http://www.proximalillumination.wordpress.com

http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1129.html

I've had an epic weekend.

It started on Wednesday, when I left East Lansing at 8:30 in the morning. My mom was surprised to see me arrive at the house just before noon. I don't think she expected me to leave E.L until at least ten. Also, when Jack comes with me, we usually leave between 2 and 3 hours late. SURPRISE! Home early. My mom took advantage of the hours I'd gained by making me go running. The experience didn't bode well for the 10k I was to run on Friday.

Thursday: In the middle of my Wednesday dentist appointment, I decided to cut my hair. It took a giant leap of faith, because my usual stylist of almost 15 years was booked. Thankfully, Susan did a wonderful job, and now I have hair that is short and layerless. It looked awesome for the dinner we had at my mom's parent's house.

Friday: RACE DAY! A good piece of advice is this: train for every race you run, whether it's a 1 mile or 10k. I almost never follow this advice, and about halfway up the huge mountain at mile 4 I realized that I need to start running regularly or else. On the other hand, it's actually kind of fun to finish dead last in a road race. You get the most cheers out of anyone, and the ambulance follows you until you're either dead or done. Sweeeet.

Also, going to a bar with your nearly-80-year-old grandparents can be funnier than expected.

Saturday: FAMILY. REUNION. Long story short: my sister and I were a last-minute entry into the annual Skip-Bo Tournament. Competition is always fierce at this event, and it doesn't matter if you're family or not--harsh comments and discouraging remarks are rampant. Somehow, we ended up sweeping the tournament, beating my aunt and great-aunt in a stunning show of brilliance and teamwork. Now we will have our names immortalized on the adult's Skip-Bo plaque. We're basically required to show up next year to defend our title. It's serious now.

Sunday: MORE FAMILY REUNION. I got up at 6:30 to go back up to the lake with my parents (I was bribed with the promise of French Toast). After some fireside chatting (HA) about my aunt's thesis paper (I edited it over Saturday night) and other assorted topics (and French Toast) we headed home. And after a two hour nap and lunch at the Villager, I was forced to drive back to East Lansing.

In conclusion, I wish I could bring my bed from home to our apartment in East Lansing, and I'm going running tomorrow come hell or high water. The End.

Wall-E was excellent--another win for Disney Pixar. They've got some mad skillz. I mean, who else could make robots (well, aside from Doctor Who's K9) so endearing? But after being introduced to my new favorite Pixar character, there were some mildly disturbing elements in the film--particularly the Earth covered in years of trash build-up and a spaceship full of people so obese and so lacking in bones that they can no longer walk. 700 years in space is apparently not kind to humans.

In other news, we went to Ann Arbor on Friday. It was the first time I've been there since high school, and the city doesn't really make a great first impression. (This could or could not be due to the fact that I was raised to detest maize and blue). Fortunately, the experience was much better this time around. Yay for new/old stories.

Only two days of work until the 4th of July. This is both exciting and creepy--how is it July already?

The Supreme Court overturned the DC gun ban at 10-ish this morning.

Oh, and they also confirmed that the 2nd Amendment refers to an individual right of gun ownership.

I'm a little bit excited.

It’s almost ridiculous how quickly summer is going by. Exactly two weeks and one day from now our final rent check is due—how did that happen? Two months from last Wednesday, we move again.

Highlights so far:

• Sweet digital camera that I got for my birthday. I now photograph/videotape all sorts of random moments, yay.
• Traveling weekends. We’ve been away every weekend since Memorial Day—so what if it’s only Huntington Woods and Charlevoix?
• New clothes. I have a pretty new dress for the infamous Wedding in Chicago, which is this weekend. And new shoes.
  
• The Biggest Loser 2 workout video. Accessories: a medicine ball, 5-pound weights, and a new exercise ball. It's so exciting. I love Bob.
• Wii Fit. I have two new stamps and almost all the games unlocked. I really need to get on that...

And of course, there's working at the Press. One of the biggest benefits of working in an office full of women is that there's never a shortage of new stories to be told. Not to mention the sheer drama that gets infused with everyday office tasks...amazing.

Back to lunch break...

We have a Wii Fit!

