Food!

A little bit about what I’m eating lately: a friend of mine is going to try making Japanese-style box lunches (called bento) for herself for portion control, and for her boyfriend’s daughter, who is a picky eater. I did some research and was amazed by the variety of bento and how much work people put into them. I thought I might give it a try, to get myself to bring lunch from home more often instead of eating frozen meals or campus food (even eating healthy, buying lunch two or three days a week is expensive). I love Japanese food and culture, so I decided to start a photo blog in Flikr: Bento!

My first full meal after making this resolve is linked below (I’m not sure why WordPress is not letting us insert pictures- I’ll look into it). Originally I planned to have leftovers, but, heh, that didn’t work out. Next time i will measure and count points, but this was a good first attempt and it’s nice to cook something new. Now that I have “sticky” rice I am going to try making a Thai dessert: mango and sticky rice with coconut sauce. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Easy bento dinner

Health Update

So, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with migraines the last week or so. In fact, the last 7 days in a row I either had a migraine or a borderline migraine. After trying all my usual fixes and a few other tricks, I called my doc Wednesday and made an appointment for Thursday.

It turns out that I was simultaneously over- and under-medicated. The Claritin D for my allergies was working a little too well- it dried everything up so that I didn’t realise that I had a persistent sinus infection. Fun! Add to that the fact that the ibuprofin was not doing enough to treat my TMJ, so the combo was triggering my migraines. I walked out of the doctor’s office with my longest list of prescribed and otc meds yet. So here’s the lineup:

tmj: a mild muscle relaxant (which is makes me slightly loopy) as needed and aleve
sinus infection: antibiotics, saline nasal spray, mucinex, and comtrex to replace the claritin D
migraines: a sample of treximet and coupon/prescription if they persist

I am hopeful that this will wipe things out pretty quickly. I really didn’t like the side-effects of the Claritin and I think it is permanently off my list now- if they suggest it again in the future i’ll ask for something else. My docs are very good though- I bet it’s already been red-flagged.

After the doctor’s visit I picked up my meds and worked from home the rest of the day. The first round of meds knocked me out (probably the muscle relaxant) and I slept for somewhat more than 12 hours. The congestion in my sinuses is starting to break up, and I suspect that I will spend another weekend mostly being sick. I’m glad we were able to figure out what was happening though, and once I’m done with the antibiotics I should be in the clear. I do have an eye appointment today to make sure that eye strain isn’t contributing as well- it’s been well over a year since my last checkup, and even if my prescription hasn’t changed I may be due for new glasses since my current ones are scratched and the frames keep coming apart.

Quiet Friday

Stayed home from work today. What I thought was just allergies must be a bug I brought back from the conference, so I decided to stay home and hopefully get the sick over with. It’s one of those annoying situations where my head is both stuffy and runny at the same time, and everything is settling in my chest.

Did venture out long enough to take Lucas to the vet for his next test. He hasn’t lost any more weight, but he was very unhappy about the vet visit. Drew and I picked up pizza on the way home- yum, comfort food! Then Drew went out to his parents’ to house sit over the weekend. if I’m feeling better tomorrow I’ll go join him for part of the day after doing some errands (CVS and an oil change).

Such an exciting weekend *sigh*.

Sad news

Drew’s Aunt Gail passed away today. We got the call the other day that they thought it would be soon, but it was sooner than we expected. She was very sick for a long time however- I’m really grateful that we got a chance to visit and I could meet her after the wedding. When I know whether they are taking flowers of donations I’ll update this. The funeral will be June 19th.

Jacksonville – Conference Day III

Our last day was another early one, so I scuttled down to breakfast. Workshop, refreshment, workshop (Need to check notes again). The final general session of the conference, however, was terrific. It was a five-person panel talking about how and whether to support faculty innovation in the classroom. One of the participants was also an Instructional Technologist and I spoke to him briefly afterwards. I’m interested in networking with other InstrTechs and possibly creating a professional blog along those lines, so once I have it set up he is going to put me in touch with some of his resources. This was probably the most useful personal professional development contact I made, and really inspired me. In fact, I set up this family blog to test my new skills, as well as to make it easier for our dispersed family to keep track of each other.  :}

After the conference we packed up and checked out. We had thought about hitting the beach but decided to head home before we hit rush hour traffic. We stopped at Subway for lunch and got back to Orlando right around 3. After dropping folks off I drove the Cruiser back to Avis- one of my co-workers had done most of the driving over the trip, so it was actually my first time behind the wheel. It felt strange to drive someone else’s car, and i was a little nervous but everything turned out fine. Drew was happy to have me home early 9there was a yellow rose waiting for me!), until i realised that I didn’t have my wallet and we had to rush back to the Avis before they closed. Luckily, they had my wallet and all was well. I had a light dinner and went to bed moderately early. In all, it was a great trip- now I just have to get caught up at work and follow up on my conference contacts.

Jacksonville – Conference Day II

The second day of the conference started much earlier- if you wanted the free breakfast you had to be there by 7:30. However, it was worth the trip- another fantastic buffet. I was a bit stuffy- even though I removed all the down pillows from my bed, I didn’t realise that the comforter was down as well, so I had tea with honey with breakfast. As much as I love hot tea I almost never have it anymore- I probably drank more hot tea in four days than I usually do in a month.

My first session of the day, I must confess, I mostly worked through. It took me most of an hour to catch up on work and personal email. Even with my new Blackberry, any email that requires more than a two-line response really needs to be done on a computer. My second session was on media services- a really interesting workshop but unfortunately after the first ten minutes became a bit too technical for me. it was perfect for one of my colleagues who missed the session, however, so I made a point of introducing him to the presenter later.

