New Blog

I've started a new blog, called "Love Data," where I write about on-line dating, love, and the science of relationships.  Check it out at:

http://lovedatablog.wordpress.com/

Posting Elsewhere

I'm posting these days at my other blog:

http://babyblogosaurus.wordpress.com/

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HD Update

Well, after me complaining about the TV, Chris futzed around with the settings and now the HD stuff looks great! He showed me what he changed.. one of them was something about turning off the "smoothing" option but don't ask me what it means. All I know is it looks way better now.

Yippee, HD

After discussing it for the last, oh, five years or so, we finally bought an HD TV last week. I like it, but... it is not quite as awesome as I thought it would be. The screen is nice, the picture is big, but some programs just look a little off.

It's hard to explain. The close-ups look good, but when we were watching The Tudors on DVD (granted, we don't have Blu-Ray) I started to notice that the shots that are farther out look like.... well, like we're watching PBS or a soap opera or something. Less polished. Also, I feel like I'm much more aware of the camera panning.

I chalked it up to being a regular DVD, but I have noticed the same thing on TV shows like Glee. On the other hand, Survivor looked great. I watched a few minutes of Empire Strikes Back on cable and I hate to say it, but it just didn't look that great.

Maybe it's just something I'll have to get used to, like the shaky hand-held camera thing that started a while ago. We'll see!

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes..

Long time no update, eh? Mostly I update over at Baby Blogosaurus. I'm thinking of combining them back into one blog again, since the poll I took last September seemed to indicate most everyone reads both anyway.

Anyway, I wanted to post the latest about my knee. Recap: did no running while pregnant. A couple of months after having Jack, started up running again, after 2 weeks, knee pain. Stopped. A year later (June 2009) I tried again, and again, after 2 weeks, much knee pain. Saw the doctor, got an MRI: right knee stress fracture at the top of the tibia.

No running for a few months, started physical therapy. MRI in October showed: no more stress fracture! Yay! So I have started oh-so-slowly with a running program again. I am just starting my second week, so we'll know soon whether my problem has truly been resolved.

United and their baggage

We usually fly United Airlines, partly because we have a credit card that gets miles, and partly because it's usually going where we need to go.

In May when we went to Seattle we flew United. United charges $15 for the first bag you check in. My sister and I each checked a bag and paid the fee. When we got to the gate, they announced the flight was full, and that anyone could go ahead and check a bag right now--for no charge.

That made me mad. We follow the rules and pay extra? Nice. So I decided to email United when I got home, just to tell them I didn't think they played fair. I went to Christopher Elliot's travel advice website and looked up the contact info for United's customer support. And within a couple of days, I got a very nice reply, apologizing and giving us each a $25 voucher. Now, the apology didn't acknowledge that they had broken their own rules--it said something about there being a "misunderstanding"--but whatever. I hadn't asked for any money, and they were nice to apologize and to give us vouchers.

Sadly the vouchers are not usable on baggage fees however!

On our Hawaii trip, we paid to check our bags when we checked in on-line. The fees have gone up--it's now $20 at the airport, but $15 on-line. However, my sister and my dad only paid $11, so I called United yesterday to find out why.

Turns out the fee increase is based on when you bought your tickets, and since they bought their tickets earlier, they had the earlier fee.

I still can't even believe airlines are charging to check a bag. It's outrageous. It makes people try to cram even MORE stuff on carry-on. If the airline needs more money, it should increase the ticket price, not nickel-and-dime us to death on basics.

I have to say, though, I don't really mind buying food on the plane. I never much liked the free food they serve, and the vegetarian option is usually also the kosher, low-salt, no-fat, no flavor option as well. I was fine paying the $6 for a snack box on our trip to Hawaii. It had lemon-flavored tuna, crackers, and shortbread cookies. Some dried fruit might be nice, but ah well.

Living in Belmont

Forbes Magazine recently came out with its list of Top 25 American Cities to Live Well, and Belmont, California (where we live) was number 11.

We've lived here six years, and we like it very much. We love our neighborhood, and its proximity to hiking trails. The schools are very good. It's close to San Francisco. It has a great new library.

