the best laid plans
8 months ago
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
New Blog Location
Hi, you can find my current posts from November 1, 2010 forward (and archived posts from this site) at: http://beezelbarb.wordpress.com.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Dream Hounds
What do greyhounds dream about?
Greyhounds seem to have more dreams, bad ones, than any other pet I've ever known. I don’t see the cats twitching, whining, and moaning in their sleep. I can’t even remember the pug doing that. I see the hounds, sometimes am awoken by them; legs jerking, clearly running a race. Whimpering, groaning, yipping, trembling. Years of racing and not much else must be hard to get out of your mind, like a summer at the sawmill earning money for college, where every day you repeat the same task for 9 hours on end, sawdust up your nose, earplugs jammed in, singing every song you’ve ever know to yourself in your mind. Then you come home and dream the same damn thing, no imagination, just your mind regurgitating and recycling the same images over and over and over.
If dreams are the mind’s way of processing the events of the day; organizing, categorizing, working on solutions to problems – then why repeat the same repetitive events?
You’d think it would only take one moment to record a snippet, then discard the duplicate data.
Greyhounds seem to have more dreams, bad ones, than any other pet I've ever known. I don’t see the cats twitching, whining, and moaning in their sleep. I can’t even remember the pug doing that. I see the hounds, sometimes am awoken by them; legs jerking, clearly running a race. Whimpering, groaning, yipping, trembling. Years of racing and not much else must be hard to get out of your mind, like a summer at the sawmill earning money for college, where every day you repeat the same task for 9 hours on end, sawdust up your nose, earplugs jammed in, singing every song you’ve ever know to yourself in your mind. Then you come home and dream the same damn thing, no imagination, just your mind regurgitating and recycling the same images over and over and over.
If dreams are the mind’s way of processing the events of the day; organizing, categorizing, working on solutions to problems – then why repeat the same repetitive events?
You’d think it would only take one moment to record a snippet, then discard the duplicate data.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
My Not So Old Dad
I had lunch with Dad today. Funny thing about my Dad. He's 70, but he constantly refers to elderly people, like the ones that live in his senior apartments, as "old duffers." He prefers not to hang out in the common room because it is just "a bunch of old people sitting around." But he's not crotchety about it - he's not like the dad from shitmydadsays, which is hilarious. I could capture all the funny Michigander sayings he says, though - that would be entertaining, like "If the lord's willing and the creek don't run dry," a variation on "If the lord's willing and the creek don't rise."
It makes sense to me - I know how he feels. Every year for as long as I can remember, I've thought to myself, "I'm older, but I feel exactly the same inside." Not older, not wiser, not more mature. Me is me is me. We should be more tolerant of the older people in our lives, even the strangers we come across, because when we get elderly ourselves, we're going to feel the same inside as we did when we were kids. But our bodies and our society are going to betray us.
So we had a good talk at lunch, Dad and I. I got him to tell me all about growing up on the farm in Michigan. He remembers his family as dirt poor, but extremely content with life and each other. About the only family I know that didn't grow up with some sort of trauma, or drama. Pretty unusual. I was able to capture this tale for the NaNoWriMo novel - whether I'll end up using it or not.
It makes sense to me - I know how he feels. Every year for as long as I can remember, I've thought to myself, "I'm older, but I feel exactly the same inside." Not older, not wiser, not more mature. Me is me is me. We should be more tolerant of the older people in our lives, even the strangers we come across, because when we get elderly ourselves, we're going to feel the same inside as we did when we were kids. But our bodies and our society are going to betray us.
So we had a good talk at lunch, Dad and I. I got him to tell me all about growing up on the farm in Michigan. He remembers his family as dirt poor, but extremely content with life and each other. About the only family I know that didn't grow up with some sort of trauma, or drama. Pretty unusual. I was able to capture this tale for the NaNoWriMo novel - whether I'll end up using it or not.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
What's in a name?
Day 3 of NaNoWriMo and it is still hard - I'm pretty behind on my word count and the story is all over the place.
But it has got me thinking about unusual names. I love unique names, probably because I have an incredibly boring name. My main character will have an unusual name, which I haven't actually picked yet, because he is loosely based on a relative of mine with a fairly unusual name. Of course, I don't want to use the actual name, because that would be weird. The relative was named after another boy with the name that died as a baby, or in childhood, I never could keep the story straight.