After another refreshment break (I was also spoiled by all the fresh fruit- it was delicious!), were two workshops, but I honestly can’t remember which ones I attended- I have to check my notes. I ran up to my room and picked up my poster tube. This tube, by the way, prompted a lot of joking during the conference- either I looked like a bike messenger in Seattle or I had a huge quiver of arrows. At lunch were roundtable discussions, where I met with other professionals who are concerned with new Helpdesk methods and systems. I slipped out a little early to meet my co-presenters and set up our poster and demo laptop. I do wish that I had gotten flyers together- our table looked rather bare. However, all three of us were busy talking to folks non-stop, so I call it a success. I’m really proud of the work we’ve been doing and the innovation we’ve been introducing to established systems, and the awareness we’ve raised on campus looks like it will lead to a campus-wide license so faculty can use the same tools for teaching.

After the poster session I was sweaty and tired. We had a few folks who stayed late to talk, so I missed the following session i wanted to attend on Virtual Learning Environments, but it gave me a chance to go up to my room, drop off the poster, get changed and relax a little. The last session of the day that I attended was an open discussion on how to deal with “problem” customers. it was an excellent session and I wish we’d had more time.

Afterwards I met up with a few other folks from UCF and we went to the steakhouse attached to the hotel. it was pouring out, so no one wanted to venture out to eat, but the food and drinks were excellent. We had a really nice two hours laughing and talking. I’d had shrimp, scallops, and steamed veggies for dinner so I splurged on a slice of chocolate cake for dessert, but it was so rich I barely ate a quarter of it. Afterwards we went for another walk (with less exploring) past Jacksonville Landing. There was a series of historical markers so we learned a bit about Jacksonville’s colourful past, and found a little garden park under one of the bridges. This time we probably only did 1-1.5 miles. Once we got back I laid down to read but ended up falling asleep early-ish.

Jacksonville – Conference Day I

Monday was the first day of the conference, but the opening session wasn’t until nearly 1 p.m., so I wasn’t in a rush to get out of bed. I got dressed, collected my laptop and went down to the lobby have a delicious (and expensive!) buffet breakfast. This became the theme of the conference- fantastic breakfasts!

I logged in using the free wireless and got caught up on work and personal email. Once my co-workers were awake, we registered for the conference and picked up our goody bags. As a speaker, I was given a special “thank-you” gift: a mini speaker kit you can plug into your laptop. This will come in handy, but for some reason the other two folks I was presenting with had not been tagged as speakers, so they did not get a free gift- apparently only one person counts for the poster sessions.

I picked up a snack on the way to the opening speaker- Michael J. Bolger, the CIO of NASA. He talked about their current Information Technology Challenges: the restructuring and how they are improving security on their networks and consolidating resources. I knew most of it from when Drew worked for United Space Alliance (NASA’s largest contractor) but it was still interesting.

The first workshop I attended was about how Agnes Scott College is using iTunesU. I’ve heard about the service but never looked at it, so it was rather interesting. Next was a refreshment break (fresh fruit, bakery goodies, and caffeine of several sorts!) and then my second session fo the day on a Shakespeare class that used Wikis for student projects. It sort of made me wish that I had a regular class again, but since faculty are coming to me and asking about how to use these tools in their classrooms, it’s almost as good!

The third session was about the comparative study East Carolina University did of three course managements systems (obviously very interesting to me but boring if you’re not in that field, heh). This is one of the session that i think will be most useful back in my home department. The end of the day was a nice reception hosted by one of the vendors. There were finger foods and a free glass of wine. I met up with everyone from UCF who was attending and had a good time. I ended up giving a 20 minute overview of our support system to an interested IT person from another University- i felt like I was being grilled, but at the same time I was surprised at how much I actually know and can explain to others.

We were full after the reception, so I went for a walk along the waterfront with my roommate. All the bridges and downtown buildings were lit up and we explored a bit, finding Jacksonville Landing which is an open area of shops, restaurants and live music, and a path onto a bridge that put us next to the Jacksonville Maritime Museum (closed, unfortunately) and Friendship Park which has a huge fountain and light show. We tried to come back on the other side of the bridge and got a little lost. Luckily, some kind folks pointed us in the right direction and we were able to get back on the bridge. We caught up to them and it turns out they were attending the conference as well, so we all walked back together. While there were lots of walkways, they weren’t very well-marked or lighted. I later checked our route using Google GPS- we walked 2.5 miles in all! I took a shower and crawled into bed after calling Drew and wishing him a good night.

Pop-culture graphs!

A funny webpage I stumbled across recently- actually ALL the sites linked at the top of the page are pretty funny!

http://graphjam.com/

Jacksonville Conference

On Sunday June 1st I met with two of my co-workers and we drove to Jacksonville for the Southeast Regional Educause conference. At the last-minute suggestion of my director I had submitted a presentation topic and was accepted to do a poster session on the remote training solutions I helped develop for UCF.

We hit the road about 9:30 a.m. and the weather was beautiful. Our first rental car had been used by a smoker, so we switched to a PT Cruiser. We stopped for breakfast at a MacDonald’s in Daytona and I picked up a breakfast sandwich which I later regretted (I can make better ones at home!).

We reached the hotel just before noon, checked in and then explored the town a bit. There were many funky little antique shops and import stores. We had Chinese food for lunch (I wasn’t especially hungry so I just had veggie steamed dumplings) and then we walked through Memorial Park, which was very pretty. I bought a disposable camera and if some of the pictures came out well I will post them on Flickr.

We then went back to the hotel, swam in the rooftop pool (the hotel overlooked the river, so it was a gorgeous view!) and then loafed around a bit until one of my coworkers went out for dinner with local friends. The rest of us watched movies and had subs for dinner, then called it a night.