If I had a blog,

Muddy Buddy "Team Unwashables" Race Report

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:54:34 GMT

Race: Muddy Buddy in Dallas
Location: Cedar Hill State Park
Team name: Unwashables
Course length: 6.3 miles
Number of legs: 5

My sister Alicia and our long-time friend Jamie flew into town specifically to run the Muddy Buddy with Ronnie and me. The race consisted of teams of two switching between running and biking a 6.3-mile course. There's one bike between the two team members. I also invited our cousin Jami and her fiance Sean to run the race. We didn't coordinate very well with Jami and I assumed we would meet up with them at some point before the race. Little did I know there would be 1600+ people there.

Since I had previously perused the pictures on the interweb for other Muddy Buddy races in other cities, I had a pretty good idea that there would be people in costume. This is really more of a fun run than a race, but for the competitively elite, there's still cash prizes at the end. Ronnie let me convince him to wear matching Spartan hats duck taped to our bike helmets. Alicia and Jamie dressed up in angel wings and halos. I taped a red balloon to our bike between the handle bars to make it more easily recognizable, keeping my fingers crossed that it wouldn't pop at some point. Alicia and Jamie covered their bike seat with bright yellow cloth to make theirs more discernable.

Leg#1:
1.1 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with how well organized the race was. Each team was placed into a category based on gender and combined age. Each category was assigned a certain color wristband. Then at the start of the race we were all lined up according to our designated color. The bikers in each leg started first, then 30 seconds later the runners were released.

As they called for the orange wrist bands to approach, I inched my way forward on the bike. Ronnie and I were borrowing his friend John's bike, a very tall John, with a very tall bike. Needless to say, the "boy bar" across the bike is too tall for me and I couldn't stand straddling the bike with my feet touching the ground. If I lean to the side, I can have one foot for support. Well, when the race director released the wave of bikes, he *could* have said, "Watch out at the beginning; there's a steep slope just after the starting line that will cause a massive bottle neck, and perhaps some of you with really tall bikes will fall down." That's exactly what happened. As soon as all the bikers in front of me stopped short, I couldn't just put my feet down like they could. So I leaned to the left side to get off. But there were bikers EVERYWHERE and I fell right into the biker on my left with my left pedal ending up in the spokes of her back tire. I had no where to go but fall on top of her. My bike fell on top of me and I ended up with a massive bruise on the inside of my left knee. It's "purty."

After the debacle of a start, I finally got my groove on and headed away from the starting line on my bike. I had no idea how fast I was going or whether or not I would catch up to the previous wave of runners. Shortly before the transition area, I came across this lone runner who looked an awful lot like Sean from behind. I slowed down as I passed him and we briefly exchanged hellos. He looked EXHAUSTED. I can't blame him, after all, he just ran/walked 1.1 miles. But he's got 5.2 miles left in the race!

I dropped the bike in the designated spot, cruised right through the obstacle, and embarked on leg #2. The obstacle was just a cargo net about a foot off the ground that we had to crawl under. Since I was wearing a Spartan helmet on top of my bike helmet, I had to truly duck to get under the cargo net. My hat kept getting stuck! I should have learned my lesson for the mud pit.... more on that.

Leg #2:
1.1 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
I'm not the best runner, nor did I prepare one bit for this race, so I was truly dreading the running portions of the race. The course was also a little hilly (as hilly as Texas can get), so I told myself that no matter how tired I get, I must always at least jog DOWN the hills. It's not really fair to Ronnie for me to walk too much, and the least I could do was jog downhill. I set myself on a pretty even pace, walked very little and made it to the obstacle for leg #2 in no time. I was quite proud of myself for getting into a rhythm. I thought that Ronnie would catch up to me during this leg since the first two legs were pretty even in terms of distance. Did I miss him passing me on the bike? Surely he would at least say hi to me as he passed me to let me know he was ahead of me now.  I approached the second obstacle and transition area, and still no Ronnie in sight... will I need to wait for Ronnie to show up with the bike? If anything I thought he would be waiting on me at some point during the race, not the other way around. Turns out the chain fell off of the bike at some point during this leg, so yep, he never passed me up. There was a large group of people waiting on their teammates to show up with the bikes. I think this transition area was the most packed of them all. The obstacle at this leg was an 8-foot tall rock climbing wall with a cargo net down the back side. Really easy. I stepped to the side and waited for Ronnie to show up with the bike. Since I passed up Sean right there at the end of Leg 1, I thought I might be able to catch up to Jami, perhaps on leg #3. Lo and behold, just as I predicted, I caught up to Jami. She was waiting for Sean to show up with their shared bike. I told her if she didn't mind waiting for about 30 seconds (Ronnie was in sight) then we could continue the race together.

Leg #3:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
I jumped on the bike and headed out with Jami. During leg #2, Ronnie had raised the seat to accommodate for his height. I didn't check the bike seat before I got on the bike and quickly discovered it was too tall for me. I had to stop racing, and get off the bike to lower the seat. For some reason I couldn't get the lever to push down all the way, but I thought it was far enough to where it wouldn't get in the way. I got back on the bike and pedaled a few more feet. I was wrong.... the lever handle kept scraping my leg. This was NOT going to fly for the rest of the race. So I got off the bike AGAIN, (I told Jami to go on ahead without me) and pushed with all my might to get the lever down. No budge. All of a sudden, Ronnie jogs right up and helps me out. It didn't take him long to get over that obstacle and catch up!

After that, leg #3 was pretty uneventful. I caught up with Jami again and we worked our way to the next obstacle. At one point, the course took us off the normal pavement onto a "trail". I air-quoted trail because it seemed more like a dirt road than a trail. Jami and I were able to bike most of it side by side, each riding along in our tire groove. We soon approached what I thought might be the transition area. There was this black plastic tarp "wall" perhaps 2 feet in height blocking the trail. We had to stop and pick our bikes up and over it. Not sure if that is normally there in the park or if they put that up specifically for the race. I'm guessing the latter, but I didn't get a really good look at it, so I'm not too sure.

Jami and I made it to the third transition area, leaving our bikes to be picked up by our teammates, and "dominated" the obstacle before starting on leg #4. This time the obstacle consisted of walking across a balance beam. There were about 6 balance beams in parallel about 20 feet in length, roughly 4-ish feet off the ground. I stayed on one beam the whole time. They were wide enough to practically run across them. Some guys next to me had one foot on one beam and another on another beam since they were so close together. This chick in front of me took about 2 steps, then jumped off and skipped the rest of the balance beam. She didn't even try!

Leg #4:
1.3 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
Jami and I stuck together the whole leg of this race. Since we finally had the chance to talk, I learned that she had actually been training for this race, running a mile on the treadmill often over the past two weeks. Despite that, she still felt unprepared for this race, as did I. At one point during our run, Jami tripped over her own two feet and almost face planted on the ground. It was scary. Shortly afterwards she talked about how running on a treadmill is much easier than running on the ground. I agree! Here are running together. Jami's just to the left of me, cropped out by the photographer.

Ronnie passed us up about a third of the way through this leg.

Sean never passed us up, nor did we see him when the course did a u-turn on itself for a short while. Jami and I again tackled the obstacle together. It was a giant inflatable "triangle" with a rope ladder up one side and a big slide down the other side. I easily spotted our bike among the sea of bikes, thanks to the red balloon.

