval Times. Sat was a busy day since we went to Todai and the Birch Aquarium. They took us to dinner at this place called CheeBurger, which is pretty cool. It's like The Counter (custom burger place), but it's a 50's theme and they basically do everything custom - milkshakes, burgers, sodas, etc. The milkshakes were insane because you could mix a TON of stuff together and the burgers too. They also do a pounder and if you eat the entire thing, they announce it to the whole restaurant and you get a picture up on the wall. We arrived right when someone ate one and I saw one guy who couldn't finish one. Chris says the next time we go down, we're ALL ordering a pounder and finishing it. If I finish it, I won't be able to move...Birch Aquarium was super small, but fun to see. I still enjoy going to aquariums even if they won't live up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Medieval Times was really fun! We got an upgrade so we had seats in the first row, which was cool, but the 2nd row might have been better. There was a stupid glass piece in front of us (it's fine), but there was a bar at the top! So the bar was right in your line of vision. Other than that, it was fun, though. We want to do the Pirates Dinner Adventure next (it's right next door to Medieval Times).
School is pretty much the same with stress about GP piling on...So much to do and we're just not making much progress. We all know what to research, but there's just a LOT to research! So it's stressful. Especially since our review meeting is in a month. *sigh* Oh well. What are you going to do? All you really can do is keep working at it and hope it all comes together when you least expect it to. :) Rest of classes are fine. They're so repetitive now that it's kind of boring and uneventful. I need to start writing my econ paper so I don't let that get lost in my "easy" class schedule and start looking over stuff for the final. Environmental modeling we have our 3rd assignment due tomorrow, but we haven't received our last 2 back yet. So who knows how I'm doing there! I'm definitely looking forward to next quarter...Maybe not environmental institutions (might be interesting), but the rest should be interesting.
My fish and shrimp are doing well. My water definitely doesn't evaporate as fast here in SB as it does in Monterey. Not sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with the temperature. The one new plant I bought when I moved back is growing like gangbusters! I keep having to trim it and planting the new trim. One of my shrimp missed a cycle. It looks like she may have aborted the eggs, but I can't tell for sure. I don't check them enough to really know. I just know she had the eggs and then she didn't have another set ready. I'm pretty sure, though, she had another set of eggs ready when she got rid of the last set. So...I don't know. They're healthy, though. They live to 1-2 years and these guys are going on a year old, so maybe they're slowing down a little.
It's been raining here in SB and lots of thunderstorms, which is kind of nice! The only downside is the power flickers. It hasn't gone out but it definitely flickers every once in a while. I don't remember rain this early last year so maybe we'll get more this rainy season! Let's hope for less warm days, though. This school year definitely started hot and it wasn't this hot last year!
Well, with that, I need to head off to do more reading for GP. We've got our team meeting tomorrow and we got an e-mail from our project manager that kind of was a slap in the face to wake-up and smell the coffee. On the other hand, I don't think it was needed (I already knew everything she said), but none-the-less it was good.
Photo albums:
Seafood Festival
Birch Aquarium
Medieval Times
Last Wednesday I saw Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction - Interpreter of Maladies) and got a book signed. It was one of the quickest book signings I've been to and there were a lot of guys. Most signings I go to (perhaps with the exception of Neil Gaiman...) there are not a lot of guys. Lahiri read from Unaccustomed Earth and took some questions. Some of the questions were just "odd." Like one lady asked about how positive thinking is a big movement right now and Lahiri's books aren't so "positive thinking" and what she thinks of it or something. It was odd. Basically she was saying what Lahiri thought about how most books these days have to have a happy ending at the end of them and Lahiri's books don't always have a happy ending, but something more realistic. Lahiri's books are usually about immigrants or moving from one area to another and everything that goes with that -- positive and negative. Anyway, it was weird and Lahiri asked back, "Are you saying my books are depressing?" It made us all chuckle. She seemed tired, though. So she wasn't as chatty as you'd imagine someone like her would be. Or, maybe that's just her personality. Who knows.