The main drawback is the weather.. it's often 20 degrees cooler here than next-door San Carlos! It can get quite windy. Chris doesn't mind it, but I'd prefer it a little warmer. We do have heat waves.. it was 94 degrees here yesterday.. but it seems like its either slightly on the cool side, in the 50s or 60s, or REALLY hot. I'd like more 70-80 degree days!

Also I wish there was a real downtown. There are shops and restaurants, but no real main street.

But I have to agree it's a great place to live!

What's different about England?

Every time I visit the UK, I see little things that are subtly different than the US. There are the obvious things, of course, like different vocabulary, driving on the other side of the road, having a Queen, etc. This last trip I decided to write down some of the things I noticed. I've listed them here.

Let me preface it by saying I really love the UK, and that these are just my own experiences, from the 4 months or so I've spent there. Your mileage may vary.

• Separate hot and cold taps. This really drives me crazy... you either burn your hands or freeze them. The idea is that you're supposed to put the plug in and fill the sink with the right mix of water, but that seems like a lot of bother.
  
• "Half-eleven". Just one of those phrases that I have to stop and think about when I hear it (I would say "eleven-thirty").
• "dinner" == Sunday lunch. I still get mixed up about the usage of lunch, dinner, and tea. Sometimes tea means afternoon snacks, sometimes it means a light dinner, sometimes it means a regular dinner. Sometimes lunch is lunch and sometimes it's dinner.
• No napkins. Or at least, very few napkins. Chris is adept at eating without needing a napkin. Me, not so much. I didn't realize I was a messy eater until I had to make due without a napkin. Restaurants have napkins, but often have paper napkins instead of cloth even at slightly nicer places.
• Putting the laundry out to dry outside. This is good environmentally, and not everyone has space for a dryer, but I see lots of people who do have dryers still using the line. In a country that rains a lot. I remember being in Scotland at a B&B and the owner had just put the wash out to dry, when it started hailing, so he brought it all back in. Then it was sunny again, so it went out again.
• No shower door/curtain. Another skill Chris has that I lack: taking a shower in a tub with no curtain. After my 5th visit to his parents', I am finally able to take my shower without getting the floor soaking wet. Showers often have hand-held sprayers that are on brackets on the wall; I must admit I really like my water-wasting more powerful American shower heads.
  
• Small rooms, keep the doors closed! I'm used to houses with more open-plan styles, where you often can't even "close" a room because there's no door. A lot of the UK houses I've been too have smaller rooms, and I see people opening and shutting the doors as they go in and out. Makes sense from a heating perspective. It's just something different.
• Soap with a "badge". Chris's parents have this soap called Imperial Leather that has a little "badge" in the middle, that's leftover when the soap is all gone. Never seen that before!

Anyway, those are just some of the little things that struck me. I would love to hear from Brits about the little things they've noticed in the US.

Song Flashbacks

This morning on the radio I heard Sting's Love is the Seventh Wave and was instantly transported back in time to 1988, driving down Ygnacio Valley Road in Chris W's (POPnet handle: Number Six) yellow AMC Hornet, en route to a party.

I love song flashbacks. When I hear Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite, I'm back in my dorm room freshman year at UCSD, dancing with my roommate Amanda. Push It by Salt-N-Pepa puts me back at a high school dance, doing the Running Man. When I hear The Flag by the Barenaked Ladies, I'm driving in my car from Indiana to Kentucky on my first solo road trip.

When I hear Help Me Rhonda by the Beach Boys I picture my Dad dancing in our living room, clapping his hands and singing, and everything seems right with the world. Early Morning Rain reminds me of Jon...it was on a mix tape from him and I listened to it over and over in my Honda station wagon in high school.

Some songs have multiple memories. The Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams brings to mind hanging out at Jason's house in high school, singing along in his living room, as well as early days of dating Chris, jumping on the bed in his studio apartment and air guitaring.

Some songs are sad, reminding me of breakups, or my lonely first summer in Indiana. Some songs make me tearful but for good reasons: the lyric "And when I take your hand, I watch my heart set sail," from Mark Cohn's True Companion fills me with love for Chris.

And there are songs that I just can't help dancing to, like It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock. Lisa and I heard that in the mall the other day and just started grooving at the Gap.

I love how music brings back such powerful memories. Got any song flashbacks? Share them in the comments!