jakbac

vote barack obama

2008-11-03T19:01:00.001-05:00

www.govote.org

vote sundrop

2008-04-08T20:47:00.002-05:00

yes we can

2008-02-26T23:31:00.001-05:00

Just following orders...

2008-02-09T19:06:00.001-05:00

... jak would like to have something other than her toe as the last post ...

What is it about toes?

2008-01-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

That I keep breaking mine?

Sigh. At least it is a littler toe this time.

Christmas with Ben's family

2007-12-29T21:06:00.000-05:00

thanksgiving feast

2007-11-22T19:24:00.001-05:00

Christmas Spirit, Gamer-Style

2007-11-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

One of the coolest things ever.

The wheels stop spinning for a while

2007-10-25T09:42:00.001-05:00

At long last, the October travel whirlwind spins down...

Up...

2007-10-25T00:09:00.000-05:00

... late enough for ghost stories. what fun!

fall

2007-10-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

brain and music

2007-09-14T13:19:00.000-05:00

i have the oddest tendency for confusing elliott smith and billy bragg. they are nothing alike. but i listened to them both in same era. "baby britian" reminds me of austin, drinking shiner on my porch, mix tapes, and elliott smith and billy bragg.

Cheesy Details

2007-09-07T10:53:00.000-05:00

We made Ricotta and Mozzarella. Ricotta I have made before a couple times, but the mozzarella was a new level of cheese making. Who knew that kneading was a part of cheese making? Lot of people certainly, but not me.

It was very tasty. And really while it took more time than cutting open a package it wasn't as hard or time consuming as one might think. Although things like - what is the pot I am using made out of? - are significant.

BAC likes it because it is more like chemistry than cooking. I'm just glad the cheese is not as fussy as my chem lab instructor!

cheese making

2007-09-06T20:35:00.000-05:00

new job!

2007-08-30T08:54:00.000-05:00

...working as studio manager at tranquil space yoga studio.

i start on september 17th.

lots of things are good about it. staff management, more yoga, lovely positive people. my dress code consists of t-shirts and kimberly's funky clothes. i get to be barefoot at work.

Congrats to Cara & Michael!

2007-08-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the world to Tovina Alyse!

Walkable

2007-08-10T08:06:00.000-05:00

Cool maps tool that gives neighborhoods a walk score: www.walkscore.com
Wheaton rates a 94, although our house is much lower - they seem to want people to be able to get somewhere in less than a mile.

august asana of the month - lotus pose

2007-08-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

tranquil space asana of the month is lotus pose. a yoga teacher friend pointed out that this is something i could still do with a broken toe - except that i can't (even with toes in perfect condition) do this pose. i am still not sure if this is something that i will eventually do, or if there is actually something about the construction of my hip joint that make it impossible.

veggies and cameras

2007-07-24T12:48:00.001-05:00

eggplant, originally uploaded by jo ann's eyes.

bac and i got a new camera last week! it has a stronger zoom than our last camera leading us to experiment with lots of close up shots. we took it to clagett farm this past weekend and took some pictures of our veggies.

Wedding pictures

2007-07-07T21:28:00.000-05:00

day after

2007-06-28T21:57:00.000-05:00

self portrait.

skeptical arwen (with a pomegranate margarita).

girls night

2007-06-28T09:25:00.000-05:00

I know I am a little behind. about a week in fact.

this is the remains of sushi... we were too hungry to have pictures of the sushi or sushi making.

i have created a tag for "girls night" so there needs to be another one... sooner than the next marriage.

June pose - navasana

2007-06-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

this month the pose of the month is even more significant since not only will i be doing it a lot i will also be teaching it a number of times!

Professionally Bendy!

2007-05-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

Many congratulations to jak, who is has officially been hired by Tranquil Space Bethesda as a substitute teacher!!

roomba!

2007-05-16T06:58:00.000-05:00

they claim it is loyal, patient, and easily trained. will clean up after itself (and us).

(my mom is great!)

Learning to accept help

2007-05-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

An important feature of yoga at the studio jak and I go to is "assists" by the teacher. The teacher moves around the room while the class is in progress, gently pushing, pulling or just guiding as needed to help the students with their poses.

