Full Throttle

Curse Lissa for introducing me to Full Throttle! Last weekend I had my first taste of Full Throttle Orange. It’s the childhood memory of the orange drink from McDonalds mixed with bubbles and a whole lot of caffeine. It turns me into the giggly spaz teenager I once was. I hadn’t thought of my initial taste until the day of Alvin’s birthday. I got him up at 6:00 am to have breakfast at Doug & Emmy’s before I had class. After my energy tank was on E and I had to get to school. *BING* Why not grab a Full Throttle?! (In Dean’s words they’re “Heaven”) Class was great and I was a fabulous participant. Anyhow, to keep up with the day’s fun filled plans, I drank two more. In total I took in three Full Throttle energy drinks that day. In just one 16 oz can there is 144 mg of caffeine! So all in all I had 432 mg of caffeine flowing through my veins. Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Well, with such great highs come plummeting lows. It took a day to rid most of the caffeine from my system but when my body started feeling the after effects Sunday it wasn’t very pretty. It was an out of body experience. I thought PMS was bad. There I was yelling at Alvin for supporting me. Then the tears came, “What’s wrong with me?” I literally could see how ridiculous I was being but couldn’t do anything to stop it. So there’s a price to be paid to get the Full Throttle version of Nattie.

How Social Media Can Make History

This clip is almost 16 minutes long, so if you've got the time you should check it out. This is found on TED.com. The site's tag line is "Ideas Worth Spreading" and it's completely true. In short, "while news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics." This is what gets me stoked about the career I'm headed into. The consumer becomes the producer. This is how I get my "jollies" these days, what a nerd huh?

Alvin's Creation: Laptop Hover Pad

Chill Out!

Average isn't good enough when your name is Alvin Rodgers. Just for example: His laptop is a pretty sweet set up but while running certain applications it can heat up to 180 degrees. After sending it in for the warranty it's still running hot. Their customer service rep confirmed that they restored the thermal module, in other words they cleaned out the fan. Anyhow, this will never do and neither will an average laptop cooler.

Because my sweetheart won't settle for less than the best I now know that the acronym CFM refers to the air flow in "cubic feet per minute". You see the average laptop cooler only runs at 34 to 40 CFM. "Not enough," he says. So this has launched Alvin's project of making his own laptop cooler. When the project is finalized he'll have a laptop cooler that will the airflow at 223.44 CFM! So in other words he's created the world's first laptop hovercraft.

I blog this because this is one of the very reasons I adore my sweetheart. There's not a project that he can't figure out and take to the max. No job is half asked but most of the time taken to maximum strength. It's takes a lot of energy to keep up him but it's usually worth it. Na, just kidding, it's always worth it. I just have to take the occasional nap.

P.S. I'd post some pics of his creation but it's not in completion yet. After all the Plexiglas shavings are vacuumed up and electrical wiring is put away I'll grab some shots of it hovering on his desk.

Trip to Dixie

"...I was only there as a temporary inhabitant...like someone who finds himself in a beautiful mansion, eating exquisite food, aware that this is only a party, that the mansion belongs to someone else, and that time will come when the lights will go out, the owners will go to bed, the servants will return to their quarters, the door will close, and we'll be out in the street again, waiting for a taxi or bus to restore us to the mediocrity of our everyday lives."

- Excerpt from The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho. Alvin and I are back to reality after a great vacation to North Carolina. My cousin Sandy let us stay in their beautiful home in Wilmington.

Exodus 20:17 Thou shalt not ^acovet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s ^bwife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

What if it's not your "neighbour" but your cousin? That doesn't count does it?



The view from their pool onto the golf course.



Alvin relaxing to a little "Punk'd" in their living room.

So besides having a lovely place to stay we got to experience a little of the true south. To my native Oregonian sweetheart this place was a whole other world. You can actually wear a bathing suit to the beach instead of a sweatshirt to the coast. The BBQ here isn't chicken on a grill but pulled pork roasted in vinegar (yum!). It's generally a good idea not to bring up politics or the Confederate flag. The "dog days of summer" equal 400% humidity. And Southern Hospitality is a very real thing. Family I barely know welcomed us with open arms and even let us use their vehicle.

10% Less that Perfect

Being right on an average of 90% of the time is pretty killer I think. What I wouldn't give to only have 10 % uncertainty. Who am I kidding, I'm right 110% of the time right?! Na, I'm talking about my sweetheart finishing up his first semester of PT school with an A - in every class! Not too shabby! Keep it up sugar and I'll try to have more patience while you teach me about what nerve innervates what muscle and hearing the details of what you've dissected that day.

10 Days and Counting!

To get through a semester Alvin and I usually try to plan a trip for the light at the end of the tunnel. Today starts our ten day count down until we fly out to Wilmington, NC! (We should probably worry about finals first though.) I'm so excited to hang out on Wrightsville Beach, eat at Salt Works and Smithfield's BBQ, show Alvin Cape Fear, and see all my red neck relatives back there! Congrats sugar for getting through your first semester of PT School! (Don't expect a big trip like this after fall semester!)

CAT FIGHT!

So I have two kitty cats. They are usually pretty happy together but there is the occasional play fight. Emmie just has to remind Gretel that she's older, fatter, and the boss. I say play fight because they'll bite and scratch but in the end it ends up their giving each other baths. Typical girl behavior - "You little brat I'm gonna rip your hair out" - five minutes later - "I'm so sorry, you wanna barrow my sweater?" This time I think Emmie went a little too far. Saturday morning we woke up and Gretel had a nice shiner. Just to make sure it wasn't anything worse she went and visited Dr. Gubler today. Sure enough it's the equivalent of a human black eye.