Leg #5:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
Since I didn't know how far back Sean was, I decided to leave Jami and bike the last leg on my own. I wasn't sure if I would be able to catch up to Ronnie or not. He seemed pretty far ahead when he passed us up, and I didn't run nearly as much on leg #4 as I might have if Jami hadn't nearly face planted. We took it a little easy after that occurred.

By this time, I was tired and my thighs hurt pretty bad from all the biking. All that downhill running I had earlier in the race resulted in one big gigantic uphill biking right here at the end. At one point I had to get off my bike and walk it; others around me were doing the same.

The last obstacle: The MUD PIT!!
By the time I got the end of leg #5, Ronnie had been waiting for me for about 5 minutes. We approached the mud pit together and crawled through. We had to crawl UNDER the little flags, as you can see in the photo. Just like at the obstacle for the first leg of the race, my hat kept getting stuck on those darn flags! I looked up just in time to see Ronnie do a face dive into the mud, pleasing all the racers who were egging him on to "Get Dirty!" When he came up, his Spartan hat caught on the rope again and he had a hard time getting untangled.

The photo below shows us actually crossing the finish line. I had to lead Ronnie there by hand since he was nearly blind from the mud in his face.

After we got our faces and hands cleaned off, we waited with our cousins for Jamie & Sean and Alicia & Jamie to finish. Jamie & Sean were only about 5 minutes behind us, but we missed them since there were so many people around. Our cousins Christa & Sarah only lived about 10 minutes away from the park, so they gave up their Sunday morning to hang out and support us!

Results:
The Unwashables: 1:06:12 - 74 out of 88 teams in our age division.
Muddy Aces (Alicia & Jamie): 1:12:12 - 51 out 57 teams
Robot Nightmare (Jami & Sean) 1:25:05 - 60 out of 61 teams

All in all, a fun time. I'd do it again. Anybody want to race with us next year?

Catching up

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:02:47 GMT

Seems like all I'm ever doing on this blog is catching up with what's going on in my life because I don't ever blog anymore!

I've been in a funk.

Here's what I've been up to since I last blogged 2 months ago:

Attended Dallas Cowboys Open House for season ticket holders. That screen is ginormous and bee-yoo-tiful!
Attended my Coach John's funeral. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack at his home in August. He was 52, I think. Weird coincidence: I ran into Patty at the funeral. Some of you know her as the deaf woman here at work. I never put their last names together, but it turns out coach John and Patty were cousins. I talked to Patty this week (two months later) while we stood in line for the flu shots. She said the autopsy showed that John's heart had swollen up in his chest. It's called QTR or QTC or something. I can't remember what it is for sure. I was trying to look it up and couldn't find anything specific.
Did my high profile presentation with my co-worker Matt for the V.P. of Engineering. This was followed by a very expensive meal at a fancy-schmancy place downtown where the wine flowed like water. I should NOT have driven home that night.
Two Rangers games. Yes, I realize that regular baseball season is now over, but hey, I'm catching you up.
Jennifer's baby's 1 year birthday party
Amanda's bachelorette party
Set up a blind date between my co-worker Meredith and my cousin Craig
Amanda's wedding, where Meredith & Craig got a long REALLY well
Stress test in which my heart was deemed healthy. Yay!
Got my hair trimmed (finally!). I'm trying to embrace my curls. I let my hair dresser convince me to buy product, something I've NEVER done. We'll see how long fixing my hair lasts.
Attended Jamie's (Ronnie's co-worker) bachelorette party.
Went to Hawaii!! Kick ass!
Got sick in Hawaii. Not kick ass.
Went to Metallica concert!! Kick ass!
Attended A&M vs. Arkansas game in the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. A fun night, with a not-so-fun ending. I really enjoyed the excitement of Midnight Yell. Makes me want to go back to college.
Joined Watermark's small group discussion on infertility and miscarriages. It meets once a week on Tuesday nights. I missed the first two sessions due to Hawaii, and unfortunately, it's held on one of Ronnie's off-days, so we'll see how many I actually get to attend. Boo.
Cavity free dentist visit this week! Immediately followed that success with a medium diet cherry limeade from Sonic, complete with an order of cheddar peppers. Yummy!

Here's what I have NOT been doing the past two months:

Swimming on a regular basis. I miss Coach John so I've not had the motivation to go back.
I didn't get to attend Oktoberfest... my first time in 5 years I have not attended. Boo.
I haven't called a few friends to congratulate them on their additions to their family (two babies, one adoption). I'm sorry. I feel really guilty because I've been selfish with my time lately.
Losing weight. I dropped 5 pounds right off the bat after my miscarriage, but I'm stuck at 10 more to go. My funk is my excuse.
Keeping up with friends around the country - How are you all doing??
Couldn't receive the flu shot. As soon as I sat down in the chair (after waiting an hour and 15 minutes in line), my lingering cough from Hawaii revealed itself. The nurse asked, "What was that?" I said, "What was what?" "That cough." Oh that??? You mean I can't get a flu shot???

Upcoming activities:

Mary Poppins the musical this weekend with a few co-workers.
Jamie & John's wedding (the bachelorette party I went to a few weeks ago)
My sister and OUR friend Jamie are coming into town in a few weeks to run the Muddy Buddy!! This is a 6-mile race in which you and a buddy switch every mile running and biking. At each mile-interval, you have to complete an obstacle before moving onto the next mile. At the end, you and your buddy cross the finish line after crawling through a mud pit together. Should be fun. :-)
Star Wars concert thingy in the Dallas Cowboys Stadium
Then next month, Ashley's coming to visit!

</caught up> (Stole that from Beth! Too cute!)

Getting to know my team

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:41:09 GMT

At work, my cube move took place two weeks ago at the start of my transition from the old team to the new one. These other 5 to 6 people on my new team have been working together since April, so I figured my joining the group would be interrupting whatever team dynamic that they had created. I didn't realize that from April to July, they've all been working in three separate buildings, doing all of their communication via phone/email. The day of my cube move was the same day as the cube moves for the rest of the individuals, allowing us to finally join together as a team all sitting in the same bay (or "cube farm" as I once heard termed).

In terms of team cohesiveness, we're still building it, but it's fun. So far we've all complained together about the temperature. It is a FREEZING 68 degrees in my cube farm. One person has a digital temperature on her desk. By my desk, it's 68 degrees. Three cubes away, it's 70. For whatever reason, there are five vents heavily installed over our side of the bay, requiring us to all layer up our clothing despite the 105 degree weather outside! After 5 phone calls to facilities in the last three days, the temperature this morning is a warm 71 degrees. And I just heard that it's increased further to 72.3. Victory!!

I'm also trying to figure out how to get along with my "deputy" team lead. He's a deputy because the real team lead is also leading about three other projects in the midst of taking a 12-day vacation to St. John's (close to St. Bart's?). Anywho, day #1 I had a healthy snack of cheese & crackers & mangos. He stared at my food as we chatted about work, so I offered him some. He did NOT hesitate to accept my offer. I brought a different snack in the next day. Again, he ate up what I offered. It's very clear that the best way to his good side is through his stomach! I'm now his buddy.

