okay, so i know, i left you with a cliff-hanger yesterday with my random tuesday thought that turned terrifying. so we left off that my friend just went unconscious on the side of the Panamerican Highway in Ecuador.
Okay, so panic sets in for all of us. We pull out our local cell phones, and call our professor (who was more like a parent) and our program director in ecuador. A few guys run down the street to a building where there may be people to get help. We try to flag down cars driving by. Most just think we're stupid gringos waving at them. One finally stops. We need to get her off of this 3 foot wide strip of grass between one of the busiest roads in South America and a huge cliff to the river down below. We use our broken panicked spanish. (good thing we've been living there for a few months already). They help us get her into their car.
Shortly after this, an ambulance arrives. They can take her to the hospital. Two people from the group go with her. The rest of us are left. On the side of the road, with 3 extra bikes. I decide that's it. I never want to ride a bike again. All she did was hit the wall with her handlebars on the right side, and then landed on her left shoulder (& head--which could have been way worse had she not been wearing a helmet). And she was getting carted away to a small town hospital in a developing country. No way was I going to do the next 30 miles on a bike. So, a few of us grabbed the extra bikes, and waited for the next bus heading northbound. Some others continued on the trek, no hard feelings on either end for continuing or not.
The bus came, the put our bikes on the top of the bus, charged us an arm and a leg ($1 per person + $7 a bike)--RIDICULOUS in Ecuadorian terms. For reference, a typical bus fare roughly equals $1 per hour on the road, so a roughly 3 hour trip would cost about $3. We had only had to go 6 miles! We were in shock about the incident, and just paid whatever they asked for. We cleaned ourselves up and the bus entered the town of Banos. We were about 2 blocks from our drop off point, when we heard a crash behind us. We looked back, and there was a bike, on the hood of the police car behind us. And two other bikes on the ground. They had gotten caught in the overhead wires. The bus driver called us, told us to get off, gave us the other bikes, and just drove away. We didn't realize how damaged the bikes were until he was long gone. [The police officer just drove off, unphased.]
We brought the bikes back to the shop, the front wheels mangled on the bikes that fell. The woman started screaming at us [in Spanish], telling us we had to pay for new bikes - $200 each. We owed them $600. Everything is so cheap in Ecuador, we were staying here for 3 nights, eating food, and getting bus fare back to Quito--I only had $60 cash on me for all of that.
We explained that the bus driver did not tie the bikes down like he was supposed to, and that he just drove off. In the small town, a witness to the bikes falling was able to identify the bus company and driver. We got back on the phone with our program director, as we got marched down the block to the bus company.
The bus company explained that the owner was poor, and that he had sick children, and he couldn't take care of them, so he couldn't pay for the bikes. The police, who were next to the bus company, said that we had to pay for them for the same reason. We were advised to have a mechanic look at the bikes to see how much it would cost to repair them, rather than replace the bikes.
We did that, and the cost was $20/bike. We scrounged the money together to give them, and just let that be that. We were completely taken advantage of twice that day, it shouldn't have been our responsibility to tie the bikes down. This is where I learned the word "culpa" in spanish (that means 'fault', as in whose fault is it?).
My friend had broken her collarbone, and they put her in a weird cast. The hospital cost was less than $10, for x-rays, medication, and the cast. She took a taxi 3 hours back to Quito, where the doctor there put her in another cast. It made for a rough last month of the semester abroad for her, but at least she was able to stay. It was a scary ordeal, but its one that I will definitely share with my children when they tell me they don't want to wear a bike helmet anymore, because it could have been so much worse.
