Becka Travels to the Land 'O Jeeps

Well, I really shouldn't be blogging, there are plenty of other things I need to do. However, the way it works with me is that I do everything else on my To-Do List before I get to the most pertinent and awful To-Do (grading papers). So here's a quick run down of my trip to Colorado.

I got to spend the week staying with my friend Tiffany in Fort Collins. While it was fun and inexpensive, I did have to commute and hour and a half into Denver everyday, but that's really a small price to pay for good times. The class I was taking (called Managing the NEPA Process, that's right, I can manage something now) was in the crappy, scary part of Denver. I here good things about that city, but all I got to see was traffic and puncture vines. The teacher of this course was really good (plus she's on my thesis committee, so I just like her anyways), and the people in the little groups we were split into were cool, put together that makes a four day course much better.

Back in Fort Collins we went out a couple times. Thursday we went to this Mexican restaurant called Rio Grande (I believe), and I had this amazing spinach and squash enchilada (officially Del Espinaca Enchilada). If anyone knows a recipe for this type of enchilada please let me know, it was to die for. Then we went to Sullivan's and made new friends while we played pool. Friday we also had a tasty dinner at Lucky Joe's. I must say that the restaurant selection in Fort Collins is far superior to that in Logan. So much variety, so few Chili's/Ruby Tuesdays/Appleby's. Awesome.
Saturday I decided the best thing for me to do would be to go to Rocky Mountain National Park before I came back home. I only got to spend an afternoon there, and a cold afternoon at that, but the views were freaking amazing! Plus, I saw some wildlife (elk and bighorn sheep to be exact). I can now fully endorse this park as a must see. Seriously, there are 7,000 vertical feet within the park itself. That means that everywhere you go there's a glorious view of a cliff face or river valley. Plus it has a really accessible trail system, with lots of easy and difficult hikes available from right off the main roads. The drive there is pretty gorgeous too, at least if you come from the east.

All the driving sucked a little bit. I think my butt is flatter due to all the sitting I've done. I'm also afraid that I've decided Wyoming has very little to offer the average visitor. Mostly its just windy and full of energy development (though more of the fossil fuel type than the wind type). I did see some antelope, so that was good. And I had a brief, kind of crazy conversation with a gas station clerk. But mostly I advice everyone to avoid driving through the state if at all possible (on the way back home the wind slowed me down by like a hour, that's pretty serious).

The only down side to my trip is that I spent the last week not doing any of my Logan work, and now its all piled up and stressing me out. So now I'm going to go shower, then I'll get to the grading (I hate grading, who am I to decide whether they did well or not?).

The Great Pumpkin Adventure

Well, things are really swinging into gear. Whatever gear busy is, that's the gear I'm in. I didn't get to relax much during my fall break (which was just a three day weekend, boo), but I did have some fun. Friday I spent the day with my family picking pumpkins and seeing Body Worlds. Both were awesome. Some quick fun facts and ponderous quotes I wrote down my the little notebook they gave me:

• The blood vessels of the human body would stretch around the world, twice, if laid out in a line.
• Neither the heart nor the brain dominate the sphere of emotions, both organs relate and respond to each other.
• Spread out flat, the cerebral cortex would be approximately 16 square feet.
• The brain is approximately 2% of our body weight, but requires 20% of our blood supply.
• "Your body is the harp of yours soul. And it is your to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds." --Khalil Gibran
• The tendency to see the worst in any situation makes a person more likely than any other factor (weight, gender, race) to have a heart attack.
  

Despite the hour long wait in line, it was freaking incredible. It just amazes me the way the body works, the musculature, the nervous system, organs...all of it is just cool.

Before dorking out at the museum, we all dorked out at the pumpkin patch, here are some photos of that moment.
Here is where I fell out of my shoes. Note to all potential pumpkin adventurers: wear shoes you cannot fall out of.
Me and Scotty are going to rule the world someday, and we'll always look epic when we do.
Saturday my family came up to the Boo at the Zoo, because they're wonderful. I don't have any pictures of that particular moment, but we did manage to capture the fact that Lizzy and I have gone our separate ways when it comes to purses. While I have been opting to minimize the amount of crap I carry around, she has had to carry around more stuff, I imagine its part of being a good mother (there's no chance diapers, wipes or baby food would fit in my bag). It was way fun to be able to show them around my zoo and see them twice in one week.

Now I'm off to prepare for my week out of town. Tomorrow I'm driving to Fort Collins to see my friend Tiff and go to a class on Managing the NEPA Process (that's right, I'll know how to manage something when I get done!).

Just Call Me Canker Face

So I still have this wicked-evil canker sore, though its been down graded from a Spawn-of-Satan canker sore. I realized earlier this weekend that I didn't really know much about canker sores except that gargling salt water sometimes makes them feel better. After a quick bit of research I learned a couple more fun factoids from emedicinehealth.com:

• 20-40% of the people have had canker sores, also known as aphthous stomatitis, at some point in their life (for the 60-80% of the world who don't know what a canker sore is, I've included the diagram above). Cankers are most common in adolescents and young adults, and frequency of sores decrease as you age (hip-hip hooray!).
• The exact cause of canker sores is unknown, but some suspect it is an immune reaction. Other suspected factors include heredity, stress, trauma, food allergies, toothpastes with sodium lauryl sulfate, and iron, folic acid and B12 deficiencies.
  