(I was also able to incorporate another unique name related tale into the story - another relative of mine was given a singular name while still in the womb, after a friend of the family that had been killed in a car accident. She came out with a hair color and texture which looked nothing like the rest of the family - but was that of the deceased friend. They explain it away by saying a distant relative had that hair color...)
Anyway, since I don't know what the actual name is that I'll be using for the main character, I've procrastinated a bit by researching (and by researching, I mean Googling) the relative's name. I've found that it is the last name of a rather well known Trappist monk (OK, I knew this already), and is the name of a dozen or so towns in English speaking countries around the world. A shortened version of the name, by which the relative usually goes by, is actually a Turkish male name meaning trustworthy, hero, and brave.
I also once searched some historical archives at the library, and found that his name, to my surprise, was a not uncommon first name for boys at the turn of the [19th] century. But I don't think anybody in our family has ever met another person who has this first name.
And now, since this is starting to sound like a trivia question, it has become one! What is this relative's name? No fair if you already know my family.
But it has got me thinking about unusual names. I love unique names, probably because I have an incredibly boring name. My main character will have an unusual name, which I haven't actually picked yet, because he is loosely based on a relative of mine with a fairly unusual name. Of course, I don't want to use the actual name, because that would be weird. The relative was named after another boy with the name that died as a baby, or in childhood, I never could keep the story straight.
(I was also able to incorporate another unique name related tale into the story - another relative of mine was given a singular name while still in the womb, after a friend of the family that had been killed in a car accident. She came out with a hair color and texture which looked nothing like the rest of the family - but was that of the deceased friend. They explain it away by saying a distant relative had that hair color...)
Anyway, since I don't know what the actual name is that I'll be using for the main character, I've procrastinated a bit by researching (and by researching, I mean Googling) the relative's name. I've found that it is the last name of a rather well known Trappist monk (OK, I knew this already), and is the name of a dozen or so towns in English speaking countries around the world. A shortened version of the name, by which the relative usually goes by, is actually a Turkish male name meaning trustworthy, hero, and brave.
I also once searched some historical archives at the library, and found that his name, to my surprise, was a not uncommon first name for boys at the turn of the [19th] century. But I don't think anybody in our family has ever met another person who has this first name.
And now, since this is starting to sound like a trivia question, it has become one! What is this relative's name? No fair if you already know my family.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Uh, writing a novel is hard, says the English major
Technically, the degree is "Writing / Literature," but who's ready to nitpic that with me? I'm not going to get too far into what I think the value of my degree from George Fox College (now University) is - let's just say I'm pretty sure I learned more and had a broader education in high school than I did at George Fox.
Anyhoo, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo (not NoNoWriMo as I ridiculously referred to it earlier via Twitter, which sounds like I'm writing something naughty) and this is day 2. I finally got my word count up to day 1 levels a few minutes ago. It's a far cry better than yesterday, anyway. I've heeded the advice of the pep talk email and let the writing take me where it will, editing as little as possible. It's funny that when I started out a few hours ago, I wasn't in the mood, was kind of cranky, and began writing about something completely different than anything I thought would go in the story. But, amazingly, it came around and pretty soon I was on track again. So far so good.
Anyhoo, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo (not NoNoWriMo as I ridiculously referred to it earlier via Twitter, which sounds like I'm writing something naughty) and this is day 2. I finally got my word count up to day 1 levels a few minutes ago. It's a far cry better than yesterday, anyway. I've heeded the advice of the pep talk email and let the writing take me where it will, editing as little as possible. It's funny that when I started out a few hours ago, I wasn't in the mood, was kind of cranky, and began writing about something completely different than anything I thought would go in the story. But, amazingly, it came around and pretty soon I was on track again. So far so good.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Vegan Las Vegas!
Apparently, I'm one of those annoying people who starts a blog and then never updates it. Well, anyway, let's recap highlights from the last year:
The SharePoint Conference, Las Vegas was the hardest test yet of my vegan life. I blogged about the techy-geeky stuff last week, but I promised a few people I'd also blog about the food side of it. And what better day to blog about it, than on World Vegan Day.