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
random tuesday thought: presentations & bicycle helmets
sometimes, these random thoughts come over me. and tuesday seemed like a good day for that. and apparently, a lot of other people think so, as it's a tuesday blog theme, started by The Un Mom (this is not a blog I often read, i just wondered if anybody else had random thoughts on tuesdays). but hey, it seems like a good idea. because sometimes these random thoughts are interesting memories that are somewhere in the back of my brain, and that maybe someday i'd like to remember or share. so don't feel obligated to read the randomness, if you're not interested. [i do realize my train of thought may be difficult to follow, but i promise it will all come together in the end]
so today i'm giving a presentation on 'time management and project planning.' two separate, but related topics. my audience is americorps program members for the program i was in 3 years ago. why they think i am qualified after 2.5 years of working in the workplace to give this presentation, i'm not sure.
but this all reminded me of the 'persuasive speech' i had to give in my 10th grade language arts class (side note: this was also the same class that i wrote a paper on multiple personality disorder). for some reason, i had no idea what to write/speak about, and my parents gave me an idea. i think i was too lazy to think of something else, so i was the 15-yeard old persuading my classmates that they should wear a helmet when riding their bikes. really cool, i know.
my dad even gave me the idea of bringing in a hard-boiled egg, and smashing it against the chalkboard during an especially intense point during my speech (the egg smashing went horribly awry and it ended up skidding across the chalk board and not even really cracking when it hit the floor).
but i realize now, 11 years later, that i would persuade my peers today even more to wear a helmet when riding their bicycles. in that short time, i hear too much about people on city streets getting hit by cars (i lived in boston for 5 years, and i certainly was not going to ride a bike there), knowing people that have wiped out on a bike (someone who i used to work with recently fell on his bike and broke his hip), and one of the most terrifying experiences of my life revolved around a bicycle accident. [this is kind of a long story, so it may have to go over a couple installments]
back in 2006, when i was in ecuador, my friends/classmates decided during our trip to Banos, that we would bike down the Panamerican Highway. This is such a popular trip that many places in Banos offer rental bikes to make the 60 km (~37 mile) trip to Puyo. [side note: why did i think i could bike 37 miles in one day? and this was about 5 months after i had knee surgery] when we started, the place we rented the bikes from said we could take helmets if we wanted, but said we didn't have to. we took helmets. they also instructed us that we could go around all of the tunnels except for the first one, which we would have to go through.
we got started, it was pretty intense downhill. my hands were clamped lightly on the brakes the whole time it seemed. it was beautiful.
we got to the first tunnel. we could see the light on the other side. the Panamerican Highway is pretty busy, being one of the best maintained roads, and a major artery linking the highland cities of Ecuador and many South American countries. We waited for a break in traffic so that we wouldn't have a car or bus or truck coming up behind us while we went through this tunnel.
A truck entered the tunnel, and it looked pretty clear (there were two one-way tunnels, so we weren't going to encounter any on-coming traffic). I was the 3rd person in the group to enter the tunnel. It didn't look that long, but once we were in it, it was clear it was a pretty long tunnel. At one point, the truck blocked the exit of the tunnel, and it was pitch black in the tunnel. I was going too fast, and I didn't feel like I had control of my bike, and i heard a bump and a crash right behind me. I couldn't stop (the truck had exited, so I could see again), and i was close to the exit of the tunnel. We made it out and stopped on the other side.
My friend was walking her bike out, and I could just hear her saying "I'm fine. I just have to get out of this tunnel." She was walking, that had to be a good sign. When she and the others emerged from the tunnel (all of the rest of them were walking), she said she just wanted to sit down. She sat down on the small strip of grass. We asked her if she was hurt, and she pointed to the spot between her neck and her shoulder. Another friend, pulled down her shirt collar, and it was apparent she was not okay. A huge lump had formed next to her neck, and it was black and blue. She tried to take her helmet off, we helped her. There was a huge skid mark on the side from where her head hit the pavement. She said she didn't feel good, turned pale white, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went unconscious.
so today i'm giving a presentation on 'time management and project planning.' two separate, but related topics. my audience is americorps program members for the program i was in 3 years ago. why they think i am qualified after 2.5 years of working in the workplace to give this presentation, i'm not sure.
but this all reminded me of the 'persuasive speech' i had to give in my 10th grade language arts class (side note: this was also the same class that i wrote a paper on multiple personality disorder). for some reason, i had no idea what to write/speak about, and my parents gave me an idea. i think i was too lazy to think of something else, so i was the 15-yeard old persuading my classmates that they should wear a helmet when riding their bikes. really cool, i know.
