Al Martin

Hello LiveJournal readers!

Just wanted to let you know that my blog has officially moved locations.  You can now read my ramblings and keep up with my life in grad school at www.ask-mark.com/axoprincess1. I hope you keep reading, and hope you like the new site and such...

Well, I am officially fried - though i have doused myself in sunscreen i am in pain on my tummy and on my thighs.  I guess it all comes from staying still in one position because i wanted to finish Harry Potter yesterday, which i did, and Oh. My. God.   Wow, any HP fans out there who have read the book know what i am talking about.  Lots of good stuff in this book...

Another few amusing anecdotes of the trip:

1. "Allison, you really do look skinnier." "Thanks, this is the thinnest I have been since high school."  "I believe it.  There was a time there where you had too much weight.  You weren't fat, but you were definitely carrying too much weight on you."
2. "Vicki your girls have beautiful busts.  Really, look at them, they both have just very nice, shapely busts.  Not like yours."

Yeah, both of those are my grandma, God love her.  Her cup never overfloweth with tact, but what can you do?  Apparently, according to her i have a nicer figure and good boobs, so i suppose i can't be too upset... i guess...

Later today is making tacos and then watching Pirates of the Carribean.  Should be fun, but i really need to find my lotion to unfry my legs as much as possible.

I miss Grant.  I'm a big big loser.

OK that's it for now. =)

So here I am in San Diego, CA for family vacation.  Just me, my mom and sister, grandma, aunt, cousins and the beach.  I'm not a beach person.  I'd rather be walking around the highlands of Scotland or taking an architecture tour of Seattle or visiting the Smithsonian, but cest la vie.  At least I have a few books to keep me occupied. 

The thing about these kinds of vacations is that its me and the women/girls in the family.  I fell asleep in the car yesterday because all we were talking about was boys and clothes and sorority stories.  I feel somewhat of a black sheep because I'd rather be talking politics or technology, or even just listening to it if i had nothing to contribute.  However, the men of the family did not want to join us, so here we are.  Chasing boys and shopping and tanning. 

I have only been here 14 hours, and highlights of the vacation already include:

1. Being interrogated about whether Grant is coming with me to Virginia and why we havent decided anything about "The Future."
   
2. Losing more weight around my face so now i look less "jowly."  Which suggests that I looked jowly before.  Ew, i can feel my self-esteem sky-rocket...
3. My Grandmother looking at picures from my friend Lisa's wedding and asking me matter-of-factly, "Are YOU engaged?" ................. WHAT?!?!?!??!
   
4. My Grandmother getting a call from her dogsitter that one of her yorkies has taken to humping the other yorkie, and thus, exasperated, lamenting, "My James is turning into a homosexual!"

I'm sure I will have more to report later.  For now, I am just going to go change into my bathing suit and open up the next chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Holy Hilarious Web site, Batman!

http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com/home.php

This is well worth the click and the reading.  Oh man....

Thanks to Mark for the link...

Check out this Associated Press article to see yours truly quoted at the beginning and end.  The thing ran in a bunch of major markets - the Post, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Miami Herald, Florida Today, Houston Chronicle, and loads more...not that I googled myself or anything. =) It also apparently made its way to China and Australia. All in all, i have appeared in 98 newspapers according to Google.  Not bad for my first interview...

The AP also provided a fantastically hideous photo of me - it may be the worst one I have taken in some time, i tell no lies - but fortunately not a lot of papers seemed to feel the need to use it.

Funny story:  My aunt called my mom on Saturday totally in shock - seems the story ran in the Arizona Republic (my family lives in Phoenix). 

Heh heh, it's a very weird experience, and i kind of wonder if any of my clients have seen it, cause that would be interesting.  Doubt it though.  Truthfully, this story has been told before, and will be told many times again.  But that is how it goes in journalism.

 

"Some people have a negative attitude, and that's their disability." 

~ Marla Runyan, Olympic runner who is legally blind.

As the Washington Post writes, the Deep Impact Crater can potentially bring about great scientific discovery for today's astronomers and cosmologists...

