and... its a...

Well, its been a while since I posted on here, but thats OK. Anyhow, the big news is that I'm now nearly 20 weeks pregnant, and just found out on Monday that I'm having a little boy!! Its pretty exciting... Kevin's happy, and so am I along with just about everybody else (the exceptions so far being my mom and his sister). So yeah, its pretty cool. We're thinking about naming him Andros, after the island we met on in the Bahamas a couple of years ago... but we'll see.

Anyhow, thats pretty much all thats new so far... I'll get around to scanning the photos and posting them on here sometime soon... They're pretty detailed... you can see little feet/toes, hands, nose, eyes... everything. Its really quite cool!

We still aren't sure where we're going to go when we get done here in December. Possibly Indiana, but who knows. Time will tell.

Well, we've been back from Ohio for just a little over a week now. It was a nice trip, a bit on the short side though, really. Six days sounds like a lot longer when you don't realize its split into two. Then it becomes really and truely rather short. Especially when you have to drive hourse between those two. But, overall it really was nice to see everyone again. And we got married.

The whole wedding thing was actually (in my mind at least) rather humorous. See, we originally ran into the Findlay courthouse on Friday and bought a Marriage License. We really hadn't thought we'd be able to get one that easy/quick but we did. They didn't even ask for our drivers licenses. Anyhow. We went back to his Mom's (Amy) house and talked to his step-dad (Tim his step dad is a preacher) with the assumption, that he'd be willing to marry us. But, he kind of balked. Wanted us to go through all kinds of marriage counseling, christian vowes, promise that we'd raise our kid(s) as christians, etc.... Needless to say, that isn't what we wanted, and I for one was a bit taken aback. We asked if it'd be better to just do a secular thing at the courthouse, and he said (I'm paraphrasing here), 'Well that'd be great, but its really quite hard to do. Only clergy and judges can marry people in the state of Ohio....' Which, I for one found odd... after all there've got to be a lot of athiests and such that don't want ceremonies, right?? So, I called my grandpa up and asked him. And he said that, well, no, its not that hard to do, and would I like for him to call around and see if he could get something lined up for like, Sunday. I said sure, and 4 hours later it was confirmed that we'd be married on Monday by the Mayor of North Canton.

When Amy and Tim found out, they were a bit upset, mostly because Amy really wanted to see her son get married (understandable, but still...). Tim then offerred to marry us on Sunday, but I didn't want to do that because a: I then wouldn't get to see *my* family untill Sunday or Monday (and we had to drive back on Tuesday), and b: we'd already agreed to Monday with the mayor. So in the end we settled for him "blessing the relationship" on Saturday at 5pm. Then we drove to my Dad's house and hung out there untill Tuesday. In the end Amy & Tim ended up driving over for it anyways, which to my mind kind of nullified the reason for the blessing on Saturday. But, then again, at least it all worked out in the end and everyone was happy.

Since we got back last Wednesday, we finished up Staff Training and since then Kevin's been working, and I worked the weekend. Its been pretty nice, and I'm enjoying it here... I have another doctors apointment on Friday with the OB/GYN so hopefully everything still looks good.

Stuff

So, Summer Camp's been over for a week now, and family camp is over now too (technically I have one more pony ride tommorrow morning, but I'm doubtful at this point that anyone will show up...), so life's slowing down. Happily slowing down.

Pregnancy is going OK... after a horribly sick, nasuea filled July, August has been WAY easier. Got in to see a doc finally a few weeks ago, and everything is looking just fine. All the blood work they took (and boy did they take a LOT), looks normal/good, and the ultrasound I had about 2 weeks ago now, looked good too (I should be around 10-11 weeks pregnant now.. I think. Something like that.). My due date is for around the 9-11th of March. So thats pretty crazy.

Kevin & I are planning on getting married sometime here in the next week or two, mostly (ok, only) so that we can live together here at camp, on-camp... And while up untill earlier today it didn't look like we'd be getting our own place, that is suddenly, quite possibly changin. Which means that we just might be getting to bring Loki back too! Which is awesome. Life would be great if we could live together with our dog. That would just be too good.