my dad even gave me the idea of bringing in a hard-boiled egg, and smashing it against the chalkboard during an especially intense point during my speech (the egg smashing went horribly awry and it ended up skidding across the chalk board and not even really cracking when it hit the floor).
but i realize now, 11 years later, that i would persuade my peers today even more to wear a helmet when riding their bicycles. in that short time, i hear too much about people on city streets getting hit by cars (i lived in boston for 5 years, and i certainly was not going to ride a bike there), knowing people that have wiped out on a bike (someone who i used to work with recently fell on his bike and broke his hip), and one of the most terrifying experiences of my life revolved around a bicycle accident. [this is kind of a long story, so it may have to go over a couple installments]
back in 2006, when i was in ecuador, my friends/classmates decided during our trip to Banos, that we would bike down the Panamerican Highway. This is such a popular trip that many places in Banos offer rental bikes to make the 60 km (~37 mile) trip to Puyo. [side note: why did i think i could bike 37 miles in one day? and this was about 5 months after i had knee surgery] when we started, the place we rented the bikes from said we could take helmets if we wanted, but said we didn't have to. we took helmets. they also instructed us that we could go around all of the tunnels except for the first one, which we would have to go through.
we got started, it was pretty intense downhill. my hands were clamped lightly on the brakes the whole time it seemed. it was beautiful.
we got to the first tunnel. we could see the light on the other side. the Panamerican Highway is pretty busy, being one of the best maintained roads, and a major artery linking the highland cities of Ecuador and many South American countries. We waited for a break in traffic so that we wouldn't have a car or bus or truck coming up behind us while we went through this tunnel.
A truck entered the tunnel, and it looked pretty clear (there were two one-way tunnels, so we weren't going to encounter any on-coming traffic). I was the 3rd person in the group to enter the tunnel. It didn't look that long, but once we were in it, it was clear it was a pretty long tunnel. At one point, the truck blocked the exit of the tunnel, and it was pitch black in the tunnel. I was going too fast, and I didn't feel like I had control of my bike, and i heard a bump and a crash right behind me. I couldn't stop (the truck had exited, so I could see again), and i was close to the exit of the tunnel. We made it out and stopped on the other side.
My friend was walking her bike out, and I could just hear her saying "I'm fine. I just have to get out of this tunnel." She was walking, that had to be a good sign. When she and the others emerged from the tunnel (all of the rest of them were walking), she said she just wanted to sit down. She sat down on the small strip of grass. We asked her if she was hurt, and she pointed to the spot between her neck and her shoulder. Another friend, pulled down her shirt collar, and it was apparent she was not okay. A huge lump had formed next to her neck, and it was black and blue. She tried to take her helmet off, we helped her. There was a huge skid mark on the side from where her head hit the pavement. She said she didn't feel good, turned pale white, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went unconscious.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
so long 2011, hello 2012!
2011 was by far dominated by ups and downs. i started off the new years with andy's family out in northwestern PA, while my parents packed up the home they had lived in for my whole life and moved to texas. andy and i had started looking at houses in late 2010, and we spent all of 2011 continuing to live in our rented 1890s farmhouse.
we had some adventures:
We reached some milestones:
We had some setbacks:
We spent some time with family and lost some family.
I took up a new form of exercise (hot yoga!!).
I had some major work projects come together, ones that i put together all on my own and saw them through to completion. [hey, maybe a promotion in 2012?]
and of course, the most exciting news of all- we got engaged!
the last two months of 2011 flew past as we set a wedding date, picked a place for the ceremony/reception, booked a band, ceremony musicians, a photographer, and i bought the dress!
we spent thanksgiving with andy's family, and christmas with my family (almost all of them!)
earthquake, hurricanes, snowstorms in october... all in all, i'd have to say 2012 was good, even with the pretty rough patch in the middle there. hopefully 2012 will be good all around. i have a feeling that august 18, 2012 will be an especially good day! :)
happy new years!
we had some adventures:
 |
| Texas (San Antonio & Houston) |
 | |||
| Promised Land State Park (PA) |
 |
| lots of kayaking |
 |
| river safety patrol |
 |
| Madison, Wisconsin |
 |
| Siesta Key, Florida |
We reached some milestones:
 | ||
| 100,000 miles on the Echo. |
 |
| and a car with 7 miles on it. |
We had some setbacks:
 |
| my poor echo |
 |
| a basement full of water |
We spent some time with family and lost some family.
