Celestia

Since I'm not sure when I will make it to the McDonald Observatory next (soon I hope), I was pretty excited to find out about Celestia. Here is a quick 3 minute demo which shows off some of the nifty features of Celestia.

Personally I just visited Jupiter and learned that this gas giant's Great Red Spot is actually a 300 year-old storm the size of Earth. Wowsers, Jupiter! That is quite a squall! I then visited Eros, "a potato-shaped near-Earth asteroid that is 33km long." There's so much to think about in that short descriptive phrase, I'm not even going to comment on it. So, go explore the universe and find some interesting factoids all your own!

Sporty? Perhaps not

So, every year the Super Bowl sneaks up on me. I generally find out it is happening [again] because avocados are on sale. Not just that, there are signs screaming at me from every corner of HEB, "Don't Forget The Avocados!!!" What kind of slacker ever forgets the avocados?! Needless to say, I'm not the sportiest chica on record.

Yesterday I'm waiting by the elevators at work for my lunch buddy. I'm standing next to someone from accounting and the accounting executive walks over along with an elegantly dressed older black man and starts formulating lunch plans with my neighbor. I'm half listening, half entranced by the black man's snazzy black and white patent leather shoes. She is making introductions and I half hear his name. Then she turns to me, "I'm sorry. I don't think we've met." My brilliant reply, "Oh, I'm not part of your lunch group... but my name is Mindy." Like I said, brilliant!

She repeats the introduction of Mr. Patent Leather dress shoes, "This is Tony Parker, Sr." Hmmm. That name sounds so familiar. He looks strikingly familiar. Where do I know him from? We reach out to shake hands and my eyes no long notice the shine of his shoes, just the shine of the NBA championship ring.

Oh dear. Goodness me. Fish sticks. The tetris pieces are falling into place in my sports deprived brain. He looks like his son, The Tony Parker of the Spurs. (Note: I include the descriptive phrase "of the Spurs" for my fellow less-than-sporty friends.) This man is practically San Antonio Royalty.

Just call me Sporty Spice.

16 Moments

Watch this video, 16 Moments, por favor. It caught my eye on the RadioLab blog. [More info on the best radio show ever (aka RadioLab) at the end of this post.] The most recent RadioLab show featured different theories on death and the afterlife; 16 moments is filmmaker Will Hoffman's response--capturing an array of life.

So much of the media input that confronts me moment-to-moment is negative. There is an entire movement of media that searches for alternative perspectives even (gasp!) the positive ones. Utne magazine comes to mind. It makes me so happy when I happen across uplifting moments in mainstream media. (Yes, I consider NPR mainstream, deal with it.) As I write that, the voice in my head (or should I say, the loudest voice in my head) says, "uplifting sounds like that Hallmark pull-your-heartstrings crap." So, for that voices sake, I say: I don't seek sappy. Rather, I seek a point of view that celebrates life: the good, the hard, the mundane. The world view of awe.

Watching 16 Moments reminded me of how I see differently when I'm on vacation. It is time away from routine and my senses feel sharper. I notice the details. Wandering Chicago I am distracted by the beautiful shadows created by fire escapes. In San Francisco I stop to take a photo of a phone booth showing its gay pride. Visiting Brooklyn I sit in Prospect Park for hours happily watching people. Noticing takes time as does happiness - both of them are cultivated practices. My goal this week is to notice as I go through each day.

Postscript: If you don't know RadioLab from WNYC, subscribe for their free podcast today! The show describes itself so well, I choose to quote it here:
"Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we'll feed it with possibility."
How can you possibly resist that?!

Naming Convention

Tonight was the birthday celebration of my friend Sara (or as her mother lovingly referred to her, "Bitch for her Birthday"). As we sat awaiting our luscious Mexican cuisine at Paloma Blanca, Sara announced that we should start using the term "The Great Recession" to refer to the current economic climate.

"It's just not fair,"Sara claimed. "The people who lived through the Great Depression probably never got to call it that while they were living it. I think we should have a better name for this recession-- it seems to be ending, so we need to act fast." With Sara's logic in mind, the Googling commenced.

Oh the disappointment brought on by the interwebs. It's so rude when fact contradicts theory.

