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Feel free to email me your comments, suggestions, and/or random thoughts.

About Amy...

About Toby...

About the background...      

About what I read...


April 2006





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Recently, I discovered FELT.  I love this fabric.  The edges don't fray and they come in a rainbow of colors.  The texture is thicker than most fabric but still soft enough to be sewn.  Since I've been going to the beach a lot, I wanted something to carry my flip flops in.  So I made myself a cute little flip flop felt bag with a zipper top.  It also has a little tab on one corner so I can hook the bag onto my beach tote. 

Martha also has wonderful ideas for using felt.  I will be attempting to make myself a camera case from her patterns.

And if you still have doubts about felt, goto this site.  The site is written in Japanese, but you won't need to read the text to be completely WOWed!   Click on the links on the left and be prepared to be blown away by what one can make with felt.



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There is a new pup in town...Bailey. Bailey is an adorable baby Golden Retriever who looks way too much like Toby!  :-) Just four months old, Bailey is ready to rumble with the big boys.

Can you see little Bailey??  He's ready to ambush the unsuspecting Toby...


Off they go!  Woh, this is the fastest I've seen Toby run in a long time!  Look at Bailey's ears fly!


Too fast for my camera!


Toby trying to pull a fancy move on Bailey.


Gotcha! How about a little kiss??


Not a chance kid, try my famous butt move!


Come on, play with me!


Off they go running again! This is more exercise than Toby's gotten in a long time!


Tired...I think Bailey will sleep very well tonight!


Aw...a tender moment.  This little guy will grow up to be like Toby in no time at all.  Welcome to the gang Bailey!



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A nerd I am...I saw this office toy at a gift shop and had to get one!  The Cubes is an office playset complete with your typical nerdy office workers and all their funny cubical gadgets.

Meet Ted, my personal cubical nerd.   Click on Ted's images below to see his title and his cubical gadgets.  Ted is equiped with a phone, a computer and even a functional file cabinet.  And no good office nerd is complete without the typical male pattern baldness and the comb-over.

This playset reminds me of one of my favorite movies Office Space.  Don't let "a case of the Mondays" get you.







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It was such a beautiful day that I decided to drag Toby out and walk to my local Starbucks for some R&R.  When I came out of the store with my mocha frappuccino in hand, I discovered that Toby had made a new friend, Lola.  Lola was very well-behaved and the two of them just chilled while I enjoyed my drink and a magazine.  

Many people I know can never take their dogs out dining.  But I think the key is getting use to it.  I've dragged Toby out to dine with me so often that he knows the routine.  He always get water and a nice cozy spot under the table.  I have never given Toby table food so he doesn't get excited when the waiter brings out my food.  I get to enjoy good food and Toby gets to enjoy attention from strangers. :-)







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More fun with crochet balls!  Here's little Tigger, a Tibetan Terrier, playing tug-a-war with the crochet ball I made for her.  Tigger is Toby's long-distance girlfriend.  She lives in San Franciso and is a month older than Toby.  Toby visited her about two years ago and as expected, she chased him out of her kitchen.  I've never see Toby run faster!  But after a little while, she decided to let Toby into the kitchen and it's been smooth sailing since. :-)  They exchange Christmas presents every year!


Tigger's parents tell me that she would sometimes roll over on her back and play with the crochet ball like a cat.  Kinda like what Romeo likes to do with his "fun ball."

Let's see how long this ball can survive the wrath of a hyper little dog. :-)



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A lesson for a two-year-old.  Besides cars, my nephew's favorite thing in the world is Toby.  For now, he thinks that all dogs are called "Toby."  When he was a baby, he would frown whenever he saw Toby.  But now that he's getting older, he is starting to develop a healthy liking to dogs.  To encourage his curiosity towards animals, Toby was very gracious to act as the ambassador of dogs to this little boy.  I guess Toby didn't have a choice...


Poor Toby had to endure a little show-and-touch session with my nephew!   His grandpa and dad were teaching him how to properly pet a dog.  He gets all giggly and would hide behind grandpa's legs. 

After a few chasing sessions around the living room Toby decided that he's had enough of running around. Toby was such a good sport about letting a two-year-old poke and prod at him, I let him be the baby for a little while.  As you can see below, Toby didn't protest. 

It's quite amazing to see dogs behaving so much gentler toward little kids.  But we should never forget that dogs are still animals and I would never let Toby play with my nephew unsupervised.