• The current canker I'm suffering with is officially a major canker (a name I intend to call someone next time I'm in a disagreement), as it is 1cm in length. Others are regular or minor cankers that clear up within 3-14 days.
  
• There are a few at-home treatments, like rinsing your mouth with a salt water mix or Maalox. Some of the medical treatments are downright scary, ranging from administering tetracycline and dietary supplements to injections of cortical steroids, yikes! There are a few drugs that seem to have a canker-depleting side-effect, so sometimes a doctor may prescribe ulcer and heartburn meds, oral contraceptives, and in rare cases thalidomide (remember We Didn't Start the Fire mentioning the "children of thalidomide"? It causes severe birth defects, but you can get it for canker sore treatment).
  
• Prevention advice was kind of entertaining. First you should avoid trauma to the mouth, even minor trauma (so watch out for those mouth-punching-ninjas). Next, do not talk while chewing (but what else am I supposed to do while I chew?). Hormonal factors can trigger outbreaks, so...(they recommend taking oral contraceptives). And if you have any dietary deficiencies, take care of them.
  

After learning this I thought "Great, one more symptom of iron deficiency." I've been taking a multi-vitamin occasionally because vegetarians are often at risk for iron deficiencies, and iron deficiencies cause sluggishness and anemia, among other things, and I was dreadfully tired. After I started the multi-vitamin thing my energy level went up to a point I could function again, but I hate trying to gag them down early in the morning, so I don't get one every morning. Plus taking a multi-vitamin makes me feel old. Look at the people in the multi-vitamin commercials, they're usually not the picture of youth and vitality. However, for the most part I've come to terms with it.

The site I was reading about iron deficiencies at said that it takes time for your body to recover to normal iron levels, so the canker sores could be a side effect of that. But then I discovered something shocking. My lame toothpaste has sodium lauryl sulfate in it! A neighbor told me years ago that sodium lauryl sulfate caused cankers, so I figured it was something that would have been removed from most oral care products.. Well, I was wrong! It's not even an active ingredient in the toothpaste! I was moderately horrified. In the end I threw away the toothpaste because it was paste, and I prefer gels, in addition to it being a probable canker-causer (it seems last time I was toothpaste shopping I was being particularly inattentive).

For now I'm relying on Ora-gel to get me through the meals and hoping that new toothpaste and my multi-vitamin will clear up this particularly heinous canker. In the meantime I plan on avoiding mouth trauma and stress.

I Wanna Be Steak

So I feel a little lame, but I did not realize just how awesome Paule Newman was. That's right, Paul Newman kicked butt! Here are some reasons:

• First off, he was beautiful. In black and white, young and old, he started out handsome and aged very gracefully (he's up there with John Wayne in my book).
  
• He was a fantastic philanthropist. I wish I had know sooner, but all the profits from 'Newman's Own' salad dressings and other foods went to charity. Additionally, he started the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for seriously ill kids. I imagine there were other things too, but most of the biographies I found focused on his movies. I admire that he put so much work into giving to others in need. Giving money is great, but building something (like a camp or company) that gives is awesome!
• He made some pretty good movies, I hear. I plan on spending part of this weekend have a Paul Newman festival. I have a few of his movies on my "Movies to See" List, I think I'll start with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, then The Hustler. Maybe I'll get to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, who knows.
  
• He said some pretty great things I've heard here and there. A couple of my faves include

I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck: the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others; made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.

I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being...by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.

• Perhaps my favorite thing about him is this romantic notion I have about he and Joanne Woodwards relationship. Yeah, it was his second marriage, but he said this thing that just melted my heart. When asked why their relationship had lasted so long he said, "I have steak at home, why go out for hamburgers?" I don't have very many romantic notions, but I want to date someone who treats me like steak (and if they could age as gracefully as Paul Newman, that would be super).
  

Also of note this week, I have about the worst canker sore ever. Its not one on my tongue or the inside of my cheek, where I usually get them. It's on my upper lip by my right incisor. Every time I open my mouth it rubs against my tooth and hurts more. It's actually started to swell. Yesterday I could barely smile. I don't know exactly what causes cankers (I'll look it up later), but I know I get them when I get stressed, so I spent last night trying to relax. I feel pretty successful, but really, how much could I relax when I was trying to read a 300-page book in 1 day. Turns out the only thing I could do was put salt directly on the sore. It hurts really bad at first, but it makes the regular canker pain feel like nothing. I suppose that's masochism at its best. Eh. All in all, I'm glad the week is over, and psyched for this weekend. I'm going to try and get a fall foliage hike in, and listen to some conference. Boo ya!

Oh wait, one more thing. Ironman came out this week. Awesome!