Ayla

Ayla just wanted to say hi to everyone! Yeah, Van Winkle pets like to do that.... according to my Mom's emails.
For those of you who haven't heard the story, Ayla was a puppy when I got her from a pet adoption group in Nashville. She was very cute and loveable, except for the fact that she didn't sleep at night and chewed everything she could get her teeth on. My parents still had our first dog, Logan at the time. After I brought Ayla home for Christmas (she chewed off one of the door handles in the back seat) she never came back to Tennessee. My parents needed help destroying the place before doing some remodeling, so Ayla was perfect for that.

Anyway, Kelly took this picture on Christmas Eve. She is now a very good dog and sadly is the only pet in the house these days.

Another fun game - you win bonus friend points if you know where the name Ayla came from :)

Great websites

In honor of the upcoming holidays and the fact that if you are reading this you already have some free time on your hands, check out some of these great websites I have stumbled on. (I installed "stumble" on my firefox browser) Anyway, I hope you enjoy!!!

For the engineers:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm

Random:
http://www.iiiiiiii.com/
http://www.milk.com/wall-o-shame/waterproof.html
http://www.virtualstapler.com/

Pictures:
http://selfdestruct.net/misc/geneve.jpg
http://www.asa100.com/
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/flash/cntower_timelapse.swf
http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/brandt/brandt.html

This just in.......

So, after I posted this morning I got another update from Mom.....the 'rents just bought another Buick Rendezvous. That makes 2 in 1 year. Yeah, I live in that family. One is white, the other is "cappuccino" according to the email.... I asked them where my Rendezvous was....no response yet.

Snow tracker.....still here!

Ah yeah, do you like the new coffee colored blog? While I'm working on my image with a new hair cut and continuing to seek out new arctic condition survival apparel (sweaters) I thought I'd splash some new colors on the blog - brown is definitely the new pink...

News from the Van Winkle household:
My dad has a new cool job at the college of Lake County. I don't know what this means, but I guess he has a big office....go Dad!
My mom really likes her job, but unfortunately the office is moving and does not wish to commute so she is deciding what to do next.
Kelly is still a skin farmer in Madison.

Last night I received a late 16th birthday present from my parents. So its a little over 11 years late, it is still very cool. They bought it when I was born intending to give it to me when I turned 16 and forgot about it until they found it recently...

Lets see what else...today is the Christmas party at Lazarus house so I'll be celebrating Christmas in the 'hood with about 80 kids running around. My bible study small group spent a few hours (with no heat) clearing out the gym there to get ready for this. It is very exciting to see God working in Racine - hopefully I'll get a chance to post some pictures soon!

"Near blizzard conditions"

That was the term we heard all morning as we stayed nicely sheltered while our cars were growing back their thick white covering everyone had fought to remove to get to work. I also read that they were calling this "heart-attack" snow because it was so heavy it could give people shovelling it a heart attack. I understood this a little better when I got home and to my joy discovered that my place was a perfect backstop for the storm and there were snow drifts 2' deep in places on my driveway.....yeah....plus a plow hadn't come down our road, there was only one lane cleared from people driving through so I had no place to put my car until I could shovel the driveway, so I drove it into the snow. The walk into my place was when I discovered the snow drifts as snow came up to my knees in spots (and I still wasn't close to hitting ground). I then spent the next hour shovelling a spot for my car, then shovelling my way out of the spot I had chosen to drive my car into. Ah, good times....at least it wasn't too cold - although the warmer air is what made the snow so heavy (I'll probably be hurting tomorrow) so maybe cold wouldn't have been so bad....hmmmm.....Oh, and they did let us leave work early today so that everyone could get home before it got dark. And I guess they couldn't call it a true blizzard because winds did not sustain above 35 mph, it was closer to 30 with gusts up to 40. OK, thats enough about the snow.

Well, I saw that 38,000 people in Knoxville lost power this morning - I hope all of you down there have your power back if you lost it! Have a good weekend!

New hair

Yup....this is what I look like now....right now actually, well, about 30 seconds ago. There is actually some special stuff in my hair that isn't always there: extra grease from not washing it this morning and christmas tree sap (I think that is what makes it shine :0). Seriously, we are right in the middle of prayer time and the Christmas tree falls over - the stand design was very poor and the tree was pretty tore up from falling so it was quite a project getting it back up. Katee prayed for a hedge of angels to rise up around the tree after that.

In other interesting news, here is what I do at work when things aren't going well...ok, I'm not the artist, but I did give artistic suggestions. I had to crop it so none of you would steal our design and try to compete with us. (The parts aren't supposed to buckle like that....our favorite is the guy with the beanie)

Wicked!