In anycase, we're driving back up to Ohio on wednesday (16th of August), for a week. Going to go to his parent's place first, and then on to my Dad's. It should be a nice, mostly relaxing trip. I'm going to trade my truck for dad's accord. Which is pretty cool, although I'll be sad to say 'bye' to my truck. ::sniffle:: Tis been a good truck.

Thats about all thats new here, my horses go back tommorrow afternoon ::sniffle:: I'll miss them. It'll be wierd not getting up and feeding horses every morning. Really, really wierd. But, then again I'm sure I'll slowly get used to sleeping in again =)

Hmm. Wow. Crazyness has ensued here at camp for the past several weeks. Its nice here... but my staff has changed completely since I started. Which is a good thing, not a bad thing... One may be coming back... we'll find out one way or the other later on tonight. Overall I really like what I do here, I've rememberd just how mcuh I love working with kids and horses both. Its a great job, and I could totally do it forever (just so long as I have staff that I can trust, that is...). Which is very nice to know.

Kevin seems to like doing the rock climbing thing still, though he's unfortuantly hardly ever here. He only sleeps on-camp 3 nights a week, which kind of sucks, but is mostly OK. I don't see him as much as I'd like, but its enough to get by.

But the crazyiest part of it all, is that I am, once again, pregnant :) And its wierd, we both agree, because we're both totally cool with it, totally OK, happy, excited about it. Its a totally different feeling than it was two years ago. And the handful of people who know, here, have been (thus far) super supportive and awesome about it. So who knows, maybe we'll stay on here for the fall at least so that we can save up some money and such, and then figure out where to go. Kevin was telling me today, that, the way he sees it... he really didn't have any idea what to do - was just kind of drifting, wandering around the world. And so now, at least, he knows what he'll be doing for the rest of his life - which he's really excited about. So thats awesome.

Anyhow, I just wanted to post about all that crazyness, so that I can remember how I feel right now, forever. Its exciting, it really is.

Camp

Well, first of all, I did not realize it'd been SO long since I last posted. Crazyness has ensued since then, starting with the Tae Kwon Do Tournament in Spain, and the exhibition there that I participated in (on my birthday!!), which was quite cool... The following day, I flew home from Spain to Pittsburgh, where we (dad & I) stayed at a friends house for the night. Got to see my old friend Jessie, which was very cool.

Then on the 15th of May I drove down here to S. Carolina to start work.. The camp is beautiful. Way up ontop of a mountain in the Blue Ridge, it has some amazing views. And, of course, its simply awesome to be with/around Kevin again.

My horses finally got here this Monday (21st), and so, ever since I've been riding and taking care of them. Which is awesome. They're all pretty good - both looking, and fairly well trained. I'm actually extremely impressed with their overall quality (especially for camp horses!!). Went on a trail ride today, did some crazy exploring and getting lost (which was, as always, fun). Tommorrow is the first time we'll actually give rides, so I'm kind of nervous about that. But it should be OK. I hope...

The kid I'm working with (the "assistant director"), seems pretty clueless. Apparently, he didn't realize that you need to clean the barn. Apparently, I have to tell him such things, or he just doesn't know. He also gives me the impression that he's scared of horses (takes 3-5 minutes to catch one in a box stall... and another couple to kick each one out after feeding. But, then again, I'm not really surprised about this, just highly disappointed. Was hoping to have somebody with a clue. The other kid is apparently a bit slow. Supposedly they also just hired a girl from Spain, though it sounds like she'll only be here for the first half of the summer. Which sucks. But, you'll have taht I spose.

Anyhow, thats about all thats new with me... We saw the DaVinci Code, which was pretty good, and then yesterday we saw Over the Hedge, which was hysterical. Hammy kicks ass... I think thats about it.

No more textbooks??

Working for Change has a cool article up about how Allegheny College in PA is trying to do away with text books. The first class (logically, I suppose), to do so was the Intro to Enviromental Science class. Instead of using a textbook, they developed a website with "readings" which linked to sites all over the web like the US Census Burae, the EPA, and the National Park Service. Its a really quite cool idea. As noted in the article, in the end it provides three things that textbooks do not, can not provide:

1 Saves Money. Average Enviro Science textbook cost? $100 Cost of the site? $0
2 Saves Trees. Apparently 20% of the paper the US uses every year goes to, you guessed it, text books. So thats 5 million trees annualy.
3 Accuracy. No textbook can possibly be as up-to-date as a website. Its just not possible.