Last weekend, Chris and I went down to San Diego and visited our friends Tori and Andy. :) It was fun! We went all around San Diego on Sat and Sunday we all went to Medieval Times. Sat was a busy day since we went to Todai and the Birch Aquarium. They took us to dinner at this place called CheeBurger, which is pretty cool. It's like The Counter (custom burger place), but it's a 50's theme and they basically do everything custom - milkshakes, burgers, sodas, etc. The milkshakes were insane because you could mix a TON of stuff together and the burgers too. They also do a pounder and if you eat the entire thing, they announce it to the whole restaurant and you get a picture up on the wall. We arrived right when someone ate one and I saw one guy who couldn't finish one. Chris says the next time we go down, we're ALL ordering a pounder and finishing it. If I finish it, I won't be able to move...Birch Aquarium was super small, but fun to see. I still enjoy going to aquariums even if they won't live up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Medieval Times was really fun! We got an upgrade so we had seats in the first row, which was cool, but the 2nd row might have been better. There was a stupid glass piece in front of us (it's fine), but there was a bar at the top! So the bar was right in your line of vision. Other than that, it was fun, though. We want to do the Pirates Dinner Adventure next (it's right next door to Medieval Times).
School is pretty much the same with stress about GP piling on...So much to do and we're just not making much progress. We all know what to research, but there's just a LOT to research! So it's stressful. Especially since our review meeting is in a month. *sigh* Oh well. What are you going to do? All you really can do is keep working at it and hope it all comes together when you least expect it to. :) Rest of classes are fine. They're so repetitive now that it's kind of boring and uneventful. I need to start writing my econ paper so I don't let that get lost in my "easy" class schedule and start looking over stuff for the final. Environmental modeling we have our 3rd assignment due tomorrow, but we haven't received our last 2 back yet. So who knows how I'm doing there! I'm definitely looking forward to next quarter...Maybe not environmental institutions (might be interesting), but the rest should be interesting.
My fish and shrimp are doing well. My water definitely doesn't evaporate as fast here in SB as it does in Monterey. Not sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with the temperature. The one new plant I bought when I moved back is growing like gangbusters! I keep having to trim it and planting the new trim. One of my shrimp missed a cycle. It looks like she may have aborted the eggs, but I can't tell for sure. I don't check them enough to really know. I just know she had the eggs and then she didn't have another set ready. I'm pretty sure, though, she had another set of eggs ready when she got rid of the last set. So...I don't know. They're healthy, though. They live to 1-2 years and these guys are going on a year old, so maybe they're slowing down a little.
It's been raining here in SB and lots of thunderstorms, which is kind of nice! The only downside is the power flickers. It hasn't gone out but it definitely flickers every once in a while. I don't remember rain this early last year so maybe we'll get more this rainy season! Let's hope for less warm days, though. This school year definitely started hot and it wasn't this hot last year!
Well, with that, I need to head off to do more reading for GP. We've got our team meeting tomorrow and we got an e-mail from our project manager that kind of was a slap in the face to wake-up and smell the coffee. On the other hand, I don't think it was needed (I already knew everything she said), but none-the-less it was good.
Photo albums:
Seafood Festival
Birch Aquarium
Medieval Times
Friday, October 8, 2010
Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers
I saw Steve Martin perform tonight with another band called the Steep Canyon Rangers. I'm really glad I decided to do the splurge and see him. It was very well played bluegrass/banjo music and Steve Martin was entertaining throughout.
It was playing at the Granada theater, which I'm convinced is SB's "music" venue and the Arlington (one block down, literally) where I saw David Sedaris is the "theater" venue. The theaters are completely different. Arlington inside looks like the outside of a little villa in Italy or something (ceiling is painted blue with clouds for example) and the Granada is, well, more grand. :P I think it's larger than the Arlington too. It has a similar set-up as the Carnegie Hall except the seats in the balcony are practically vertically up. LoL Having the student rate tickets meant I was in the nosebleed seats (seriously). My friend and I were in row U. I think there were not 5 rows behind us either. I think we were the 3rd from the top. So it was a little weird looking down on the stage because you're high up at a very steep angle. Anyway, it didn't matter so much since they were simply standing and playing music.
They played most songs that he wrote -- a few new ones that are going onto his next CD with the Steep Canyon Rangers featured (he said in 6 months) and a few from his current CD The Crow. He was amusing in between songs and there was a point where he left the stage (in an amusing manner -- "I haven't Googled myself in an hour, so I'm going to let the Steep Canyon Rangers play for a little" and then asked for a beer from the bass who apparently has a cut out in the back of it and he pulled out a beer) so Steep Canyon Rangers could perform a few songs. They played two, he came out and said, "I'm too drunk to play. Can you play another?" So they did an A Capella song about being in heaven walking around and seeing all these people in different colored shirts and saying who they are and the chorus was basically "Why don't you sit down? I can't. I just got to heaven". It was very, very well done and we all clapped and cheered so Steve came out and had these pieces of paper he handed to the guys and said, "Religious people have their beautiful songs. Atheists don't have any songs..." and went onto this thing and they sang a song called something like "Atheists don't have songs." It was HILARIOUS. They sang it A Capella and Steve sort of sung with them (piped in a line here and there) and it just cracked us all up. It was like Christians have their "Rock of Ages", Jews have their something else, etc, etc, Atheists have their Blues. Then it'd go to the chorus which was basically about atheists don't have songs. Then it'd go through various songs/types of music for various religions like Catholics have their Gregorian Chants...Atheists have Rock 'n' Roll. It was really funny.