I took up a new form of exercise (hot yoga!!).
I had some major work projects come together, ones that i put together all on my own and saw them through to completion. [hey, maybe a promotion in 2012?]
and of course, the most exciting news of all- we got engaged!
 |
| maybe you can't tell it from my face, but at this point, i'm still in disbelief. |
we spent thanksgiving with andy's family, and christmas with my family (almost all of them!)
 | |
| just the grandkids (mom's side) |
 |
| dad's side (minus 3) |
earthquake, hurricanes, snowstorms in october... all in all, i'd have to say 2012 was good, even with the pretty rough patch in the middle there. hopefully 2012 will be good all around. i have a feeling that august 18, 2012 will be an especially good day! :)
happy new years!
Friday, September 2, 2011
Surived the storm, little delayed on posting.
I had high hopes to write a post last weekend about our trip to Madison, Wisconsin to see two friends of mine (from my study abroad program in Ecuador) get married. Well, there was a little hurricane that came through, and the time I had allotted for blogging was spent filling buckets with water to flush our toilets if we needed to for days, scrambling to get all of the laundry done, moving everything from my storage unit living room since we've gotten some water in there in the past, making sure that anything left in the basement would be okay if we got a lot of water, etc.
And then since I didn't sleep Saturday night, I spent most of Sunday in bed trying to sleep. We didn't lose power at all, so I spent the night pumping out the basement every hour or so, and then checking on the places water has previously gotten in, and then whenever the motion light went on in the driveway as a result of tree branches swaying and setting it off, I was checking on my NEW CAR. You can hopefully understand the panic that was going on in my head, after a tree fell and totaled my car, and we had a flooded basement as a result of a plumbing leak, all completely un-storm-related in the past month and a half. Ironic? yes. PANIC?! no question about it.
You get the point.
I hope you and all of your stuff survived the storm. We were very lucky. We only lost cable/internet/phone for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. I'm thanking my lucky stars, because I don't think I could have handled any additional catastrophes this summer (especially not if something happened to my new car).
And then since I didn't sleep Saturday night, I spent most of Sunday in bed trying to sleep. We didn't lose power at all, so I spent the night pumping out the basement every hour or so, and then checking on the places water has previously gotten in, and then whenever the motion light went on in the driveway as a result of tree branches swaying and setting it off, I was checking on my NEW CAR. You can hopefully understand the panic that was going on in my head, after a tree fell and totaled my car, and we had a flooded basement as a result of a plumbing leak, all completely un-storm-related in the past month and a half. Ironic? yes. PANIC?! no question about it.
You get the point.
So, needless to say, I did not get to fixing up my photos yet, nor have I gotten around to writing about any of it. I'm volunteering for Andy again this Saturday, so perhaps some other day on the long weekend I'll get around to it!
I hope you and all of your stuff survived the storm. We were very lucky. We only lost cable/internet/phone for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. I'm thanking my lucky stars, because I don't think I could have handled any additional catastrophes this summer (especially not if something happened to my new car).
Friday, July 8, 2011
the last shuttle
so, before i transitioned to this blog, i had written a blog entry about my trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston this January. my parents now live in Houston, so when we went to visit, it was only natural we headed there. I dreamed of being an astronaut since I was 10 years old, which unfortunately didn't happen because of my disdain for physics and my propensity to motion sickness.
But today was the final shuttle liftoff. I suppose even if I had been a physics wiz and could ride roller coasters (or boats, cars, buses, etc) without getting sick, I wouldn't have been in the program long enough to be on the space shuttle. Maybe I would have just loved to have been in mission control.
So although I'm at work today, I decided I had to watch the shuttle take-off live. This was an important moment in our history, the end of the space shuttle program, and I've never seen it happen in person, nor even over the internet or TV live, so it was high time (I missed the last one by 4 minutes!--which by the way is long enough for them to completely reach space).