For a long time, I hated it when this happened. I was convinced it meant that I was doing the pose wrong, and mostly served to make me feel like I wasn't any good at whatever pose I was working on. In my mind there was a right way to do the pose and a wrong way to do the pose, and if the teacher had to come over to me to fix me then there wasn't much question as to which way I was doing it.

Looking back now, I just have to shake my head and laugh at myself.

zen habits - may challenge

2007-05-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

idea talked about here, which i got from steegness (good luck, by the way).

the habit i want to start is practicing spanish every day. evenings, after dinner (7 ish or 9 ish depending on if it's a yoga/hiking day or not).

may asana

2007-05-01T09:50:00.000-05:00

the may asana of the month is marichyasana. for a change it's a seated pose that requires more flexibility (and patience) than balance or strength.

Linderman was wrong

2007-05-01T09:27:00.000-05:00

The future turns out not to be such a nice place.

(If this post makes no sense to you, it is because you have not been watching Heroes. Shame.)

happy, sore, and sad

2007-04-30T09:35:00.000-05:00

this weekend was the final teaching weekend for teacher training. i taught on friday night (it went fine, as well as i can judge myself, which is not very well). this meant saturday i was done - except for participating in 7 hours of yoga while the rest of the class taught their classes.
i did take breaks, but wanted to participate in everyone's class to the extent that i could.
it was amazing to see people come into their own teaching. and it was fun, people took the opportunity to do fun things with their teaching. we had soundtracks with everything from some where over the rainbow to def leopard and star wars quotes mixed in with yoga philosophy.
such an amazing group of people! it's great to be done, to have completed this training (and have some of my time back), but i will miss the energy and intensity of the group of people i did this training with.

update

2007-04-25T09:26:00.000-05:00

spring/summer has finally arrived. we went to shenandoah on sunday and it was down right hot. a wonderful thing.
i am nearly a certified yoga teacher.
wedding invites are sent or nearly sent and ceremony planning has started.
i told my boss i wasn't sure i wanted to stay with ES, but lack a what is next plan.

fun with google maps

2007-04-13T08:40:00.000-05:00

i have been a fan of google maps for quite some time, but now it has gotten even better. not only have they developed the ability to map a whole string of destinations together - which is great - now you can make maps of your own.

i have created this map for our wedding. much fun. now i just have to resist the temptation to make maps for everything.

chopped - now w/ pic

2007-03-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

this past weekend i got my hair cut. very short. i have hair ties to donate to anyone who needs them.

as per request:

Words of Wisdom

2007-03-02T11:45:00.000-05:00

Pizza Zen

March asana of the Month

2007-03-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

pincha mayurasana/forearm balance
recently i have been having trouble with my right wrist while doing yoga. i don't have a lot of flexibility in my wrists and yoga can put a lot of pressure on tight wrists. this is particularly frustrating since a lot of the more advanced poses (arm balances, handstand) are hard on the wrists. so normally i might have been a bit panicked about the pose of the month being forearm stand. but i am so excited about it being a pose that is not hard on the wrists i am practically eager to give it a try!

jak's manifesto

2007-03-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Climb mountains

Enjoy the view and the heat, effort, and impatience

On the way up

Do yoga

Eat strawberries from a pick-your-own farm as often as possible

Be a friend

Spend more time in the coop than at target

Do nothing

Make curry from scratch

Allow change

Be change

Live with awareness

Love

Practice kindness

Gentleness

Stand barefoot in the dirt form time to time and breathe

Find the perspective of nature, a grain of sand, the grand canyon

Sunshine

Laugh out loud

Believe in peace

Make good coffee

Climb mountains

dreaming of strawberries

2007-02-13T09:16:00.000-05:00

recently i took advantage of my tax refund and joined clagett farm (a local csa). now despite our wintry weather i can't wait for fresh carrots, broccoli and tomatoes. fortunately clagget has it's own blog and has kept me entertained (and eager). just imagine 6083 row-ft of strawberries...

energy to sit

2007-02-05T09:38:00.000-05:00

yoga teacher training has started. i have gone to two weekends which have been tiring, but great. i can't think of the last time i have been in a room of 20 plus people that i was so eager to meet. most of us are not sure exactly what we are doing in the training, but somehow it feels like the right place to be.

and it isn't as scary to teach other people who are also learning to teach, although it still is frustrating when i know i am doing something poorly (and they know it too). during my one practice teaching so far the only feedback i got was to talk louder. i feel like the confident voice i have in my head does not really verbalize into the outside world. yet, hopefully.

sitting can be exhausting. sitting and trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. the saturday session runs 2:15 pm to 9:15pm. i haven given up on attempting good posture and taking good notes by about 6:30 and am just trying to stay conscious.

