well it is the second episode actually, but this was bigger. it's only 2 more days until I'm up there.

and thanks all. I think it is going to be rollercoaster time through mid-September.

Oh, lord, announcer, stop whining about how Bolt didn't do well enough in the 100! "This is what was missing in the 100!" What, the unquestionable lead, the world record? Shut up!

I am so quoting you at you the next time you start making trouble in movies and/or literary.

Heh. I was quoting Jesse. I don't have cowgirl levels of wisdom and equanimity.

hee, I have to run, but I'm so glad I got to read about ice cream eating babies. Yay!

I also like to make play dough at home. Kids are used to it from daycare and think making it is a fun activity.

So I was watching the women's hurdles, and as they come around the curve they pass a pole vaulter raising a pole, and I wondered what would happen if said vaulter lost his/her balance and dropped the pole behind themselves and wiped out half the field on the track.

I know a few people have taken javelins because they weren't watching what was going on, but has an equipment oops ever taken out a competitor?

I miss the ocean, but not as badly as I expected. I've lived near it almost all my life and worried about the impact of living where I couldn't see it. But the Rockies...man, they are gorgeous too. CJ and I have spent many evenings watching the sunset over them and all the amazing colors in the sky.

And go, Gracie go! I subscribe to the ice cream plan.

Not an incapacitating freakout. Just a "NOT RIGHT! WRONG! TOO HIGH! BIZARRO!" mental commentary.

I had a similar reaction on a mesa in Arizona -- I could see too far, it was too flat, too brown, just Not Right.

When I'm on the West Coast the ocean feels like its on the wrong side. I realize this sounds insane, but it really really does.

I remember a college peer who grew up in NC and did a semester out west. She was all "exposed all the time" whereas I felt claustrophobic in NC unless I drove out to a treeless hilltop (and even that wasn't enough.) Desert=norm for me. Blue mountains, beige earth dotted with dusty green, sun bleached oranges and reds, that's earth to me.

I should note that whenever I'm driving through California's "golden hills" I just think they're dead dead dead, because I grew up in South Florida and I know from green grass and I know from dead, burnt grass. My notions of lush and their notions of lush do not jibe.

I know a few people have taken javelins because they weren't watching what was going on, but has an equipment oops ever taken out a competitor?

People get beaned watching golf all the time. Plus foul balls take our a fair number of spectators in baseball every year. But those aren't really equipment failures. There has been an issue in baseball in the last couple years with maple bats exploding and sending shards of woody shrapnel everywhere. Ash bats are more common and traditional and they don't exploderate like maple.

When I'm on the West Coast the ocean feels like its on the wrong side. I realize this sounds insane, but it really really does.

I'm so used to Lake Michigan being East of me that it seems the natural place for a large body of water to be. Even after living in San Francisco - maybe 'cuz I didn't see the ocean too much, but saw the bay to the East & North all the time....