A Tale of Two Polls

In most sports, there are multiple polls to tell you about the relative merits of teams in the league. Since I primarily follow college basketball, I am mostly aware of the Coaches poll and the AP poll. As far as I can tell, there is no objective basis for either poll, unlike the flawed BCS ranking system, which we won't discuss here. Instead, the Coaches poll takes the votes of coaches in Division I basketball, and the AP poll takes the votes of sports writers around the nation. I guess that's why the word "poll" is used.

Anyway, I have become very aware of these little numbers this season with my Aggies beginning the season ranked 13th, and proceeding to move around in the polls as high as 6th as the weeks progress. What's interesting to me in all this is that no one seems to be very consistent about which poll they use. If they want to make two teams seem better matched or more separated, they'll use the ranking from one poll and the other poll for the rank of the other team. In the sports sites for each of the teams, they seem to just use whichever one is higher. Last week, A&M's site proudly displayed a number 6 ranking (from the AP poll), and this week, after losing to Tech, we're using the number 8 ranking from the Coaches poll to toot our horn (the AP has us down to 10).

So, I wonder, do people naturally gravitate toward whatever makes themselves sound better, or is there any group out there that keeps measuring themselves against the same stick? Companies reporting a loss in a quarter will try to highlight revenue growth or investment in future technologies. Teams that lose all the time resort to pointing stats they've improved ("Sure we didn't get any touchdowns, but did you see that we had 13 first downs in that game -- isn't that great?!"). Is it just a defense mechanism to not dwell on the bad stuff?

I suppose we do it in our lives, too. I certainly justify my slow running by looking at the improvement I've made rather than the absolute time. I try to look past the gazillion dollars we spent on eating out last year in favor of noting that we cut our movie expenditures from .1 gazillion to .05 gazillion. My car may not get the best gas mileage, but I'll point out the 1-3 mpg improvement right after I've filled up my tires.

Since it's not really that odd a behavior, I guess I'll forgive the sports teams trying to make themselves look better. It's all about getting more butts in the seats to make more money, and that seems a decent way to do it. It's just odd to me that the pollsters give them ample data to pick and choose from, rather than sticking to just one ranking list.

Life Without A Dog

It's been a while now since we had a pet in the house. Shiner went to a new, permanent home back in August, and we've been dogless ever since. I have to admit that it makes me sad to not have a compelling reason to come home after work. I know he was destructive, and gave us cause for concern, but he was a sweetheart, and I miss him.

That's all. And with moving, likely to a rented place first, it'll be a while before we're in a position to have one again. Anyone want to share their's with me for a week or two?

Marathon Training: 3 Weeks To Go

What is up with all this cold weather? It's killing my motivation! Regardless, this morning I ran the 3M Half Marathon. I figured I was already signed up for it, so who cares if it's only 34 degrees outside -- can't let money go unused! The runners were about half and half wearing long pants or wearing shorts. I debated this decision for a long time before setting out, so I felt the need to notice this. I figured in shorts I would freeze to death waiting for the race to start, but in long pants, I would probably overheat before the halfway point. So, I opted for freezing at the beginning. I actually did see two guys running only in shorts, and I felt bad for their skin, but everyone has to do it their own way, right? I ended up finishing the race in just over 2 and a half hours, on about 11:30 min/mile pace. I felt really good with it, because here's the best part:

I ACTUALLY COMPLETED A RUNNING EVENT WITHOUT HAVING TO WALK!!!!

Surprising as it might be, I've done lots of triathlons, and I've always had to stop and walk parts of the run sections. This has always been demotivating to me, and is why I decided to actually learn to run. And I really feel like I'm learning that particular skill. Sure, my training derailed a bit when I got sick in the fall, but I've still built a bit of a runner's base, and I think I could actually run in future races.

I'm still planning to do the marathon in a few weeks, even though I haven't finished enough of the long runs to know that I can run the full marathon without walking. However, I'm going to do it anyway, and we'll see what happens. I'm looking forward to it, and am remotivated to do my runs this week and get back on schedule to do a marathon in the future that I can actually finish.

Addicted to Craig's List

It appears we are officially moving. My husband accepted a job offer out in Santa Barbara, California, so we are headed out there the beginning of April.

