Denny Creek-Melakwa Lake Hike (Rated G)

Today I did a hike called Denny Creek - Melakwa Lake, but I didn't quite make it to the lake. I got a very late start (hit the trail at 1:30pm). I was almost 2.5 hours in and thought I must be close to the lake, but I had given myself a 4:00 turn around time to ensure I made it back with plenty of light.

At 3:50 a guy on his way down told me I was at least 45 mins from the lake so I decided to turn back. Turns out, I could have made the lake because the descent breezed by!

It was very steep and rocky and was a good reminder to bring hiking poles on the Inca Trail! I was only carrying 15 pounds (much less on the descent after drinking 2 or my 3 liters of water and eating most of my food) and my feet were still hurting. Luckily, I have good knees, but my arches and toes hurt from all the rocky terrain.

I put 5 pounds of popcorn kernels in ziploc bags and put those in my pack. Someone has told me use water bottles for extra weight so that you can pour them out at the top and save your knees on the descent. I may try a combination of that at some point.

The trail head was 2,300' and the lake summit would have been 4,650' so I'm guessing I was at around 3,800' when I turned around?? I've got to buy an altimeter soon!

The entire trip took 4 hours. As long as I paid attention to my energy level and ate enough, and realized that when I started to get cold I needed to put on another layer because I was zapping my body's energy, I was fine!

Here are the pics I took today. There was so much beautiful flora that I had to take pictures of it.

Want to Loose Weight? Bring an Extra Pair of Pants to Work. (Rated PG)

Some of you may have heard that a new OTC diet drug called Alli hit the shelves today and is selling like hotcakes.

I had heard something about it on the Today Show the other morning and couldn’t quite believe that people would be lining up to buy a product that produces some of the side effects this one does.

Let me quote directly off the manufacturer’s website (http://myalli.com/howdoesitwork/treatmenteffects.aspx):

“alli™ works by preventing the absorption of some of the fat you eat. The fat passes out of your body, so you may have bowel changes, known as treatment effects. You may get:

* gas with oily spotting
* loose stools
* more frequent stools that may be hard to control”

“The excess fat that passes out of your body is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza.”

“You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work”

Sounds delightful.

Then, the other thing that shocked me was a news article that quoted a worker at a Rite Aid in LA as saying that the women who are buying this stuff out of stock “are not fat”. I mean, if you look like this

I can understand that having oil leak out of your ass is probably the least of your worries, but if you’ve only got 15 pounds to loose, really…. is it worth it!?

The manufacturer’s website goes on to give tips on how to “manage treatment effects”.

“You can use a food journal to recognize what foods can lead to treatment effects. For example, writing down what you eat may help you learn that marinara sauce is a better option than Alfredo sauce”

“While no one likes experiencing treatment effects, they might help you think twice about eating questionable fat content.”

Sounds like they’re saying that eating a low-fat diet is a good idea. Hmmm…. Where have I heard that before? Why is it that people have to have pizza oil leak out of their ass to get that eating a low-fat diet is a good idea?

… and we’re supposedly the most intelligent beings in the universe? Frightening.

Google is the greatest invention since fire; Not sliced bread, fire. (Rated G)

I created this Google news alert for work today today thinking it was going to be too specific and I wouldn't get any hits. I thought I had narrowed the field too much and I might get a couple articles a week.

And then tonight I get an alert email with with 9 news articles and 5 blogs. And surprisingly, most of them are pretty relevant.

Combine this with scholar, local, maps, news, earth, picasa .... hell, they even own Blogger.com now and this thing is awesome too! Google should just be president of the world. I know, I am recommending that a corporation rule the entire world, but come on, they have an amazing track record. I bet if you asked Google to balance the federal budget, they would. Provide universal health care for all Americans? They could. Save social security? They could. Solve global warming? But, of course. World peace? No problem!

Seriously, in the 2008 Presidential election just write in "Google" on your ballot. It will be kind of like Richard Pryor telling everyone to vote for 'none of the above' in Brewster's Millions, but instead you're actually choosing an alternative.

