Ode to my Pac-Man lunchbox

Actually I am not very creative and grammar was never my forte (read: engineer) so I won't subject you to any poetry. But isn't my lunchbox great? My advisor poked fun at it today but I think it is pretty cool.

Eric really likes it when I have a loose utensil rattling around in it and he can hear me coming 2 blocks away.

More water

It is raining today so I might as well write a little more about water... A friend sent an email out this morning with a news release on bottled water. You can read it here if you are interested. A point that stood out to me was that bottled water is regulated by the FDA - a federal agency - so bottled water collected and sold in the same state does not have to meet the FDA requirements.

A little poking around at our local EPA and water treatment plant made me realize that our home faucet filter, which uses a carbon filter, does little. It does remove the clorine smell and taste but our water treatment plant uses an active carbon filter towards the end of the treatment process and this does all and more than the dinky faucet filter in terms of contaminants. Our city sends out a water newsletter every once in a while and I looked over the last one but there was no mention of pharmaceuticals. I'm going to try the EPA water quality hotline tomorrow: 1-800-426-4791.

I've been a reluctant blogger; I know I've got nothing on E and can't hope to match her wittiness. As you've seen in her posts below, this last month has been a bit nuts for us. First, I spent a few days in DC, came home for the weekend before flying out for a few days in South Carolina (which included a crazy descent into a small airport where we had to pull out at the last minute before circling around for another shot because the wind was bouncing us around something fierce). Then E spent a week in Seattle, then in Texas (she got me a personalized law badge from the Alamo), then on Oregon's north coast. Now its Spring Break in town (meaning campus is dead--its great!). Classes start up on Monday, I'm teaching on Monday and Wednesday and have an all-day field lab on Tuesdays.

Now for the real reason I'm posting. A while back (read 2-3 years ago) I was driving in town when I came across a road bike in a pile of free stuff on the side of the road. It was dark, so I carried the bike into the headlights and saw it was an old Raleigh--the frame seemed to be in decent shape, it was missing a crank but otherwise was pretty well complete. I threw it in the back of the truck and brought it home for a project bike as black and white images of the Tour de France danced in my head. I figured I'd buy an old wool jersey and be cruising around town in style in no time. Well, a few years passed and the bike just sat buried in our garage. This winter I finally pulled it out and started the restoration process. I decided to build it up as a fixed gear (single speed no freewheel, kind of like your old BMX just without the mag wheels).

I figured this would be a fairly easy process--sand it down, throw on some paint, get some new cranks, convert the old wheels, put on a saddle, and voila. It turned out to be quite more involved than I anticipated. I learned that older bikes weren't build with any standardization across the industry, meaning seat posts, wheels, cranks, etc were all sized according to the manufacturer. Even after some standardization came into the industry Raleigh held out...doing their own thing and making all their own parts (which are largely unavailable today). Well, I won't bore you (more than I already have) but I managed to get the necessary parts from a local shop and other cyclists here in Oregon and just last Saturday took my restored bike on its first ride (a mile or so). So, was it worth the wait? I think so. Now I have a new mistress (as E refers to my bikes) to steal my time. Now I just need an old leather helmet and wool jersey, stay tuned for more fixed gear adventures.

Do you know what is in your water?

Last week in San Antonio I listened to a presentation by a USGS employee about emerging contaminants in our drinking water. It was rather disturbing and I have been thinking about this all week - everytime I grab a drink or turn on the faucet. His group in Fort Worth has been testing drinking water from water treatment plants for pharmaceuticals and other non-regulated chemicals. They found DEET in almost every water sample, also found caffine, codine, Fluoxetine (Prozac), estrogen & progestin, loads of antibiotics, and many other chemicals that I did not recognize.

Before you run for your bottled water, I'm not sure that it is much better. SHOCK! Bottled water is less regulated than your home faucet water and it has been sitting around in plastic bottles. What are we drinking? Does my Pur faucet filter help at all? Am I being paranoid? If you want more information check out this site. In the mean time, I'll be doing some research and let you know if find anything to calm my troubled mind.

Get me out of this suitcase!

It has been a little while since I posted last. I have been traveling every week this month. Next week will be the first week in 6 that both Eric and I will be home! I was in Seattle visiting the Billings, San Antonio for a conference, and then in Manzanita (northern Oregon Coast) for some field work. It all went well but I am really happy to be home for a bit. You should see my mountains of laundry.
I went with my cousin Heidi and her kids to the Seattle aquarium and got to see and touch some pretty cool ocean critters. (Picture of Anna and Rachel Billings at the touch pool).
It rained on us the entire time we were in San Antonio but what is a little rain to PacNWers? We managed to make time to see the Alamo and eat a lot of oysters.
I have field work in Molalla (near Mt Hood) in April, but other than that I'm not going anywhere for a while.

Better Post

Yesterdays post was a snoozer so to make up for it here is a great picture of Molly helping Eric with the kitchen faucet. I apologize for the quality - I only had my camera phone handy.
Have a great weekend!

Financial Advice

I don't really have anything exciting to post this week. Life has just been too busy to think about much other than conference papers, dissertation, and research results. I think if I tried to post any of that I would lose all 2 of my readers (thanks Mom and Dad!), so instead I'll post something that made me re-evaluate our finances. A couple of weeks ago I attended a Women's Conference at school and the keynote speaker tried to motivate the audience of women college students to TAKE CHARGE of their personal finances and plan for the future. It was an interesting talk but two statistics stuck out:
1. Over 50% of single women in the US over 65 are living on $12,000 or LESS a year. Wow. Vanessa's advice: have a retirement plan and invest early - let compounding do its magic.
2. Funds in a savings account are LOSING money to inflation. The average inflation rate is 3 to 4% a year. I checked and my "premier" savings account earns a whopping 0.6% annually. Vanessa's advice: move emergency savings to a CD and change from regular saving account to a money market account.

Sun


We had an amazing day on Saturday and I was able to spend time outside planting bulbs, weeding, and pruning. I thought I should share some of the sun and Spring with you. I gave our willow tree a serious hair cut and grabbed some tree sealant from the store to cover up the larger cuts. When I got home from the store I noticed that the same tree seal also seals planters, gutters, and asphalt. Now that is mult-tasking! But was is in this stuff? Hmmm... Anyone know of other options for sealing tree cuts?