I thought I'd never see another one after I bought two at Meijer last Friday (alas, they were for my mom and grandma, not me) and then tried unsuccessfully to buy one yesterday. I felt very defeated this morning (and also probably homesick). But on the way home from work, the gods smiled down on me and sent a Wii Fit to WalMart to be guarded by a very nice employee who kept it for me in the five minutes it took me to speed there and purchase it.

So for now, my life is totally complete. I can hula hoop away all the extra calories from today. Wii Fit + Biggest Loser = TOTALLY AWESOME RESULTS. Yesss...

Just come watch Jack do Cardio Dance Blast.

So, tomorrow is my fifth full day of working at the Press and also my fifth full day of doing The Biggest Loser Cardio Max. I'm pretty psyched about it. I've actually had enough work to stave off delving into the editorial (read: not subscriptions) part of my job. I'm not a numbers person, but I find subscriptions to be pretty easy. The journal I'm going to be working on, however, is a giant mess. In comparison, the subscriptions software mess I'm wading through with some coworkers is a walk in the park compared to this journal. I guess, though, that if it was mind-numbingly easy (like entering zip codes for hours....and hours...) I would hate going to work. As it stands, it's a good job.

Aaaand this weekend is the East Lansing Art Festival. And I signed up for a belly-dancing class. And next weekend is Memorial Day. All that = awesome.

In other news, the brownie bites they sell at Costco are addictive.

My mom is awesome. She invited me to ride my bike while she ran 10+ miles yesterday and we talked about everything. She used to invite me along when I was five. From elementary school through senior year, every time she made my lunch (almost every day for 12 years) she added a note. I think she gets cooler every single year (while I get less cool every year, even going so far as to cry over greeting cards). My mom is awesome. <3

When I got home for break on Friday, I decided to ignore my e-mail. The result? Even more happiness. I'm really going to have to do this more often.

In the intervening time, I've been catching up on my guilty pleasure game from Christmas (The Sims 2 Castaways, compliments of my brother), doing yardwork (?) and going to see such cinematic adventures such as Ironman (it's actually pretty good).

Also, my brother showed me a really cool song, which I consider to be a direct contribution to my discovery of Flobots--a good band. I think We Are Winning and Handlebars are two standouts that I've heard so far.

And:


I'm so excited for this summer and next year.

And it is awesome.

Morons.

I think it's exciting when you get to do something nice for somebody you don't know at all. This isn't to say that we go around being huge jerks, but you get what I mean. Anyway, tonight we went to Meijer to buy sheet protectors and erasable pens so I can make a project and so Jack can park for free. We looked at some chairs, found the last 50-pack of sheet protectors, and left. About twenty feet past the sidewalk, I kicked at something that looked like a keyless entry remote.

Jack, of course, picked it up, and it was a keyless entry remote! He immediately noticed that it looked like Oen's, which isn't saying much since Ford probably made a bazillion keyless entry remotes that look exactly the same. "Push the button and see if it goes off," I said. "I'm going to push it," said Jack. "Okay," I said. So he pushed the panic button, and a car alarm went off. "No way!" said Jack. He pushed the button that made the car alarm stop. It stopped. He pushed the lock button. It beeped. "No way," he said again. "Yes way," I said, and we went up to the car.

We debated for a minute about the best place to leave the remote, put it on the driver's side mirror, and went back to the car. Except, on the way back, I started thinking about all the thieves that are probably lurking around the parking lot at Meijer and how some suspicious people had probably watched us leave the remote on the mirror and how I would have an absolute heart attack if my remote was left on my mirror, and long story short, we took it into Meijer and gave it to the customer service desk. They got to page the owner of the car, who probably thought his or her car was the victim of a hit-and-run incident. Good deed of the day, accomplished.

So far this weekend, I've accomplished many things: I found some cute shoes, discovered that my Brain Age is approximately 62 (!) and did a crazy workout video. In two hours, I'm going to be running a 5k and probably losing spectacularly to my mom (she's awesome). I'm going to be set for cardio workouts this weekend, not to mention shaping up my prefrontal cortex. Next on the list? Homework...maybe.

Also, people should think about watching this video. It doesn't have the best title in the world, but it's a pretty shocking documentary and can provoke really good discussion. For more documentaries like it, visit Big Noise Films.

The fact that we move into our apartment in ~two weeks is kind of thrilling. People should come visit us. In related news, the diabetes commercial man is disturbing.