My New Apartment!

Aug 172010

Dan and I were going to begin moving into a new apartment on the 15th, but our breakup means that I will be living in the apartment solo (if you don’t count Lucy and Prandtl).  I’m really excited about decorating it however I want, and I have a lot of decorating ideas!  It is a relatively small apartment, but I think it will do.  Prandtl might get a little frustrated about the lack of running space, but (as I will show you) we have a pretty big “backyard” to work with.

Anyway, some of my friends were wondering what the new place looks like, and I thought Gee… what better place to share my apartment than on my blog? So I took Prandtl with me to check the place out and take a few photos:

View just after coming in the front door:

View the opposite way (looking at the front door from across the apartment)

The kitchen… I LOVE IT:

However…. the washer and dryer is in a closet next to the fridge. Weird placement. I don’t know how I feel about it:

There is a HUGE bathroom with tons of extra space. This photo does it no justice!

Not really a great picture of the bedroom, but it was the only one I took for some reason.

Prandtl’s favorite thing to do!  She can’t creep out of the windows at our current apartment.  The windows at my current place are too high and they face a brick wall.

I asked Prandtl how she felt about the place… and she approves :)

This is in the lobby! WHAT UP FREE COFFEE?!!!?!

The view out of my windows!! It is WAY better than a brick wall!

This is basically my backyard :) I am gonna love living right next to the river!!

I can’t wait to get settled here!  I basically will have two apartments until the end of the month.. so I have about two weeks to move everything from my current apartment to my new one.  I plan on painting for a few days.. and then I’ll start moving things over and getting situated.

Did I mention that I am SO EXCITED?!?!!!

Peru

Jun 062010

Once again, I apologize for my lack of info on my trip to Peru.  A reliable internet connection was a rare thing while we were there.  Although we tried to pick and choose our hotels based on wireless internet availability (since we were making up the vacation as we went and the internet is a powerful research tool), all we got were connections that cut in and out… if they were there at all.  That Machu Picchu video took over an hour to load onto youtube… and getting it to post on my blog was a huge pain in the ass.  I think that on my next vacation I will be making more use of the video blog, though… I like the way that turned out.

And why has it taken me so long to write about it since getting back to the States?  Because of the sheer volume of things I have to say.  It’s intimidating.  A lot happened. So instead of fretting over making sure I hit every single point on the trip, I’m just going to make a list and let the pictures do more of the talking.

  • Dan and I played charades practically everywhere we went because we didn’t know Spanish
  • In order to talk to the owner of a hotel we stayed at, Google Translator was our best friend
  • We ate ceviche – BEST FOOD EVER
  • I got sick on a 20 hour bus ride and almost barfed everywhere… so much for seeing “the most beautiful scenery in Peru”
  • We tried eating llama and guinea pig.  Not big fans of either.
  • We got to Machu Picchu!
  • We saw big cities and small towns.  Our favorite were the small towns.  If any one is going to Peru, I’d advise you to get out of Lima as fast as you can.
  • We got an impromptu offroading experience in a small bus we took from Ollantaytambo to Cusco.  About 30 car accidents almost occurred.
  • When walking across streets, we were probably almost killed about 10 times.
  • When riding in taxis, we were probably almost killed about 30 times.
  • We hiked up mountains to reach Incan ruins that we didn’t really understand.  However, we had a great respect for their building abilities.
  • I bought a lovely set of gloves and hats and even a nice sweater made of alpaca.
  • I successfully haggled!  $10 off!
  • We took the local transportation (as opposed to the nice buses and vans tourists typically take).  We were scrunched together with strangers.  Some woman felt me up for at least half of a two hour bus ride.
  • I enjoyed lots and lots of coca tea.  Mmmmmm!
  • A taxi driver charged us less than the typical fare, and to thank him I gave him 10 times what he had asked for.  He gasped in delight, and I left before he could try to give me change.
  • I ate the best food I have ever had
  • I got drunk off of lots and lots of pisco sours :D
  • I saw the most breathtaking views I have ever seen.
  • I met among the friendliest people I have ever met.
  • I had the best vacation I have ever had.

Would I go back again?  In a heartbeat.  But I think I would take the time to learn some Spanish first.

