Distraction to the Maxion (?)

I have not been able to focus on work at all today!
* First I spent way too much time on facebook making a list of the people who I don't really want to see my every lame status update (like people I didn't talk to in high school but are now my "friends"). I'd like to maintain at least a bit of privacy.
* Then I went to coffee group where we enjoyed blueberry cornbread and Greg's anecdotes of being the old guy at the student rec center.
* Then I worked a little bit and went to class, but also wasted time thinking about the half marathon I'm doing on Sunday and trying to figure out how much I should push myself. I have no idea what my target HR should be for 2-ish hours of running.
* Then I went to a talk and ALMOST fell asleep but battled back from the edge of consciousness.
* And now I am back at my desk with the intention of working - but all I can think about is how much I want to ride my bike more! I want to start doing some group rides after I recover from this weekend. I really like doing tri's but, man, I am obsessed with my bike.
* I'm leaving in about 45 minutes for a massage - yes!!! Maybe I can get SOMETHING done???!!!

Back to "normal"

It has been so nice to be home the last week but also things were pretty busy. I feel like tonight (and maybe yesterday morning) was the first time since getting back that I could be home and not feel completely wiped out (aka actually be able to do something productive like put away the mountain of clothes in our room). Have I mentioned my new work plan? Trying to work 7-3:30, so I can have most of the afternoon to devote to training. Although I really like working out in the AM, it's no good when I do a hard workout and then can't focus at work because I'm too beat. Also, if I train in the afternoon I have to chance to do stuff with Chris. Friday I left work a little early and rode my bike through the foothills in Masonville and west of Loveland. I made it to Chris' office around 5:30 and then we rode home together (He commuted 3 days last week at about 28 miles a day, nice!). It was a great ride and hopefully we can do more of that this summer.

Anyway, starting to work at 7 AM is okay except: 1. I wake up at 5:30 which means I need to go to bed early (and should probably be in bed now instead of blogging!). 2. I am very annoyed that my key card doesn't work for the new building my office is in. Tuesday I got to work at 7 and couldn't get in the building! It made me sooo glad I dragged my tired butt out of bed at 5:30. Ha. Hopefully that will get fixed this week, in the mean time I've been working at home the first hour of the day.

In other news in the Harper household, Chris is full-swing into his garden. We are planting a ton of veggies this year, and might even expand the garden to about twice its size. If so I will have even more veggies than usual to share so hit me up in a few months! It's exciting to see him getting it all going, he gets really into it, and I try to help where I can (mostly weeding ... and eating the vegetables). I'm happy he has a hobby he enjoys so much, especially since I have my own obsessions. Anyway, check out his blog, it's great if you are interested in gardening too: The Colorado Garden Project.

That's it for now because I really should go to bed! Goodnight :)

Haute Route!

Chris and I bought our plane tickets to Europe last night. It was nerve-wracking because this is going to be an expensive trip. But I think our total airfare costs will be around $1600 (we are flying to Frankfurt but need to get to Geneva from there - flying to Frankfurt b/c it is close to a conference I am planning on attending our last week in Europe). So really that is not too bad. All the other costs will add up for sure. I feel very extravagant doing this trip, but it has been on my Life List for about 7 years. It is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip. I'd love to write more about it, but instead I need to work (I have A LOT to do) - so just to prove how long I have been daydreaming about this trip, here is a post I wrote in Nov 2007 about the Haute Route.


Thanks for stopping by and have a great day! Oh yeah and Happy Earth Day!

Rare Species Of Frog May Hold Cure To…Ah, Never Mind, It's Extinct

I am hoping my model will stop running while I write this. It stops every 6 months because if I try to run it much longer, I go over the time limit on the super computer I'm using. So I have to restart it every 6 months, which doesn't take long, but the pain is that it seems to conveniently stop running right after I go to bed. So instead of having my model run while I sleep, which would be a very nice way of working all night in a sense, those 7 or so hours are wasted. Hence me putting off going to sleep just a little bit longer.

