I Spent Friday Morning Perfecting A Sausage

What did you do?

So...my job is weird. Most days are spent illustrating some sort of bloody surgical situation or meticulously dissected cadaver. Those are the normal days. Then there are the days when my boss is all "Hey Kristen, I need you to take a really nice photo of a sausage on a fork for this ad I want you to create."

Oh, sure. No problem.

So I was working on an ad for a symposium sort of thing that they're having at the hospital in April. It's about the ketogenic diet, which is a diet used for treating epilepsy and other conditions. It's very high in fats (about 90%) and kind of rewires your brain to send your body into starvation mode (although it's very structured, so the patients are getting sufficient calories). Your body sends all kinds of extra ketones to your brain and in about 2/3 of the patients, seizures are significantly reduced.

ANYway, they had sent us some images they wanted to use for the ad, but they were full-color photos that didn't translate well in black and white (which is what the ad had to be in). So MY job on Thursday and Friday was to create a new image (following this very specific idea my boss had that involved some neurons, some molecules, and - of course - the sausage on a fork).

The fruits (or rather, the meats) of my labor.















You can see the final ad here.

Yeah.

Rain, Rain

don't go away.

It is thunderstorming like the DICKENS right now. I love it!

Oh Taurus, Don't Fail Me Now

Just hang in there for one more month.

So. My car's a hoopty. Htd and I headed to the store tonight for our weekly grocery shopping trip. We bought all manner of foodstuffs - fresh fruits and vegetables, cereal, milk, eggs, lunch meats both animal and soy, ice cream, frozen items. We went through the checkout with our environmentally friendly reusable bags. We returned to my car and loaded all the groceries in the trunk. We dutifully returned the cart to the cart corral. We buckled up and prepared to leave the parking lot. I turned the key....and nothing. Not a whirr, not a groan, not a cough. Just...nothing. Oh cripes.

I think to myself, maybe it's the battery? But that doesn't make sense because the inside lights are still working intermittently and the door continues to make its uber-annoying dinging sound whenever it's open. I pop the hood (not really expecting to be able to DO anything) and do what I always do when I have car issues: call my dad. He gives me a couple things to try, all to no avail. Then one of those "universal truth" sort of things happened. It goes like this:

1 popped car hood
+ public place
------------------
random male offer(s) of "you need some help here?"

A very nice man in the parking lot came by and asked if I could use any help. I asked if he had any jumper cables - he did and proceeded to try to jump my car. (I had been telling the story by saying "and this nice guy came by and offered to jump me." I have since changed how I phrase that.) Jumping didn't work. The car gave a single feeble "rawr" and gave up. Cripes again.

So I called upon the single gal's best ally - guy friends. Dave ended up driving all the way up to where we were, bearing his tool collection and nifty little headlamp (because of course it was night time). He used his battery tester, which read a healthy 12 1/2 volts. Strange. Then he tried cleaning the battery terminals, but they were fairly clean to begin with so that didn't do anything. I reported back to my dad and he said there was probably a short in the battery, so try putting in a new one.

We all piled into Dave's mini cooper and drove to the closest Walmart (the only place open at 9:30 on a Sunday night) and I plunked down about 80 bucks for a new battery (they had ONE left) - which is sad because that is about 1/10th of what my car is worth these days. For real. Anyway, so we drove back to the grocery store, hooked up the new battery, I said a little prayer, turned the key and...VOILA! The car starts like it just rolled off the assembly line back in '95.

Thank goodness it was nothing more serious than a really old battery. Thank goodness we were in a fairly safe area of town when the car crapped out. Thank goodness for kind strangers with jumper cables. Thank goodness it happened on a weekend when awesome friends were available to help and I didn't have anyplace pressing I needed to be. It could have been so much worse, so praise God for the little things.

And speaking of looking on the bright side: when we got home over two hours later, the groceries were still cold. In spite of being a hoopty, my car has actual magical powers. You know, that...or the groceries were in the trunk...at night...in February.

I'm gonna go with magic.

Counting Crows For Penny Pinchers

OR, the concert and everything after.















Holy crap, so there is one good thing that has come out of this whole Super Bowl in Phoenix hoopla - there was a FREE Counting Crows concert last night. Um, AWESOME. I heard about it on the radio on the way to work Thursday morning and had to double check the website once I made it to work to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

So, the htd and I made our way to Tempe Beach Park last night around 8:00 and joined the MASSIVE crowd for about an hour and 15 minutes of live Counting Crows goodness. They played a few songs from their new CD and basically 3/4 of August and Everything After.

SA. WEET.

And the whole drive home we got to watch the massive fireworks show in the rearview mirror. Twas a good time.

My Quads Hate Me Right Now

which is ok, because the feeling is mutual.

So, 2008 is my running year. And today was my first running day. As I was looking at my Beginning Runner's Training program this afternoon thinking about my impending evening run, I was pretty excited. Really looking forward to getting back into the running thing. And the prescribed run for the evening was: Run 1 minute, Walk 2 minutes. Repeat 10 times. "Pshaw!," thought I. "How easy that will be! A mere minute of running and then a two minute break? Cake! I do the elliptical machine for 40 minutes, no problem! Open road, here I come!" As you can see, my thoughts were laden with naïveté and exclamation points.

And then came the run.

My loverly htd and I started out with a nice brisk warm-up walk. Then, at precisely 8:48pm, my first minute of running began - actual running outdoors with no cushioning elliptical motion to take the edge off of dragging around my sizeable (although less sizeable than a year ago) ass. Oy. I completed my 10, 3-minute rotations at 9:18pm. I did not die.

It's possible that I may have given the angry eyes to the seasoned runners who trotted on past me at an easy, breezy, cover-girl-worthy clip. It's possible that I may not be able to get up from the chair on which I am currently sitting. It's also possible that if I stick with this training program that I'll be healthier, happier, and achieve a major goal I've set out for myself this year.

It's possible.

And They Said Unto The Lord

"how the HELL did you do that!?"



My sides hurt.

My New Band

TOTALLY stole this from Bree.

1. First.
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Next.
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Then.
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Last.
Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it's more amusing that way.















Find Grand Guignol's new album "Forehead With A Hatchet" in stores now!

Haha!