I think It is very important to teach kids to be kind to animals so that they'll grow up to be kind adults! 

I also believe that if a person loves animals, they will have a much happier life!



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A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Lauren, a student from USC's physics department requesting to interview me for an online student magazine called Angelingo.  I was completely flattered by her request, someone is actually interested in what I have done with my life!  Angelingo is a very interesting web publication for the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at USC written and run by undergraduate students.  The publication discusses many current social, political, and science issues facing young Americans today.


Being an alumni of USC physics, folks from Angelingo wanted to interview me about my life as a woman in science and my career after leaving USC.  Click here to read Lauren's article and my interview.



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My dearest friend, Little Tracy, told me today that she received an Easter basket on Sunday from her boyfriend.  In one of the eggs was a beautiful engagement ring!  Congratulations Tracy, I am so happy for you.  And of course I will be your maid of honor!  I knew I would be your maid of honor the night you killed that spider for me in my bedroom when we were living together at UCLA.  You always bravely took over spider duty in our little ol' apartment at 1818 Stoner and so I have to return that favor.


Congratulations Tracy and Brian, you're perfect for each other. 
Tell your mother she can call me anytime she wants to! :-)




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About a year ago, my dad installed a little mirror beneath the roof of their house so he can see the garage door from their front door.  Unbeknownst to my parents then, this little mirror became the obsession of one little bird.  My mother told me that she noticed a little bird chirping and dancing on the rain gutter downspout one day.  When she watched it, she realized that the bird was courting his own image in the mirror!  It must have been love at first sight, this little bird came by everyday and sang and danced to its image.  My mom told me that one day, the little bird even brought a friend to meet his love.  The two birds took turns dancing in front of the mirror.  Perhaps his friend thought the little bird was setting him up with a cutie of his own!  To this day, the bird still comes to see his love everyday...so sweet! :-)


Click on the image to see a larger picture.

Happy Easter!



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This is my favorite picture of Toby.  Whenever I get sad, his smiling face in this picture always makes me feel better.  I am grateful for everyday Toby is in my life. 


Have a good weekend.



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Since my co-workers are sick of listening to me complain about having to drive in circles all the way up to the 8th level of our parking structure, I'll blog about it...It is quite a pain...what's even more annoying? Having to drive 8 levels down to go home!  It takes me 5 minutes just to get out of the parking structure!  What do you think of a car elevator?  I can just drive into one and it'll lower my car down to level 1. :-)

View of downtown LA from the parking structure of my work.  I park my car on the 8th floor of the structure eveyday and this is what I get to see.  On really clear days, you can make out certain downtown buildings. Click on the image to see details.

In the foreground, you see the 105 Freeway, which I take to work everyday.  Beyond the 105 is the eastern tip of LAX.  There is a FedEx plane sitting on the runway, which reminds me of the movie Cast Away.  Tom Hanks plays a systems engineer in that film...which is what I am...eerie similarities! :-)

I am also reminded of a conversation I had with a co-worker who grew up in the Midwest.  He told me that people in other parts of the country do not refer to thier freeways as "the 105" or "the 405."  They only say "take 105 to 405." For Interstates, they will say I-5.  Angelenos will still say "the 5." Strange...they also call soda "pop."


In other news...I've added a Comments Link to this blog at the top of the page.  Since I make my own weblog (instead of using a commercial weblog site) it took me a while to get that working properly.  And to keep the complications to a minimum, I will only keep one comments page per month.  That means you can write comments to any blog in this month and others can view it from the same comments page.  As I archive each month, the comments will get archived also and a new comments page for the new month will be available.  As you can tell, I'm still working on being able to show people how many comments have been posted without having to view the comments.  Please feel free to post your thoughts and feedback, or leave a note for Toby, he's anxiouly waiting as you can see! :-)



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Everything taste better in a glass.  If I bring home a mocha frappuccino (my latest addiction) from Starbucks I like to pour it into a pretty glass.  The swirls of the colors are very soothing.

I recently found out from the Starbucks website the nutritional content of a mocha frappuccino is VERY different when you add whipped cream!  I used to order all of the frappuccino drinks with whipped cream.