1. As late as 1930, sweet ol' President Hoover was still claiming that "the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired." However, by 1931 Hoover himself referred to the economic situation as the "great depression."

Oh wait, there's more...

2. The term "great depression" dates back to 1820!

3. The Great Depression was coined early on, but did not take residence as a Proper Noun until the book The Great Depression (go figure) was published in1934.

Enough with the factoids about the Depression. What about the Great Recession?

Sorry Sara, but not a new idea. The term "Great Recession" (caps and all) was used to describe economic downturns in 1974-75, 79, the 80's, early 90's, 2001...

We still need a name for this era, so in honor of Hurricane Season (I heard about Hurricane Bill this morning... Wait isn't Bill a vampire in Louisiana?) I say we give this recession a proper name. Andre. Gilroy. Rasputin. In my Googling I also came across the following suggestions:

• Bush Recession
• Hoovered Again
• Very Good Depression

Any other suggestions out there? Do share!

Street Fights, Bikes, and Chicago

The amazing and wonderful PBarry shared this video link showing a street fight in Uptown. Uptown is a Chicago neighborhood close to where I used to live. My best friend worked in Uptown, so I had many occasions to bike and walk through the intersection of Sheridan & Leland.

Watching this video post started me thinking about my biking days in Chicago and all the neighborhoods I ended up "touring," many times by mistake. "Oh, that's Cabrini-Green," was a phrase I distinctly remember from one such bike ride. Some people bike the scenic lake shore, whatever.

One of my favorite mom-isms from this era is from one of her visits to me in Chi-town. We are walking on Clark Street and my mom says, "Now, this isn't the Clark St. that you always talk about biking home on at night... Is it?" My first thought, "Why, oh why must she pay such good attention to what I tell her on the phone?!" and then, "But, this is a nice portion of Clark St."

On second thought, Mom, maybe you shouldn't watch that video link...

Guest Blogging

Evidently when it blogs it pours. I start a blog and then that same week I am asked to guest blog! [Gushing: "I'm just so popular!" Flips hair over shoulder--oh wait, my hair isn't long enough. Tarnation!]

All that to say, I will occasionally be linking out to the fabulous "Me Versus the Blog" blog when I have a post to share with you, the fair readers of Mermindia.
Procrastination Post

Palin Post

(Clearly, these posts are brought to you by the letter "P.")

Enjoy!

In Stairwell #2

I am part of a very select (read minuscule) group of people in my office building who actually use the stairs. Evidently stair climbing ranks low as a popular past times in dear ol' San Antonio. Not too surprising considering that in 2008 Men's Fitness ranked SA the third Fattest City in America.

Now because Texas loves to celebrate any and all victories, I would like to be fair to the other great cities that are avidly applying the "bigger is better" philosophy... "Six of the 10 Fattest cities in the land hail from Lone Star land: No. 2 Arlington, No. 3 San Antonio, No. 4 Fort Worth, No. 5 El Paso, No. 6 Dallas, and No. 10 Houston."

Wowsers! Thanks Men's Fitness for the downer.

Let me retrace my steps (horrible pun intended). Before the summer heat wave (that started in spring), I climbed the 9 flights to my cubicle at least once a day. On my daily trek, I passed the same cockroach carcass on the same stair. It was just me and the dead roach. One day I was completely shocked because I actually saw another human in the stairwell. He seemed quite surprised to see me and as I passed he wheezed, "It's good to see someone else using the stairs. (gasp) Now I know if I have a heart attack (gasp) in here someone will eventually find my body." Moving from carcasses to corpses - very reassuring.

However, it's not all death and despair in the stairwells. At the end of most days, I take a different stairwell so that I can have my daily chuckle. On my final flight I come across a web of plumbing (pictured above) with little hanging placards, my favorite of which reads, "Main Drain."

I am a huge Joe vs. the Volcano fan. If you haven't seen it, you now have homework. If you have, but can't remember the Main Drain scene from Joe's hideous job where the fluorescent lights are "Suck, Suck, Sucking" his life away... you also have homework. If you know exactly what I'm talking about and can quote every blessed word, kudos. You have optional extra credit--watch Joe again for the sheer joy of it and remember, "I know he can get the job, but can he do the job," from the wise lips of Mr. Watori.

You'll find me chuckling to myself in the stairwell.