Are You a Preppie?

In honor of UVA's bowl game today: "In recent years college officials have become increasingly alarmed by the dramatic population boom of the Homo Gatorus; i.e. the PREPPIE. According to experts, the 'Preppie disease', which strikes thousands of youths each year, invariably leaves its victim suffering from clotheserphobia - an intense desire to dress like Mr. Rummage Sale of 1960. Most Preppies also experience an insatiable thirst for alcoholic beverages which often results in the unique honor of graduating from college Magna Cum Loaded. Experts have further distinguished Preppie victims by their dancing style, mannerisms, social rank, monitary worth, and self-love. Currently, there are only two known cures for this disease: Reincarnation or Bankruptcy. To determine if you have contacted and been infected by the Preppie germ, study the picture below and rank yourself according to the following scale: 18-21 Ultra Prep; 14-17 Moderate or Intermediate Prep; 10-13 Pseudo Prep; 9 or less Normal." -Tom Shadyac's 1979 poster; read the article here.

Go Hoos!

Coin Toss

"1958. It's been traveling 22 years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it." -No Country for Old Men

Wild Boar

"Who loves not women, wine, and song remains a fool his whole life long." -interesting Writer's Almanac about Martin Luther.

Scandinavian Sport

"When we get going, we're not going to stop! The sun is hiding in the sky, but we're going to go right into the white! Men, you do the number one outside. The outhouse is not for gentlemen." -excerpt from a good read from Outside about dog sledding in Sweden.

In the Nude

MEYEZ … ZOEWE

"Education is about freedom of expression." -thoughts on college-themed personalized license plates. Read my full story here.

Yesterday Morning

Merry Christmas

...from the Land of Enchantment xo

Christmas Eve

"It's the greatest gift of entertainment the screen has ever given you." Love this movie :)

Journalism Love

"Guaranteed, when you say 'towards,' we will automatically say 'toward' -- 'towards' is not a word. We're not trying to call you dumb (even though you don't understand the English language), it's a habit. The same will happen when you say 'anxious' when you mean 'eager' and when you answer 'good' when someone asks how you are doing." -a blog post about dating journalists. Funny how accurate some parts of it are.
(Although "towards" is okay in the UK).

Snowshoe NM

"Anyone can do it, you just need stamina." -snowshoe advice from the owner of the Enchanted Forest XC Ski and Snowshoe Area. Read my article about snowshoeing NM here.

Santa Fe Snow Day

Yeehaw.

Centennial Exposure

New Mexico Magazine: kasa.com

Shout out to New Mexico Magazine!(yeah I fact checked that timeline!)

After Hours

"The first thing they had to start worrying about is getting dinner, interfacing with their kids, getting done all the housework chores...you could see from the data all the stresses and strains they felt as they walked in the door, and all the tasks they felt they had to accomplish during those early-evening hours." -an NPR story about women multitasking at home. Shoot I feel that way all the time, and I don't even have kids!

Carbon Leaf Christmas

Daily Rush

Interesting read here

WWII Santa

From the National Archives website.

Friends

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world." -Anne of Green Gables (which I am re-reading and delighted to find it as wonderful as when I was in fourth grade).

Bam

"Oddly, in Washington, D.C., you're four times more likely to have somebody drive into you on purpose than anywhere else on the planet." -NPR story about road rage. Can't say that surprises me too much.

Desert

Perception

"The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it." -Eckhart Tolle. Hmm.

Menu Mess-Up

Something New

"You sound like the perfect snowshoe racing recruit, and I can hardly wait to get you hooked!" -a member of the national women's snowshoe team gets me psyched for today's snowshoe racing clinic at Red River. Bring it on!

Perry Parody

This:



Or this?

Modern Media?

In related news, I kind of want a typewriter.

Op Ed

"The War Department taking a family's land for the war effort is understandable,' write the authors of Los Alamos: the Ranch School Years, 1917-1943. 'Less acceptable is knowing that the family homestead became part of a golf course.' Well, 64 years after it was built by the Atomic Energy Commission, Los Alamos County wants to expand that golf course, affecting at least 25 acres (including the Walnut Creek and Woodland trails) used year-round by walkers, runners, cyclists, bird watchers and nature enthusiasts."-intro to my first-ever letter to the editor, in yesterday's Los Alamos Monitor.

Snow Trails

"Every mile is two in winter." -George Herbert

That would explain why it took forever to hike 5 miles on Sunday...

Fat and Happy

Conversation overheard between a couple visiting Santa Fe (these bears are on my walk to work):

Woman: "That's how they felt after Thanksgiving."

Man: "No, that's how they felt after eating a tourist."

Composition

"Nothing is too long or too short either if you have a true and interesting tale and what I call a 'graphic' writing style combined with educational aims." -True Grit

Grammar Joke

Ahhhhhhhhh

"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water." -Carl Reiner

Pin the Apostrophe

Or at journalists' parties.