I am surprised by how fast time has gone by, especially the last two weeks of this course. Tomorrow is the last real day of class - I'm leading a 'game' where students have to choose what non-carbon energy sources they think we should use in the future and why. The game was modeled after a paper by some guys at Princeton, who said that we can stabilize CO2 at double pre-industrial levels (FYI: pre-industrial = 280 ppm; today = 385 ppm; double CO2 generally increases global temperatures by 1-6 degrees celcius) by choosing 7 existing technologies that will each prevent 1 billion tons of CO2 being emitted each year by 2055. Things like more efficient coal plants, homes, and cars, capturing CO2 from coal plants and burying it somewhere, wind and solar power, soil conservation. As they say, these are not pipe dreams and give some hope that we can move away from a carbon-intensive economy. (more info here: http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htm)

Anywho, last weekend went by way too fast. Friday night I was really hungry and could only think about finding dinner, Saturday I went swimming with Christine and then Chris and I did some gardening/yard work and saw Taken, and then Sunday was occupied with the usual Easter festivities - church, lunch with the Divens, and waiting in the ER to deliver leftovers to the Bartholomews who there with Kelty (she's better now). Ok the last one is not too usual, luckily. So it was a good weekend but when I was leaving yesterday afternoon Chris and I felt like we hadn't really had much quality time together. It was just a normal weekend, I guess.

Well the model is still going. But I am tired and incapable of writing anything else interesting here (assuming what I previously wrote was interesting ...). Last night I was up until 1:30! Yuck. So now 11:15 feels very early, woohoo. I will bet a latte that the model will stop within 15 minutes of when I go to bed. Ask me later if you want to collect, but you won't be able to because I know I will be right! Also I couldn't think of a title for this blog so I stole that one from the Onion. This is what happens when I blog while feeling tired/delirious.

Thanks for stopping by!

the light at the end of the tunnel

This tunnel has not been as long or dark as the "thesis" tunnel I traveled through last summer, but let me just say I am really looking forward to three things:
1. Treating myself to a pint of Winter Warlock Stout and doing non-work related reading on Wednesday night.
2. Treating myself to a scenic long bike or run on Thursday, depending on the weather.
3. Spending more than two days with Chris once I get home Thursday evening.
WOOHOO!

Random Thoughts

Well it is a beautiful day and I'd love to be outside but have a lot of work to do. Yesterday I really slacked off and went on a 2-1/2 hour bike ride in the afternoon. I had a really nice ride, though. I tried to ride to Woodland Park, which is 2000+ feet up and 20 miles away from here, but the road up there really sucks. It is basically a four lane highway through a valley with some sections of terrifyingly narrow shoulder. And to make it worse, there is a creek in between the highway, so you can't just turn around when you decide you'd rather not get hit by a 60 mph semi. I think I was only about 5 miles from Woodland Park when I finally had a chance to turn around. Instead I did some winding in the hills west of Colorado Springs. There is one road with a couple of switchbacks, that is a good little climb. There was a guy sitting behind me on the way up to the climb, once it started getting steep he came around me. I decided to let the competitive side of me go and tried to stay close to him. I managed it but it was really hard. Probably the most I've suffered on the bike in a while but in that sick way I really enjoyed it :)

To make up for slacking yesterday I am trying to focus on work today. I woke up at 5:30 and started working almost immediately. It took 3 alarms but I made it out of bed! We are talking about ethics this week, so there is not a ton of prep I can do because the classes are almost all discussions between the students. But I need to be prepared to guide the discussion in the direction we want it to go, so I have a little bit of research to do. Today we talked about the Tragedy of the Commons by George Hardin. Here is a good qoute from in that kind of sums it up: "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." So it is a little depressing. Basically, according to Hardin, people need to be coerced to do what is right for the common good. In the case of climate change, that coercion might come in the form of a cap and trade system. It's a complex issue ...

I find it hard to know how to prepare for these types of classes. I'd rather just have a specific topic that I am more familiar with. On the flip side, ethics and policy stuff is interesting. And luckily the students are all really good about being involved. We broke them into groups of 5 today and they had some good discussions. I guess that's it for now. I really should get to work ...

Back to Work!

