Black Hawk and coldness

We went to Black Hawk on Friday as a post-thanksgiving trip. It's an old victorian mining town that has been converted to a casino town. It's nice, but there really isn't anything there except casinos and a church! They have 'strict' building regs to try and preserve the Victorian feel of the town.. but strict regs can be loosley applied- I saw an old building that had been completely trashed appart from it's facade, which was being held up by an impressive ammount of steel.
Andy played poker with his boss (he won $140) while I explored the town, amused myself on the vidio machines and drank as much free coke as I could :-). There were some scary people there, feeding token after token into slot machines like robots- it was just like an episode of the Simpsons where marge gets addicted to the slots. I don't see the appeal- they look really dull to play... but the machines are linked together and there is an ever
increasing 'progressive jackpot' of thousands of dollars that I guess they are chasing after.

We were going to stay near Denver and go out there the next day, but Andy wasn't feeling too great so we came home. We made it to Fort Collins instead- and didn't get a flat tire this time.. The road was swamped with blowing snow. The wind pulled the loose powder into the air and sent it drifting accross the road like steam rising from damp tarmac. Whole fields were drowned in snow, like heavy mist. It was eerie. We survived the road and went for Christmas presents and burritos in Fort Collins. Only in America would you drive 70 miles to go to a shopping center...

How to keep a man in the kitchen...

Frigit = marble racing = fun :-) 

...the invaded..

... are not too happy about the situation :-( 

Yay global domination!

And I didn't even want to play the silly game in the first place :-) 

mmm.. festive

And here is another attempt to make the flat festive. I hope Andy can live without his helicopter for the season; the take off might be a bit precarious what with two xmas stockings attached to it's landing gear. This is what I did after I rested and got some strength back. I think the bows on the ipod dock are a nice touch :-) 

Ohhh talenbaum....

Yes I know it's too early..but we have a christmas tree, yay! It's actually more of a Christmas potted plant, but I've never had a real xmas tree before, and I've always thought that it's a shame to brutally murder a tree, drag it inside and leave it to die wearing tacky shiney pat bucher stylee earings... So this tree gets to look silly and (hopefully) survive the ordeal :-) 

good n bad

tranmere won :-)
we bought a potted pine tree to decorate for xmas :-)

i still feel crap :-{

Crunchy underfoot

I finally left the house! I am feeling a little better, and I had the motivation of a spanish class to help me. The snow has subtly altered the light,so everything looks a little different. The moon was full and very bright, even though the sky still held onto a little blueness. It looked like it should have a howling wolf silhoetted against it. Everything was softened by the light. Even the butt- ugly methodist church shone with the moonlight reflected back up from the snow, like a foil umberella in a photographers studio softening a portrait. Crunching through fresh snow is such a pure, fun feeling, spolied only by the patches of unnoticed ice. I stomped, dragging my foot a little to stir up flurries of soft powder. It was sharp cold, and there was only my rediculously enourmous nike padded jacket to keep out the bighting teeth. I took a thermal mug filled with tea, which was almost cold by the time I got to the class. The class was ok, but my head was hurting and I found concentrating tough. It's not easy to get your head around grammer at the best of times. After thinking 'espero que mi novio es en la cochina ahora, prepare cena por nosotros' (apologies to anyone spanish who reads that!), I found that my wish had come true: mi novio was indeed in the kitchen making dinner...yum! But my head still hurts and I am going to play a little poker then sleep it of...

Hurray somthing meaningful!

 


This is the nuts.. noone else in the world will care, but I think I can show that sea floor spreading at the Laxmi Ridge margin started around chron 29 in Gop Rift, then got bored and relocated south of the Ridge after the Deccan stop feeding it. Basically, offshore india isn't all oceanic crust, there are these stretched bits of continental crust, then a bit of oceanic crust from where the continental crust got stretched a bit too much and split. Futher south it split so bad that it made a proper ocean basin. I rock. Now I have to rewrite the above in dull geofizz language and stick it in my thesis :-(

Wyo ice hockey

The cowboys won 5-1. It was very exciting, and a nice mix of grace, sport and ultra violence. We were leaning on the screens, and every now and again a couple of bodies would hurtle into them, causing the girls next to us to cheer. The PA played the kind of teen angst college rock that I should have grown out of by now but still love. I pointed out 'one step closer' by linking park as one of my favorites, causign Andy to sarcastically say'oh we should play that at our wedding'.. so now it's officially in writing and I'll remember that!