Feb - asana of the month

2007-02-05T09:30:00.000-05:00

I am not sure what about sub-zero Feb. has made tranquil space decide that dove pose should be the pose of the month.

Happy Tax Season to Us!

2007-02-02T13:29:00.000-05:00

For the last few years, despite all of the money siphoned out of our checks on a regular basis, jak and I have both owed even more to both state and federal government. This year, however, perhaps due to the out-of-control earmarking process, the government has been nice enough to give us some of our money back.

soul of a carrot

2007-02-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

I really like this article in the nyt magazine by Michael Pollan. And while I do tend to eat more vegetables and less meat, sort of by definition, than most people I am susceptible to what he calls nutritionsim. Drinking my Blueberry B Monster Odwalla beverage and taking my multi-vitamin supplements -- He would say this isn't as good as eating food, say a carrot.

The article is quite funny and surprising in pointing out what we don't know about nutrition and what we do know about food.

When William Prout isolated the big three macronutrients, scientists figured they now understood food and what the body needs from it; when the vitamins were isolated a few decades later, scientists thought, O.K., now we really understand food and what the body needs to be healthy; today it’s the polyphenols and carotenoids that seem all-important. But who knows what the hell else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?

The good news is that, to the carrot eater, it doesn’t matter. That’s the great thing about eating food as compared with nutrients: you don’t need to fathom a carrot’s complexity to reap its benefits.

Molly Ivins

2007-02-01T11:38:00.000-05:00

Edit: Jim Hightower on Molly Ivins:

Damn, I thought, no human can write like that! She could knock you over and lift you up in the same sentence. It was her spirit coming at you.

I learned this morning that Molly Ivins has died. I started reading her columns when I was working on environmental issues in Texas, a time when her humor and inspiration were greatly appreciated. She made me proud to be a liberal in Texas. My natural tendency often is to be frustrated with the state of the world, with our lack of true democracy, war, poverty etc. Molly Ivins was a person who knew to keep fighting, you have to be able to laugh.

"... keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."

What 6 years can do...

2007-01-24T16:24:00.000-05:00

(Warning: not about the xBox.)

President Bush 2002: “The man and women of our Armed Forces have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves -- you will not escape the justice of this nation.” (Applause.)

President Bush - 2007: “We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies -- and the wisdom to face them together.”

I admit that I did not watch the State of the Union this year. Perhaps it would have struck me differently if I had to watch it being said as opposed to reading it on my computer. Certainly there it was full of bad ideas (first on Bush’s list of ways to change our energy usage was “clean” coal, he suggested tax breaks for people to buy their own health insurance, as just a couple). But thinking back to the “axis of evil” speech of 2002 it seemed saner. I remember sitting on floor of the TOP in Philly after having listened in on the radio feeling like I had fallen into some kind of Orwellian world where the enemy is always Evil and we are always Good.

The enemy is still evil, I think, but perhaps we are rethinking what we mean by good.

Hmm...

2007-01-24T13:37:00.000-05:00

This latest Xbox is apparently much sneakier than its predecessors.

Despite careful testing, I have been unable to find anything wrong with it.

What will be broken this time?

2007-01-21T23:08:00.000-05:00

My Xbox has escaped Texas and is scheduled to arrive here on Wednesday. It is no less than given in my mind that it will arrive with some sort of critical flaw that will require me to send it back, but I don't yet know what form the flaw will take.

The Saga Continues

2007-01-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

My Xbox is in San Antonio, Texas.