Well it was a nice weekend, but now I am trying to get back to work (although not too successfully as you can see by this post). Yesterday the weather was really nasty, so Chris and I spent a lot of time eating, drinking, and taking a nap. We also had a really interesting encounter with a homeless man named Mike. He was sitting by a storefront in downtown Co. Springs last night and we both felt bad for him since it's so cold. So Chris asked if he wanted a sandwich and the guy said, no, he just wanted something to drink. Well, at least he was honest! So we talked to him for a few more minutes and said a prayer with him, and then these cops came and told him he couldn't stay there any more. As it happened, he had just pulled out a fifth of bourbon to show Chris and I, so the cops took it and threw it away. I guess that was good timing because if there was one thing that man needed, it wasn't more alcohol. So Chris convinced him to let us take him to subway. We sat with him while he ate and heard about how he's been on the street for years, he has family in California but they won't help him, he got hit by a motorcycle last September ... life has not been too kind for Mike. We tried to ask him questions and just listen, I think he probably doesn't get too many chances for a friendly ear, but other than that (and the dinner) it was pretty discouraging to know that ultimately we couldn't do too much for him and he would be sleeping in the cold tonight, and would probably find his way to another bottle eventually, too. I know there is homelessness in Fort Collins but we don't see it too much, which the city probably sees as a good thing but if it makes us all ignorant of a real problem then maybe it's not. Anyway, I'm glad we could do a little something for Mike. Oh and this was Chris' idea and doing, I don't want to take any credit other than going along with it. He is very compassionate, it makes me feel really lucky to have him!

Well, that was a bit of a side note. Today Chris and I hiked around Garden of the Gods, it was really beautiful but kind of cold again. After Chris left I went for a run. I wasn't looking forward to it because I was really tired and it was snowing, but it actually went really well. I think I am getting faster ... maybe. I tested my heart rate at King Soopers the other day and it was 49 bpm! I think that is the lowest it's ever been.

Now I am doing laundry, cooking dinner, and, like I said, "working". We have an exciting and busy week coming up with this class. I'm relieved I am more than half-way through! Have a good night :)

Why?

It's the weekend - time to catch up on all the sleep I've been missing! Or not. For some reason I couldn't fall asleep until after 1 AM last night, and Chris and I were both wide awake at 7:30 this morning. WTF? So, I think we are going to get a move on the day. Might as well.

The week ended pretty well. We did a lab on Thursday and it was gorgeous weather, so I was really happy to be outside. It was nice to interact with the students in a more casual environment than the classroom too. Plus, the lab we did was really interesting to me, we were measuring soil respiration. I don't know why I've never done this before, seeing as how I'm in a carbon cycle focused research group!

Yesterday we talked about some of the key points of the IPCC. It was really interesting, and good to hear and try to answer some of the students questions. They asked some good ones, mainly about non-CO2 greenhouse gases that I will have to look into more sometime this weekend. Also, we talked a little bit about the Heartland Report, which is the skeptics response to the IPCC. I'm glad we mentioned it, but I'm glad that Henry also made some points about some missing links in their logic. But if the students want to read their report, they can! I wish I had more time to read stuff, if I find time I'd like to read some of it too. I read part of the intro, but there was no science, just finger pointing at why the IPCC is a bad and faulty agency. I'm not interested in name-calling. If you have a point to make, then do it!

Ok that's it for now. Just wanted to say hi. Oh yeah and Chris convinced me to join twitter last night. I'm anna_harper. So if you're on there let me know! I'm following Mark Richt, sweet.

Quick Break

I need a little break before getting back to work tonight. Teaching is going well. Despite my last post, this is overall a good experience. That's encouraging because for the last 7 or 8 years, I've wanted to be a university professor eventually. So I'm glad that this experience isn't making me realize that is an idiotic idea. What are some things I like about it? Interacting with the students is fun. It's neat to be a part of people's lives at a time when they are learning new things (both from school and about life) and figuring out what they want out of life. It's nice that these students are for the most part interested in the class. I also enjoy getting to think about, learn more about, and talk about all of the really cool science stuff that's involved in climate. Those are probably the best parts. Grading is not that fun. Also I've spent about 1-2 hours planning for every hour in class. So that makes this block system really hard - I might teach from 9-2 ... and then generally still have another 6-7 or so hours of work. So that is a long day.

This week I've been trying to keep my mood better than last week. To help, I've implemented my favorite stress-fighting tool - exercise! Monday I went swimming and yesterday I rode my bike. I love riding my bike, and riding somewhere new is kind of exciting. Also, I know this is really strange but just having my bike in my apartment makes me happier, I like to look at it :). But this kind of helps that whole "my only purpose is to work" mentality. Today though I am kind of tired and took a nap instead.

That's enough for now. I have some reading to do. Goodnight!