Iraq Tragedy

I talked to my Mom last night, and one of the guys my brother was in Iraq with was doing another tour, and got killed. I won't say his name, on the incredibly rare chance that someone who knows him might read this. I met him once, when we welcomed Mike and his unit home from Iraq. I don't remember the guy that well, but I do remember that both his ex-wife and his girlfriend were there to welcome him back. He must have been a pretty amazing guy to have good relationships with both his ex-wife and his girlfriend. He also has a son. And the worst part is, he only had 14 days left on his tour. The worst things always seem to happen the first or last month of a tour. Anyways, if everyone could just keep his family in their prayers, I know they would appreciate it.

Six Degrees

I'm stealing this from Caitlin. She posted about www.smallworld.columbia.edu, and I joined it. It's actually fun, I've already got my first contact, a housewife in Austrailia, and I've emailed a friend who's dad lives in Austrailia. I'm not sure if she'll want to participate or not, some of my friends think this is stupid, but hey, I gave it a shot. It'll be interesting to see if Whitney participates, because she has like a billion friends that she's met while in England, or just through sites and journals online.

Randomness

I didn't realize until today that I hadn't updated in like a week and a half. Whoops! I bought some Lucky Charms this weekend, and even though St. Patrick's Day was over a week ago, I thought I would share what the lucky charms powers are :

Horseshoe - speed
Rainbow - travel
Balloon - float
Heart - life
Moon - invisible
Shooting star - flight
Clover - luck
Pot o' gold - illumination

Some of them seem obvious (heart = life, who knew?) while others seem random. Balloons are lucky? And give you the power to float? How is "float" different from "flight?" I mean, is there a limit to how far you can float, or is the difference just speed and altitude? I guess moon is "invisible" because of the phases of the moon (?), but shouldn't pot o' gold be riches? Is illumination knowledge or light? And can I really trust the back of a cereal box to explain what lucky charms symbolize? Probably not. If anyone's curious, chimneysweeps and mushrooms are lucky in Germany. Don't ask me why, we just have tons of Christmas ornaments of chimneysweeps and mushrooms from when my folks were in Germany.

On a completely unrelated note, I saw Cars this weekend, and absolutely loved it! Pixar can do no wrong! It made me want to drive across the country on backroads and stop at all the local diners and cheesy tourist traps (the biggest ball of twine!, etc). Maybe one summer I can take a week vacation, rent a car, grab some friends and give it a shot. Well, emphasis on the maybe, becuase really, what are the chances of 2 or 3 of us being able to take vacations at the same time? Still, it's a fun idea. I've had the countrified version of "Life is a Highway" stuck in my head since Sunday, so that must mean something....

Interestingly, I read today that a new Lord of the Rings book will be released in a couple of weeks, called The Children of Hurin. I've never actually read the LOTR books, but a lot of my friends have read and loved them all. Apparently this book was started by Tolkien, but he died before he finished it. His son has finished it. Sounds interesting to me. I mean, Tolkien probably made up some of those stories specifically for his kids, so it will be interesting to see what his son does with plot and characters.

Weddings and Schizophrenic Weather

I found out earlier this week that I am getting paid this summer! I wasn't counting on getting paid because I'm not going on the research cruise this summer. So now I'm excited! The first thing I thought of when I learned that was "Now I can go to Kristi's wedding!" Kristi Tanner is getting married to Nick on June 2, and I got a Save the Date card, but didn't think I could afford to fly out without an income. But now I think I'll be gone for a week. I can fly home, hang out for a few days, drive to Birmingham to see Ames and go to the wedding, and then head down to Tuscaloosa to see Whitney! I just shove a lot of fun into one week! I'm excited, this may be the last time I go home to Alabama.

Speaking of weddings, but the end of July I'll have gone to 4 weddings in less than a year. My brother Dave got married in September, Mags and Spencer in January, Kristi and Nick in June, and my cousin Chris and his fiance Demi in July. It's like everybody decided to get married all at once. I must have missed that memo.

I'm getting a little tired of schizophrenic weather. It was pretty cold last week, highs in the teens and/or twenties. This week it was much warmer. Like high forties and sunny, which felt super warm. And then today a nor'easter comes in. It's snowing today, and it's supposed to turn to sleet and rain and continue throughout the weekend. In fact, classes are cancelled today. But, of course, they didn't make the announcement til like 8:45. Of course, I get here by 8:30 everyday, so me and a bunch of other grad students are here anyways. Plus spring break is next week, so the weather might screw up travel plans for some students, so that sucks. Oh well, it's March, there can't be too much more snow in the future.