We are excited, but can you believe how much there is to do? It's insane how much we've collected in seven years in our house, and the likelihood of moving into an apartment again means that a bunch of stuff must go. As we're at the beginning of this process, we're just trying to declutter our house, and take inventory of what we don't want to move with us.

Thus enters Craigslist. I feel like a posting fiend. I mean, there is tons of stuff that we'll just give to Goodwill or throw in the trash, but there are a lot of things that we should be able to get money for, so those things we're putting out on the 'list first.

It's an interesting experiment to see which things have appeal and which don't. Who knew a bunch of wood we'd bought for a project a long time ago but never did would have been the first thing we sold? Who knew we'd get more inquiries for a set of chairs that Shiner used as a chew toy than anything else we've posted? Go figure. It's all very interesting, and we just keep adding things to the list, since we can't seem to predict which things will be interesting to people. Currently we have 15 ads posted. There'll be more as we get closer to being ready to empty the house, but it's a start.

If you're a regular reviewer of the list, who knows -- you could end up with a piece of Heather Strangeness of your very own!

Marathon Training: 4 Weeks To Go

I bet you all figured I stopped training for the marathon. Well, you'd be mostly right. I keep telling myself I'm just in the middle of a long tapering phase...a very long tapering phase. I am still running some, just not with the rigor and planning I had at the beginning. Maybe it's because I'm so slow and it gets boring to run 4+ hours per day. Maybe I let the busyness of the holidays get to me. And maybe I'm just lazy.

Regardless, I still intend to do the race. I won't likely be able to run the whole thing, but I'll do my best and leave myself lots of improvement space for future years. I certainly wouldn't want to start out with my best marathon ever. :)

That being said, this last week had a lot of really cold weather, and that sort of limits one's motivation. I did run nine miles last weekend, and I'm signed up for the 3M Half-Marathon next weekend. And we'll just have to wait and see how that goes.

Frozen Water Is Amazing

Venturing out into the city yesterday, I couldn't get over how amazing ice really is. I put forth the following for your consideration:

It's heavy. When you look at ice and snow, it appears to be light and lilty. However, the weight must be enormous. I have a tree that extends out over the driveway, but the branches are well above our cars. When I went out to my car yesterday, though, the branches were weighed down into my bike rack. We also have a large live oak tree in the front that currently has a major limb (about a foot in diameter) bent almost to the street. I figure if we get anymore accumulation of ice, that branch will break right off. In the meantime, can that branch go back to where it belongs if the ice melts? When I went running at Town Lake last night, I found myself ducking under low-hanging branches that I've never worried about before. All because ice weighs a lot.

It's tenacious. Have you ever tried to get 1-inch layers of ice off your car? Or even if it's not that thick -- ever tried to get your key into a lock with a millimeter or two of ice laid over it? When we got to our car after our flight the other night, it was completely iced over. It was impossible to get the key into the trunk lock (I have an old car without the fancy controller that allows you to unlock your trunk at the press of a button) or the passenger door. It was a good thing there was a big SUV next to the driver's side door, so we could actually get in the car that way to start warming things up. Once we were in, it took an onslaught of heated winshield wiper fluid and defrosting air thirty minutes to allow us to proceed home. Yesterday's ice removal from cars took nearly an hour.

It's pretty. If you can look out over a field with each and every blade of grass individually encased in an ice sheath, and not find it beautiful, then you are a cold and heartless bastard. Or you really don't like the cold. While not as fun to play with as snow, it leaves the same impression of untouched beauty that freshly fallen snow does. Then, the icicles that have formed around town are outstanding to look at. We have a couple of 18-inch, 1-inch diameter gems hanging off our roof, and I've enjoyed watching them form -- growing off the dripping water from the melting ice on the roof itself. The knobbly nature implies a brittleness that just isn't there. Last night after dinner, my husband and I fenced with icicles, and I couldn't get over how strong those little boogers are. We pushed one into the ground like a wooden stake, and I'll be interested to see the hole that is left behind when the icicle spear disappears.

Meanwhile, I found a feature I would really like to see in my car (other than the push-button trunk unlocking feature). There were several times while out and about that I wished I could make my car shake itself off like a dog that's just emerged from a bath. Instead, large chunks of ice dislodged themselves from parts of my car while driving along and crashed off with a thunderous noise. I worried that would be dangerous to some car behind me (but I was very proud that all the drivers I saw were keeping safe distances between each other), and all could have been solved by a nice vigorous shaking of the car. Do you think Detroit would listen if I suggested such a feature?