So if you missed it, and you want to see it, visit NASA TV. Awesome!
(oh, p.s. i do have a post coming about my 4th of july weekend, i just haven't gotten around to getting the pictures of my camera!)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
hey life, can you wait a minute?
things have been super super busy for me over the past few weeks.
i'm finally over my sinus infection (it took over 3 weeks). we had some rain, which means i had some field work for work, which was fun, just exhausting. nice that i didn't have to drive all the way to the office, not nice that i had to collect samples in the rain, but i at least got to wear my knee boots. my field locations for this project are only about a half hour from my house, rather than the hour that my office is. things are picking up for the season work-wise, other field work (in-kayak surveys of the canal), events, etc. work is just crazy.
in life, we headed up to the river for a weekend of swiftwater rescue a couple of weeks ago. the river was high, but we went out on patrol with a park ranger in a power boat (which i got to drive, which was CRAAAAZY). luckily, we didn't have to rescue anyone, even though it looked a little hairy at times. we stayed at a super sketchy cabin (which was free, i guess why it was sketchy). i consider myself a girl that can rough it. if it hadn't been pouring, i would have rather pitched a tent than stay in the cabin. made me miss the counselor cabins from my summer camp days...
andy just sent me an article that someone drowned this past weekend in our river that we've joined the patrol for (in a section that we would patrol). He wasn't wearing a life jacket. pretty scary to think about it. 95% of the people that have drowned in that section of the river in the past 31 years were not wearing a life jacket. The others? not wearing their life jackets correctly.
anyway, i volunteered for andy at work yesterday, and we've been out fishing a couple times. other than that i feel like i've been in a blogging slump... my life doesn't seem nearly interesting enough to even write about, especially since i feel like my days off are taken over by laundry and cleaning the house.
hopefully i'll have something interesting for you, and some pictures! soon!
i'm finally over my sinus infection (it took over 3 weeks). we had some rain, which means i had some field work for work, which was fun, just exhausting. nice that i didn't have to drive all the way to the office, not nice that i had to collect samples in the rain, but i at least got to wear my knee boots. my field locations for this project are only about a half hour from my house, rather than the hour that my office is. things are picking up for the season work-wise, other field work (in-kayak surveys of the canal), events, etc. work is just crazy.
in life, we headed up to the river for a weekend of swiftwater rescue a couple of weeks ago. the river was high, but we went out on patrol with a park ranger in a power boat (which i got to drive, which was CRAAAAZY). luckily, we didn't have to rescue anyone, even though it looked a little hairy at times. we stayed at a super sketchy cabin (which was free, i guess why it was sketchy). i consider myself a girl that can rough it. if it hadn't been pouring, i would have rather pitched a tent than stay in the cabin. made me miss the counselor cabins from my summer camp days...
andy just sent me an article that someone drowned this past weekend in our river that we've joined the patrol for (in a section that we would patrol). He wasn't wearing a life jacket. pretty scary to think about it. 95% of the people that have drowned in that section of the river in the past 31 years were not wearing a life jacket. The others? not wearing their life jackets correctly.
anyway, i volunteered for andy at work yesterday, and we've been out fishing a couple times. other than that i feel like i've been in a blogging slump... my life doesn't seem nearly interesting enough to even write about, especially since i feel like my days off are taken over by laundry and cleaning the house.
hopefully i'll have something interesting for you, and some pictures! soon!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
welcome to the 21st century.
i know i'm a little behind on getting with the times. (well, i was on facebook when it was only about a month old and was only open to about 7 colleges... but that's about all i got.)
i'm still using a voice & text only phone (flips open, no full keyboard, etc)... and my 90+ year old grandpa was using skype years before i was.
but i'm making my way into the 21st century. i'm always on the lookout nowadays for good deals. so i joined both groupon and living social. and i purchased my first groupon today.
