Shelley Powers is one of the most interesting bloggers I have [virtually] met – a well-published geek, a poet, a photographer, a bookbinder and partially the inspiration for my blog title. We “met” in the comments of Halley Suitt’s misbehaving.net blog after last year’s PDC. We didn’t get off on a very good start, but my misinterpreted statement was quickly cleared up, and I have since felt almost protected under her wing.

So this post of hers, which highlights my own attempts at lighting a fire under the discussion of women in i.t.,  means quite a lot to me. Thanks Shelley.

I was fortunate enough to be in the car this morning and caught the last 20 minutes of Bob Edwards  finall day of host NPR’s Morning Edition.

I was at the dr’s this morning and could hear loud and clear the incredible sound of someone’s baby’s heart beating away via their ultrasound. I think I’ve only “heard” that over t.v. or a movie previously. It will be making me smile for a long time!

what was it about the title of this post by Mark Meadows that led me to click on it…?  I guess if I listened to Howard Stern I’d have heard about this story by now. Hey, that means my husband is holding out on me. HE listens to Howard Stern!

Elizabeth Grigg recently saw David Bowie in concert. Reading her post gave me excuse to think about my Bowie event in 1998. I drove 300 miles to see Bowie in a small club in Philly. Not a theater, but a big open bar with two levels and a capacity of, I think 2000. I stood up on the 2nd level and was right up against the balcony railing with Bowie not 200 feet from me. I think I spent the first 1/2 hour just saying "oh my god, oh my god!" (not that I think he is a god – well, almost) but I just could not believe that I was in the same room with him, that close after over 20 years of having him as my a#1 favorite rock star.

What was interesting was waiting in line to go in there were more people in their 30’s 40’s and 50’s then the usual concert goer and quite a number of them were bringing their kids with them to see and experience this legend.

This is just about perspective.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the genocides in Rwanda.

Rich brought home an unbelievable film called “Marooned in Iraq”. It is by Kurdish director, Bahman Ghobadi, and it is a beautiful, funny and heartbreaking tribute to his people. If you get a chance to see this, the interview of Ghobadi that is on the DVD is equally inspiring. It was made before the u.s. invaded Iraq and is not about that.

Well, we put the skiis away and then I went out for a wonderful ride. Even when it started raining – it didn’t matter. I was already in my groove and just going with the flow. Over the course of the winter, my passion for skiing always seems to make me forget that I love to ride more than anything. Hmmm, I’ll say that about paddling my kayak, too, when the water warms up. Avonelle and her hubby are big cyclers also and she just got a new recumbant. I’m trying to talk myself into justifying a new bike purchase. Mine’s 10 yrs old and has already been rebuilt once. I have been dreaming for about 6 years of getting a Colnago frame. I love the beautiful Italian steel framed bikes with their beautiful lugs which can only of course, be complemented with some perfect Italian components. But now they are all carbon fibre- well, I guess I’ll just have to settle. Heh. Ahh, to dream…. My first real bike was a Bottecchia. I had it for 6 years and it was stolen. I bought it in 1985 and it cost me almost 10% of my annual salary back then. Even though I wasn’t a great cycler (though absolutely devoted) many of the racers in NYC would ride a few laps with me in the park just to check out my bike! 🙂  God, I loved that bike. The frame was SO beautiful – all bright red and white. I actually saw someone riding that same frame when I was on a week long tour riding in the Colorado rockies with my homies (check ’97 & ’99 – omg, seeing those pictures of when I was in great shape, definitely inspires me to lose weight – egads!) five years ago. I was still SO drawn to it. The bike I have now I have zero passion for like this.

I don’t get sick often – working at home, no kids, minimal exposure to other people’s kids, etc. But wouldntcha know it – just days before I have to travel across the country, I’m getting a runny nose and sore throat. Looks like a good reason to drive into town today – to get all the stuff I need to kill this thing and beef up my immunity for being in an airport and a plane. (Do I sound like Rory?). I’m even avoiding coffee (caffeine wipes out your vitamin C) which means already having drunk almost 2 pots (small – but I gotta go pee soon) of green tea. I [think I] know exactly where this came from. Some small kid stood next to me and coughed and coughed the other day at Mad River when I was changing out of my ski boots. I looked over at his mother to see if she had ANY clue and was going to call her kid back over to cough on her instead. I tried not to glare, though. I love love love kids, but have actually been accused of literally being allergic to them as I used to get a runny nose within 5 minutes of entering the 1st grade classroom where I went to help the kids with their reading skills. (was that a run-on sentence?) “Mrs. Flynn,” they would ask (I had to be Mrs. somebody, so figuring I’m married to Mr. Flynn, I chose Mrs. Flynn), “are you allergic to us?”

(Why do I want to sign this post “Halley”? I guess it’s a little more intimate than I’m used to…)

Sept. 11th Hearings There they go again! During Colin Powell’s Q&A, there was a long discussion about some missing information on an important powerpoint deck!

I loved Madeleine Albright saying that the world should see Osama Bin Laden for the loser he really is!

Poor Rich (that’s my hubbie). He is, for some wierd reason, a big fan of zombie movies. Every time he finds some variety at the video store that he has somehow missed, he brings it home to watch. So of course, he was VERY excited about the new revised “Dawn of the Dead” that was released last week. Being a good wife (and he comes to chick flicks with me, so…) I promised to go see it with him. We had planned to go on opening night, but that didn’t work out. I could not believe that there were actually FORUMS on the Dawn of the Dead (new movie) website! He is not alone.

So we saw it last night. Like most of these movies, it is a balance between scary, gross, silly and ridiculous. THough for the first 1/2 hour I really wanted to leave – I don’t like scary or gross. The movie wasn’t so bad. Pretty creative and not just a duplicate of the original. Some funny twists and a nice tribute to Mad Max. But the zombies were just all wrong. They RAN. They didn’t do their zombie thing – you know, arms up, swaying back and forth and just slowly coming at you and coming at you and coming at you. This was a huge disappointment to Rich. I did think that the opening and closing of the movie were pretty interestingly done….pretty hip. There was some wierd camera shit going on during the movie – that was maybe a little wierd.