Curling!

Tom and I are members of the Lone Star Curling Club. Ok, sure, we haven't been going to curl very much of late (sleep is winning the Sunday morning battle). But we still do love it.

The rink that we curl at is being relocated on the property. Part of the exciting part about the new rink is that they are putting the houses (the bullseye at the end of the curling rink) underneath the ice sheet. We had been drawing them on each week with markers on a huge compass (a 12' version of the one you used to use in high school geometry class)

Here are some pictures of the new rink and the beautiful houses:






The other exciting thing is that we are getting permanent rock storage, which sounds like a big old 'who cares', but the reason this is good is that curling stones need to be kept at ice temperature to work best. At the old rink this meant someone had to go put the rocks out on the ice the night before Sunday curling. Even then, they still weren't all that cold, and managed to get a nice thick coating of frost on them, which you had to chip off. To sum up, it was DULL and SUCKY

Anyway, here is the new rock storage area.

They really do smell like grape gum

And as I mentioned a few posts back, spring is in full force here, so I went and took some pics of the flowers blooming around our neighborhood. Also, the garden is starting to do well - i think it's time to pick the broccoli.

Click on the photo to open the album.

Spring flowers

Spring rain

We had some super heavy rains on Monday, and Tom took some pics of the flooding around our house. Ok....it wasn't actually flooding. We live near a street called Mesa, which basically means that if our house is being flooded, we've got much bigger problems. But we do have some interesting drainage problems

First, our front walk. We like to think of it as Lake Woodway. There is a low spot in the bottom right corner of the picture, and water collects there. This is further compounded because the downspout also empties there. For this storm, the lake extended all the way to the circular planter you can see at the top of the photo. This is about as big as the lake has ever been.


This is what it looks like when it's still pouring, but our rain barrels are full. Sometimes it shoots up like a geyser.


The street had (apparently) had an 18" or so wide stream running down it. Tom didn't want to go out in the rain, so here is a a pic from the front porch.


In summary, it was wet. The funny part to me is that my office is about a mile away from the house as the crow flies, and we weren't getting any rain at all when these pics were taken.

Recent quilt

This is the quilt that I made for one of my co-workers. She's having a little girl in July of this year. What I didn't know when I was making the quilt is that butterflies are important to her for a family reason. This quilt sort of put itself together, and I'm guessing that's why.

Runtex Distance Challenge

As I mentioned before, Tom finished the RunTex Distance Challenge this year. He finally got his finisher's jacket, and it's quite nifty this year.

....2 bits

Today, I finally got my hair cut. I realized a number of months back that it had gotten quite long, and desperately needed a substantial cut to get it back to looking healthy. Given the length at the time, I figured I'd just let it grow a bit more and donate it to Locks of Love. And naturally, since it wasn't rainy here today, I had David straighten it all out. Here is the end result:

First Bluebonnet

Yesterday I had my first bluebonnet sighting of the year. It was on the hill connecting our local elementary and middle schools. Texas wildflowers are on their way. Anyone who wants to see them should visit in the next month.

Texas Caucus

As I'm sure far too many people are aware, the Texas primary was yesterday. And furthermore the Texas Primary system is f**ked up. We not only get to vote in a primary election, we also have a caucus that evening, and furthermore there are superdelegates.

Tom and I went to the Caucus, and honestly, we were wondering if anyone else would show up. Boy were we surprised. There were at least 200 people there from our precinct, and since our polling location handled 2 different precincts, there were a *ton* of people there. The folks handling the line said at least 600 - but it felt like closer to 1000.

Here are some pics. First the auditorium where our precinct gathered


And here is Tom signing in to register his preference for candidate

Garden 08

Here are some pics of the garden for this year. I planted the tomatoes over the weekend, and I got some various flowers to plant in the back yard. I'm hoping to have a bit more color back there, but as ever, the shade sometimes doesn't let plants thrive. We'll see.

20 tomato plants - 2 each again, of a variety of hybrid and heirloom varieties.

Spring plantings

Mid America Speed League - Austin

This weekend we had a meet here in Austin. It was the 3rd Mid-America Speed League race, and I
I got a few more medals. The great victory is that I didn't fall down. I'm getting more consistent, but I've still got lots to work on

I placed in 2nd in the Grand Classic Division
I placed 5th in the Novice B Division (this is where I compete against 14 year olds)
I placed 1st in the Classic 2-woman relay
I placed 2nd in the Classic 2-mixed relay

(click on the pic below to open album - I've included commentary on my form)

Mid America Speed Meet

Updates, falls, etc

I took my first tumble in practice on Wednesday. It wasn't bad. But I do have a charming bruise on my left hip.

One of my new years resolutions was to donate platelets regularly. I'm headed to the Blood Bank of Austin today for my second donation of the year. It's a bit of a pain, since it takes 2 hours, and their hours are quite limited. But it's good to do, and if I'm going to do any sort of blood donation, this works best for me since I don't lose the red blood cells that help with exercise.

Our yard cat, Trouble, who ostensibly lived with the people behind us seems not to have gone with them when they moved. She started showing up again recently. Or perhaps she moved with them, and then found her way back. Either way, it's lovely to see her again.

My dream come true

They should pick me. I'm perfect

Gardens and produce

I was a bit slow this year on starting the tomatoes from seeds. I should have done that right as I got back from my travels, but I completely forgot. Since the tomatoes have to go in the ground soon, I elected to buy some. I was pretty impressed with Lowe's right now since they had a number of heirloom varieties. It's still not perfect, since it seems silly to ship the soil around so many times, particularly when I do have the seeds, but there you go.

I got about 20 plants again (give or take). With our shade, and relatively small yield, this isn't the horrifying number that it can be for someone with a truly productive garden. I've also planted some lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, and broccoli. It doesn't seem that the spinach is going to do much where it's currently planted. As for the rest of the plants - well, at least they're growing.

Our season for the CSA at Hairston Creek Farm starts in mid-April, and we just sent in our check for the season. Sadly, we're going for every other week this year based on Tom's travel schedule. It makes sense, but it is awfully fun to get the box every week.

Yay for Tom!

Tom successfully completed his 3rd marathon this morning. He started well, but had some extreme muscle fatigue as his pre-emptive Advil wore off - around mile 16. He took some more at mile 20 when I saw him, and by mile 23, he was much improved.

His finishing time was 4:32:55. So if you are compelled, send him an email to congratulate him

twilbur (at) stanfordalumni (dot) org

Oh, and one other great thing - in successfully completing this race, Tom has also completed the 2007-08 Runtex Austin Distance Challenge. A series of 6 races culminating with the AT&T Marathon

Ahhhh....short track speedskating

Here are some of the pictures from our weekend in Salt Lake City for one of the short track speedskating world cup events.

Day 1

SLC World Cup Day 1

Day 2

SLC World Cup Day 2

Day 3
(still to come)