Ah well, another excellent Thanksgiving break is almost over :( I made it back to Racine after enough big meals to last me until Christmas! I just downloaded some songs from Wicked which I saw with my family yesterday. Its a great Broadway musical which tells the story of the Wizard of Oz from a different perspective, telling the stories of Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West. I think my favorite song is either "defying gravity" or "popular".

In other news I actually got a quite dramatic hair cut last week. If I remember I'll try to post some pictures soon....Its awesome so far - I got it permanently straightened so it doesn't look like "Alice" hair when I try to blow dry it.

The weather has been great up here the last couple weeks. It was in the 60s yesterday in Chicago! And the sun has even been out! It is supposed to be a high of 20 on Thursday though :( Then I'll get my chance to start whining again.

Sorry I haven't been posting much like I said I would, but I'll keep trying to put any interesting news up from life in Wisconsin!!

Snow, bonfires, and a scary pumpkin

Ah, its definitely fall up here in Wisconsin. My first clue was snow on my car the day I got back from my trip to Knoxville....doh!!! Yeah, so the week was off to a great start as I tore my car apart looking for gloves and an ice scraper. I found 1 white glove and one brown glove, but my hands were cold, so I called that a success - then I found the bad scraper (the good one was under a few layers) and got the first ice covering of the year off my winshield.

Unfortunately, none of my pics from my trip to Knoxville turned out very well, which is too bad, because it was a perfect weekend. Oh, and some of you know all the airport fun I had on my way there. The way back was relatively uneventful, however my wing of my plane did hit a refueling truck as it was taxiing into the gate. I won't tell the whole story, but I spent quite a bit of time watching the 8 men outside the plane arguing as it took 30 minutes before they got us off the plane.

So, the temperatures warmed up to 50s by the weekend and the sun actually came out, so its been a great couple days. I went to a bonfire Friday night and carved a pumpkin in the dark, it is on my porch now. The only people who will ever see it are my landlord and the mail man, so I'm going to post it here for all of you :)



Saturday I went to a party/shower for my on of my best and longest friends, Whitney. Good times :) My parents were there too, so I got to tell them all about my fun week at work (don't worry, I'll spare you...the short story is my next trip to Montreal is delayed) Today I've been cleaning and playing video games - so its been a great weekend.

Word of the week: equine....try to use it casually in conversation, it will be fun

Sleepless in Racine

For some reason I'm having a little bout of insomnia this week - not bad though, I've had a lot more energy and have extra time to do activities such as....er....work.

My trip to Richmond, VA last weekend was great! I went to European Busch Gardens on Saturday and rafting on Sunday. Busch Gardens was a lot of fun, I hadn't been on a roller coaster in a long time, and the 210 ft near vertical drop definitely knocked the air out of me for a minute.

I just read in Time magazine that string theory is being challenged within the physics world. I'm not really sure if I care, just like I'm not sure if I'm anywhere close to understanding what it is, but it doesn't seem like this search for the "theory of everything" has gotten anywhere in the past couple decades. In other news, I read that we might have 12 planets - interesting article:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/16/new.planets.ap/index.html

Oh, I also saw my friend Russ's house that he is building this week. He is doing it by himself with his brothers and Dad helping him. It is sweet! Although he thinks he might run out of money before he can buy furniture when he moves in, doh!

Well, this is going nowhere fast - I hope anyone reading this goes and does something exciting to counteract reading this. Fast. OK, bye.

Mid summer thoughts

Long time no post, I'll try not to ramble too much....
Lets see I'll quickly go through highlights of the last 6 weeks:
Utah! Kelly and I went to Utah to go white water rafting/hiking for a week, it was a great time! We slept outside in the canyon (and yes, we got rained on), we hiked to the top of the canyon and our rafting guides set off fireworks, the picture below is our hike to cecret lake (no not a spelling mistake on my part, but it got its name when someone else mispelled "secret" and the name stuck). The cool part about this hike is Kel and I really had no idea where we were going, but it turned out really awesome.







Racing: I did do another triathlon last weekend. The swim was in Lake Michigan and the waves were intense the morning of the race, so that was rough, but the weather was perfect. If you are interested in browsing for cool looking pics of me, go to multisportphoto.com - my race was Spirit of Racine the sprint distance. I also stormed the Bastille in downtown Milwaukee (5K race at 9 pm at night to kick off bastille days) - one of the local bars hands out beer in cups during the race :) Thats about all for that.

Work: Yes, I still have a job. They did announce that they are closing the plant in Clinton (although not til 2009). I hate to see that happen, but no one there is very surprised. I was in Indiana earlier this week for my first customer visit, then flew here to Missouri for some serious partying (er, work).