My Xbox is in Texas because that is where the Microsoft repair facility is. However, my Xbox is not at the Microsoft repair facility, nor is that facility actually in San Antonio. My Xbox is in San Antonio, and may be for the forseeable future, because in addition to my Xbox there is a lot of ice in Texas at the moment. UPS is no longer willing to list a delivery date for it, and from the reports coming out of the area who can blame them?

I wish to express my heartfelt apologies to the people of Texas for bringing this upon them.

Zen and the Art of Xbox Returns

2007-01-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

I have recently had a chance to learn something interesting about myself, thanks to Microsoft and Micro Center. This year I acquired an Xbox 360 for Christmas. I have been drooling over this system since well before it was released over a year ago, but in a previously-unprecedented show of restraint I didn't buy it until getting Christmas money from my family to offset the considerable cost. I bought mine from the aforementioned Micro Center because they were offering a great mail-in rebate. In hindsight that should have raised some kind of red flag.

I got the system home, plugged everything in, turned it on, and was greeted first by the Xbox logo and then by what I have come to call the Black Screen of Death. Stark white lettering on an otherwise black screen informed me that I had an E68 error code and should contact Microsoft support. A quick trip to www.xbox.com/support told me that the hard drive was bad and would need to be replaced. So, the next day I made the half-hour drive to the Micro Center in Fairfax, past innumerable Best Buys and Circuit Citys. Micro Center, to their credit, replaced the box with no fuss.

I got the system home, plugged everything in, turned it on, and was greeted first by the Xbox logo and then once again by the Black Screen of Death. Stark white lettering on an otherwise black screen informed me that I had an E69 error code this time and should contact Microsoft support. A quick trip to www.xbox.com/support told me that this hard drive was also bad and would need to be replaced. So, the next day I again made the half-hour drive to the Micro Center in Fairfax, past innumerable Best Buys and Circuit Citys. Micro Center, to their credit, replaced the box with no fuss.

I then drove with this box to the New Year's party, several hours later than I had planned as a result of this detour. We plugged everything in, turned it on, and everything came on just fine. I packed it back up, did a victory dance and assumed I had just had some bad luck.... Until....

The next night I attempted to make use of the 360's DVD player capabilities. I was also trying to get the remote I had bought for it to work, so it took a while to realize that putting a DVD in the box caused it to freeze in no more than 2 minutes. The handy and by now familiar www.xbox.com/support told me a number of possible solutions, none of which worked. The nice person I spoke to on the phone also tried several things, none of which worked. Having lost any faith I once had in Micro Center to sell me a working unit I took advantage of Microsoft's warranty and arranged for them to mail me a new unit.

In the meantime, since it's game play abilities appeared to be fine, I finally sat down to play one of my new games with my brother, who lives in Cincinnati, through Xbox live. Being able to do this was one of the main reasons I bought the system, so I was very much looking forward to it. However, there was a certain amount of initial confusion, because he could not hear me talking. Several phone calls later we determined that the headset that came with my system #3 did not work. Fortunately we have cellphones that allow free calling to each other, so we fired those up and still managed to have a great evening killing simulated monsters.

So far as I can tell, the only components that have consistently worked out of the systems I have been sold have been the cables. Every other piece has, in one system or another, been DOA.

And the truly strange part of all of this has been how little it has actually bothered me. While I have certainly been amazed and disgusted at just how poorly this has worked out, there has been very little actual anger. In the greater scheme of things nothing has been that big of a deal, just a little delay in getting my toy working and a few extra trips to Fairfax. Whereas in the past this kind of problem would have sent me frothing mad. Not that many years ago I definitely would have been "Things Not Working Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping" if I was a Horseman. Inanimate objects trembled at my name, and something I had waited so long and paid as much for as this not working would have had me seeing red for the entire two weeks now that it is taking to get it straightened out.