well, i actually didn't purchase it, because they gave me $10 to spend on my first groupon. i bought TWO $10 (paid $5) groupons for ICE CREAM at a local shop (that i haven't tried yet, but they have some DELICIOUS peanut butter ice cream creations, so i'm sure i'll be fine). so i have $20 worth of ice cream to eat, that i paid NOTHING for. how awesome is that?
i mean, they've got a lot of cool things on there, but although i would love to go on a hot air balloon ride, i don't really want to spend that money right now. but ice cream is something i can take care of.
have you purchased any groupon/living social/etc deals before? what deal did you get?
i'm still using a voice & text only phone (flips open, no full keyboard, etc)... and my 90+ year old grandpa was using skype years before i was.
but i'm making my way into the 21st century. i'm always on the lookout nowadays for good deals. so i joined both groupon and living social. and i purchased my first groupon today.
well, i actually didn't purchase it, because they gave me $10 to spend on my first groupon. i bought TWO $10 (paid $5) groupons for ICE CREAM at a local shop (that i haven't tried yet, but they have some DELICIOUS peanut butter ice cream creations, so i'm sure i'll be fine). so i have $20 worth of ice cream to eat, that i paid NOTHING for. how awesome is that?
i mean, they've got a lot of cool things on there, but although i would love to go on a hot air balloon ride, i don't really want to spend that money right now. but ice cream is something i can take care of.
have you purchased any groupon/living social/etc deals before? what deal did you get?
Saturday, April 16, 2011
cats and dogs?
holy cow. it is POURING. well, it's actually not pouring at this very moment. but it has been pouring since around 2pm (it's 10:30pm now). we already have an inch of water in our basement. and andy has removed probably more than 50 gallons of water and it's not showing any signs of stopping.
as you can see from the map on the right, the first band of yellow/red (read: heavy) rain has passed us by, but we've still got another band of heavy rain and then more rain to come after that!
and there are tornado warnings for a couple of counties around us?! this is pennsylvania, people!
hopefully, i won't be swimming in my basement tomorrow!
(in other news, my parents are in town this weekend. i saw them friday night and then again today. we've got plans to see them tomorrow morning for a pancake breakfast event... hopefully we can get over there!)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
six figures!
no, not my salary. but my car! my echo has finally reached 100,000 miles.
i've been with my echo since before i took my driving test (i used it for my test, as did several of my cousins. you can parallel park this baby ANYWHERE). my parents purchased this car for me in july 2002 with just about 30,000 miles on it. i wasn't in love with it when we got it, but i have no intentions of letting it go until it falls apart.
i essentially didn't drive the echo for five years while i was in college/grad school, but i did drive it over the summers in between (which was a lot of driving--summer classes that were an hour away, driving to and from camp, driving to and from visiting andy every weekend when we were 2 hours apart in summer '07, etc). it took me where i needed to go when i had my AmeriCorps job (which was all over the state of NJ--and the first week of the program i had a flat tire at the end of our first week of training...).
the echo and i have had some adventures even though it's only been in two states (at least while i've had it)--NJ & PA. it's been covered in snow and has gotten pretty beat up on occasion--in march 2003, i encountered a freak hail storm while driving and my car looked like a golf ball for quite a while. and now with my long drive to work, i've had some tough encounters with salt trucks. andy is going to touch up some paint this summer though, so it will be beautiful. it's carted me and my stuff to live in various places over the summer, and sometimes it has felt like i lived out of my car.
in 8.67 years, it's been 70,000 miles. minus the time at school (we'll keep a year in there for all the summers combined), i'm averaging 15,000 miles a year! [hold up, have i really been driving for nearly 9 years!?]
i may not have power windows or doors, but i've got me a tape deck and a CD player and this baby gets 35-40 mpg.
here's to another 100K more!