Coming up: Another whitewater rafting/camping trip up here in Wisconsin over labor day, trip to Richmond, VA in August, trip to Atlanta in September, and hopefully a trip to Knoxville in October!

Yeah Settlers!

Well, I missed the Knoxville Settlers crew terribly, but since Anna wasn't up here playing, I actually won this time :) I wound up getting very lucky - Mathieu almost won but was short one resource like 4 turns in a row. Good times, and of course, check out the awesome party dish next to the game! Even better :)
Mathieu was wearing his Florianopolis, Brazil shirt for me....his roomate in Stuttgart is from there. Random story time... on Friday he was telling me a story about his shirt, then at the Brazilian restaurant I went to the next day, the waiter was from Florianopolis....crazy. I guess it is a fairly large city, but I hadn't heard of it before....



Tomorrow is the first World Cup game - I'm going to try to watch it - or at least the highlights - I think besides the Olympics this is the most watched sporting event in the world. Plus it is fun since I have German friends here who love their soccer.
Nothing else exciting to say right now....hope everyone has a great Friday!!!

Creepy game

Friends, help me out here....check out this pic and comment:

1. Do you think this person looks like me (I feel like I am looking in a black and white mirror....although the dress isn't really my style.... - what do you think?)
and for the grand prize
2. Who is this person - I'll give you a hint - you read work by this person in American Lit

Living room and weekend fun

In 12 hours and I'll be back at work....what an unpleasant thought. In better news I was home for the weekend celebrating 3 birthdays, a graduation, new jobs with my parents and another family we grew up with (the Barnes). It was good times as always - we couldn't find birthday candles so we put a candle holder with a giant candle in the middle of the bundt cake - it was great. Nate and Melissa announced they are having another baby - which was very exciting for all.
My parents have done some shopping for me - so I actually have a little more "stuff" in my living room. I'm still not sure about the picture, but I think it will grow on me....Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Top ten signs it is Friday

1. I spent a bunch of time this morning laughing at something my sister said last night - time wasted = 30 minutes

2. We went out to eat, then to DQ, where I got a brownie earthquake - then stared at the melting gooey mess while I thought about how unpleasant my stomach felt - time wasted = 2 hour.

3. I wanted to write a note to myself for things to do Monday so I don't forget over the weekend, but couldn't find my post-its....this made me stop what I was doing until I could find them....after searching my whole cube, they were under my keyboard - time wasted = 30 min

4. After I decided to throw out the remainder of the brownie earthquake (actually resembled more of an eruption) I browsed google to look up a movie someone was talking about at lunch to decide if I wanted to rent it tonight - time wasted = 20 min

5. It is 3:00 and I am posting to my blog - time wasted about 20 min

6. The constant drone of sound in cubeland is starting to become very quiet

7. Yeah, I'm not going to make it to 10, just don't feel like it

Float build

Well, this is my first year being a part of the Modine float build for the July 4 parade. I must say, it was much more fun than sitting in my cube. Our float design is showing symbols of Racine's sister cities, which are in Denmark, Brazil, Nicaragua, France, and Japan. To answer everyone's first question...no, we are not having a Contra dude with a machine gun for Nicaragua - it is the second thing that comes to mind when you think Nicaragua....wait for it.....ok, a waterfall - yeah, I don't know, we are engineers. Our other float elements are Eiffel tower (France), windmill (Denmark), pagoda (Japan), and the Jesus statue (Brazil). That last one is also controversial too, apparently some people are upset about it. So last night I took a break from work and helped cut 2x4s and the eaves for the pagoda.

In other news, I made the chocolate cake in my bundt pan for something this week and flipped it over too soon - not pretty, I still took the multiple pieces and tried to do some cosmetic surgery before bringing it to the pot luck - ah, I wonder if I'll ever not be a disaster in the kitchen. My mom is trying to teach Kelly and I how to cook every time we are home since she feels like she failed us when we were younger.

I had to blow dry my phone when I got home from work. I didn't let the downpour keep me stranded at work, but it did soak my phone (even in my pocket), it did work once it got dry though.
I think I will watch Will and Grace tonight - I like watching final few episodes of long lasting shows that I never watched - I feel like I can read the ending without bothering with the rest of the story. Well, its almost Friday :)

Entertainment

I've found a new way to get through the day at work....I am leading up a project at work to select a braze alloy for 2010 EGR coolers - I know, everyone pause for a moment to be jealous.....but anyhow, I'm having to spend a lot of my day talking to PhDs who have been working in their field for 30+ years and interpret what they say into a language that makes sense to real people so we can set up the right tests to help in our decision. But anyway, I love finding phrases in the conversation that you just wouldn't hear anywhere else, for example......