Take a look at the difference between with and without whipped cream!  No whipped please!


whipped

no whipped

Calories
Fat Calories
Total Fat (g)
Saturated Fat (g)
Cholesterol (mg)
Sodium (mg)
Carbohydrates (g)
Sugars (g)

310
110
12
7
45
190
46
38

220
25
3
1.5
10
180
44
3



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Sam the Golden Ghost was finally captured!  Apparently, a Golden Retriever named Sam ran away from his home in New Hampshire and lived in the woods for TWO YEARS!!  Sam had been elusive, like a ghost and was only recently captured with the lure of ham.  Toby wouldn't survive a day in the woods by himself!  Sam had been living off of trash and sometimes food put out into the woods by the residents of the area for him.  My question is...why didn't they put out the ham two years ago??!  And how hard is it to find a Golden Retriever in the woods?? I would think he would stick out like a sore thumb amongst the other wild forest animals like deers.  The residents of the area even shot video of him! But alas, after escaping the wrath of a dozen police and helicopter hunts, the Golden Ghost's eventual downfall was good old fashion ham...


Hm...I sense a Disney movie in the making. :-)



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Drool on his food bin...Toby's having a rough time with his diet.  He gets two cups of dog food each day, one cup in the morning, one at night.  He does well in the morning.  But at night, after he finishes one cup, he wants more.  He'll walk over to his food bin and stand over it.  This is when he starts to drool...If I ignor him, he'll start to paw at it.  And if I continue to ignor him, he'll bark at it.  Sometimes I'll manage to convince him to wait until tomorrow morning to eat again by giving him a rawhide or get ready for bed (if it's late enought).  Other times, well I end up giving him a little more food. 

For two years of his life, I was feeding Toby Large Breed Premium Performance Eukanuba dog food..."energy for highly active large breed dogs" it touted on the bag.  Why I ever thought that of Toby is beyond me!  When has he ever been "highly active??"  So after talking to his Vet who told me, "I can't feel his ribs."  I switched Toby to Reduced Fat Large Breed Formula.  It's for large breed adult dogs that "have lower activity levels." :-)  Hey, they must have met Toby!

After switching Toby to the reduced fat food, he lost 5lbs after only one bag!  But now, he's not losing any more weight from the food so I guess the only thing left is to exercise more!  I hope it gets warmer soon, I hate going to the beach when it's only 50 degrees and stormy outside!

By the way, here's a fun thing to do if you're bored...go here and scroll to the middle of the page.  You'll see a section called "Interavtive Nutrition."   Drag the black triangle to the left and right and watch the dog's physique change. You can even change from Top to Side view.  Toby is about half way between "Ideal Weight" and "Overweight." :-)  They have a tool for cats too.


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I am still working on growing out my hair.  It's tough for me since my hair is so fine that I tend to think that long hair looks boring on me.  I always get tempted to cut my hair before it gets to be long.  I'm hanging in there this time though, and it's getting pretty long.   To give myself some more encouragement, I bought these pretty bobby pins.  I found them at Forever 21, for $3.00!  I really like the tortoise shell pins, they look classy, I can use them at work.  The flower ones are just for fun.


I have a goal of maybe three more inches.  They say that hair grows about half an inch per month, that would mean 6 more months of growing out my hair!  They also say that hair grows faster in warm weather...maybe I'll reach my goal faster if this chilly weather would go away! :-)


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I can't believe it's April already.  I had a rough start to March, but for April, I would like to take the time to smell the flowers and appreciate what I have instead of always focusing on what I don't have.  I am constantly on the go...always focusing on the destination, but today, I wanted to take my time and look at what's on the way.  When I take Toby to the beach, I park my car at a park and walk a few blocks down to The Strand.  I decided to take a moment and enjoy my walk to the beach!  Here are some of the things I found along the way...

Ivy growing along an old wooden door...I find this simple picture very soothing.  It's so simple and rustic, a little bit of country in the middle of a bustling city.

Some call them weed...but look at the vibrant color!  These wild flowers are so beautiful when you take the time to look at them up-close.  Against a white picket fence, the flowers are even more yellow. 

Puffy clouds always make me happy!  These are cumulus clouds that form under an unstable atmosphere.  I spent 6 years at UCLA teaching an atmospheric science class where students learn all about cloud formation and atmospheric stability.  Understanding how nature works only helps me appreciate how beautiful our world is.  I hope everyone takes the time to better understand their environment. 

Someone was flying a kite!  I haven't flown a kite since I was a small child.  My father taught me how to fly a kite when I was little.  He also taught me how to make a small kite from sticks.  My father also taught me how to properly eat clams, how to drive, and to love science...I hope to teach all those things to my kids one day...Happy April! :-)