Random Reviews

So the last couple of days I've seen a movie and a few interesting TV shows and, since I'm taking a break from work, I decided to post about it (hey, why not? An update's an update.) Friday night a few of us decided to go see 300 on its opening night. I'll admit, it wasn't quite as good as I hoped it would be. But it was still definately worth seeing on the big screen (although I recommend getting there early; watching the movie from the second row puts a serious crick in the neck). The movie looks amazing. The plot is kind of predictable, especially if you've ever seen a similar battle movie, or if you know the actual history that the movies is based on. But the visuals still manage to dazzle. There were quite a few times when the camera would pan back to reveal massive armies, or go into slow mo for a particularly gruesome action shot. And they all looked awesome. It doesn't hurt that most of the men are ripped and wearing nothing but underwear and flowing capes.

I've seen 2 TV shows lately that I'm impressed with, so I'll say a bit about them, in the hopes that some of my friends will start watching them. The first is The Black Donnellys. I found the first episode a bit dissapointing. The previews looked good and I liked the tag (Family above all), but I could predict most if not all of the pilot episode. I watched the second episode because it's almost St. Patrick's Day and I wanted to watch something Irish. I'm glad I did, because the second episode was really good. It took all the existing relationships from the first episode and nudged each one just a little bit, pushing it into an uncomfortable place. It's one thing to shoot people to protect your brother. It's quite another to bludgeon a dead body so that it will fit in a barrel. That takes time and a strong stomach.

Following the Irish theme, I was flipping around the channels trying to find some background noise to grade papers against when I found Celtic Woman on PBS. I only caught the last half hour, but it was really good. It's a bunch of singers and musicians (particularly one blond violinst who can play while bouncing around stage and twirling around) who play and sing all kinds of songs (Irish, musicals, contemporary). It's performed in a castle in Ireland, and the singers did such amazing jobs that I was dissapointed I hadn't turned it on earlier. If anybody is interested in some beautiful Celtic music, look for this show. PBS usually repeats shows, so I'm sure it will be on again. Yesterday I was actually glad that I don't have cable, because if I did I would've flipped to some movie on TV, instead of checking to see what was on PBS.

I also want to give a shout out to Gilmore Girls and Stranger than Fiction. GG gets a shout out for mentioning A Prairie Home Companion last week (thanks Mags for introducing me to this show!) and Stranger than Fiction for calling Space Camp (found in Hunstville, AL) one guy's unfulfilled dream. It made me think of Whit and Leslie, since you guys actually went to space camp.

Stats Trivia

In honor of my take home stats exam, I decided to post some random but interesting trivia from my stats book. It was just printed in 2007, so I guess these stats are accurate...

The most popular birthdate is October 5th, which correlates with a New Year's Eve conception.
The least common birthdate is May 22. Apparently the sweltering heat that is August 18 doesn't hold the same charm or drunkenness as New Year's Eve.

It takes 7 shuffles of a deck of cards to get a complete mixture.

Florence Nightingale, the founder of the nursing profession, saved thousands of lives by using statistics. She developed graphs that showed that during the Crimean War more soldiers died as a result of unsanitary conditions than were killed in battle. This led to widespread medical reform.

According to Health magazine, these are the average measurements of mannequins and women:
Mannequin height = 6 ft.
Women height = 5 ft. 4 in.
Mannequin waist = 23 in.
Women waist = 29 in.
Mannequin hip size = 34 in.
Women hip size = 40 in.
Mannequin dress size = 6
Women dress size = 11

There is a Cost of Laughing Index (CLI) which tracks costs of items such as rubber chickens, Groucho Marx glasses, admissions to comedy clubs and 13 other leading humor indicators.

In classes of 25 students, there is better than 50% chance that at least two students will share the same brithday (day and month).

Shakespeare's writings include 31,534 words and probability theory concludes that Shakespeare probably knew at least another 35,000 words that he didn't use in his writings.

Tornado Country

So according to an article I just read online, 7 people died in Alabama yesterday because of the system of tornados that ripped through the area. 2 people died when the tornado struck their mobile homes. The other 5 were students in a high school who were crouching in the hallway (everybody remember the semi-annual tornado drills?) when the roof and hallway collapsed on them. Yikes. This is one of the times that I'm glad I don't live in Alabama anymore. Luckily, no one I know was hurt. The tornados were south of Huntsville and Birmingham. Whitney's in Tuscaloosa, so she spent the day hiding in her bathroom, but she's okay, I talked to her last night. Whew.

One Dose of Self Esteem, Coming Right Up...

So I'm stealing this idea from Whitney, who stole it from someone else.

One little compliment can make you feel amazing.

So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, big or little. Put this in your journal and I'll return the favor. We can put our entries in tags or memories so that when we're feeling down, all we have to do is look up the entry for a shot of happiness.

This reminds me of game night at the end of freshman year at SHC when we stayed up til like 4 in the morning and everybody had to give compliments about the looks and personalities of themselves and everyone else in the room. Wasn't that a huge dose of self esteem? And couldn't we all use one? It's winter, dark and very rainy today in RI. And I know there were serious tornados in Alabama yesterday. So crappy weather plus bad days or depressing moods equals need for compliments. So I'll post this in my blog and hope my friends can do the same so I can pay them compliments too. :)