In short, finding food sucked, and I was hungry and unsatisfied all week. I used to travel a fair bit for work, but it was to Seattle and usually at Microsoft campuses. So even before I was completely vegan, I could easily find vegetarian or vegan meals either at Microsoft or at many other restaurants in the area. The Microsoft cafes are very good about labeling all the food with vegetarian or vegan signs and providing easy to find ingredients lists - and some of the cafeterias actually have an entire vegan section. So I guess I assumed that a Microsoft conference would be the same, especially when they listed "vegan" as one of the choices on the registration.
Uh. I was wrong, very wrong. (I want to say upfront that every request I made of the catering staff was polite and respectful - I was not interested in giving anybody a hard time. I just wanted to eat according to my preference - a preference that I had chosen during registration. As I repeatedly stated, I would have made other arrangements if I had known that vegan meals would not in fact have been available.) The first day of the conference at The Mandalay Bay I arrived for breakfast. There were buffet lines of breakfast foods - fruit, pastries, bread, etc. Nothing was labeled. Teas and coffee with creamer and milk were set out (but no soy milk or other alternative). I loaded up a plate with fruit, a peanut butter packet, some jam, and a whole-wheat looking bread that I hoped might be vegan. Then I asked my server what the vegan option for breakfast was. She said she'd check with the kitchen. At least 15 minutes went by. I asked another server if they knew what happened to server #1 and again explained my request. That server disappeared. Eventually server #1 came back. She said there was nothing vegan available. I asked her if she could at least please let me know if there were dairy products in any of the bread (there were several types). After disappearing for another long while, she came back and told me that the bread I had chosen did in fact have dairy in it. At this point, it was time for my first conference session, so I ate a little more fruit and some of the peanut butter, and then went on to the conference, hungry. Then I tweeted about it.
Lunch was no better. Upon arriving, I immediately asked my server what the vegan option for lunch was. He disappeared for a while. I went through the line and chose some salad and a wrap that was labeled "vegetarian." The server checked in with me frequently. I must say, the catering staff were at all times very friendly and polite with me, and busted their butts trying to figure out if, in fact, the kitchen had any plans at all for vegan options. They even suggested that I go ahead and eat the wrap contents if I wanted, but not the tortilla, as they didn't know the tortilla ingredients. My server eventually came back to tell me (at least a 1/2 hour had gone by since I had arrived for lunch) that he could not get the kitchen to provide me anything for lunch. He was clearly mortified at his kitchen. Then he introduced me to the head honcho guy with the microphone who was coordinating the catering. That guy apologized profusely and said that the next day I was to see him personally for my meal. I left very hungry and frustrated, made a quick polite complaint at the main conference desk, and then went back to my room to eat a raw vegan bar, some nuts and dried fruits, and some Primal Strips vegan jerky that I had brought with me from Whole Foods. These saved me during the conference. I love this vegan jerky, by the way! - Although its texture is freakishly close to what I remember real jerky being like, which I'm not sure is a good thing. I began to think that I must be the only vegan in the approximately 7500 people at the conference. Then I tweeted about it.
Tuesday I arrived to find "special meals" signs held by conference staff at strategic locations. Catering staff pointed me to a special area. There I was brought my first vegan meal personally by the server from Monday's lunch. They had really tried. It was a lovely arrangement of an assortment of lightly steamed vegetables with no seasoning. No bread, no rice, nothing filling. I didn't meet any other vegans that day, but I did eat lunch with some other "special meals" folks - a vegetarian and a person who eats Halal.
Wednesday they again brought me a meal - THE SAME ONE FROM THE DAY BEFORE. The same vegetables, the same arrangement, the same blandness. The weird thing was, there were things on the buffet line that it looked like I should be able to eat - and upon inquiry, sometimes they were vegan (like white rice, potatoes, etc). But often, they had butter in them or something. I could only find this out by asking catering staff - and then waiting 15 minutes for them to find out.
By this time, I was resigned. At night, I was able to choose vegan options on the menus of the Asian and Japanese Sushi restaurants we went to. I was even able to get the Haufbrauhas to fix me up something later in the week. Thursday morning I was offered oatmeal (finally, some carbs). And there were always more veges available as hors d'oeuvres at the evening events we attended. In fact, funny I should mention, because Thursday's box lunch was THE HORS D'OEUVRES TRAY FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE. I kid you not. Minus some of the most popular items. That last lunch I did meet another vegan from (Venezuela?) who was quietly waiting for his box lunch. He agreed with me that the week had been very frustrating and the quality of the food not so great. But he didn't seem the type to speak up about it.