Additionally, I'm still figuring out the nuances about my new deputy team lead. Like yesterday when I left work, I said goodbye and left the bay. After getting to my car I realized I forgot my phone at my desk, so I came back to get it. I said goodbye and left again. This morning, he came to me to apologize about what happened yesterday, regardless of whether or not I overheard him. My crooked head and furrowed eyebrows obviously indicated my confusion. He said, "Oh, well good, I'm glad you didn't hear. After I said goodbye to you yesterday, I said, 'You *itch!' And then I realized that you may have misinterpreted that as being directed toward you! It was directed at my computer screen because I can't seem to get Oracle installed, and it was just poor timing on my part to let that out." I'm glad I didn't overhear that. :-) It's also nice that he felt like he should come forward and apologize for what may have been misconstrued.

Ok, back to work for another half hour.

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:34:37 GMT

The wall I had around my heart came crumbling down Sunday night faster than I could build it back up. Two weeks after the second miscarriage I finally cried. It was such a raw display of emotion for me.... so unexpected... Ronnie just held me as I cried.

I had built up this wall with an automatic response of, "I'm fine." I didn't cry with the first miscarriage because I just felt like I was part of a club..... like everybody has a miscarriage... no big deal. I'm not saying I wasn't disappointed, I just didn't outwardly shed a tear. I came close to crying when I told my team lead why I had to take a few days off of work, but I got over it and it was fine. Six weeks later I had about a two hour conversation with my Mom during a three and a half hour drive alone coming back from visiting my grandmother. I was hoping to tell my grandmother on that visit with her that she would finally be a "Granny." She doesn't have any great-grandchildren yet, and she'll have to wait even longer. In that car ride alone I had a lot of time to reflect on the past six weeks, so I called my Mom to listen to her story of her miscarriage (37 years ago!) and to grieve with her.

That was five months ago. Two weeks ago with the second miscarriage, I felt like I was kicked out of the "everybody has a miscarriage" club. I now feel like I'm not part of any club that wants to accept me and that nobody wants to be a part of to begin with. I didn't initially cry, but again, came close when I had to tell my manager over the phone that I had to miss the next couple of days of work.

These past two weeks have been completely filled to the brim, which is why it's been easy to hold back my tears:

I was supposed to start transitioning to a new team at work the day of the miscarriage.
Ronnie's family came to visit the following Saturday. I hurt my back putting sheets on the guest bedroom bed.
We went to the Coldplay concert the following Tuesday.
Ronnie's family left on Wednesday; my parents arrived.
We all drove to my family reunion on Friday. I re-injured my back, causing much pain just walking.
Returned from family reunion on Sunday physically exhausted.

I was, and still am, in such a trnasitional period of my life right now that it was easy to hold back my tears. I've had so many things to concentrate on these past two weeks. When we returned home from our family reunion, I finally had a moment to myself. It was such a release of stress, both physically and mentally, that the next logical thing was for the stress to be released emotionally as well. The tears knocked down the wall around my heart and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

The Coldplay concert was very good from a fan point of view, but it was sad for me. Lyrics like in the song "Fix You" made me wonder why I hadn't cried yet and made me second-guess everything about my grieving process.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Or how about these lyrics from the song "The Scientist:"

Nobody said it was easy,  
It's such a shame for us to part.  
Nobody said it was easy,  
No one ever said it would be this hard.

I don't even know what the second song is supposed to be about, but I interpreted it my own way. As some of you know, I don't really listen to music, never collected CD's, or downloaded music on itunes. I never really understood the draw to music. One friend told me that she likes music because it triggers memories for her. I never really looked at it that way before. Since she's mentioned that to me, I've noticed more and more that music draws me to memories. I've also never really felt connected with a song before on an emotional level like the songs at the Coldplay concert. I find it quite interesting how my outlook on things are changing. This doesn't mean I'm going to run out buy the latest album of artists, but I can say I understand the draw to it now.

My new short-term goal: lose the 15 pounds I gained since the time I first got pregnant.

Tomorrow I go back to the doctor to get blood drawn for another round of beta-level testing. If the level is zero, then I can go get tested for the blood clotting disorder that could potentially be a cause of the miscarraiges.

How old were you?

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:24:01 GMT

I'm in Alexandria, Virginia for two weeks for work. I have the pleasure of sharing the hotel with a charter bus load of what I am assuming are 8th graders enjoying their class trip to D.C. Standing in the lobby waiting for the second cycle of elevators, I overhear a conversation between two 8th grade boys.

One says to the other, "You actually bought that? No way!"

I turn, thinking he's holding a cool souvenier, and lo and behold, it's a box of condoms. This kid had just come from the convenience "nook" across from the elevators where basic toiletries, food and snacks are sold by the front desk staff. I had to laugh because I realized I was witnessing probably a pivotal moment in this kid's life. Will he remember 20 years from now where he was when he bought his first box of condoms? Guys, do you remember when and where you were when you bought your first pack? And do you remember reading every word on the box with the silliest, smuggest grin on your face while waiting for the elevator standing in a large crowd of people who are also waiting for the elevator?

LOL!

It only took four years!

Fri, 15 May 2009 16:10:14 GMT

At the beginning of every marriage (or now-a-days cohabitation), every couple has to sit down and make some difficult decisions... in the form of chores. How do you divy up the housework and maintain order in something that's so new to both of you? Here's how our conversation went:

Me: I hate to empty the dishwasher. I don't want to do it.
Hubby: I hate to load the dishwasher. I don't want to do it.
Me: Wow, we truly are a match made in heaven, huh??

This arragement lasted four years.

What's the flaw in this design???

If Ronnie doesn't empty the dishwasher quickly enough, the dishes start piling up in the sink because I don't have an empty dishwasher in which to put the dirty dishes. And then I have to remind him .... honey, can you PLEASE empty the dishwasher? And of course at the point I break down and truly nag him, there's enough for two loads of dishes, so then he has to empty the dishwasher twice in one day.

Yes, we're both stubborn. I could have emptied the dishwasher myself instead of waiting on him to do it. But if it's not on my pre-defined list of chores, I won't do it. Don't get me wrong, I'll do some of his chores due to special cirdcumstances, like having friends/guests over, etc. I even did many of Ronnie's chores the week that his company laid off 15% of the work force. It was a stressful time for him at work and I wanted to keep his home life as stress free as possible. I even mowed the grass when he sprained his ankle recently. But other than that, his chores are his, mine are mine. :-)

I finally decided that I've had enough of this arrangement because I'm tired of having a dirty kitchen. So I made a deal... I'll take over emptying the dishwasher if Ronnie concentrates on cooking more, thus, leading to us eating out less. He's extremely motivated to cook when he's got a clean kitchen at his disposal. It's been a week into this arrangement and it's going well so far.

I have an inkling that Ronnie purposely hasn't emptied the dishwasher in a timely manner just so he could get out of doing it permanently. Don't guys do that? If that was his goal, whether conciously or subconciously, it finally worked.

What Dreams May Come

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:20:18 GMT

I have a friend that keeps checking in on me and wondering why I haven't blogged lately. I finally took on the challenge today to get over my blogging hump and finally put something down on "paper." You see, I blog all the time in my head. I think I've already told you that once before. I actually was blogging privately for a while until a recent turn of events in my life...