He played a song that was about his dog and after the song ended, this dog suddenly springs across the stage, goes immediately to Steve who is getting his other banjo, he pets it, there's a collective "awww" from the audience and then the dog is called back off. It was so cute!! He brought his dog, whose name is Walley or Wally. It was a yellow lab.
Steve has 4 banjos which he keeps at different...pitches? Tunes? Something since his songs are all so different. It's to help eliminate tuning in between songs, except he ended up having to retune A LOT. It became a joke and at one song he couldn't get it to tune (he has an electric tuner he uses) and the banjo player from Steep Canyon Rangers had to tell him which key. So Steve got it tuned and said, "Thanks for making me look bad in front of the audience." And then made a joke saying the banjo was suddenly really out of tune like someone did it. And he looked at the other banjo player. He also made a joke about the other player since he has 4 banjos, he told the guy, "I don't consider you the 2nd banjo player...(we all think this is sweet)...I consider you the 5th banjo player." We all laughed.
He also uses an iPad for his set list, which he had on stage. So he made a few iPad jokes, one being the fact he uses the iPad ($600 as he said) for the set list when the Steep Canyon Rangers use a piece of paper or paper plate when they play alone, which is much less expensive. So he made a joke later about how it's not really an iPad. It's just a very old iPhone. He put it up to his hear and pretended he was talking into it. He also made a joke that the great thing about having the iPad was he could Tweet in the middle of concerts. So he did a pretend tweet "Tonight's audience is especially hot..." and we all laughed and he said "laughing out loud...l-a-u-g-h...abbreviate loud...l-u-d-period". We all laughed of course.
So, anyway, it was an enjoyable night. He's known the Steep Canyon Rangers for sometime, I think. He met them through his wife and this is the first time they're touring together. Actually, I think Santa Barbara might have been the first stop? They said it was day 2 of the tour (Steve kept making jokes he'd been on the road too long, which is why his memory was failing or why he was so "tired" and couldn't get things correct). I got nothing signed by Steve, though I came prepared with his CD The Crow and Shopgirl. LoL They had signed posters of the tour for $35 (I've spent more on books before...), but I passed. I could have bought a Steep Canyon Rangers CD and had them sign it too, but it was too crowded and the guys were in a place I couldn't even see. LoL Overall, it was a great performance and I'd see him again if I could. Ticket pricing would be the kicker... :P I'd do $40 at max, if it was just me. Course, I spent $30 and it was a student rate (plus fees)...Eck.
ETA: They actually started tour on the 1st of the month...Go figure. No clue why they said it was the 2nd. LoL It's been a week!
It was playing at the Granada theater, which I'm convinced is SB's "music" venue and the Arlington (one block down, literally) where I saw David Sedaris is the "theater" venue. The theaters are completely different. Arlington inside looks like the outside of a little villa in Italy or something (ceiling is painted blue with clouds for example) and the Granada is, well, more grand. :P I think it's larger than the Arlington too. It has a similar set-up as the Carnegie Hall except the seats in the balcony are practically vertically up. LoL Having the student rate tickets meant I was in the nosebleed seats (seriously). My friend and I were in row U. I think there were not 5 rows behind us either. I think we were the 3rd from the top. So it was a little weird looking down on the stage because you're high up at a very steep angle. Anyway, it didn't matter so much since they were simply standing and playing music.