My Daily Evolution

May 132010

My post Beauty: Where Our Perception Comes From follows a model as she undergoes some heavy makeup, hair, and photoshopping for a billboard ad.  It’s pretty interesting to see what it takes to make someone look “perfect”.

Shortly after, I discussed my own insecurities regarding my own appearance in The Addiction to Appearance.  I talked about my daily routine and how the way I look reflects how I feel about myself on any given day.

My friend Don Keylips wanted to see me without makeup since he has known me for years and has never seen it.  And since I made this blog to keep track of myself and any strides in confidence I make, I thought this might be a good place to put it.

Also, I thought it might be fun to see how my face changes throughout the makeup process.  I tend to go the natural route (especially for work), so my face doesn’t change much.  I originally took a picture after every step, but I figured 11 pictures might be a little much… so I condensed it down to 5.

So be sure to imagine me taking a deep breath before hitting “publish”… because that’s exactly what I am going to do.

Clean faced:

+ Foundation, Concealer & Powder

+ Eyeshadow, Black Eyeliner on top & White Eyeliner on bottom

+ Straightened hair, Blush, Eyebrow Pencil, Lip Gloss & Lip Stick

+ Curled Eyelashes, Mascara & Hair pinned back (and I’m ready to go!)

And I will be honest with all of you. I have about a hundred photos of myself on my camera from days and days of prepping for this… I was sure to pick what I considered the best “no-makeup” version of myself to share with the world.

And one more thing. I’m not fishing for compliments or criticisms.  This is just a step I’m taking to get over the hurdle that has been evading me for a long time.  It’s silly, I know, but it’s something I struggle with.

New... Trish... Un? Newtrishun?

Apr 262010

I grew up in a home that didn’t really emphasize nutrition. Aside from telling me to eat a vegetable with my dinner every  night (usually consisting of canned corn or canned green beans), my parents were really hands off. Eating brownies for breakfast wasn’t unheard of. My childhood was every little kids dream. Ration halloween candy? Uhh.. try… Kids, go ahead and eat it for dinner.

So imagine the day that I learned about calories in my high school health class. And imagine my mother’s reaction when I came home and tried to talk about it with her. “HEAD HEAD, THAT’S STUPID. JUST DONT EAT TOO MUCH AND YOU DON’T GET FAT!” End discussion. Never to be brought up again. And from that day on, I thought of health class as a waste of my time.

Flash forward to today – I still know nothing about nutrition. Dietary Fiber? Magnesium? Gamma-linolenic Acid? If someone were to present me with some magical food with all of those things, I’d throw it on the floor and accuse them of poisoning me. Then I would run next door and order a cheeseburger and some fries. Extra oil please.

My ignorance regarding all things healthy really puts Dan in an unfortunate position. He wants to lose weight, but my diet won’t let him. I eat anything and everything — I have no regard for things that are healthy or good for you. “How about fried chicken tonight, pizza tomorrow, and maybe on Friday we’ll just eat an entire cake.” If he decides he doesn’t want to eat with me, I get all whiney because food doesn’t taste as good if I’m eating it alone. Isn’t eating regarded as a social activity on most occassions? And then I bat my eyelashes and he does my bidding (BWAH HA HA HA).

So a few days ago, Dan pleaded with me. He wants to be healthy and lose weight. He suggested buying his own groceries, but I had a better idea. How about we just stop eating out and learn to cook for ourselves every day. That in itself will save him tons of calories PLUS we won’t be wasting a miraculous amount of food by throwing away who-knows-how-many leftovers that we, as individuals, will not finish. After we get in the groove of cooking for ourselves every day, we can reevaluate our diets from there and get a better handle on our shopping list. He agreed.

So we decided to check out the food co-op – a grocery store with a lot of emphasis on local, organic products. I had suggested that we buy only a few fruits, milk, and beef there, but he wanted to do all of our grocery shopping there because it was convenient. Well… half a cart full and $90 later… our fridge looks something like this:

 

 

And no, not ALL of those things were bought at the co-op. I’m not sure that they make an organic version of Smirnoff Ice.