During the wait, images from the impactor continued to transmit: "Our spacecraft's doing remarkably well for something that's about to be vaporized," said Yeomans, providing commentary as events unfolded. "Our brave little spacecraft is in a very hostile environment."</nitf>

Five minutes later, the first flyby picture appeared. The comet's lower right quadrant had blossomed in a brilliant, unmistakable explosion of light. Cheers erupted in the JPL control room as picture after picture flashed onto screens lining the walls, each more spectacular than the one before.

"That's plenty of confirmation, no question about that," exulted Yeomans. "I can't believe they pay us to have this much fun."

Of course, it's also bringing out the crazies (thanks to Slashdot for the story)...

Marina Bai has sued the U.S. space agency, claiming the Deep Impact probe that punched a crater into the comet Tempel 1 late Sunday "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe," the newspaper Izvestia reported Tuesday. A Moscow court has postponed hearings on the case until late July, the paper said.

...Bai is seeking damages totaling $300 million — the approximate equivalent of the mission's cost — for her "moral sufferings," Izvestia said, citing her lawyer Alexander Molokhov. She earlier told the paper that the experiment would "deform her horoscope."

From ArsTechnica (I swear, years from now the planet is going to just waste away before our descendants' very eyes, and all they'll be able to say is, "oops"):

Climate change is for the fishes

New findings published this week in Science (subscription required) highlight the effect our altered climate is having on the marine ecosystem. Looking at the North Sea, researchers from the UK have mapped the shifts in boundaries for a range of fish species, both commercially exploited and otherwise. As temperatures have increased, the northerly boundaries have increased, as well as the depth to which they can be found. Comparing the rate of shift for these marine species to those of plant species in northern Europe, the study found a greater rate of change in the marine environment (2.2 km/year vs. 0.6 km/year). This is fairly unsurprising, given the opportunity for freer travel when not constrained by things like mountains.

Changing ocean temperatures can have serious effects on individual species, some of whom need colder water for spawning and development of their young. Combined with the massive over fishing and depletion of many fish stocks by overzealous fishing fleets, the outlook for some marine ecosystems is sadly bleak.

I sat in my seat, my hands clasped tightly together as I stared straight forward, soaking in every detail.  My heart was pounding. I am sure I did not blink for several minutes.  I heard the voices sounding off the route responses from around the room of nearly identically-dressed men.  Until now, I had only read about this polling - to hear it out loud sent chills down my 13-year-old back.  

"Go."

"Go."

"Go."

"We are go, Flight."

And moments later, I watched as this gorgeous, crisp white tower separated from rows upon rows of scaffolding and support to lift effortlessly, beautifully, into the April sky.  As the bird flew past me, i watched pieces of ice fall from its hull, the way confetti tumbles and floats at the same time.  The tears welled up in my eyes, and i couldn't see anymore.  But I could hear the engine roar, and i could feel the lump in my throat and i thought, if i concentrated really hard, i would be able to actually feel the heat from the rocket...

...even though it was just a movie.

The movie Apollo 13 was the closest I have ever gotten to a NASA launch - but for that reason I memorized every last inch of that liftoff sequence.  I'm biased, but I don't think Ron Howard has a more beautiful moment in all his films. 

I think that is why this movie will always be my favorite film of all time.  Because it speaks to me personally and brings me back to a part of myself that I have left behind, but that is always a comfort to remember.  That is one of the most beautiful things about movies and theatre, or the arts in general.  They provide a gateway for you to experience another reality, but so often, at the same time they open a window upon your own soul, allowing you to see yourself without masks, without pretense.  And thus, we interpret art within the context of ourselves, and morph that art to become something individual and unique. 

Apollo 13 embodies for me my belief and unwavering hope in NASA and the men and women who work there.  Each time I watch the film, I get the same goosebumps, the same chills on my spine.  I cry, sometimes twice. 