Anyhow, check it out.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20743

Legos & Blackholes

Right nifty news on the lego front - LEGO has finally gotten around to opensourcing the MINDSTORMS firmware, which means that lego mindstorms will be that much more fun to mess around with in the future. Thats to say, you can now not just mess with the robotics/building part, but also with the software itself. Which is cool.
http://mindstorms.lego.com/press/2057/Open%20Source%20Announcement.aspx

As for blackholes... its mostly, actually, about the new LIGO "telescope" which is just now opening up - its cool, because maybe, with a bit of luck we´ll be detecting black hole mergers here sometime soonish. Which is cool, cause´with that knowledge, maybe we´ll figure out more about the universe, life and everything =)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/science/space/02hole.html

Language; starlings, monkeys and us

So, its looking like starlings have the capability to create/understand language. Which is really cool. Scientists created an artificial language, and then played it back to people, monkeys (cotton-top tamarin monkeys, to be exact), and starlings. People got it (80% of college students could figure it out), the monkey´s didn´t, and the starlings did.

Of course, everybody´s not in aggreement that this equals language, or that starlings aren´t just cheating, but you´ll have that. Here´s a couple of the comments =):

Dr Chomksy: "It has nothing remotely to do with language — probably just with short-term memory,"
Dr Gentner: "Chomsky may find this trivial, but that is a bit like saying apes use tools, but only the trivial kind that lack the sophistication of a tri-square or a laser level,"
Dr Hauser: "This shows a capacity that goes way beyond what we showed with tamarins. That's what makes it an important paper."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/science/02song.html

Spain!!

Wow. I really don´t know what to say. I´m going to be coming back to spain in the fall, sometime in September for another year. I´m soo incredibly excited, I can´t even begin to explain. Its amazing.

On other notes, I´m now going back to the states on the 8th of May, so that I can particpate in the World Tae Kwon Do Championships which are being held in Caceriz, just a couple hours away. I´m not going to be competing though - I´m going to be in an exhibition!!! How cool!! SO yeah, thats pretty amazing. I can´t wait.

Also, FC Barcelona (the soccer team of Barcelona), is in the finals, playing Arsenal in Paris, for the league cup. Which is awesome. Its like the World Series of soccer, more or less. So thats pretty amazing. I totally want to see it, but as they´re playing on the 17th, I don´t know if I´ll get to. But I really hope I get to see it, and that barça wins. It´d be amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Thats about it, really. Lots of crazy cool news. Lots and lots of awesomeness. Totally excited to get home for the summer - but absolutely thrilled that I´ll be coming back. It´ll make the summer just that much better. Now I just have to figure out how Kevin can come here to spain too (or at least, to europe!!)

Two more weeks...

Wow, I can´t believe that I only have two weeks left here in Spain. Spain, Salamanca more specificlly, has become home, something that I really wasn´t sure it would be. But it has... I now feel more at home here, wandering around Salamanca, then I ever did in the 2.5 odd years I lived down in Nelsonville/Athens. I know that I still haven´t fully realized that I´m leaving in two weeks, and not coming back for who knows how long. I´ll come back to Spain, to Salamanca someday I know... I just don´t know when.

There´s also a growing realization that of all the things that I want and do not want to do... I really just don´t want to go back to Ohio, go back to school in Athens... it just doesn´t sound like fun to me anymore, at all. So, I´m looking around at other schools, trying to find something that would/could be interesting, fun even. I still don´t really know what I want to study, though I´m leaning farther and farther away from the whole biolgy/natural resources thing, honestly. Am thinking more and more about International Studies or somesuch. It´d be a good bit more buisnessy (which sounds boring), but at the same time, could lead to a job in which I got to travel more. I don´t really know. I´ll just have to wait and see... see how this summer goes.

Prague

Well, I loved Prague. I absolutely 100% mean that. Prague is awesome. All of the important buildings have steeples of one sort or another, and it truely looks like the "fairytale" city that it claims to be.