Waiting for the Barbarians

Somewhere along the line I decided that I would read a book per month in 2007. Not exactly a New Year's resolution, but more of a commitment to doing things that I know I should be doing.

In preparation for attending the Austin Lyric Opera presentation of Philip Glass' Waiting for the Barbarians next weekend, I decided to read the book by Coetzee. This was a bit of a surreal experience, reading a book based on a poem that is the basis of an opera. I really think these are my favorite types of stories, where a story is based on a smaller work and then new details are added to expand out the story into something new and more detailed. I think it's why I like movies based on short stories so much. The larger story line requires so much more detail that it takes on a life of its own that may be a completely different arc than the way I read the initial work. The original poem by Constatine Cavafy can be found here.

The poem left a feeling that the barbarians didn't actually exist. The thought of them was used to keep everyone on edge, feeling like they could be lurking around any corner. The public officials serve nearly exclusively to ward off a threat that may or may not be there.

The correlations to the fear-mongering current US administration were unbelievably clear and scary. It was reminiscent of the bogeyman and a naysayer all in one.

Then I read Coetzee's novel, and the barbarians really did exist. I kept expecting them not to, but this was one of those situations where the novel deviated from original root story, and it really resulted in a wholly different and interesting story.

At the most basic level, this is the story of a central government coming into a remote part of the country and asserting their power to make a stable situation into a war. But this is not even close to the point of the story. There are layers upon layers of nuance -- an old man trying to feel love again, an expedition into the root cause of prejudice and hatred, a study in pain and resilience. The book is masterfully written, and I can certainly see why the Nobel organization awarded Coetzee their prize in literature if the rest of his body of work are anything like this book. Absolutely recommended for a quick read while you're waiting in the airport.

I can't wait to see what the opera ends up being like.

"We Hope That Was Exciting"

We were in the pile of unlucky people flying into Austin while freezing rain and sleet fell from the sky. Initially, our flight was delayed ten minutes, and then thirty minutes, and then it was leaving three hours late. We kept thinking they would cancel the flight. I mean, really...if landing at 10:30 at night is dangerous, how is that going to get better three hours later, with no sunshine?

As we approached the Austin airport, the pilot came on the intercom and informed us that one of their indicator lights wasn't working, so they were going to replace some bulbs and see if that was all the problem was. At that point, one hundred fifty people sit in their seats all having the same thought: "And, what if it's not just the little bulbs?" When the pilot came back one he assured us that all was well, and we were ready to land. Again with the simultaneous thought balloons, this time saying, "Is everything really okay?"

Then came the actual landing, after which the pilot came back on, and said, "We hope that was as exciting for all of you as it was for us." Um, excuse me? I don't think we needed to know that.

Then, as we were deplaning, I overheard the pilot talking to another passenger that the light that wouldn't come on was for the left landing gear. It then became clear what I heard before the first announcement -- the landing gears being lowered, raised, and lowered again. I'm glad they got the landing gears open and checked out and were able to land properly. But does it make me a bad person that I kinda wished they hadn't? To have experienced the excitement of a belly landing on runway foam?

Maybe There IS a Santa Claus

Last Friday, the most amazing thing happened. I really never thought this day would come. It blew me completely away.

My husband went to an appointment with a psychiatrist.

I have maintained for a long time that he has some issues, and should probably work on them. He has never been willing to go. He has come up with virtually every excuse in the book: he's worried they might put him on drugs and then he might not be creative/able to have sex/interesting enough/etc.; he doesn't feel like he can talk to a professional about suicide, because they'll call the police on him; he doesn't think there is anything a therapist can do for him; people who go to therapy are whining crying babies; and on, and on, and on. We also have issues as a couple, and I've never been able to get him to go to marriage counseling with me.

But, apparently something changed somewhere along the line. Perhaps it's the matter-of-fact-ness that I now use to describe the dying of our marriage. Perhaps it's the impending possibility of a move out of Austin, and me requiring a change. Perhaps it's how several of his coworkers have given him referrals to their therapists. Perhaps it's that his sister was diagnosed as bipolar not once, but by two different doctors in 2006. Who knows, but I'll take the result, regardless.