"I just got back from San Antonio, and everyone is talking about the need for iron based braze alloys" - before Scott told me this, I had no idea this is what everyone in San Antonio was talking about, here I was thinking it was the Alamo, the river walk, or illegal immigration, but no, it is iron based braze alloys. (actually, he was at a braze conference, but taken out of context I found it quite amusing)

I can't think of any others right now - but there is entertainment to be had.

This morning I went for a bike ride with a couple other ladies - 25 miles....it sounded good before I left - not quite as good after 15 miles. I'm a little tired and sore. I watched Proof last night, it was ok, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Ah well, I was going to take some pictures today to prove that Wisconsin can be really pretty in the spring, but I don't feel like moving, so it will have to wait for another day.

Nil

So, I played spades last night with my parents and my friend/coworker Snehal. To start the night, we had to dig through a mountain of cards in the basement that were either

a) missing cards
b) been destroyed by playing Rats at swim meets
c) pinochle cards (sp?) or
d) ugly - (I vetoed the best deck because they were ugly brown flowers, I refused to look at them all night.....)

This took about half an hour. Then we had to argue about the table because it kept sliding apart. With three degreed engineers there, 2 of us played Rats and made the problem worse while Dad kept pushing it back together every 20 seconds.

I don't think I've ever not had fun playing spades, but this was one of the best games ever! My mom and I went nil and got it 4 times, but unfortunately we missed our bid 4 times, so we wound up losing. Dad and Snehal got their bid every time and never went nil (boring). It came down to the last hand though - good times!

Ah well, pretty good weekend over all :)

When forced vacation goes bad

OK - I promised myself I wouldn't talk about work in case someone from work stumbled across this, but I can't not mention yesterday's events.

Most of my work group (about 40 people) went to Chicago to watch the Cubs/Brewers game....we took a bus. Great amounts of alcohol were consumed. By the bus trip home mass chaos had broken loose. Here are just a few examples: we had to stop twice on the way back so people could go to the bathroom - the first time I walked in on two of my male coworkers in the women's restroom (just one toilet), one of my coworkers had passed out in the arms of one of the supervisors (yes, both men), the Korean guy who was with us could barely stay in his seat they had gotten him so drunk, one of my coworkers kept cussing at our boss - and it goes on and on. The director of the group (3 levels above me) was there too. And this group is the "future of the company". I wouldn't be buying stock now....

Funniest line of 2006

"I thought you said Bolombus"

OK - so maybe this is one of those "you had to be there" things, but I am still laughing about this one. We are playing Taboo and someone (who happens to be my sibling) is trying to get their team to guess "Columbus". One of the teammates correctly guessed the card, but the card holder kept trying to get them to guess. At the end of the round - it was revealed that she thought her teammate said "Bolumbus". No one is quite sure who Bolumbus is or when he sailed across the ocean, but that is what was heard. Oh goodness, well, I needed something to laugh at today while sitting in my cube trying not to fall asleep.

I've been bad about working out since I decided I was just going to do a sprint distance tri in July instead of a really long race.

Nothing too exciting to report on from the last week or so...today is Kelly's birthday, the big quarter century :) Oh, and I got to see my friend that has more stories about me than anyone that I'm not related to will ever have - which was super awesome.

And of course in other news I have another fun and exciting trip to Missouri planned next week - I won't spare you any details on that one!

Katherine - thanks for the invite to festivities next weekend, I can't tell you how tempting that is....
Do any of you in Knoxville have plans for Memorial day? Would anyone be up for hiking if I came down?
Hope everyone has a great week!

I found a time machine

Well, 2 months after the move, I'm still here, but REALLY missing Knoxville, and all the people there of course. As far as getting adjusted up here, I've met some people, but I definitely haven't found a core group... not that I expected to :)
In the mean time, I've had a great time seeing some friends that I haven't seen in a LONG time.

- Last weekend I ran into a friend of mine that I swam with in HS at a bar in Chicago - very random!

- Last week, 3 of my really good friends from HS came up for my first mini party at the new place



- I went to Madison for the weekend and last night I went out to dinner with my sister and another friend that I swam with since I was 8 and hadn't seen in 9 years. We also went to a bar with a tree in it. UWM won some hockey game, so there were a lot of happy drunk people running around town, good times.



- Oh, it was awesome meeting a friend of Kelly's in Madison who went to UT and she was involved in RUF, so we knew some of the same people, very fun.

So yeah, I'm having a rough time dealing with not seeing my Kville friends and community group and going to Redeemer, etc., but it is fun seeing old faces in new settings up here. Thats all for today.