As most of you who read this blog know, I had a miscarriage on Feb. 2nd, Groundhog Day. It's been roughly two and a half months of no blogging since then. I had been blogging privately before Feb. 2nd, keeping our pregnancy a secret while still sharing my feelings, with the intention of unlocking my private posts to make them public again once we passed the first trimester. Since the end of the first trimester never happened, I had a hard time moving on with my blog. Every time I thought about blogging, I was confronted with those private posts, reminding me of "Dreams Lost" -- a phrase my dear friend coined.

I think that term "Dreams Lost" sums up exactly what I think about the miscarriage. My hubby and I were settling into the idea of having a new life in August, and all those dreams are gone now. At least that's what I've thought until recently. I've since changed my attitude (perhaps fully gotten over it?) and I don't feel like I've lost some dreams anymore... I feel like I have many more dreams to come the next time we're successful.  For a while there, I was chastising womanhood for not speaking out more openly about miscarriages. My doctor said that 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriages... it's such a high number! But now, after having the time to reflect on my thoughts/feelings about the whole thing, I can understand now why it's such a taboo topic. It can be painful to talk about it after it happens because it reminds women of what "could have been." On the one hand, I feel lucky that we were given a "trial run" at pregnancy. On the other hand... that was not a fun experience and I wish that on no one.

I can honestly say that I have turned 95% Pro Life. I can't say I'm 100% because of the extreme cases that can occur, but certainly I can understand now what it means to terminate a life in the womb. I can't really say I was truly Pro Choice before pregnancy anyway. I think I straddled the line refusing to take a stance because it didn't really matter to me personally.  My husband and I saw the heartbeat at 6 weeks gestation of what would have been our child. At 10 and a half weeks, that heartbeat was non-existant.  To CHOOSE to terminate that living being just because it's not a convenient time in your life to have a child is so heart-wrenching to me.  It's especially painful to hear about terminations when there are so many couples out there who can't even get pregnant in the first place.

OK, off my soap box now. There are so many things I could say about the miscarriage that I think I could bore you to death with them. My whole point is that I'm over it and ready to move on. I'm looking forward now at the positive things that could occur, not at the negative aspect of my dreams lost with my unborn child.

Here are some tidbits of news going on in our lives:
-- My husband made it through layoffs at his work. The entire agate team was laid off except for him. It's his story to tell, so I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say it's been a stressful few weeks with a positive outcome.

-- I've started swimming 3 mornings a week before work. I joined the Dallas Aquatics Masters (DAM) swim team in which they hold practices at 5 locations around the DFW area. I needed to start some sort of fitness program that was motivating, yet safe in case I get pregnant again. I didn't want to pick a sport and just stop in the middle of it. Swimming is one of the safest sports to partake in during pregnancy. Only problem: practice STARTS at 5:45 a.m. So I really can only feasibly make it on the mornings after the nights that Ronnie is at work. It's easier to control my bed time when he's not home. That way I can guarantee enough sleep to wake up in time for practice. Going on my third week, I can tell I've improved a lot, but my form still needs a lot of work.

-- I got to travel to Texas A&M last week to do a presentation to a freshmen computer science seminar class. First question from a student duringg the Q&A session, "if I were to pursue a career in information security engineering, what sort of classes would I need to take as an undergrad?" Success!!   If we motivated at least one person to pursue a career in this ever-expanding field, then we did our job. Hopefully we influenced more than one student. Oh, and I finally got to see Bonfire memorial.

-- I'm also ready to change groups within my information security engineering team. I've been with the same team for almost 5 years now. My unofficial mentor says it's time to move on. At first I protested her advice, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was getting more and more comfortable in my position. While I am still being challenged, there are so many more areas in which I could be challenged that it's time to put my new skills to use. It's looking like this will be a summer time change - no relocation, just a new group. Plus, to tie this all back to the miscarriage.... since I'm not getting a change in life with a baby this summer, I'll get a change in another aspect of my life - my career. "Comfortable" was an easy excuse when I was looking forward to 6 to 8 weeks off of work in the near future, but now I know that it's time to make a change.

-- We're going to Hawaii in September. Whoo-hoo!

I'll unlock some of those old posts so that at least my "LJ Friends" can read them. If you're a lurker reading this through RSS and you don't have an LJ login, ask me and I can share with you, too, if you're that curious.

I look forward to posting more!

Project 365

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:34:11 GMT

I've started another Project365. I did one for the summer and called it Project90. This time I'll be doing a picture-a-day for the entire year! Check it out here. You should be able to RSS to it. This time around, it'll be even funner with my new camera I received for graduation/Christmas. My sister is joining me (actually, she's on year 3 of project365 so I guess I'm joining her), and my friend Melanie and her co-worker are also partaking in this activity, so we're all sticking it out together. And if anybody would like to join me, let me know!

New Year's MeMe

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:09:27 GMT

Following jackieduv and jenbarbiedoll11 's leads, I'll fill out the New Year's Meme as well.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Graduated with a Masters degree from SMU. Yay! Oh, and I passed my CISSP exam. Double Yay!

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I made a resolution for 2008, but I don't think I kept it. I actually blogged about my New Year's resolution last year, so let me go re-read that real quick to see if I was successful or not...

ok, apparently "manage my time better" was my new year's resolution, which is extremely hard to measure. Here's what I wanted to do:

spend more time with Ronnie (check!)
work out (I quit the gym, so big X on this one)
study (check!)
cook (X, I only cooked when I had to)
bake (half check, half X)
chat with my sister and parents more (X)
hang out with friends more (X)
watch less TV (check?)
multi-task better (check?)
not procrastinate on homework/projects (check!)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, kas2662</lj> and my co-worker Jennifer both had cute little boys.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My grandpa’s sister died in May, but I only saw her once every other year at family reunion. I wouldn't consider her close. She would have been 85 at her next birthday.

5. What countries and/or states did you visit?

Me, my hubby, sister and her hubby went to London, England and Dublin, Ireland for 10 days total in April.
Then we all met again in Vail, Colorado in June for a mini cousin's reunion.
Then the four of us travelled together again to Key West, FL in December to celebrate my graduation. Good times!

Those are the big trips. Throw in Louisiana in there a time or two. Oh, and a trip to California for work where my awesome hubby sent me roses to the hotel on Valentine's Day.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Free time!! I'll definitely have that now that school is over. I already have my list of things to do...

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

From jenbarbiedoll11 's blog, I'd like to say August 20th, although I wouldn't have known the exact date without checking her blog. Also, June 4th for little Stryker. December 13th for graduation.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

If I can only say one thing, it'd be finishing my masters degree. But I'd like to also add losing 10 pounds and getting my CISSP.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Failure to communicate with my husband that I parked my car in the driveway behind his brand-spanking new SUV... only for him to run into the front of my car with his back bumper when pulling out of the garage (on the second day of owning the car). My car sits so low to the ground and the driveway pitches down so much that he couldn't see it from his rearview mirror. Our neighbor's kids even use our driveway as the starting point of their ramp for their skateboards and bikes, it's that steep.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Other than the common cold, nope.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My rental fee for my graduation cap and gown. I got giddy once I held it in my hands.

12. What was the best thing someone gave you?

New camera.

13. Were you lucky in love or lucky in cards?

Lucky in love.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Trips, eating out.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Celebrating graduation in Key West, FL

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Eh... I don't listen to music. So I guess anything off the new Coldplay album because Ronnie and I went to their concert together.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder? Happier!
Older or wiser? Um, both.
Thinner or fatter? Thinner!
Richer or poorer? Pre-drop in wall-street, richer. I think everybody's a bit poorer this year if they checked their 401k.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Spend time with Ronnie.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Waste time.

20. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?

We planned to spend it down in Victory Park watching fireworks, but when we realized it would be 38 degrees outside, we decided not to go since I've been battling a cold for over a week now.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

I fall in love with Ronnie every day. :-) Barf, I know!

22. Did you fall out of love in 2008?

Yes, I fell out of love with the TV show Heroes. It fell so hard so fast.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

The Office, with Lost as a close second.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

The writers of Heroes.

25. What was the best book you read?

Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice. It's a coming-of-age story about a girl in London. I read it while we were in London. It was a fun read.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Again, don't really listen to music. But it was pretty good that I survived the mosh pits at Ozzfest.

27. What did you want and get?

New George Foreman grill with removable plates. I HATED to clean our old one. It would sit on the counter for a week at a time before I finally cleaned the stinkin' thing.

28. What did you want and not get?

To win the lottery. But I didn't really play, so I guess it's my own fault.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I originally answered The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons since I saw it today, but Ronnie reminded me that today is already 2009, so that doesn't count. So uh, let's see... Wall-E?

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On the Border for dinner for my 28th.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Winning the lottery?

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Not-quite-trendy-but-not-too-far-behind. I hate my shoes.

33. What kept you sane?
Ronnie.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't really follow celebrities... I got to shake hands with Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in space.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Presidential election! Yay for Obama!

36. Who did you miss?
The New Orleans members of the now-defunct Dallas Wine Club.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Did I meet any new people? I was kind of holed-up in my house studying all year.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:

Stick with it. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel.

A new nickname

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:52:17 GMT

Hi everybody!

It's been forever since I've posted a blog, I know... While I actually haven't typed anything out for you to read, I blog in my head all the time. I think in blogs. Ronnie thinks in headlines. Every now and then he'll tell me what would have been a better headline for some sporting event in the paper.

I really think that the main reason that I haven't blogged in a while is because Yahoo changed their RSS feature on their mail page. It used to be that I could have all these RSS feeds listed, and they would turn orange when a new entry was posted. It was extremely convenient because I didn't have to make any extra effort to see if a blog was updated recently. But for whatever reason, that feature is no longer available. Now I have to use the my.yahoo page, which lists the top 5 entries of each blog, but it doesn't highlight them when they're new or anything. So now I have to scroll through each individual blog's listing to see if I've read them all or not. It's a pain. I need a better system. How does everybody else use their RSS feeds?

But I digress...

I really just wanted to share with you a nickname given to me by a few folks at work... not that I'm called this directly, but it's more like I'm referred as this when I'm not around. The person who finally told me that I had this nickname was a little hesitant before dishing on what my actual nickname was. I urged this person on by telling him/her that I've had a different nickname in the past: JLo. This person laughed and said that my new nickname is along those lines... here's the word:

culona

Urban dictionary defines it as "Spanish for woman with a big ass."

How appropriate! I'm not offended in anyway by this nickname. I view it as more of a term of endearment.

<big grin>

Voted!

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:56:36 GMT

I did my civic duty today by voting.
Did you?

Cane's at it again.

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:34:17 GMT

The weather's turned nice here. Cane's apparently enjoying it as much as we are.

An update for Cane's count:
birds: 1 live, 1 dead, 1 half-dead
mice: 1 dead, 1 that got away, 2 live
lizard: 1 live

I'm not feeling well right now, so I went to sleep last night at 10:30 p.m. (Side bar: Isn't it sad I can go to sleep earlier on a weekend than I can on a week night?) I woke up at 1:00 a.m. when Ronnie got home from work because he was questioning why I didn't pick up the half-dead bird that Cane left for me. What? I finally got out of bed to look at it, and sure enough, there was the bird in front of the washing machine with feathers all over the place. We both wondered if Bruno got a hold of it, too. Who knows. Bruno was asleep in bed with me, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have gotten out of bed without me noticing because apparently I slept through Cane coming home with his gift. I do remember at one point waking up and staring at the clock trying to comprehend what time it was. My semi-conscious state finally figured it out I had only been asleep for a short while, so I rolled over and fell back to sleep. Now I wonder if the scuffle of the bird woke me up. Either way, I know Cane loves me.

I'm just glad Cane didn't bring the half-dead bird to me in bed.

What a relief!

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:34:02 GMT

For all the ranting I did yesterday about the CISSP exam and how unbelievely hard the questions were and about how sure I was that I failed...

I found out today that I passed the CISSP!!! It was such a relief to open up that email and find the word Congratulations sitting in it. Whew!

Catching up

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:35:03 GMT

Howdy!

It's been almost a month since I've last posted anything, and my last one didn't have any real meat to it either. It was really just to brag that I beat my husband in NCAA football on the XBOX 360!

Sorry, had to bring that up again. I love you, Ronnie!

Anyway, a lot has happened in the last month, yet at the same time, not a lot.

The main thing is that I finally took the CISSP exam on the 12th. This is something that I've been working towards for a while. I took the training for it over the summer and I've been studying ever since. I took off from work on the Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the exam on that Friday, but I only had to make up the hours for Wednesday, as we're given hours to charge to study for this exam. I still have no idea if I've passed the exam. I should find out in no more than 6 weeks, but most find out in about 2. This Friday marks two weeks. I really, honestly feel like I failed the exam. The only thing that comforts me is that everybody at work has said the exact same thing. This test is just so brutal! Here's an example of how I feel every single question looks like:

Q: What adds up 4?

a. 2 + 2
b. 3 + 2
c. 3 + 1
d. 2 + 1

Remember, choose the BEST answer. Seriously, that's how I felt. Every question I was able to eliminate two choices, leaving me with two correct answers... only one of them is more correct than the other. How in the world are you supposed to choose!?!? I didn't feel like any of the sample exams that I took prepared me for those kinds of questions.

After the 5-hour beating, I went shopping and found two pairs of pants (Old Navy,jackieduv!) that fit. That made the end of my day seem somewhat fulfilled, although I would have preferred to find out the results of the CISSP exam right away. I mean, come on, the answers were on a scantron form!

While all of that was going on with the CISSP, Ronnie went to Notre Dame with his friend Phillip to attend the Michigan/Notre Dame game. It was nice to have Ronnie out of the house and not be a distraction while I frantically crammed for the CISSP, but at the same time, I missed him horribly! I couldn't rely on him to cook dinner so that I could maximize my studying time. I couldn't rely on him to take Bruno to the vet (more on this later), and there was nothing to look forward to staying awake past midnight studying, knowing he wouldn't be coming home from work soon. Ronnie had a good time, though, and I'm glad he got the chance to go. He and Phillip have tried 5 years now to coordinate a trip to Notre Dame, but until now, the timing just hadn't worked out right. This year, they planned well in advance so that Ronnie would be able to get a weekend off during football season. That turned out to be the last week of work for those folks who took the buyouts. Ronnie missed their going-away shin-dig after work on one of those evenings.