I don't miss being that person.

happy new year

2007-01-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

2007. A new year. It makes me want to make grand resolutions about saving the world, speaking foreign languages, and climbing mountains. Unfortunately the New Year happens in the winter, when mostly I what I want to do is curl up on our nice sofa and watch Alias. This generally makes me feel even more like a slacker. Maybe I will make resolutions on my birthday; I should be more motivated by March.

asana of the month

2006-12-28T15:56:00.000-05:00

chaturanga dandasana is pose of the month at tranquil space. i feel like it has not been that long since this pose was asana of the month, but that might just be because my abs have a good memory.

yoga journal's picture shows the elbow at a right angle which i have heard can be hard on wrists. so it's fine for the wrists to be a little bit more forward.

haircut

2006-12-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

documentation of the ongoing struggle (perhaps that's too strong a word, quest maybe? like the quest to find the perfect pair of jeans...) to find the best hair cut. i debated with going short again, but that is a big commitment, so i settled for the - take at least 2 inches off and layer it how ever you want - approach.

i really want to know when straight hair is going to go out of style enough for stylists to feel okay letting me leave without straightening my hair. mostly because i was happier thinking it was impossible for my hair to look this well behaved. i sure as hell am not going to add a half hour of blow drying to my morning, but it was nice thinking it was because of genetics not just laziness.

baking marathon

2006-12-27T14:49:00.000-05:00

while at my mom's i ended up with an empty day... so i did a lot of baking. in this photo you can see a variety of cookies (peanut butter, cherry chocolate, gingerbread, apricot) and banana muffins.

oddly my mom has spent years adapting recipes to take whole wheat flour and honey, but now can't eat those things. so i had to reconvert some recipes back to sugar and white flour. 1 cup of sugar is about the same sweetness as 1/2 cup of honey, but then you have added another dry ingredient rather than liquid. so some liquid generally had to be added (apple sauce , yogurt). for the most part they came out well despite this need for adapting, although i think the gingerbread cookies (which went from molasses to brown sugar) were pretty bland.

Reserved Idealist

2006-12-18T22:20:00.001-05:00

Reserved Idealist

benevolent inventor

2006-12-18T22:14:00.001-05:00

Benevolent Inventor

beads

2006-12-18T16:30:00.000-05:00

craft projects are typically something read about over here. but i am here to report that work has been started on a bead wreath that may end up as a christmas gift. the most notable thing about this project is it started after having seen something i really liked in a boutique. i looked at it and thought, "i could make that." this is not something that typically occurs to me unless one is referring to a very simple html page or strong coffee.

How my job works....

2006-12-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

Since I get asked, on a semi-regular basis, to explain what my job is and how it works, I thought I would save everyone some time and effort with the aid of this handy flow-chart. I wish I could claim credit for its creation, as it truly captures the essence of my field.

New links to good causes....

2006-12-15T11:01:00.000-05:00

Those of you who have been obsessively reading our two-post blog (and really, who hasn't been?) will have noticed a slight change. We now have two new entries in the "links" section, to Malaria No More and Nothing But Nets. Nothing But Nets is an amazing effort put together by Sports Illustrated, and you can read more about it here and here.

Malaria, for those with less morbid reading habits than mine, is a mosquito-transmitted disease that kills over one million people, every year. Most of these are children under the age of five. If you click on one of the two links, you will be taken to a site where you will learn as much as you care to know about this disease and the efforts being made to combat it. You will also be given the chance to make a fairly straightforward transaction.

Donate $10, save the life of a child.

Malaria is almost exclusively a disease of the poor, because the methods to prevent it are almost pathetically simple, effective, and cheap. Unless, of course, you are living in an impoverished village in Africa, in which case even the most basic of measures is far beyond your reach. Ten dollars covers the cost of purchasing and distributing an insecticide-treated bed net. Bed nets protect the children during the night while they are sleeping and the mosquitoes are most active, and have been proven to drastically reduce malaria cases and deaths.

Ten dollars to save a child's life. You won't find many better deals than that.

I am not a myth....

2006-12-14T12:12:00.000-05:00

jak pointed out that if I never post anything, people won't believe I really exist, so.... ::waves::

tofu power

2006-12-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

watch out that tofu dog could be making your kids gay! according to world daily news "Soybean products are feminizing." While we are reassured that soy sauce is okay, pretty much all other soy products should be avoided. soy infant formula is likely causing rampant homosexuality, obesity, leukemia, infertility and (naturally) cancer. thanks to the dailykos for this find.