Overall, the experience was both frustrating and entertaining. And the week was so fun and full of good geeky information that I didn't have time to dwell on the food too much. I was glad that I was vocal about it and that I stuck to my convictions (except for eating a few bites of that toast on the first day before I knew it had dairy), but I was disappointed in the ignorance shown for what vegans actually eat. I wanted to shout, "Vegans eat more than asparagus and carrots - ever heard of beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or root vegetables?" And of course, my dietary choices made for some good conversation and vegan education at almost every meal. I even had vegetarians and others come up to me during the week, recognizing me from Twitter, and asking me if I was getting my meals and how it was going.
One other cool thing - I wore one of my vegan t-shirts on the last night and day home and had a kind of cool experience at the airport. The young girl checking me through security took one look at me and said, "Oh my God, VEGAN! You guys are so awesome! I read Skinny Bitch & I was vegan for a while, then I had to move home." I didn't want to hold up the line, but I assured her that she was awesome herself, and that when the time was right she'd be able to act on her convictions as well.
When I arrived home I was never so glad to cook some satisfying meals for myself!
A side note: I checked Happy Cow before I went and there are a few vegetarian or veg friendly restaurants listed. They were off the beaten track though, and I was unable to seek them out. I really wanted to go to the vegan donut place! Also, after I returned, I happened to see a tweet that the Vegas Hilton has a vegan menu. Not sure if they're located anywhere near the strip.
- Finished my Dale Carnegie course without getting kicked out for excessive amounts of sarcasm (I actually started looking forward to the weekly meetings).
- Voted for and then celebrated the election of President Obama.
- Got pneumonia. Slowly recovered from pneumonia after a couple of months.
- Got married to my best friend after 6 LONG YEARS of cohabitation. Ya, we're exactly the same post marriage as pre marriage.
- Went Vegan.
- Presented at IgniteBend 2. I was 2nd in the 2nd half. "How cupcakes inspired a conversation about pregnant cows & milk at my wedding party; or the joys of a Vegan (plant-based) diet."
- Got sick of Twitter about the one year mark. Kept tweeting anyway.
- Started exercising again.
- Started yoga.
- Started hanging out with the Bend VegNet folks.
- Survived having my step-kids for the entire summer.
- Climbed a mountain (South Sister).
- Recently went to the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas with my pal Jen.
The SharePoint Conference, Las Vegas was the hardest test yet of my vegan life. I blogged about the techy-geeky stuff last week, but I promised a few people I'd also blog about the food side of it. And what better day to blog about it, than on World Vegan Day.
In short, finding food sucked, and I was hungry and unsatisfied all week. I used to travel a fair bit for work, but it was to Seattle and usually at Microsoft campuses. So even before I was completely vegan, I could easily find vegetarian or vegan meals either at Microsoft or at many other restaurants in the area. The Microsoft cafes are very good about labeling all the food with vegetarian or vegan signs and providing easy to find ingredients lists - and some of the cafeterias actually have an entire vegan section. So I guess I assumed that a Microsoft conference would be the same, especially when they listed "vegan" as one of the choices on the registration.
Uh. I was wrong, very wrong. (I want to say upfront that every request I made of the catering staff was polite and respectful - I was not interested in giving anybody a hard time. I just wanted to eat according to my preference - a preference that I had chosen during registration. As I repeatedly stated, I would have made other arrangements if I had known that vegan meals would not in fact have been available.) The first day of the conference at The Mandalay Bay I arrived for breakfast. There were buffet lines of breakfast foods - fruit, pastries, bread, etc. Nothing was labeled. Teas and coffee with creamer and milk were set out (but no soy milk or other alternative). I loaded up a plate with fruit, a peanut butter packet, some jam, and a whole-wheat looking bread that I hoped might be vegan. Then I asked my server what the vegan option for breakfast was. She said she'd check with the kitchen. At least 15 minutes went by. I asked another server if they knew what happened to server #1 and again explained my request. That server disappeared. Eventually server #1 came back. She said there was nothing vegan available. I asked her if she could at least please let me know if there were dairy products in any of the bread (there were several types). After disappearing for another long while, she came back and told me that the bread I had chosen did in fact have dairy in it. At this point, it was time for my first conference session, so I ate a little more fruit and some of the peanut butter, and then went on to the conference, hungry. Then I tweeted about it.