Life's a Happy Song

XOXOXO

"Whitney - apologies for the 'Xo' sign-off -- looks like I went on auto-pilot for a moment! haha." -a PR woman apologizes for the casual ending of her previous e-mail.

Rio Grande

"Night and day the river flows. If time is the mind of space, the river is the soul of the desert." -Edward Abbey, The Hidden Canyon.

Red Dot hike from White Rock.

Bruises?

Spotted on my walk to work.

The City Different

Post-Turkey Day

Co-op-themed snickerdoodle pie

"Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that rue homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds." -Teddy Roosevelt

Happy Thanksgiving

"Enough is as good as a feast. . . I went inside the stock barn out of the wind and lay down on some oat sacks. Nature tells us to rest after meals and people who are too busy to heed that inner voice are often dead at the age of fifty years." -True Grit

Ouch

"You smashed the shit out of it." -Matt's orthopedic doctor gives him the update on his broken collarbone at his post-surgery follow-up appointment. Apparently, X-rays don't show everything.

C'est la vie

Shaken

"We basically have a 50-year-old science, compared with most other sciences, which are hundreds of years old." -a geologist explains our understanding of earthquakes. Read my little Outside articles Why Can't We Predict Earthquakes? and Why Can't We Drive Cars Equipped with Solar Panels?

Leo's To-Do List

"It is useful [to] constantly observe, note, and consider... Tell me...tell me whether...tell me how things are...tell me if there was ever." -Leonardo Da Vinci. A new book about him describes his to-do list (click to enlarge):

Read more at NPR.org.

Nerd Alert

Putting my history degree to good use... I won a book!

Deadline Crunch

--Story People

TGIF!

Wet Dogs

"Shake It! How Dogs, Cats, Even Hummingbirds Keep Dry." -great article and photos at NPR.org.

Cold Blooded

At Tent Rocks. Hopefully they're all hibernating now.

Power Button

"Does anybody touch a TV to turn it on any more?" -obnoxious lady in the surgery waiting room who interrupted my quiet writing session to watch the Packers game (after getting up -- what a struggle -- to turn on the television).

Clavicle Fracture

"Surgeons must be very careful when they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions stirs the culprit -- life!" -Emily Dickinson.

Fixing this thing today!

Hard Work

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -Thomas Edison

TriShoes

"Just ignore they resemble water shoes." -my Zoot shoes review on OutdoorInformer.com.

Traction

"Kahtoola MicroSpikes revolutionized my life." -USSSA champ Laurie Lambert dishes about her favorite piece of gear.

Tears

Grammar Laughs

"6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice." -one of bar jokes involving grammar and punctuation. See the rest at McSweeney's.

Mountain Man

"If you're seeking the presidency but no one notices, are you still seeking the presidency?" -interesting read on former NM governor Gary Johnson. Also a good profile of him in Outside.

Snakes Alive

"'Unfortunately, I wasn't seeing things,' she says of the 15-inch prairie king snake that was glued to not only the mousetraps but also to the drawer." -one of several odd animal encounters mentioned in my latest Inside Columbia article.

Punctuation Perfect

The Most Interesting Man in the World.

My Darling

"Honey I ain't never had nobody like you." -M. Ward; 2009 (apparently I'm a little behind because I just heard this song for the first time yesterday).

LA, NM

"If it weren't for the National Laboratory, Los Alamos might be just another stagecoach stop in the desert." -Good ole Los Alamos tops Kiplinger's list of Where Millionaires Live.

FYI: the pond in the photo is called Ashley Pond, after a man named.... Ashley Pond (!), founder of the Los Alamos Ranch School. And that green grass is probably the reason NM is in the middle of a water crisis.

LACM

Vote for this video here!

In My Lunch Box

"...tastes like some kind of tangy dairy cud, but it's actually edible and kind of delicious." -The Office's Mindy Kaling, via NPR, talking about Siggi's Icelandic yogurt. She's totally right.

Write about You

"The following products are the real deal: hand-crafted, regional American foods, all winners in this year's Good Food Awards. You'll find some of these at your local supermarket; others you'll need to buy online, unless you're lucky enough to live nearby." -Forbes.com. Hooray for Patric Chocolate of Columbia, Mo. for making the list!

Cookie Monster Shops at the Co-op

"His preferred food is cookies...showing awareness of healthy eating habits for children, since 2006 he has said that cookies are a 'sometimes snack' and that he also likes fruits and eggplant." -Wikipedia.

AZ Amazement

Why I love Mason Jennings. Also kinda makes me want to take a creative writing class.

The Wheels on the Bus

"I love this bus; it's like a limo." -a lady enjoys our new Park & Ride wheels. It's still got that new bus smell.

Audi of ABQ

Fresh off the boat (plane? I don't know) from Germany.

As seen at the Audi dealership.