One More Come and Gone

...Christmas' that is. Most of my friends know that I am not the biggest fan of Christmas, but this one was a pretty darn good one, if I do say so. It's not too often that I say that about a Christmas that I'm not able to be at home with my family, but for the second year running now, TJ has so kindly adopted me into his wonderful family and shared their love and kindness with me on this special day. To be fair, this one was a bit of an "ambush". haha I planned to join him, his little bro Ty, and his mom for fondue dinner at their grandparents house last night. I didn't, however, plan for a Christmas slumber party full of Who's in Whoville, the preparation of the Sharp family Christmas breakfast, a symphany of snoring from the brothers, and Mountain Elves doing Santa's busywork for him! On the way back from their grandparents last night, TJ and his mom convinced me to stay at their house and join them for their Christmas morning breakfast and festivities. I'm sure glad that I did!! They have a very special family that I am very lucky to get to be a part of every now and then! A BIG thank you to them for making this a very memorable Christmas! I hope that everyone had as wonderful of a time as I did! Merry Christmas everyone!!

(yes, I do have a camera now, but as I mentioned above, it was a bit of an "ambush", so I wasn't prepared and thus, have no photos! soon, though, I promise, as I know white and black writing gets real old, real quick!) :)

Opportunities for Mountain Biking in National Parks

There is a proposed rule change in Congress that would allow decisions about MTB trail building and access to be made at the local level for National Parks. Please take a few minutes to utilize the link that IMBA has set up to let your pro MTB voice be heard.
http://www.imba.com/news/action_alerts/12_08/12_18_nps.html

Thanks!!

X-mas Parties and Disdain :)

Bryant Research Group Holiday Party (funny, we don't look
like disgruntled grad students, well, except maybe Garret...)

So, you may or may not know that I am not a big fan of Christmas, for many reasons. It's too close to Thanksgiving to stuff ourselves like pigs, AGAIN. :) I would rather get people gifts when I see something that I think they might like (anytime during the year), rather than trying to think of something they might like at a certain time of the year and ending up getting them something trivial, useless, that they don't like (or god forbid, all of the aforementioned!) and vice versa. It's really stressful for so many reasons, people want everything to be just perfect (fat chance!), the gift bit, and crappy winter icy traveling (I'm not a big fan of driving on icy snowy roads after being in two roll over car accidents!), just to name a few.

K, I'm done with my anti-Christmas Grinch rant. :) I hope everyone has a really lovely Christmas full of good food and great time with your family and friends. I'll be in the lab working on my research. :)

I Love Full Moons!

Apparently, the full moon tonight is going to be the biggest (by 14%) and the brightest (by 30%) full moon of the year! Unfortunately, it is pissing rain here in Oregon, and I'm prolly not going to be able to enjoy it. :( So, for all of you where the weather is more desirable...go out and do something fun to enjoy it tonight! :)

Tissue Engineering in the News

I read this on the BBC website and think it's great that so many researchers are working in a similar area to my PhD research! It's cool to see something that is very close to coming to market in the Tissue Engineering field.

Bird Brain

My friend Erin is an amazing artist (she painted the large amazing piece on the wall of my room if you've ever been to my house!) and is also a scientist. She does some pretty sweet stuff, and she has a design up for voting on Threadless.com right now. She's very clever! The design is called Bird Brain.

If you aren't familiar with the sight, they have lots of T-shirts with unique designs. One of hers is up for voting right now, so if you've got a couple of minutes, go check it out. If you like it, vote 5 and $ (I'd buy it. You don't have to buy it to vote that you would.) :)

Thanks!

The Boulder Breakfast Challenge

So, today Chris and I drove past one of the many breakfast establishments in Boulder and devised the plan of the Boulder Breakfast Challenge. We aim to eat at each of the many, many Boulder Breakfast restaurants in town. He proposed 1 a week until we've hit them all. I think that I'd end up weighing 500 pounds by the start of the 2009 race season if we undertook that lofty of a goal, but perhaps we can manage 1 every other week or so. So, anyway, I've thought of quite a few of these lovely places to dine...if I've forgotten any (legit breakfast, not coffee shops that just serve baked goods, etc...), please let me know, so we can truly sample them all.
(in no particular order of greatness, haha) :)

Lucile's
Walnut Cafe
Southside Walnut
North Boulder Cafe
Dot's (x2)
Foolish Craig's
The Buff
Village Coffee Shop
Burnt Toast
Original Pancake House
The Teahouse
Chautauqua
Turley's
International House of Pancakes (not sure that this one counts)
Le Peep
The Egg and I

17!! That's a lot of breakfast restaurants in one town. It's amazing that they have such long waits all of the time on the weekends!

I don't know if Chris will be here long enough to do one every other week! We'll see. We may have to skip some of the ones that I'm not too particularly fond of! So anyway, if I'm missing any of the good ones, please let me know!

6+2

Today was my 6 week (+two days) follow up appointment with the Doc. I was very pleased that the x-rays definitely showed that the bone has started healing, but it's definitely still broken. :( She said that I could begin gingerly putting some weight on it...uhhhhhh, I guess that starting walking on it last Monday falls into that category???? I just really got tired of the crutches, and it doesn't really hurt that bad to walk on it. At first I used the walking boot, but that actually makes my ankle hurt when walking, so I figured, go for gold, haha. It actually doesn't feel too bad to walk on it. I did leave on the crutches, just for her peace of mind. :) It's snowing like effing crazy here right now, so this is as good a time as any to not be trying to drag myself around with those silly metal sticks!

I got the go ahead to start riding the bike outside...great, thanks Mother Nature!!! Skate skiing is def out of the picture until a bit after the new year and so is snow boarding, so I'd really rather the stupid snow stop falling all together! Oh well. I'm sure some people are happy.

In other news, I'm heading to Oregon (Albany and Portland) to visit my Dad and one of my best friends, Molly, this weekend! Hopefully it will continue to be unseasonably dry there for my visit! I don't know how those crazy Oregonians put up with all of that rain anyway! I'd go crazy. :)

That's all. Oh ya, except I won the investigation/dispute/whatever you want to call it with Paypal to get a refund for the cost of buying a battery to go in the camera that I bought on Ebay that never came with one, so...I'll get on ordering a battery so I can actually put some pictures up here, since I know my ramblings are a bit on the boring side! :)

I have been tagged

List 6 random things about yourself that most people do not know, then tag 6 more people and post their links. Sonya Looney tagged me so here I go:

1.) I once lived in a small town in WY called Emblem, population 10 (well technically 14 once we moved there).

2.) 6 years ago I was hit by an idiot old lady in a car while out training on my road bike. I had hip surgery and got a brain injury.

3.) I used to play the trumpet in the band AND the jazz band. I haven't played since high school. I'm determined to learn to play the violin, though...one of these days, in my spare time.

4.) I would like to move abroad sometime...sooner rather than later, not sure exactly where, though.

5.) I didn't get on an airplane until I was 15, and this year alone, I've been to Denver International Airport 28 times (14 round trips, gotta make up for lost time!!). :)

6.) My name is a palindrome, when people spell it properly. NeveN :)

I now tag:
Eszter
Melissa
Jaymie Mart
Redcoat
Kevin (i'm sure he'll LOVE this game the most!)
Brandon Turman