The people are overall pretty nice, although I really wish I could have figured out a little bit more of the langauge {more than thanks (deek), thank you (dick-y), beer (pivo), no (neh), bridge (most) and castle (hrod, me thinks)}... Czech is apparently a very hard language to learn, which I can totally see. It took me a couple days to figure out the names of the tram/metro stops that I needed to know to get around correctly... (and even so, I still totally missed tram stop once, late at night...).

In anycase, my favorite building in Prague is definetly the Church of Our Lady of Tyn. Its on the Old Town Square, in the center of the oldist part of town. And the two towers totally, truely look like Gargamels Castle from The Smurfs (a picture of which I can not seem to find online...). But yeah. Anyhow, its very very cool. Well, at least it looks cool... I didn´t actually go inside as its "only open for services" - and I just really didn´t feel like attending my first church service, by choice, ever.

But yeah, the rest of Prague was also very very cool. I really liked Petrin Park/Hill where they have an observatory and a 1/5 scale "model" of the Eifel tower. Which is cool, and from where you can see ALL of prague. There´s also the "Mirror Maze", which isn´t much of a maze, but is still quite a cool place... mostly just a mirrors-only funhouse, but still cool.

Anyhow, I´m going to try and get my pictures up here sometime in the next few days. About half my pictures from Granada are now up... but that still leaves roughly 550 to go...

London

Well, London is a pretty cool city. I've been having a blast the last couple nights, just hanging out here at my hostel - its a very very cool hostel. There's a bar basicly inside of it where you get discounts... last night they had karaoke.

Yesterday I went and saw the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge - both very very cool, and also just wandered around being lost. The Tower of London is very cool, and definetly my favorite place. The free guided tour by a Beefeater was, quite surpisingly very good. Quite a funny guy, really good at his job.

Today I went to St Paul's Cathedral, Westminister Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben/House of Parlimant, Harrod's... I think that was it. In anycase basicly all day was spent wandering around. I even managed to find a tourist info place and got a FREE guide-book/map!! Oh. And I found a bookstore. So I now have 3 new english books to read! Woot!!

In anycase, London's been fun... though I definetly like spanish cities better. They're just more interesting, somehow. London just seems a lot like any other big, oldish city in the US. It's lacking the little twisty one-way, cobblestone streets that cities in most of Europe seem to have. But, its been fun. Also been very, very, very expensive.

In anycase I'm looking forward to getting to Prague tommorrow. Everyone keeps telling me that its very cool, so thats nice to hear...

Travelin'

Wow... what an incredible past few days.

I went down to Granada on Tuesday getting in there around 2am on Wednesday morning. Long train ride, but totally worth it. The next day (Wednesday), I went and saw La Alhambra, and ended up having an absolutely awesome day. Right away I met a couple who had just graduated from some college out in Portland, Oregan. They were/are traveling with his parents, little sister and two of her friends. I ended up hanging out with them all day long and having an absolute blast.

It was, really, the first time I'd spoken much english in a long time, and whats more about really geek/environmental stuff. It was just really cool. They totally reminded me of my old compu-high friends.

In anycase, we spent the better part of the entire day (from about 11:00am-7:30pm), wandering around and seeing all the palaces, gardens, mosques-converted-into-churches, actual churches, etc. Then in the evening we all went out for tapas for a couple hours together. Twas lots of fun.

Then the next day and a half I spent wandering around the city of Granada itself, checking out the other churches, parks etc which are not actually inside the Alhambra. On Thursday night I ended up going out with a some old English guy, and another guy from sweden... we met some other old Scotish guy who's actually a poet (apparently he used to have a buisiness, but he sold it, and now just 'write poetry and drink beer').

On Friday I took my Uncle Elfego's advice and went to see Ronda - what an awesome little city!! I totally wish I'd had a good 2 or so days to really explore it better. Definetly a place I wouldn't mind going back to. That night I then took the bus up to Sevila...