Some of you know that Bruno had surgery recently. That was a little bit stressful. When my in-laws were here for Hurricane Gustav, they figured out why Bruno was consistently licking his paw... a quarter-inch size cyst was growing on the underside of his paw. Ronnie took Bruno to the vet the next day who recommended surgery on the following day to remove it. I was going to have to take PTO to get to the vet in time to pick him up, but my parents graciously volunteered to pick him up for me so I could finish out my hours one late Friday afternoon. They were also here in town because of Hurricane Gustav. Thank you, Mom & Dad! After two weeks of wearing the cone around his head, Bruno's finally gotten most of his energy and spunk back. He's had a few funny moments:

Every time we put the cone around his neck, Bruno pretty much shut down. He wouldn't walk, move, nothing. We were working on trying to convince Bruno that it was ok to walk with the cone on his head. To try to convince him, Ronnie put a treat on the floor about 2 feet from Bruno's nose, and then went to play basketball. Upon returning home from working out, the treat was still there, and Bruno hadn't budged an inch. As soon as Ronnie took the cone off, Bruno pounced on the treat. That was probably such torture to Bruno smelling and staring at that treat for almost two hours!!!
Another anecdote in trying to convince Bruno he can move with the cone on... he was in the study of our house, and Ronnie and I were in the living room. We called and called for Bruno to come to us, and slowly we saw Bruno emerging from the study. He slowly picked up his pace as he began to realize the cone doesn't paralyze him... He got closer and closer to the living room when WHACK! The edge of the cone smacked into Cane's scratching post, knocking Bruno sideways. He had such a stunned look. He had no idea what hit him! We're pretty sure that set him back a couple of days of moving around.

The main reason it was stressful is because when we took the cone off Bruno, we had to consistently watch him to make sure he didn't lick his paw. And when we got tired of watching him like a hawk, we'd put the cone back on, but then Bruno would just shut down entirely and lay there and look soooo unbelievably sad. So we felt bad and took the cone off.  That just led to a vicious cycle. After I took Ronnie to the airport for his trip to N.D., I took Bruno to the vet because we thought the paw looked a bit infected. Turns out it was mildly, but regular applications of peroxide over the next couple of days did the trick. Now he's almost back to normal. He's not wearing the cone anymore, but he still has stitches. It's clearly not bothering him anymore because he's not trying to pick at it all the time. I think the remaining stitches will either dissolve or fall out soon.

I also joined the recruiting team at work. I attended the career fair at SMU last week to talk to the students and answer questions.  I especially liked the questions from the students, "I've lived next to a building with your company's name on it, but I never knew what they did... so what does your company do?" If you don't know what our company does, then we're doing our jobs by keeping it on the low-down. This week I'm doing "campus screens." They're not called interviews, just screens. I'm really looking forward to it. I think it'll be more fun being on the other side of the interviewing table. :-)

School is also going well, as usual.  This semester we won't have any exams in my digital forensics class, only mini projects each week. In my Advanced Network and System Security class, we only have one exam, which will be about 2/3 of the way through the semester. That's such a relief! No more cramming at the end of the semester for a final exam! But we have projects each week. And they're bigger than the mini projects the other class is giving us. On the first project, we had to do a risk analysis assessment of a made up grocery store. I thought it was a stupid idea, so I asked if I could do my risk analysis on a small business instead, i.e., my mom's office.  My professor agreed to let my project partner (Elizabeth) and I deviate from the assignment. We interviewed my mom on the phone for an hour and subsequently created a fabulous paper and presentation about it. For the presentation, Liz played the part of the attorney while I played the part of the secretary. We forced the remaining students in the class into an interactive Q&A session by assigning them the role of the risk analysis team members. While Liz & I spent an hour on the phone asking questions to my Mom, we gave the students only 7 minutes to find out the vulnerabilities and safety issues with my mom's office. It was much better than just presenting our findings in a one-sided presentation where all the students pretend to pay attention and seem interested. And Liz played the part well, too. She answered a lot of questions using "my" and "I" while playing the part of the attorney. It was probably the funnest presentation I've done. I know... it's weird to call a presentation fun.  I'm such a dork. :-)

And as far as school goes... this is my last semester! Ronnie wants to take me on a trip to celebrate as soon as I graduate (December 13th) to any location I desire. I chose Key West, Florida. We only wanted to go for about 3 days or so, and if we go all the way to the Bahamas, that's two entire days of traveling, leaving only one day on the beach. So I chose a closer location with a similar, romantic appeal. It's also cheaper and does not require a passport. The last couple of days we've been looking at flight/hotel deals. It's helping me to look forward to life beyond my classes. Yay!

So that's it for now. I realized I hadn't posted in a while when jackieduv called me a couple of weeks ago saying she felt like she was out of touch. Thanks for that small kick in the rear so I could keep every one else updated as well! I've written so many blog entries in my head, but never got to the computer to capture them. I hope this has been an enlightening journey into the past month of my life.

Announcement

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:06:21 GMT

Hello Everyone!

Ronnie and I have an announcement to make. Well... really, I'm the only one with the announcement....

I beat my husband in NCAA Football on the Xbox 360!!!

*standing ovation*

Thank you, thank you!!

I heart the Olympic's Opening Ceremonies!! Sort of ...

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:27:51 GMT

I told myself I wouldn't do this. I would NOT write some sort of cheesy Olympics-related post about whatever.

But then this happened...

Earlier today I missed the first 15 minutes of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, then watched 45 minutes before recording it so I could run errands. I got back home with a shelving unit for the garage from Home Depot to assemble while watching the remainder of the opening ceremonies. So I turned the ceremonies back on and worked on my task. After the shelf was assembled I moved it out of the way and then sat on the floor to take a break. There I was, minding my own business watching the acrobats doing flips and tricks sideways around the world while Phantom of the Opera Lady sang when Cane took that as his cue to partake in his own Olympics event -- catching field mice and bringing them into the house alive!!

Check it out:

As of right now, the video is unprocessed, but that's my first upload to You Tube, so I have no idea how long it takes to post. Sorry that the lighting was so poor... the shelving-unit-halfway-to-the-garage blocked the main light, and it didn't occur to me to turn on the hallway light above my head while my heart was pounding away trying to figure out how to get this live mouse out of my house when all my shoe boxes are in the garage. I would have to WALK PAST the mouse to get a box! Egads! (My new favorite word, thanks jenbarbiedoll11!) And sorry for the abruptness of the ending of the video... the mouse decided to take a run for it.

If you listen really carefully at the very end of the video, the mouse sqeaks right before Cane & Bruno pounced on it. At least I can hear it on my computer, and I hope it comes through on the You Tube video.

I'm starting to get calmer about the whole thing, and this time it was fun watching Cane play with his catch. He purred the entire time (you might be able to hear that, too.) With the last mouse, Bruno pounced on it so quickly that he flattened it within 10 seconds. This time I was able to get 3 pictures and 2 separate 30-second videos before that happeend. The video posted above is the better of the two.

Cane's count:
birds: 1 live, 1 dead
mice: 1 dead, 1 that got away , 2 live
lizard: 1 live

What official name would you give this First Time Richard Olympic Event??

Follow up on the newspaper industry

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:03:27 GMT

Howdy!

Some of you have asked about R's work buying out 500 people. Here's a little more info.

It equates to about 14% of the workforce of the entire company, which means about 9 people in the sports department (including writers) at the DMN. Of course if some other departments have more than 14% take the buyouts, then fewer have to come from other departments, but the opposite is also true. Potentially more than 9 may have to come from the sports department.

