M E M O R Y L E S S N E S S

Today, I ran on a relay team in the Take a Hike Ike Sprint Triathlon at Deussen Park on Lake Houston. It was a lot of fun, despite being cold and windy.

The team was Linda (a coworker of mine) – 500m swimming, Viroj (our boss) – 10.8 miles cycling, and me – 3 miles running. However, due to today’s weather, they cut the swimming portion (something about whitecaps in the lake), so the race was run 3 miles/bike 10.8 miles/run 3 miles. Linda hadn’t brought her running shoes, so I did both of the running legs of the race. I’m not sure what my times were, but I know that they were decent considering the cold wind blowing in my face and the fact that I couldn’t feel my toes for the first half of the first three mile run. I’d like to someday do a triathlon myself, and so would Liz.

Here’s a video Liz took of me crossing the finish line:

We got second place in the Co-Ed Relay division.

Here are the pictures that Liz took before, during, and after the race.

I’ll add more pictures when I get them from Viroj. I’ll also update with our completion time when I see the official results.

Liz and I have some more races planned; stay tuned.

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. (I’d like to see the source for “the BBC believes” – it seems that this list would be better-formulated if it were created by the BBC, as it is a very strange set of books, including classics and pop literature stuff – but this is still interesting).

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.
3) Tag others and pass it on.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (parts)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (x)
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien (x)
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (x)
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x)
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (5 of the 7)
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (x – this is book 1 of #33)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne (x – there’s technically no book with this title, though there are two Milne books about Pooh)
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (x)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert (x)
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (x – this book is AMAZINGLY AWFUL)
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville (x)
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad (x)
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x)
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks (x)
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Tally (as stated) = 25
Tally (actual) = 30.5 (including 5 for _The Chronicles of Narnia_, 50% for the Bible, and 2 for the two Winnie the Pooh books – note that I’m not counting the Pooh-related poetry volumes; I’m not sure what % of Shakespeare’s works I’ve read, but it’s odd that _Hamlet_ is listed in addition to them…I’d guess I’ve read about 30% of his works, but I’m not including that here).

(reposted from Facebook)

How to do this thing:

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer (or you could actually listen to everything, like I did, which makes this take forever)
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS
4. Tag at least 10 friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the note from.

**************
1) IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
Rolling Stones – “Let’s Spend the Night Together”

2) WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
EPMD – “Knick Knack Patty Wack (Soopafly G-Mix)”

3) WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Queens of the Stone Age – “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” (I didn’t know I had this song. It’s not very good.)

4) HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Finger of God – “History of One Tough Motherfucker” (This song is epic. Finger of God owns. Instrumental metal = excellent for running, yo “Release the Wolves” is a better song, imo, but this still rocks.)

5) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Jimi Hendrix – “The Star Spangled Banner (Live)”

6) WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Baboon – “Bring Me the Head of Jack Skinner (Live)”

7) WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Technotronic – “Pump Up the Jam” (while your feet are stompin’ and the jam is pumpin’!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Bruce Springsteen – “Murder Incorporated” (I didn’t realize that I thought about corporate murder that frequently, but MEMES NEVER LIE!)

9) WHAT IS 2+2?
Eminem – “Ass Like That”

10) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – “Music and Politics”

11) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Reverend Horton Heat – “Now, Right Now”

12) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Rolling Stones – “Dirty Work”

13) WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Death In Vegas – “Soul Auctioneer”

14) WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Junkie XL – “Dealing with the Roster”

15) WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Handsome Boy Modeling School – “Magnetizing (feat. Del tha Funkee Homosapien)”

16) WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Suicidal Tendencies – “I’ll Hate You Better”

17) WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Jimi Hendrix – “Manic Depression”

18) WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Mötley Crüe – “Enslaved”

19) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
N.E.R.D. – “Stay Together”

20) WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Beastie Boys – “Flowin’ Prose”

21) HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Pink Floyd – “Wish You Were Here”

22) WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Rob Zombie – “The Devil’s Rejects (live)”

23) WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Wyclef Jean – “To All the Girls”

24) WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Low Tolerance – “UFOs”

25) WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Faith No More – “We Care A Lot [Original Version]”

26) WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Pegboy – “You Fight Like a Girl”

27) DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Dope – Revolution”

28) IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Beck – “Scarecrow”

29) WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
The Black Crowes – “Under A Mountain”

30) WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS NOTE AS?
The Donnas – “What Do I Have to Do”

Damn, I have pretty good taste. Hahah. Apparently I listen to more hip hop/rap/whatnot than I thought. Lots of live stuff too, weird.

(reposted from Facebook, hence the lack of “tagging”)

Rules: It’s harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10 people. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real. . .nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can’t use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Have Fun!!

1. What is your name: Steve / Steev
2. A four Letter Word: soon
3. A boy’s Name: Sam
4. A girl’s Name: Stephanie
5. An occupation: statistician
6. A color: saffron
7. Something you wear: slacks
8. A food: spinach
9. Something found in the bathroom: sink
10. A place: Somalia
11. A reason for being late: snooze button
12. Something you shout: “Spoon!” (name that TV show)
13. A movie title: _Star Wars_
14. Something you drink: soda
15. A musical group: Sex Pistols
16. An animal: snail
17. A street name: Strack
18. A type of car: Saturn
19. A song title: “Sucker” – Baboon
20. A verb: sponge

reposted from my Facebook-thing.

Warning, these are a bit creepy (not because of the e-cards themselves, but because of the picture of myself I used):

Mouse King Greetings

Baby New Year – especially creepy.