Back to
main weblog |
Feel free to email me your
comments,
suggestions, and/or random thoughts.
|
About Amy...
|
About Toby...
|
About the background...
|
About what I read...
|
|
|
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.
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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!
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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. :-)
|
|
|
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
|
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. :-)
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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!
|
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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.
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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! :-)
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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!
|
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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.
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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! :-)
|
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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
|
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
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. :-)
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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.
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
|
|
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! :-)
|
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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! :-)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|