Lunch was no better. Upon arriving, I immediately asked my server what the vegan option for lunch was. He disappeared for a while. I went through the line and chose some salad and a wrap that was labeled "vegetarian." The server checked in with me frequently. I must say, the catering staff were at all times very friendly and polite with me, and busted their butts trying to figure out if, in fact, the kitchen had any plans at all for vegan options. They even suggested that I go ahead and eat the wrap contents if I wanted, but not the tortilla, as they didn't know the tortilla ingredients. My server eventually came back to tell me (at least a 1/2 hour had gone by since I had arrived for lunch) that he could not get the kitchen to provide me anything for lunch. He was clearly mortified at his kitchen. Then he introduced me to the head honcho guy with the microphone who was coordinating the catering. That guy apologized profusely and said that the next day I was to see him personally for my meal. I left very hungry and frustrated, made a quick polite complaint at the main conference desk, and then went back to my room to eat a raw vegan bar, some nuts and dried fruits, and some Primal Strips vegan jerky that I had brought with me from Whole Foods. These saved me during the conference. I love this vegan jerky, by the way! - Although its texture is freakishly close to what I remember real jerky being like, which I'm not sure is a good thing. I began to think that I must be the only vegan in the approximately 7500 people at the conference. Then I tweeted about it.
Tuesday I arrived to find "special meals" signs held by conference staff at strategic locations. Catering staff pointed me to a special area. There I was brought my first vegan meal personally by the server from Monday's lunch. They had really tried. It was a lovely arrangement of an assortment of lightly steamed vegetables with no seasoning. No bread, no rice, nothing filling. I didn't meet any other vegans that day, but I did eat lunch with some other "special meals" folks - a vegetarian and a person who eats Halal.
Wednesday they again brought me a meal - THE SAME ONE FROM THE DAY BEFORE. The same vegetables, the same arrangement, the same blandness. The weird thing was, there were things on the buffet line that it looked like I should be able to eat - and upon inquiry, sometimes they were vegan (like white rice, potatoes, etc). But often, they had butter in them or something. I could only find this out by asking catering staff - and then waiting 15 minutes for them to find out.
By this time, I was resigned. At night, I was able to choose vegan options on the menus of the Asian and Japanese Sushi restaurants we went to. I was even able to get the Haufbrauhas to fix me up something later in the week. Thursday morning I was offered oatmeal (finally, some carbs). And there were always more veges available as hors d'oeuvres at the evening events we attended. In fact, funny I should mention, because Thursday's box lunch was THE HORS D'OEUVRES TRAY FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE. I kid you not. Minus some of the most popular items. That last lunch I did meet another vegan from (Venezuela?) who was quietly waiting for his box lunch. He agreed with me that the week had been very frustrating and the quality of the food not so great. But he didn't seem the type to speak up about it.
Overall, the experience was both frustrating and entertaining. And the week was so fun and full of good geeky information that I didn't have time to dwell on the food too much. I was glad that I was vocal about it and that I stuck to my convictions (except for eating a few bites of that toast on the first day before I knew it had dairy), but I was disappointed in the ignorance shown for what vegans actually eat. I wanted to shout, "Vegans eat more than asparagus and carrots - ever heard of beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or root vegetables?" And of course, my dietary choices made for some good conversation and vegan education at almost every meal. I even had vegetarians and others come up to me during the week, recognizing me from Twitter, and asking me if I was getting my meals and how it was going.
One other cool thing - I wore one of my vegan t-shirts on the last night and day home and had a kind of cool experience at the airport. The young girl checking me through security took one look at me and said, "Oh my God, VEGAN! You guys are so awesome! I read Skinny Bitch & I was vegan for a while, then I had to move home." I didn't want to hold up the line, but I assured her that she was awesome herself, and that when the time was right she'd be able to act on her convictions as well.
When I arrived home I was never so glad to cook some satisfying meals for myself!
A side note: I checked Happy Cow before I went and there are a few vegetarian or veg friendly restaurants listed. They were off the beaten track though, and I was unable to seek them out. I really wanted to go to the vegan donut place! Also, after I returned, I happened to see a tweet that the Vegas Hilton has a vegan menu. Not sure if they're located anywhere near the strip.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Business Workshops I *Could* Be Taking
Just a sampling of business workshops I could be taking...
Leadership Safaris in Africa: Overcome Challenges of the Business Jungle
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