I like the idea of shopping organic, but seems so expensive at first glance. Our bill could have easily been around $50 had we gone to a typical grocery store with typical items and with typical prices. BUT… while I’d love to whine and bitch about the $90… I’m not sure that we got the raw end of the deal. We will easily save $40 on a single night by eating in and not going to the Indian restaurant nearby that we frequent almost weekly. And having good, quality food really inspires me to eat at home. I’m actually excited about it!

I had heard that every piece of plastic ever produced still exists today. That statement in itself pushed me to want to recycle. Recycling pushes me to wish to be more “natural”. Natural = natural food. I think you’re starting to understand my thinking patterns now. That’s good. Next time, when I’m talking about the plant on my desk and then, all of a sudden, I’m somehow on the topic of that time my step dad ran over a snapping turtle with his van, got out and beat it to death with a stick, and then took it home for us to eat turtle stew you’ll understand how I got there. Buuut… yeah… probably not.

 

I Am A Lucky Woman

Apr 152010

♥ Here’s to two years of fun together ♥

 

♥ Here’s to two years of celebrating our accomplishments with one another ♥

 

♥ Here’s to two years of taking those cute little smoochy pictures together ♥

 

♥ Here’s to two years of being in love ♥

 

Happy 2 Year Anniversary, handsome. XOXO

The Cutest Magnets Ever

Mar 142010

I just bought some adorable magnets, and I wanted to share them with the world.  I’m actually supposed to be spring cleaning this weekend (as in… clearing stuff out instead of bringing things in), but I couldn’t pass them up!

I also have an old end table in my possession that I plan on painting as soon as it gets warm enough for me to keep the windows open for ventilation.  I might even get the chance to do it tomorrow!

I’m working on being a little more creative, and those magnets definitely provide me with some inspiration.

Way Too Nerdy Thursdays :: Where "Prandtl" Came From

Mar 112010

A lot of people think my dog is adorable and they’ll stop us in the street and ask questions about her.

“Awww!!!! How old is she?!”
“Almost one and a half now.”
“OHHHH She still looks like a puppy! What kind of dog is she?”
“I don’t know. We got her from a rescue. Her papers say Shiba Inu and Collie.”
“AWWW I LOVE HER! I WANT TO CUDDLE HER AND TAKE HER HOME! What is her name?”
“Prandtl.”
“.. Pransil? Pr.. Proodle?…”
“Prandtl”
“.. Pringle?”
“Prandtl. Like Mantle with a ‘Pr’”
“Prandil?”
“….”
“…”
“…”

Nobody has heard of the name Prandtl. It’s weird and different. I think it makes a cute dog name because we can shorten it down to just “P” and call her things like “Piddles” and “Poopface”, but nobody else seems to get it. And in all of the people that I have met on the face of this earth, only two people have understood exactly what her name references. TWO. And that is despite going to college for engineering.. and working with a bunch of engineers. And what was the first thing these two people said when they made the connection?

“JESUS! .. Really?? You ARE a nerd!” and “I’m about to throw up in my soup.”

Dan and I wanted a name that fit the following criteria:
1) German because at first glance her black muzzle makes you think about a German Shepherd.
2) Nerdy because her foster parent had named her “Spirit” since the woman was a total hippie. We thought that “Spirit” was stupid and totally unfitting, so we wanted to name her something engineeringy since we were very much NOT hippies and we were engineering students.

So we sat and we thought, and the only name we could think of at the time was “Prandtl”.  We had learned about the Prandtl number in Heat Transfer. I copied and pasted the following from Wikipedia for your reference (and kind of mine too, because I really don’t remember when we actually used this number):

The Prandtl number Pr is a dimensionless number approximating the ratio of momentum diffusivity (kinematic viscosity) and thermal diffusivity. It is named after the German physicist Ludwig Prandtl.

It is defined as:

 

where:

OH SNAP!! We looked up Ludwig Prandtl (on Wikipedia), too.. just to see if he was a good enough person for us to name our dog after. We have high standards, you know.

Ludwig Prandtl (4 February 1875 – 15 August 1953) was a German scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used to underlay the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him

So there you have it.  Prandtl is named after a man who is referred to as the father of aerodynamics. Plus, they totally look alike.