They played most songs that he wrote -- a few new ones that are going onto his next CD with the Steep Canyon Rangers featured (he said in 6 months) and a few from his current CD The Crow. He was amusing in between songs and there was a point where he left the stage (in an amusing manner -- "I haven't Googled myself in an hour, so I'm going to let the Steep Canyon Rangers play for a little" and then asked for a beer from the bass who apparently has a cut out in the back of it and he pulled out a beer) so Steep Canyon Rangers could perform a few songs. They played two, he came out and said, "I'm too drunk to play. Can you play another?" So they did an A Capella song about being in heaven walking around and seeing all these people in different colored shirts and saying who they are and the chorus was basically "Why don't you sit down? I can't. I just got to heaven". It was very, very well done and we all clapped and cheered so Steve came out and had these pieces of paper he handed to the guys and said, "Religious people have their beautiful songs. Atheists don't have any songs..." and went onto this thing and they sang a song called something like "Atheists don't have songs." It was HILARIOUS. They sang it A Capella and Steve sort of sung with them (piped in a line here and there) and it just cracked us all up. It was like Christians have their "Rock of Ages", Jews have their something else, etc, etc, Atheists have their Blues. Then it'd go to the chorus which was basically about atheists don't have songs. Then it'd go through various songs/types of music for various religions like Catholics have their Gregorian Chants...Atheists have Rock 'n' Roll. It was really funny.
He played a song that was about his dog and after the song ended, this dog suddenly springs across the stage, goes immediately to Steve who is getting his other banjo, he pets it, there's a collective "awww" from the audience and then the dog is called back off. It was so cute!! He brought his dog, whose name is Walley or Wally. It was a yellow lab.
Steve has 4 banjos which he keeps at different...pitches? Tunes? Something since his songs are all so different. It's to help eliminate tuning in between songs, except he ended up having to retune A LOT. It became a joke and at one song he couldn't get it to tune (he has an electric tuner he uses) and the banjo player from Steep Canyon Rangers had to tell him which key. So Steve got it tuned and said, "Thanks for making me look bad in front of the audience." And then made a joke saying the banjo was suddenly really out of tune like someone did it. And he looked at the other banjo player. He also made a joke about the other player since he has 4 banjos, he told the guy, "I don't consider you the 2nd banjo player...(we all think this is sweet)...I consider you the 5th banjo player." We all laughed.
He also uses an iPad for his set list, which he had on stage. So he made a few iPad jokes, one being the fact he uses the iPad ($600 as he said) for the set list when the Steep Canyon Rangers use a piece of paper or paper plate when they play alone, which is much less expensive. So he made a joke later about how it's not really an iPad. It's just a very old iPhone. He put it up to his hear and pretended he was talking into it. He also made a joke that the great thing about having the iPad was he could Tweet in the middle of concerts. So he did a pretend tweet "Tonight's audience is especially hot..." and we all laughed and he said "laughing out loud...l-a-u-g-h...abbreviate loud...l-u-d-period". We all laughed of course.
So, anyway, it was an enjoyable night. He's known the Steep Canyon Rangers for sometime, I think. He met them through his wife and this is the first time they're touring together. Actually, I think Santa Barbara might have been the first stop? They said it was day 2 of the tour (Steve kept making jokes he'd been on the road too long, which is why his memory was failing or why he was so "tired" and couldn't get things correct). I got nothing signed by Steve, though I came prepared with his CD The Crow and Shopgirl. LoL They had signed posters of the tour for $35 (I've spent more on books before...), but I passed. I could have bought a Steep Canyon Rangers CD and had them sign it too, but it was too crowded and the guys were in a place I couldn't even see. LoL Overall, it was a great performance and I'd see him again if I could. Ticket pricing would be the kicker... :P I'd do $40 at max, if it was just me. Course, I spent $30 and it was a student rate (plus fees)...Eck.
ETA: They actually started tour on the 1st of the month...Go figure. No clue why they said it was the 2nd. LoL It's been a week!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
What happened to the first two weeks?
I can't believe the 2nd week of the quarter is already finished. I'm not sure if the week is going by fast or if I have so much to do that time seems to be going fast...
We had our GP meeting with our advisor yesterday. It was a good meeting because it got us on track to what our outcome at the end of this quarter should be and a way for us to present options to BLM. I feel like we're all back on track now. Last week's meeting was a good discussion, but it put us into a "What the heck are we doing now?!" mindset. I feel good about the project again; however, I think we all feel a little down about it. Mercury is such a hard topic and being with the Fed gov and Cache Creek's issues encompassing different jurisdictions (Tribal, Fed (BLM, EPA, Wilderness, etc), State, and private), it's kind of ridiculous to think that the mercury issue will be solved thanks to us or, in fact, that much progress will be made with our suggestions. So, that's kind of depressing, but we're all trying to stay positive about it and remember that no results is also a result. It'll take some convincing too. One of my teammates did the internship during the summer up there and she said a lot of fed people were basically "Yeah, there's no solution." So...they're skeptical and we'll have to be extra convincing with our final paper. The amount of work we have to do in the next 4 weeks is a little scary. We have to have a progress review about mid quarter, but need a draft of it completed before then and since the 2nd week is already finished...4 weeks it is! We're hoping to have the review sometime during the 8th week so it gives us a few weeks to get a draft written and handed out. I mean...The quarter is finished in 2 months! The last day of the teaching week is the 3rd of Dec with finals the week after. Goodness...Time to buckle down and stop slacking!