(ps: there is a toyota commercial out there that talks about how many miles people have on their toyotas, and there is a guy who has over 400,000 miles on his. i want that to be me and my echo.)
i essentially didn't drive the echo for five years while i was in college/grad school, but i did drive it over the summers in between (which was a lot of driving--summer classes that were an hour away, driving to and from camp, driving to and from visiting andy every weekend when we were 2 hours apart in summer '07, etc). it took me where i needed to go when i had my AmeriCorps job (which was all over the state of NJ--and the first week of the program i had a flat tire at the end of our first week of training...).
the echo and i have had some adventures even though it's only been in two states (at least while i've had it)--NJ & PA. it's been covered in snow and has gotten pretty beat up on occasion--in march 2003, i encountered a freak hail storm while driving and my car looked like a golf ball for quite a while. and now with my long drive to work, i've had some tough encounters with salt trucks. andy is going to touch up some paint this summer though, so it will be beautiful. it's carted me and my stuff to live in various places over the summer, and sometimes it has felt like i lived out of my car. in 8.67 years, it's been 70,000 miles. minus the time at school (we'll keep a year in there for all the summers combined), i'm averaging 15,000 miles a year! [hold up, have i really been driving for nearly 9 years!?]
i may not have power windows or doors, but i've got me a tape deck and a CD player and this baby gets 35-40 mpg.
here's to another 100K more!
(ps: there is a toyota commercial out there that talks about how many miles people have on their toyotas, and there is a guy who has over 400,000 miles on his. i want that to be me and my echo.)
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
500 days!
as i was watching TV tonight, i saw that it is 500 days until the olympics! i LOVE the olympics. the first olympics that i remember watching were the 1994 winter games in Lillehammer, Norway. my parents watched the olympics and so i watched along to mostly figure skating, speed skating, and downhill skiing in the winter, and gymnastics and diving in the summer. now, during the olympics, i watch as many nights as i can for whatever sport is on.
now, the 2010 olympics were very important for me to see, as i've missed the opportunity to watch some recent games:
in 2004- i missed most of it being at camp and then getting ready to head back to college.
in 2006- i was studying abroad and out in the field when the olympics were taking place (and i don't think the winter games are widely televised in ecuador....)
in 2008- i was working at the env ed center with no tv.
but anyway, some day, i hope to go to the olympic games. winter, summer, doesn't matter. some day.
but only 500 days til they're back! :)
do you love the olympics? what's your favorite sport to watch?
now, the 2010 olympics were very important for me to see, as i've missed the opportunity to watch some recent games:
in 2004- i missed most of it being at camp and then getting ready to head back to college.
in 2006- i was studying abroad and out in the field when the olympics were taking place (and i don't think the winter games are widely televised in ecuador....)
in 2008- i was working at the env ed center with no tv.
and i watched it every night in 2010!
[i'm one of those people that is totally into checking out which cities are bidding to host too]
in 1996, my dad got tickets to a basketball game early on at the olympics. and took my sister. i was crushed. mind you, i was 11, so i suppose i was a little young... but i was already in love with the olympics! [i had a two bathing suits that were made for the '96 olympics]. when my dad and sister came back, they brought me all sorts of pins and memorabilia, and it was AMAZING.
i got a swatch watch that was designed by German figure skater Katerina Witt because i loved watching figure skating. and every winter games, i would think that i'm going to be a figure skater, and every summer i thought i would be a gymnast. [any of you who saw me perform at the gym show at camp know that gymnastics wasn't my strong suit...]
but only 500 days til they're back! :)
do you love the olympics? what's your favorite sport to watch?
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Wednesday, March 9, 2011
sometimes, you just need some chocolate.
i was at work yesterday, and was having serious chocolate withdrawl. i've been trying to eat healthier (i'm starting to feel like a rabbit with all the salad i've been eating), so now that we're out of the holiday season, i'm not eating as much chocolate.
but i loooooove chocolate. so, i decided to take a walk to the convenience store by work and get some chocolate. and i loooooove peanut butter and chocolate. aka Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are my life.
now, i have recently been pursuaded to try Snickers Peanut Butter by someone who is trying to convert me to Mars products instead of Hershey's. Snickers PB is pretty good, but I love me some Reese's. [The store was out of Snickers PB, I was planning to buy both, so I bought Peanut Butter M&Ms instead, still supporting Mars]
[do you know how hard it was to take one bite and then take a picture rather than scarfing down that whole peanut butter cup in 1 millisecond? now that's self-control]
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