Trust me, the world will be a better place for it.

Do-It Yourself Disaster (Rated PG)

I moved into a new apartment a couple of months ago and I still have an entire room full of boxes that need to be unpacked. I bought three shelves at IKEA about 3 or 4 weeks ago and have just never gotten around to putting them up.

A few weeks before I bought the shelves I had bought a stud finder and marked all the walls in my spare bedroom so that I could put the shelves and my dart board up. I decided tonight was the night; I was going to be productive!

I had also gone to Home Depot and bought a cool level that sticks to the wall with 3M tape, all the screws and the dry wall screw support thingys that the nice guy there told me I would need.

So, tonight I got out the step ladder, my recently purchased cordless drill, the level, the IKEA shelf, the screws, etc. I made a mark at the height where I wanted the first shelf and then lined it up with the stud I had marked off earlier. Then I got out the level, found the exact perfect spot for it and stuck it to the wall. Only, once I lined up the bubble, it wasn't quite the exact perfect spot, it was about 1/4" off. So I pulled the 3M tape to try and move the level a touch and, well..... a picture is worth 1,000 words.

Yeah, so much for 3M "non-stick" tape.

But, I was not to be discouraged! I spent the next 45 mins trying to get it to stick to this now bare wall beneath the plaster. I tried another 3M sticky thing (wall's already ruined what does it matter, right?), but evidently 3M tape only destroys paint and plaster, not the actual wall surface; it wouldn't stick at all!

But God damn it I had come this far there was no way I was gonna quit now! So I got out packing tape and taped the shit out of the level and literally taped it to the wall. I really wish I had taken a picture of it because it was really comic, but I had no way of knowing what a tragicomedy this was going to turn out to be in the end.

Now that I had the level shooting its ever-so-faint little red beam all the way across the wall, it was time to line up the shelf mount and mark the holes. I did this, grabbed my drill and the screw the Home Depot guy had told me to use on the stud. I gave it a couple of taps with the hammer to get an indent to place the screw in before drilling away. Then, I held up the shelf mounting hardware, put the screw through the center hole and started drilling. It took a little pressure at first, but then all of a sudden the screw just punched right through the dry wall. Turns out, there wasn't a stud there after all. #%#$@^ cheap ass stud finder!

I tried hammering in another stud screw in the hole I had marked just below and got something solid. I was heartened by this and so decided if I had at least one screw in a stud that would be okay, and I'd use one of the dry wall screw backing things on the other one. I screwed in the dry wall screw thing, put the mounting hardware back up and proceeded to drill the stud screw through the bottom hole and the dry wall screw into the top.

Only, they wouldn't lay flush with the wall. The dry wall thing just started spinning freely in its hole. I had put too much torque on it and just spun a huge hole in the dry wall. And the stud screw was in crooked or something because it wouldn't lay flush either.

At this point, I'd been doing this for something like 1.5 hours and it was looking hopeless. So, I took the mounting hardware out of the wall and looked at my handiwork.

...Then, I went to CraigsList and put up a post for a handy man.

And to think, I was seriously considering trying to install ceiling fans myself!

What lesson have I learned from this? I may not be a high-maintenance chick, but I'm no Tool Time Tim either.

Welcome to My Blog

After reading a couple friend's blogs over the past few weeks and years (two specific friends I'm talking about) I've decided they're pretty nifty and I'm going to start myself one.

I imagine it will come to be filled with funny stories, stream-of-consciousness rants, personal opinions, general goings-on, and some complete nonsense; I hope you enjoy it all... or at least won't take offense to too much of it. :) I'll try to implement some kind of rating system but I'm thinking it will be pretty basic:

G- Suitable for for all audiences
PG - Typical Amie - Just one or two 4-letter words
NC17 - I'm in rare form - expect either truck driver talk or heavy political, religious or sexual opinions and/or rantings.... or all of the above combined - read at your own risk!!


So, without further ado, on to the story that finally pushed me over the edge to actually creating this thing.

My picture

I have to post this to link to it in my profile