In Sevilla yesterday I just wandered around for the most part, seeing the sites, etc. My favorite places in Sevilla are definetly the Real Alcazar and the Parque de Maria Luisa. The Real Alcazar is the old muslim palaces/gardins and is just really really pretty. The Parque de Maria Luisa (or something like that), is the botanical gardens which were donated to the city by (you guessed it), Maria Luisa. Or something like that. In anycase, its huge, and very very cool. They have all kinds of different trees and plants from ALL over the world, all labeld with both common and scientific names, what the name means/where its from, and other random, general info on the species. And theres a little island with ducks, peacocks and chickens in the middle of a pond which has lots and lots of fish - mostly goldfish, but I think there were some carp or something in there too.

In anycase, I'm now in London. I took the bus from Sevilla back to Salamanca last night, got into Salamanca at 4:30, woke up at 8:30, got a shower, and ran off to the bus station to fly here. Long day. But its been fun.

I'm going to goto Prague this Wednesday, so that should be good... Tommorrow I'm exploring london though =). When I finally get back to Salamanca for another quarter in a week or so I'll start uploading pictures...

One quarter done!!

I can´t believe I´ve already been in Spain for another whole quarter, already. It seems like this quarter went super super fast - although thats also true for the one before. In anycase, I´m done with school for a couple weeks. In case anybody´s wondering, I got a C in Spanish Grammar (its grammar. its hard.), and B´s in Spanish Literature, Communation and Oral Skills. So I´m pretty happy overall. In anycase I have another 6 or so odd weeks to perfect my spanish, so tis all good.

In anycase I´m looking forward to these couple weeks off I have before April. I´m gonna travel around Spain, though I think I´ll just "play it by ear" as such - not really have any plans. I want to visit Granada, Sevilla & Cordoba, but aside from them, I really don´t know. Ask around and see what little cities are cool to visit.

I have a job!!

Wow. Well, I officially have a job for the summer now! I just took a job as the Horse Barn Director at YMCA Camp Greenville, for this summer... So pending them receiving all my reference forms thats what I´ll be doing this summer. Making $300 per week, living in a house with other staff (not campers!!).

Pretty exciting. I didn´t initially expect to be offered/given a director´s job at a Camp... but hey, I´m not going to complain. Make more money =) So yeah, thats my news for today. A nice feeling, not having to look for a job anymore. Knowing what I´ll be doing this summer!! So cool. So very very cool.

Spanish Stuff

Just thought I´d let everyone know that I finally got around to creating a little site where I´m uploading all the random little essays, reports, speeches, etc, that I´ve written for my classes here in Spain.

There´s a perma-link on the right ("Essays and Reports in Spanish"), or else you can just click: http://emilyyrose.googlepages.com

New species!!

Wow, nifty. Awesome!

Scientists have discovered a new species, a new genus, a new family of crustaceans in the South Pacific. They´ve named it Kiwaida (after the Polynisian crustacean god =)...

Its covered in "sinuous, hair-like strands"... Quite nifty. We´re always finding new species in the oceans, but new genus aren´t all that common, let alone new family´s!!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/08/furry.lobster.ap/index.html

Gen. Robert L Scott, Jr

Well, one of my personal hero´s passed away today. Gen Robert L Scott, died this morning. He had a huge impact on my life - something I´m sure he didn´t know. Something I was thinking about just the other day actually.

I´ll never forget how I first got interested in so much - in flight, history, travel, the world. So much of that was because of him. His stories about traveling the world have inspired me to do the same. He followed the old silk road as a young man, through europe and parts of the middle east before the second world war, on a motorcycle. Years later, in the 1980s, he went back to roughly where he´d stopped and followed it the rest of the way to China, and then somehow managed to see most all of the Great Wall of China - something that probably no-one else ever has done.

In between, he was a pilot - a fighter pilot to be exact, though to get into the second world war, to meet Claire Lee Chennault, as he said in The Day I Owned the Sky "I had to lie cheat and surely steal." What´d he steal? Why a Boeing B-17E, Flying Fortress of course. He flew it across the Atlantic, and North Africa to India - where he, along with the rest of the contingent was held up (originally the were to team up with Dolittle on the raid against Tokyo). There he flew supplies across "The Hump" into China. Eventually he convinced Chennault to give him just one P-40, with which he became "The One-Man Airforce", accompanying the rest of those flying supplies into China. Later, he became Chennault´s second-in-command, of the 23rd Fighter Group.