But today, I read that those "go's" have been given to the Discovery Shuttle in real life.  On July 13, weather permitting, NASA will return to flight with what administrators believe is the cleanest flight NASA has ever launched.  And as shuttle program manager Bill Parsons told the Tribune that he had a lump in his throat as the go's were echoed, i felt the same lump in my own.  I can't go see this launch because of work, but I will see one before the shuttle retires.  I want to feel the engine heat for real.  

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!'
Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There she goes!' there are other eyes watching her coming and their voices ready to take up the glad shouts 'Here she comes!'
-Henry Van Dyke

Wil Wheaton was interviewed on Slashdot, and you have to read it!  Excerpt relating to Star Trek:

I'm sure you know about the giant Enterprise schematic in Engineering, but for the one person who doesn't: The huge cutaway view of the Enterprise is filled with little graphical inside jokes, like a hamster wheel where the engine should be, only two restrooms at opposite ends of the ship, NOMAD from the original series, and a few other things that we all figured nobody would ever get close enough to see . . . until one director (I think it may have been Paul Lynch, who liked to yell "Energy! Energy! Energy! Energy! And! And! And! And! And! ACTION!" at the beginning of each take) wanted to do a shot that started close on the cutaway, swept across it, and pulled back into a two shot of me and Brent. When he watched the rehearsal, and saw that there was a giant duck decoy and a "Speed Limit" sign in the middle of his shot, he was pissed. I'm sure the art department felt bad about that, but we all had a god laugh while they reblocked the shot.

Courtesy of our illustrious President, January 11, 2001 in Washington D.C.:

"I want it to be said that the Bush adminitration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be - a literate country a hopefuller country."

 

Q: What happens when you try to construct the largest popsicle ever and ship it to New York City?

A: A big freakin mess!

Today marks my one-year anniversary at Scanlon Corporate Communications.  It’s a little weird to think that I have been working in the real world for that long – it seems like I should still be somewhere around the 8 or 9 month mark, which is far more nebulous a thing to conceptualize.  I don’t know which is weirder: the fact that I have been working for a year, or the fact that Grant and I have been dating for a year on Thursday.  I think the work one is stranger to me, maybe because of all the ups and downs of the time and maybe because I still feel a little green. 

 

Still, when I look back on those first few days and weeks, it’s amazing how much I didn’t know.  I think everyone graduates thinking they know just how to do their jobs, and then they get the job, and they realize they actually know very little about it at all.  Or at least that’s how it is in PR.  The classroom is vastly different than the office, and you wind up realizing you know a lot of stuff that, though it means something in a class discussion, means absolutely nothing in the real world.

 

I’m going to the same restaurant today that I went to that first day, purely by coincidence.  I almost wore the same suit also, but changed my mind and wore my black-with-pink-pinstripe option instead. (Side note: I love black and pink and black and red.) 

 

The meeting I went to this morning (the reason I wore a suit) went pretty well, I think.  The company we met with is looking at three different PR firms, all today.  We were the first appointment, so the good news is that everyone else will be benchmarked to us.  The negative side is that if everyone is really good, we might be hard to remember.  I’m really neutral on the project anyway, so I’m perfectly content to wait and see.  Not like I'll be much involved with it regardless.

 

Also, PS:  I realized last night that i had no pantyhose, so after i left kinko's at 9:40, i went next door to Dominicks to grab a pair.  I got the safeway select generic ones because they were cheap and actually in my size, and you know what?  They are pretty bearable.  Probably the best-fitting pair i have bought in a while, which just goes to show that sometimes cheap is good on several levels. 

I am sitting around in my parents' house waiting for some packets for work to be done being printed and bound.  It takes a half an hour to bind these stupid things, which was too long to sit in a kinkos, but too short to really do anything of significance around here.  So, without many better options...

( survey time )

My favorite thing in the world is when someone makes an argument and then does not support it fully, or supports it not with facts but with an agenda of personal beliefs.  (sarcasm)

Case in point: this list of the 10 Most Harmful Books in the 19th and 20th centuries as determined by Human Events, The National Conservative Weekly.  First, let me say that I shudder uncontrollably whenever i hear the words "harmful" and "book" in the same sentence.  But as I am a glutton for outrage and subjecting myself to irrational, narrow-minded statements, I had to read the list. 

