Michael Bublé -- Will you marry me?

Is this man still single? Pretty much... if he sang to me, I'd do anything he asked. *grin*
O.K. so this video is dumb, but you gotta love this guy for his voice. I want to be the mic he's dancing with! ;)

Sequoia Nat'l Forrest

Two weekends ago, I made the four-hour trek from Sacto south, to meet my old L.A. friends in Sequoia for a weekend backpacking extravaganza. I had just finished up with third round interviews for next year's position, and was exhausted. Tired or not, waterlogged or not, my L.A. compadres wanted to meet in Three Kings, make the one-hour windy drive to Mineral King (clandestine style, so as not to pay the rangers) and hike the 3.5 miles in to Mosquito Lake #1. I needed to make a pit-stop around Fresno area, but John said, "Sorry, just put on a diaper and keep drivin' -- we're burning daylight." Awesome, huh?

Yes, we did start our evening hike at around 10:30p.m. after a couple slices of greasy pizza. This is what the trail looked like at night, minus the AMAZING stars that seemed to light the night on fire. *sigh* At mile 1.5, we saw headlamps down the trail in heavy pursuit. It was then that the lie was hatched. We decided that we'd be visiting French hikers that were on the way to our designated campsite. (John's mission days to France would come in handy, and yet, how sad that we'd be using it to LIE!) :) Somewhere around 3:00a.m., after getting off the trail a couple of times, we somehow stumbled on Mosquito Lake #1. We found flat ground, put up tents, loaded the bear cannisters, and fell over into bags. How tired is Whitney? Did her legs fall off?





The next day, we set out to find the other three Mosquito Lakes. This required some bouldering. FUN. Since I forgot my swimsuit and I didn't want to skinnydip in mixed company, I watched Whitney, Joel, and John swim out the island and take turns diving off. Look how funny Joel's "no-arm" dive looks. (That was in honor of his wife, Natalie, who we all missed dearly on this trip.)

The trek out provided some of the most beautiful views of the Sequoias yet. If the boys didn't think we'd mock them, I'm sure they'd have frolicked through these fields of wildflowers singing "The Hills are alive...." Instead, we got to watch Joel get eaten alive by all the mosquitos in the world. I suppose that itching, or the layer of dirt & grime was the reason for the head dunking contest in the river that was proably 10 degrees. (I think John won. He might still be suffering from slurred speech.)

Upon our exit from Mineral King, we were pleased to see that Sarah's reliable Sub-y-ru chariot had NOT been eaten through by the marmots. AWESOME!

Singing Johnny Cash all the way home was certainly a highlight. Amongst the L.A. crowd, for years now, Yosemite/Half Dome Kamp Krusty has been the annual tradition. Should the semi-annual be Sequoia? Why not? :) Thanks friends!

My Mensa Friends

Know Your Presidents - The best bloopers are a click away Did you know that the word "Mensa" means "table" in Latin? The name stands for a round-table society, where race, color, creed, national origin, age, politics, educational or social background are irrelevant. The only classification that matters in this society is intelligence. Mensans range in age from 4 to 94, (see genius baby video), but most are between 20 and 60. In education they range from preschoolers to high school dropouts to people with multiple doctorates. There are Mensans on welfare and Mensans who are millionaires. As far as occupations, the range is staggering. Mensa has professors and truck drivers, scientists and firefighters, computer programmers and farmers, artists, military people, musicians, laborers, police officers, glassblowers--the diverse list goes on and on. I have decided, in my 37 years of life on this earth, that I know (personally) about 8 certified geniuses. I can't count Hugh Nibley, because I only sat in on a lecture, and have read his work, but never met him in person. These 8 acquaintances of mine collectively hold more than a dozen advanced degrees from prestigious universities in fields of study ranging from law, langauge, and music, to engineering, rocket science, and nuclear physics.


Last weekend I was out on the Sacramento Delta, wakeboarding. There was a moment in choppy waters when the boat owner made reference to the possibility of cavitation within his engine. Kristie's response? "Cavi-what?" Oh well. Engineer, I am most certainly not. I am, however, a very naturally curious person, and I spent Saturday evening reading up on cavitation as it pertains to the Bernoulli principle. Ahhh, I love to learn about things I've never heard about! It really does make me happy! So... let's see... for those of you reading this posting, what can you tell me about cavitation as it pertains to Bernoulli's principle? Here, I'll give you a little hint (see picture below), but you can't cheat and go look it up. If you think you might be a Mensa candidate, or, perhaps, you took college physics, post a comment, and we'll see who our newest Mensa member is!

A cruel summer, indeed!

O.K. These are, quite possibly, the 3 worst coiffed/dressed women in history! Seriously, did they have a stylist? It's funny how teens fall prey to every trend, no matter how AWFUL it may look. Although I can't scare up a picture to prove it, I am embarrassed to admit that I owned one of those disgusting "Units" outfits, complete with matching jelly shoes and bracelets. My thought: Where were the fashion police in the 80's, or at the very least, the folks from "What Not To Wear"?

Police Visit #2

So... my summer job has been interesting to say the very least. This visit with the Police wasn't nearly as exciting as the one in L.A. (see Police Visit #1) and Officer Avila not nearly as sexy as Sting. ;) Friday morning, during the first week of summer school here at Cordova High, the principal and I arrived to find a stolen SUV crashed in the outdoor amphitheater. How did it get there you might ask? Apparently, the handy drivers stole the car from a nearby neighborhood and proceeded to drive it all over our campus, tearing up lawn and shrubbery where'er they went. (Cordova has a wide-open campus, which, I soon found out, is an administrator's worst nightmare.) We don't suspect the culprits to be Cordova students, because they would have known where the amphitheater was and, most likely, stopped the car before it went sailing into the air. The tire marks started at the top of the amphitheater, showed up again about 5 steps down and then ... there were none. So... it is apparent that these unsuspecting drivers "Thelma & Louised-it" off the top, got some great air, hit once on the way down, and then smashed into the cement stage at the bottom! Nice! Both airbags were deployed and the keys were left in the vehicle. When the police arrived, they took fingerprints to try and find the punks who deprived a poor, unsuspecting family of their transportation. My thought: How did these crazies actually walk away from such an airborne event without broken legs, or a massive concussion, at the very least? Hmmm...


Now, if you thought that was crazy, fast-forward with me to week two. Wednesday morning, I was instructed to go buy a tall coffee for our janitor who had been trying to sweep up broken glass outside our student store. Here is a picture of what we found on this particular morning. Now, you might posit that, under normal circumstances, one would not need to use a backhoe to open a building. However, that concept would only apply to normally functioning human beings. This fine piece of machinery was left out in front of the elementary school across the street. I don't suppose it could be our same SUV bandits who hot-wired this one, drove it down a residential street, through campus, down the 10 cafeteria steps and up to the windows of the student store? Perhaps. As you can see they used the bucket to "open" the window to try and rip off whatever they could find -- and that wasn't much. My thought: Do you suppose they were mad when they didn't find much to steal? After all, that's a lot of heavy machinery operation for little to no loot. The question then remains: if they got hurt during the process, might they try going after workman's comp? :)

Most excellent! I can tell that being a public school administrator will never be boring.