Together they helped to keep the Burma Road open, despite the efforts of the Japanese and some of the top-brass of the US Army Air Force - namely old "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell. Eventually they were both forced to leave China, and Chennault was thereby denied the right to stand on the USS Missouri when Japan surrendurred. But their stories live on, and enspire those of us who know them.

Scotty was a hero, and more so for me than most. He took the time to write me back, and to send me The Day I Owned the Sky, along with a poster and a couple of pictures - all of which are still hanging on my wall, along with other posters, and pictures of that time. One of the pictures is of him getting into his P-40 all those years ago, another is him getting into the cockpit of an F-15 Eagle, "About to fly an F-15 at age 89, but that makes me feel 18. Bob Scott" it´s signed. I hope your still flying Scotty. I for one will always remember you.

Robert L. Scott Fan Club Association

RIAA

So, now the RIAA has a new novel idea about how to infringe on our rights when we buy CDs etc. It now claims that you do not actually have the right to back-up your CDs via your computer and then put them onto your iPod etc. Apparently, it thinks that if you want a digital copy of a song you ought to buy it off of iTunes or some such, and if you want it in the form of a CD you ought to buy the CD too.

Somehow, I think this is a bit contradictory seeing as Mr Don Verrilli just told the Supreme court that:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

So yeah, now we get to re-buy everything. Oh right, and they also aparently think that if a CD is damaged "replacents are readily available at affordable prices"... So yeah. We now get to pay for things truely multiple times - we must pay for it on CD, in digital format, and if something gets broken, we have to re-buy... because they are "readily available" and "affordable"...


Anyhow more info below:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190.html

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php

Opera for the DS!!

Now this is cool! My long-time favorite web browser Opera is going to release a version of the browser for the Nintendo DS!!! There´ve been rumours of an impending browser for the system, but I for one never imagined it´d be Opera!! Soo exciting. I´ll definetly pick this up when it comes out... Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

Link: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/02/15/

Of Wasps and Cockroaches

Recently I stumbled on Carl Zimmerman´s blog and have been reading it daily to see what he posts, its really quite cool.

My favorite story so far (and the one which brought me to The Loom originally), is The Wisdom of Parasites, which is about a wasp that hunts cockroaches - and basicly turns them into Zombies. Its really quite fascinating. The wasp stings the cockroach in a very specific part of its brain and then leads it back to its nest... where it is put into what amounts to suspended animation - it doesn´t die but its body functions are greatly slowed down. Its crazyness.

Here they are!

Right, so seeing as probably most of you folks have not seen the cartoons which have caused FAR more controversy than they ever deserved, and have sparked international protests, riotings, kidnappings, etc... Here they are.



These are the original images printed in Jyllands Posten. Now, call me crazy but while I see how at least a couple of these pictures are offensive... I really don´t see how anyone can possibly justify the crazyness thats going on over them. I just really don´t get it. But maybe somebody does. If so, please, clue me in ??

For more info directly from Jyllands-Posten go here: http://www.jp.dk/udland/tema:fid=11328/


And this is the picture printed on the front-page of El Pais February 5 or something. I have the issue =)

Oh right, almost forgot, this was actually orignally printed by Le Monde (French), and the lines say "I must not draw Mohammed" =)


But personally, I´m a fan of this one. Yay for Filibuster Cartoons!!

For more info check out Mohammed Image Archive

MySpace nomore!

Well, I am officially changing my blog over from myspace.com to blogger for one simple reason: it turns out that myspace is little more than farce of a site setup so that they can collect demographic info and such like. So yeah. As a result, I am no longer posting on myspace, nor having Any of my biographical info for them to see. Bastards.

ANYHOW, I´m still having a blast over here in Spain. Barcelona was awesome, and if you like you can checkout pics (at http://emilyrose.smugmug.com, as always). I could still go back and hang out there for hours on end, its just such an amazing city, especially with all the Gaudi and other modernist architecture... Park Güell, La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batállo, La Piedra, La Palacua Musica, etc. They´re all amazing works of art.

Classes are going overall pretty well, like my teachers (2 out of the 4 I´ve had before;), so that always helps.

Meh, thats about it. I´ll post more when/if something interesting happens=)