Check out the books, and then read below for my take on it...

I guess it's not crazy to come up with a list of the "ten most harmful books" of the last two centuries. But it's not a sign of intellectual health. It implies that some ideas are worth suppressing for the harm they might do. To my mind, an argument or a book should be read with as open a mind as possible. Its errors or moral failings are better brought to light by exposure than buried. -Andrew Sullivan

( Al's opinions on this ridiculous list and its academic merit )

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
-Will Durant

This is my name in Binary Code:

0100000101101100011011000110100101110011011011110110111000100000010011010110010101110010011001010110010001101001011101000110100000100000010011010110000101110010011101000110100101101110

Pretty sweet if you ask me!

Convert Text to Binary.

I haven't posted in a while for a few reasons, the main ones being that I was out of town all weekend, and that i have been wanting to say something cool, interesting, intelligent or thought-provoking.  However nothing of that sort is coming to me, as my mind is bogged down with other random things, both good and bad.  So here, instead, is a catharsis.  Hopefully after discussing these random things, intelligence or interesting commentary, will spring forth.  Or I'll just feel better.

1. The weekend trip to Ohio was a lot of fun.  Grant and I had a good time, even during the long drive, and thank the gods my singing went well.  Our hotel room had the ugliest kelly-green carpet i have ever seen, but the king-sized bed definitely made up for it.
2. Here is a fun article on Batman's Christian Bale.  I now want to see most of the movies mentioned.
3. Has anyone else been tickled that Orbitz is now making its pop-up ads into games that you can actually play? Genius!
4. I think I may have a form of sleep apnea. For the entire past year I have not felt rested in the mornings, but I thought I had the issue beat recently - I had been sleeping more regularly, and have been waking up more alert and cheerful. However, lately, the problems have gotten worse, and the symptoms are aligning themselves more and more with apnea.  In addition to feeling unrested and becoming drowsy and inappropriate times, I am waking in the night, something I never did, and Grant mentioned that I was snoring this weekend - it sounded, from what he told me, that it was more than my normal heavy breathing.  I don't know if that's accurate.  So the moral of the story is I don't really know what to do about it other than try to alter my before-bed patterns to get a handle on the issue, which is what doctors seem to recommend as a first step.
5. I hate money. 
6. I get to see Star Wars Revenge of the Sith tomorrow - WOO!  Grant and I are going with my parents and his parents, and then we are coming back to my house for dessert, which i am baking.  This is the first time our parents will be hanging out together.  Hopefully I am something of a master baker, as i would hate to make the evening anything less than a whole bucket of fun.
7. I have lost 12 pounds these last 6 months or so - that means that I am the skinniest i have been in 4 years.  I'm going for an even 15 pounds - originally i was going to try for 20, but i don't really think i need to lose that much.  So 15 is good, especially since this has come from just a few lifestyle changes, namely drinking only diet pop, walking as much as possible, even if it means a later train, limiting the junk food, not eating before bed and making sure to incorporate dairy into a balanced diet.
8. I knew Michael Jackson would be found not guilty.  And i knew that, just like when he was arrested, I wouldn't care either way after the verdict was reached.  And I don't.
9. The best kind of friend is one you can call late at night because you need to talk and he/she will be there for you because you need it, without asking anything in return.
10. OH Man IMDB is dangerous.
11. I think my roommate is pissed at me because i'm moving out, even though we discussed the fact that i would have to leave at the end of the summer because of grad school.  If he does resent me, I am sorry, but i have to do this for myself.  And either way, i really think he should return my calls, because there is lots to be done in the next month!  sigh...

Alright, i have wasted half an hour, which is not good since i am at work.  So shoot me. =)  I've put in so much overtime that i figure i got a half-hour to make up for it somewhere in the cosmic scope of things.  Hope everyone is healthy and happy!

Anyone remember A Rose for Emily, where the psycho woman keeps her lover's corpse in her bedroom long after he dies?

Meet today's real-life equivilent.

Totally gross and weird.