Oh, note to annoying, ill-informed, oppinionated college lecturer type sports fans. There's this thing called an internal monalouge. It's a really good place to store some of the stream of crap that goes through your brain. That way, you don't have to inssesently commentate on the game and splurge a constant stream of garbage out of your mouth. This can really help avoid pissing off all the people around you.

Hearty soup....

'the soup that eats like a meal'... Nooooooo America, soup doesn't have a digestive system. WE eat it. It doesn't eat anything.

But I must admit the chicken and sausage gumbo is mighty fine

easy cheese....

for f*cks sake, america... cheese is NOT difficult

lessons and stuff...

I've not done a great deal of work the last few days. I seem to have messed up my body clock, so I am exhausted all day but can't sleep at night. I have a bit of a cold and I'm achy and sneezy. What I'd really like is to get out and go for a run if I can find the energy.

Tuesday was my first Spanish lesson. I spent half of it worried becasue it seemd like the level was way to high, but I began to enjoy it. The teacher is lovely and crazy, and I think that always helps. The lesson was in beta house, at the junction of frat and soriety row. Walking there made me nervous because I had to walk past all the frat houses with their names in greek letters on the wall.. I wonder if they are abything like in crappy american college films; all stupid pranks, brain washing and trying to trash the nerdy frat house next door.

Sanskrit wasn't so good. The teacher hadn't really prepared anything and just jumped around. Fortunately, there is a women in the ckass who knows a lot, so maybe we will get together with her one night for a revision session. I have a book that teahces the very basics, so I came home and taght myself the first of the 13 (yes 13!) vowels.

Between catching up with Spanish (I'm doing part 2 of a 2 semester course) and learning the deverngali alphabet I have a lot to do... better make some time for my thesis too!

My cold is pretty icky today so I habe to try and find some motivation from somewhere

Weekend

We went for a walk to happy jack, which was kinda annoying because I kept getting the Who song circling my head.. happy jack wasn't tall but he wasn't small, or some such nonsence. It is pretty up there, the area is part of the Medcine Bow forest. In winter it is used for off road skiing, but right now the trails are lightly dusted with powder and good for walking. I was feeling very weak so walking a couple of miles was tough. I propelled myself forward by following the dog paw prints in the soft mud. In places the snow had infilled cycle tracks, leaving parallel lines of pale powder against the dark mud. It reminded of me of when I hurt my knee on the Darwin, and the skin split in fine lines and then made thin silvery scars.

After happy jack we went to Cheyenne, which is the biggest town in Wyo, but is still smaller than Birkenhead. We ate well there, so obviously I was happy. We also took a wlak around n outdoor shop, which made me a little grumpy due to my current non-impuse purchase rule.

I worked yesterday and was drained all day. I intended to go to bed early but ended up playing yatzee and poker with Andy. I think I'm destined to never win against him as being able to add up is a distinct advantage that he has over me.

Antisocial

Andy said 'we are going out for dinner' so of course I didn't go.. I wasn't actually being stubborn, I was trying to work out what the hell this figure might mean.. And I hate going out with people I don't know well. I'm ok with Andy or Jac or Kate.. but other than that, going out fills me with dread. Social phobia I think they call it. You have to drag me out, even if I want to go. I know it's stupid, but knowing that doesn't really help. But staying in isn't so bad... have a chapter of my thesis written now... yay! Only another hundred or so pages to write :-(..  

Feel better now...

...the healing properties of a hot bath and a good book are legendary :-)

Open letter to the f*cker that is ripping me and andy off

Yeah you c*** whoever you are that has my halifax account details and is ripping me off. Thanks to you my halifax account has accrued almost a grand of fradulant purchases and overdraft charges. I'm already up to my neck in financial sh*t. If you hadn't robbed me of any last vestiges of religious hope and belief, I'd say that I hope you burn in hell you f*cking selfish c*nt. You won't destroy me.

And it's still diwali, so as Lawrence Fishburn once said, 'fate, it seems, is not without a sence of irony'

How hard does Sanskrit look?! 

I am supposed to be learning basic Sanskrit, but from the excerpt above I'm not sure there is any such thing! Actually that except isn't Sanskrit it's just an English sentence transliterated into Sanskrit text. I found an online translation tool to help with my homework!!

Yay! 

Great North Run  

I know it was a while ago, but Andy just scanned this picture for me and I thought it should have a home. I like it because it reminds me of everything that is awsome and beautiful about running, like the freedom and the peace and the sense of achivement.