Other than that...This week has my first homework assignment! And I'm utterly stuck on it. It sucks. LoL I can't figure out if my research question is not a good modeling question or if I just can't model my question well. I feel like I'm missing something to be able to retool my question to model well or missing a state or rate (or misunderstanding a rate) to make it work. Hopefully I'll figure it out by Sunday because the assignment is due Monday! And we have another assignment due next week since we ended up with 2 labs this week (usually once a week). I have to be on campus to finish it and I need my friend because my R got messed up on my account (or maybe it was just that computer...?) and requires a re-installation. Anyway, environmental modeling sounds fun, but I feel like the prof kind of through us into the deep end. It's like I semi-know what she's talking about, but there is some terminology and math I need a refresher on or more explanation. So it's a little frustration too. I'm sure it'll get better (or I hope so), but we'll see. CBA is easy. He lectures once a week and we do a discussion once a week. I'm afraid the final is going to be horrible! My paper should be good (doing a proposal based on a topic I did last quarter), but the final might not be good. We have no assignments at all so it's basically "in your face" once the final arrives. I did ask him to do a practice exam, so hopefully he finds time to accomplish that. Being here for only 1 quarter and working with another prof too means he doesn't have the same amount of time as other profs may have (even my enviro modeling prof since she's here a year).
Well...with that...Time to watch Bones and eat dinner!
We had our GP meeting with our advisor yesterday. It was a good meeting because it got us on track to what our outcome at the end of this quarter should be and a way for us to present options to BLM. I feel like we're all back on track now. Last week's meeting was a good discussion, but it put us into a "What the heck are we doing now?!" mindset. I feel good about the project again; however, I think we all feel a little down about it. Mercury is such a hard topic and being with the Fed gov and Cache Creek's issues encompassing different jurisdictions (Tribal, Fed (BLM, EPA, Wilderness, etc), State, and private), it's kind of ridiculous to think that the mercury issue will be solved thanks to us or, in fact, that much progress will be made with our suggestions. So, that's kind of depressing, but we're all trying to stay positive about it and remember that no results is also a result. It'll take some convincing too. One of my teammates did the internship during the summer up there and she said a lot of fed people were basically "Yeah, there's no solution." So...they're skeptical and we'll have to be extra convincing with our final paper. The amount of work we have to do in the next 4 weeks is a little scary. We have to have a progress review about mid quarter, but need a draft of it completed before then and since the 2nd week is already finished...4 weeks it is! We're hoping to have the review sometime during the 8th week so it gives us a few weeks to get a draft written and handed out. I mean...The quarter is finished in 2 months! The last day of the teaching week is the 3rd of Dec with finals the week after. Goodness...Time to buckle down and stop slacking!
Other than that...This week has my first homework assignment! And I'm utterly stuck on it. It sucks. LoL I can't figure out if my research question is not a good modeling question or if I just can't model my question well. I feel like I'm missing something to be able to retool my question to model well or missing a state or rate (or misunderstanding a rate) to make it work. Hopefully I'll figure it out by Sunday because the assignment is due Monday! And we have another assignment due next week since we ended up with 2 labs this week (usually once a week). I have to be on campus to finish it and I need my friend because my R got messed up on my account (or maybe it was just that computer...?) and requires a re-installation. Anyway, environmental modeling sounds fun, but I feel like the prof kind of through us into the deep end. It's like I semi-know what she's talking about, but there is some terminology and math I need a refresher on or more explanation. So it's a little frustration too. I'm sure it'll get better (or I hope so), but we'll see. CBA is easy. He lectures once a week and we do a discussion once a week. I'm afraid the final is going to be horrible! My paper should be good (doing a proposal based on a topic I did last quarter), but the final might not be good. We have no assignments at all so it's basically "in your face" once the final arrives. I did ask him to do a practice exam, so hopefully he finds time to accomplish that. Being here for only 1 quarter and working with another prof too means he doesn't have the same amount of time as other profs may have (even my enviro modeling prof since she's here a year).
Well...with that...Time to watch Bones and eat dinner!
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