And you had better believe that we plan on continuing the trend and naming our next dog something nerdy as well. Maybe we’ll name it Pythagoreon. Or Differential Equations (“Diff” for short).

Way Too Nerdy Thursdays :: A Weekly Theme Has Been Born

Mar 042010

Engineers get a bad rap. We’re stereotyped as full out geeks: complete with taped glasses, poor fashion sense, pocket protectors, and nonexistant social skills. I little like my engineering friend Charlie:

(Just kidding. He dressed up like this for Halloween. 
At least I think he only dressed up like this for Halloween. )

And I wouldn’t really say that the stereotype is unfounded.  Just like all stereotypes, it doesn’t necessarily encompass the entire group and is the result of a few that give us a “bad” name.  But most of us are just like you non-engineery types. 

But yes, we do have our nerdy tendencies.  We have a tendency to over analyze things because… well… we can.  We can talk about the heat transfer properties of cast iron.  We can discuss the friction coefficient of tires.**  We are well versed in integration, differentiation, and laplace transforms.  And while “nerdy” can classify as anybody that knows way too much about any one thing (for instance, Tommy Lee probably knows an unreal amount of information about drums), we are the dreaded type of nerd because nobody cares about what we know.  Does anybody really want to know about the friction coefficient of tires?  NO!  THEY DON’T!  And if anybody were to accidentally overhear any of that conversation, they would probably say, “Wow, those engineers can tell a mean bedtime story.  This is so boring, I’m having a tough time keeping my eyes open… and it has only been about 15 seconds.”

But the thing is, I find those conversations to be hilarious.  And maybe it’s just me, but I get a huge kick out of how bullheaded engineers can be and how willing we are to argue details.  So yesterday, as I sat and did work while the men next to me discussed grilling and the physical properties of cast iron, the idea for “Way Too Nerdy Thursdays” came to me. 

Every Thursday (assuming I remember) I will share a funny conversation, random factoid you may or may not be interested in, or a fact about myself that could be considered “nerdy”.  The subject matter for these posts will come from conversations at work, with Dan, or just nerdy things that I have done in the past. 

And sure, I might be pushing forward the engineering “nerdiest people ever” stereotype.  And a lot of you probably won’t even think the stories that I’m going to share are interesting or funny.  Most likely, you’ll be sitting there scratching your head thinking to yourself… “Uhh… I don’t really get it…. was that a joke?”  But I will think they are interesting and funny, and I will be able to go through these stories at a not-to-distant point in the future and giggle like an idiot.  And to me, that’s the point of having a blog in the first place.  So I can reflect on it later.

And yes, “Way Too Nerdy Thursdays” can be renamed.  If you have recommendations, please feel free to let me know.

I don’t have time to write up a nerdy encounter this week, so until next Thursday, please enjoy reading (or re-reading) about The Monty Hall Problem.  It’s a pretty good post to get things started.

 

** Yes, those conversations really happened. 

Did You Not Read The Memo?!

Mar 012010

I got this memo today while at work.  Apparently it’s kind of a big deal.  It was on company letterhead and everything. (Click to see)

So make sure that all of your friends named “Don” or “Donald” know that they are among the coolest people on earth. Give them a high five, a fist bump, a butt slap, or whatever you crazy kids do these days.

They’ve earned it.

Hawaii or Bust

Feb 082010

Today, you have a tanner, happier, albiet slightly sunburned Heather writing up a post.  And even though my visit to Hawaii only spanned from 11pm on Friday to 5pm on Sunday, I wouldn’t have changed anything. 

I.  LOVE.  SUN.

And in the summer, my feet are typically the last part of me to tan.  I always end up with some stupid tan lines on them somewhere and they never get the same amount of sun as the rest of my body.  And, since I laid in the sun on the beach for no less than 2 hours making it a point to ensure that my feet did not miss a moment of the sun, my feet got a good tan (as well as the rest of me):

Since I wasn’t there very long, the point of my trip was to just lay on the beach, climb Diamond Head, and eat sushi.  Mission accomplished.

I wish I had more to say, but I really don’t.  I had a great time, I drank a few mai tai’s, and I relaxed.  There’s only so much you can do for two days, and my big plan was to just unwind. And, as you can see, I got some great pictures out of it.

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