Throught he generosity of my friends, £464.40 was raised for Macmillan Cancer Relief. This is the thank-you message that went on my fund raising website:

Your support, and the cheering of the lovely Macmillan people, helped me get through a long distance on a very hot day with a smile on my face. Well, I stopped smiling when I got to the hill at mile 11, obviously. I'm not THAT crazy. So now I have a warm glow (sunburn?), a shiny medal, and an intimate rash to remind me of an amazing day.

The people made it special- from the fun runners' costumes (special mention to the woman in a nylon sumo suit in 19 degree heat. Nice.) to the locals who gave us biscuits and ice pops, sprayed us with hose pipes and led the way in a chant of 'if you're knackered and you know it clap your hands.' I was also particularly fond of the old dears near the end singing 'Knees up mother brown' at us.

Altogether, it was an amazing day, made all the more amazing for your support

All together now:
OGGY OGGY OGYY, OY OY OY!!!!

Name Race Number Time Position
Chris Lane 48368 02:24:39 22129

Mr Mucous

Mr Mucous downstairs was playing his 1 cd again last night. I swear, he only has 1 cd and it's some atrocious 80s compilation. It really bugs me because I half recognise some of the songs. There's that 'every time yo go a way, you take a piece of me with you' one, somehting that sounds like it should be on the sega Road Rash soundtrack, and one thats something like 'I can see you, shining in the sun, after the rain and the something has gone...'. He only ever plays it after midnight. That's the problem with quaint American wooden houses- when they get devided up into appartemtns thery aren't exactly soundproof. I hear the guy doing other unplesant things too, like shouting at his family and farting loudly. The worst though is when he starts with his flemmy cough and is hawking up loads of phlegm. He sounds like he is dying of chronic bronchitis and I'd like to be sympathetic, but actually he just makes me want to retch. Andy told me off last night for joining in loudly with the Paul Young number, but I just thought it was funny. Maybe the guy'll take the hint and buy a new cd!

Just keep running

It was tough. Last time I ran maybe a mile and a half at a fast pace and was rightfully pleased, but today sucked. It was beautifully hot and sunny, so I went out in my beloved Team Macmillan running vest, breasts underneath forced into a matronly state of immobility by a new sports bra. I ran up Harney, which is my favorite route, because it looks like you could run right out of town into the yellow-brown planes beyond, and just keep on going forever. I haven't been for over a week and my fitness has really suffered. The altitude makes the air thin, so running takes a lot of getting used to. My rythmn was terrible, not helped by all the busy intersections that I had to stop at. I had to keep using my fruit juice to force down the tinny stickness in my throat that threatened to choke me, and my lungs burned. I had hoped for a gentle five miles, but I managed just over one. It's not all bad though- I left the house, my legs feel like they've been used and I have a bacon sandwich waiting for me :-)

Piss off, we don't want you:

From Monarch recruitment:

Thank you for your CV/Application. I regret to inform you we do not
currently have any positions that match your requirements and/or skills. I
can therefore confirm your details will not be stored or processed. Thank
you for your interest.

Translation:
Thankyou for your CV, we were kinda short on toilet roll anyway. This is the brief standard reply we send out to losers like you who would be barely qualified to make tea for our clients. Go now. I hear McDonalds has a very good graduate managment package. hahahaha. LOSER :-P

I'm not bitter really. It's not exactly my heart's desire to work on foundation design and contaminated land studies anyway.

Oh, nice Mr. Redshaw at BP is trying to stop their finance department screwing me so hard, so fingers crossed.

I've not been up long and it's mid day, but I'm sooooo tired. I'm about to go for a run- something I haven't done for an age. I miss it, but it's so hard to get motivated to go. I've also got my first Sanskrit lesson tonight, so I get to leave the house twice in one day, woohoo!

Setting sun backlighting the steam near fountain paint pots 

Grand Fountain Geyser 

Old Faithful 

Grand Teton National Park 

Happy halloween... and may your pumpkins be moulder free :-) 

Terror in the corn... funny, Andy doesn't look too frightened 

Supporting the superwhites in Yellowstone... no Andy you can't write 'rubbish' on my shirt 

Happy Diwali!

Today I lit candles and incense to welcome Lakshmi into our home; bringer of prosperity, happyness and a general snuggly warm feeling. So much for prosperity- BP have overpaid me by more than 700 quid and, unsurprisingly, they want it back. I am truely screwed financially now- so the Alps trip is definatley out. More importantly, that's my savings pretty much wiped out. On the plus side, a job I want in Southampton is being advertised. I don't have much chance of getting it, but it does give me a bit of hope that it was advertised the same day I got screwed- like closing one door opening another. I'm just gonna keep my candeles burning for a bit longer- everyone needs some light in there life.