Additionally, if too many from one department take the buyouts, and those departments need extra people to backfill some of those spots, they can choose to shift people around to provide support as needed. So R could potentially not work in the sports department anymore and get shifted to say, business, or metro, etc. If that happens, he will be pretty unhappy. R has diversified his skills and is pretty valuable to the company, but now I think he's wondering if he's too diversified to fall into the group of people who get shifted around to other departments. Only time will tell.

Those folks who choose to take the buyouts have between Aug. 11th and Aug. 20th to put their names on the list. It's a first-come, first-serve deal so that if more than 500 people put their name on the list, the company only has to honor the first 500. Additionally, the company has the option of denying your request to be bought out. For instance, last time this happened (2004? 2005?) one of the sports writers (to remain nameless) who has been there for a while put his name on the list, but the company refused him. R and his coworkers heavily suspect that he will try again this time. For the folks who take the buyouts, September 12th will be their last day.

So that's the deal. No rumors or speculations (except for the aforementioned Nameless Sports Writer) about who will or will not put their name on the list. With August 20th being the deadline, it gives folks a chance to potentially find another job before deciding to take the plunge and take that lump sum of money. Of course with the econonmy now-a-days, finding another job can be quite a daunting task, espeically in such a specialized field.

The detector who cried wolf?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:47:08 GMT

Yesterday morning while I was getting ready for work, the smoke detector in the master bedroom beeped twice within 45 minutes of each other. The beeps were not the normal "chirping" sound that indicates the battery's low. The beeps resonated about a second longer and at a different tone than the chirp. We really didn't know what to do other than replace the batteries. So yesterday, Ronnie went out and bought 8 9-volt batteries for all of the smoke detectors in the entire house.  We replaced the batteries last night. Task accomplished.

1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning:
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I was so out of it I had no idea how long the beeps lasted. But I think it was only about 3 to 5 seconds. Ronnie came running in the room (he hadn't gone to bed yet) to survey the scene, but could find nothing wrong. Ugh! There's another smoke detector about 4 feet from it that did NOT go off. (We have one detector in the master bedroom, and then one in the hallway that leads to the master bedroom, but the hallway is so short that the detectors end up about 4 feet from one another.) The green light on the smoke detector was on, which indicated it had battery power AND power from the house.

Perplexed and a little worn out, I fell back to sleep.

2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning:
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I think this time it lasted 15-20 seconds -- about the time it took Ronnie to run to the garage, grab the step ladder, and yank the detector from the ceiling. Then ALL of the detectors in the house let out one beep (they're all connected somehow). The smoke detector 4 feet away, again, did not go off.   We're both still perplexed. Poor Bruno was wimpering in his cage. Ronnie said Cane tried to hide in the corner of the living room and ended up underneath the coffee table somehow.  After yanking the detector from the ceiling, Ronnie left the battery in (so it wouldn't chirp) and placed the detector in the study by the front door so we could sleep in peace.

3:00 a.m. Wednesday morning:
I'm still laying in bed wide awake staring at the ceiling wondering if the attic was smoldering, or if the roof was going to cave in on us, or if I sent Ronnie to check on the attic if the increase of oxygen would cause the house to combust, etc. I could NOT fall back to sleep. I got out of bed, got a drink of water, looked for the green light on all of the other detectors in the house, paced around for a bit, etc. So many "what if" scenarios ran through my head.   I got back in bed and tried to settle down. Just staring around the room again I saw this faint orange glow coming from the corner behind the TV unit. So I jumped out of bed again and slowly walked toward the wall, feeling my way to see if the wall was hot, imagining it is glowing orange from the fire between the walls... NOPE. Just the surge protector light glowing like it does every night.

I finally fell back to sleep when Ronnie told me that if anything was wrong, we would have heard something by now since it was well over an hour since the smoke detector freaked out on us. How comforting... but it worked. I fell back to sleep and only freaked out a little bit when the alarm clock went off.

What if the smoke detector was truly trying to tell us something? Have we now hit the scenario where the detector cried wolf too many times?? Arg! It's driving me crazy!

The newspaper industry is slowly dying

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:09:08 GMT

Check out this article about Ronnie's company.

And in case the link doesn't work, here is the text of the article:

A.H. Belo Looks to Eliminate 500 Jobs

By Jennifer Saba

Published: July 28, 2008 11:21 AM ET

NEW YORK A.H. Belo is the latest newspaper company to announce deep cuts to its workforce and a possible sale of real estate holdings.

The pure-play newspaper company, which recently spun out from Belo Corp. with little debt, is looking to eliminate 500 positions through a series of buyouts. The move is expected to save $50 million.

"These initiatives address the adverse business environment facing the newspaper industry and the related negative perception of the industry's future prospects," Robert Decherd, A.H. Belo's chairman, president and CEO, wrote in a letter to shareholders.

In its first quarterly report as a stand-alone newspaper company, A.H. Belo Corp reported a loss of $3.2 million, or 16 cents a share, on advertising revenue that sank 21%.

Employees at The Dallas Morning News, The Providence (R.I.) Journal, The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., and the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle are expected to receive severance offers this week. The process should be completed by mid-September and if not enough volunteers come forward, the company could resort to layoffs.

The board also signaled it might review its dividend policy. The company just declared a regular quarterly dividend of 25 cents per share last week.

A.H. Belo is eyeing its properties in downtown Dallas, which it jointly owns with Belo, and in Providence. The company could realize $35 million in pre-tax proceeds from a potential sale, Case reported.

"Straight math tells us that mid-teens revenue declines on a sustained basis do not produce a tenable business model," Decherd wrote to shareholders.

As of late morning A.H. Belo (NYSE: AHC) is trading down 7.03% to $5.95.

Jennifer Saba (jsaba@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's associate editor.

The severance packages go out tomorrow for the employees to review.

Yikes!

Throwback to Just Shoot Me

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:11:57 GMT

This is who my instructor reminded me of all week: this guy. Remember him from Just Shoot Me? Anybody else watch that? You know, it's that show with David Spade. Our instructor wasn't quite as monotone as Brian, but he was definitely bald with glasses, and spoke out of his nose.

Speaking of TV shows, I'm still keeping up with Last Comic Standing. Kick-ass that the girl's still in it! Even if Iliza wasn't from Dallas, I'd still cheer for her. I'm also rooting for Jim Tabare, the celloist. Oh, and the guy who won immunity this week - Jim Dyer? Is that his name? I'm bad with TV reality names.

Anyway, we're headed back to New Orleans this weekend for Ronnie's 10 year high school reunion this time. I'm taking Monday off from work, too, so we've got the last flight out Monday night. For once, I got ahead in my hours at work, so I won't have to spend all my time catching up in my hours. I can work an almost normal schedule next week.

"Death by Power Point"

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:13:43 GMT

I'm in a training class this week at work. The instructor started on Monday by introducing himself and then declaring that this week would end in "Death by Power Point." I kid you not. Now if that's not encouraging, I don't know what is!

This class is a "boot camp" to pass the CISSP exam. It's a big deal to achieve this certification.  My manager even gives everybody 20 hours to study for it at home leading up to the exam, so that's 2 and a half days worth of paid study time. I've even heard the company will pay for a second sitting of the exam if you fail it the first time. I don't intend to find out by personal experience.

This certification is such a big deal that I've gotten out of the training for two years in a row now. Haha! I couldn't pass it up this year for a couple of reasons:

Reason #1:
Boot camp is in July... not in October smack-dab in the middle of my last semester of classes. I should be able to sit for the exam on September 12th. It's a 6-hour exam. The instructor said that if you have a bladder the size of a pea, you might be in trouble. He's heard of a couple of students reporting that their bathroom breaks were timed. Oh no! I'm one of those with the smallest bladder in the world!

Reason #2
Starting in May and for the 10 weeks leading up to the class this week, I've attended a study group that talked about the topics. That way I will have had 11 straight weeks of exposure to the material, rather than learning about it all for the first time in class. Retention is the key here (at least until I pass the exam).

No more reasons.

So far I've been really bored by the class because I've heard all of this material before... for 10 weeks leading up to this class!  I've also got a huge advantage over most of the other people in the class because I learned many of the implementation details in my SMU classs. For instance, two years ago, I was completely scared of the Cryptography section, but now I think that's going to be one of the easier sections to pass. At SMU we dissected the DES algorithm and many others in minute detail. Stream ciphers, block ciphers, symmetric key encryption, asymmetric key encryption, advantage and disadvantages of key exchanges, etc. (How many of you have I lost now??)

Crypto? No problem!
Legal stuff? Who knows. We cover that topic on Thursday I think.

Speaking of class, I found out what classes I'll be taking this last semester for SMU:
Advanced Data Network Security
Computer Forensics

I'm REALLY excited about that second one there. Supposedly the professor has a degree in this topic, too, so at least we'll get a professor who knows his stuff. Yay!

Why does the bored imodicom (is that the word?) (the dancing star that shows my mood) have tear drops? Do you cry when you're bored? OK, maybe we whine about how bored we are, but not enough for tear drops.

Ronnie sold his current iphone on ebay for $346. He upgraded to the new iphone 3G for $200. We more than made our money back for the upgrade. Woohoo!

And speaking of selling things on ebay (we have MUCH better luck on ebay than on Craig's list) (knock on wood), we went ahead and purhcased season tickets to the Cowboys for the 2009 season in the new stadium. We had already turned them down because of the outrageous Personal Seat License fee. My cousins really wanted the tickets, though, and didn't want us to pass on them. So Ronnie had to ask if we could still reconsider before the deadline. Then with out cousins, we negotiated three games out of them, they get the remaining 7 games plus any possible playoff games, and they put up the money for the PSL. At some point we might be able to transfer the PSL to their names, at which point we lose access to those three games. I hope the new stadium is worth it for them!

I just now realized this post turned into a bunch of random facts there at the end. It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry!

It's not my fortune, but I thought it was nice.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:35:18 GMT

I found this discarded fortune laying above the F7 and F8 keys on the keyboard of one of the computers in the lab at work. The fortune cookie was probably eaten months ago, but here's what it says:

"Doing what you like is freedom.
Liking what you do is happiness."

It seems like a very profound thing to say so I wanted to share it with all of you.

And the other side of the fortune says this:

Salt

huh?

Project 365/4

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:06:12 GMT

I've started my own Project 365 project on my Flickr site, but I can only commit to the summer so I'm calling it Project 90. Check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellir/

I've already missed one day, but I'm kind of new to this, so don't shoot me. It's hard to remember to take my camera with me everywhere. Maybe that will get easier as I get used to this.

nightmare

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:17:02 GMT

birds: 1 live, 1 dead
mice: 1 dead, 1 that got away , 1 live
lizard: 1 live

My worst nightmare came true. Luckily, the pets chased it down, cornered it and then squished it somehow so that it lay dead for me to scoop into a shoe box. Cane then tried to paw at it while it was still in the shoebox. I almost cried. It's time to go talk to the neighbors to see if they're having mice problems. I'm going to doubt it since they don't have a cat who roams the neighborhood. Why can't he drop them on the door mat outside??

Craig's List scam?

Thu, 29 May 2008 15:08:04 GMT

I know Katrina has had a lot of luck selling stuff from Craig’s List, but we just don’t have the same luck. Here’s the deal:

Our Craig’s List ad (with two pictures not shown here in LJ):

Purchased corner unit stand as nude wood and then stained it an "espresso" color. Used as TV stand without doors attached. Hopefully in the second picture you can tell there's a small shelf that perfectly fits a DVD player or VCR. The shelf does not go all the way to the back of the unit, making it easy to hide cables by running them behind the unit. Recently bought new TV and stand, so need to make space for new furniture.
Dimensions attached.
Thanks.

Somebody responded:

“Hello
james is my name
Am interested in buying your item listed on CL, Please let me know if its still for sale and perhaps in good condition. I await your response and i will proceed with purchase if its still for sale and in good condition ....thanks God bless”

Sounds a little weird, right? But I went ahead and told him this:

James,

Yes, it's still in good condition and it's still for sale. Please call (our phone number) after 11:30 a.m. Friday to talk to my husband Ronnie to arrange the sale. Please don't call before 11:30.

Thanks

His response:

Hello,
i really appreciate your response to my earlier mail.like i said
i will like to buy this item so pls do withdraw the advert from CL,I
will need you to provide me with the following information to
facilitate the mailing of the payment.
1.Your full name
2.Your mailing address be it residential or postal address
3.Your phone number.
**I will like you to know that you will not be responsible for
shipping i will have my mover come over as soon as you have cashed the
payment**
Have a nice day.
james

I forwarded it Ronnie with the feeling that something’s just not right… advert? Mailing of payment? But we agreed to proceed:

Hi James,

I deleted the CL ad and will continue this sale strictly with you. Please send payment to the following:

1. Ronald Richard
2. (our address)
3. (our phone number)

Or you can pay cash upon pickup. Call to arrange pickup with my husband so that he can meet you.

His response:

thanks for providing your info payment will be issued out first thing on monday morning and i would like to get an update about this transaction from you.
james

I did not reply to this, as I was waiting for the money to come in the mail. This came in the email three days later:

Hello Ronald

How was your day? I will like to informed you that i contacted my bank to confirm if your payment has been mailed out , I was made to understand that instead of the actual amount for the item, the bank made out check for $2,500 The payment was already posted before I was informed about this but is a little problem which we can handle with care.

I wouldn't want this to delay the sale, as I have rectify this with my Bank and all you do once you have the payment is to take it to your Bank and have it cashed and you will then deduct the money for your goods plus a $50 (the cost of running around).

The excess fund on the payment will then be wired to my mover via western union that same day so that she can come for pick up as I already plan on using the excess on the payment to offset the cost of the previous shipments she has undertaken on my behalf. Do let me know if I can trust you to have the excess fund sent to my mover. Thank you.

james

HUH? What?? Are you kidding me??

Reading back through all of his emails, I now realize he never once called my furniture by its name. He always used “your item” and “your unit” and “this sale”. And all of his responses come from a various email addresses:

jamebaliy at gmail

james_baliy600 at yahoo

jamebaliy at yahoo

This was my final response to him:

No, we will not partake in this. I will repost the listing on Craig's List for somebody who is willing to pay for the unit without any excess funds and bank transfers.

This all feels fishy, so where does the scam come in? Any ideas?