He won't talk about his visit, but I'm also not pressing him for details. I'm just happy that he's officially talking to someone who is impartial and who he can feel is unequivocally on his side. I know it's not the be-all, end-all of solutions, but I have trouble not getting giddy that things are going in a more correct direction.

Monday, Monday

My Monday just got really easy. My boss called me this morning to tell me not to come to work because the office is under quarantine. I work in a section on Congress Avenue where they found a passal of dead birds, and they want to keep the people out of the area until they determine that the area is safe. They think they might let us in by noon, but that's unclear.

Now, I could, of course, work from home this morning, but it's still pretty well guaranteed to be a less productive day than I would normally have had. It's crazy -- I wonder if we'll send an email to all our customers regarding our unexpected unattended office this morning. If we did, I think it should be something like this.

Dear Customers,

We don't normally slack off on taking your phone calls on Monday mornings, but today we have a good reason. There were a bunch of dead birds found on the street near our office, and EMS shut down the area for the whole morning. Most likely there is no toxin in the air and this was a prank, but in our ultra-terrorist-sensitive society, we have to be excessively cautious -- shutting down businesses for hours just in case. Hopefully, there won't be any dead squirrels tomorrow.

We'll be back in the office when the paranoia lifts. Thanks for your patience.

I'm sure there'll be no backlash from that. Right?

Organic Food Production

After reading Kyle's post on the topic, and the associated Economist article, I found myself with a lot of questions and thoughts that I felt the article skipped over. So, I decided to accumulate those here.

I do buy organic, not because the food is better, but because it promotes sustainable food production. Conventional farming taxes the land pretty extensively, requiring synthetic pesticides and fertilizers to produce crops. Those synthetic products, apart from any side effects to the planet, require non-renewable resources to be created. Oil specifically. As a result, a significant amount of energy goes into producing the food than is received back out in the crop. From the National Organics Standard Board, here is the definition of organic:

Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony.

It would seem, that while organic farmers certainly do still use fertilizers and methods of controlling pests, they have to do it in ways that rely on the most renewable of energy resources, the sun. This only seems like it would benefit the world in the long term, and would further reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

I was also under the impression that there is a significant amount of food that is produced in the United States that is destroyed each year because the supply far outweighs the demand. It seems this is primarily in the rice and grain categories, but if there is motivation to use that farm land in a sustained way for other crops that fall under the organic label, then I want to continue to support that. And there is no better motivation than higher margins from consumers that are willing to spend more money for the same food.

So, even if The Economist tells me I'm wasting my money and harming the earth by purchasing organic foods, I'm going to keep doing it. I enjoyed having my choices challenged, though. It forced me to go look things up and make sure that I wasn't just making myself feel better by some rationalization.

2006 Political Bowl

Even in the 2006 Political Bowl, pitting the UC Berkeley Golden Bears against the Texas A&M Aggies, it was better to be a liberal than a conservative. Apparently sports, like art, can imitate life.

Most Shocking Christmas Ever

This weekend was the most shocking Christmas ever. No one got electrocuted, though that might also have been fun. My husband and I spent five days with my family, and it was actually nice. I didn't ever want to kill my crazy middle sister. My mom and dad only yelled at each other once. My husband didn't strangle my dad. My dad's sermons didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. My mom didn't give me a case of Ramen and some dry erase markers as my Christmas present. My little sister didn't run off to her room crying. It was great!

There were some nice times, too, to go with the absence of killing and death. We played a few games where no one pitched a fit when they realized they were going to lose. My sister went running with me, and we actually had a nice conversation. There were a few conversations that didn't revolve around food. My little sister practiced for the last two months on a flute concert that she gave us, and sounded really great. My husband went out on a bike ride and got not one, but two flat tires, and some nice guy gave him a ride back to the house. My mom found a woman leaving Christmas Eve services realizing this would be her first Christmas without her husband, and she had no family around to celebrate with her, so my mom invited her to the house for Christmas dinner.

It was just a breath of fresh air to see how my family could act when everyone was on their best behavior. I guess there are families out there that always act civilized, but mine's not one of them. This year, it turned out we had a really nice holiday. I hope yours was also memorable, and was so because of the nice memories it produced!

Dreaming Life

Last night I dreamed that I was having a party, and my favorite aunt came to it from a long way away. Then, she collapsed in the middle of the party, and had to be taken away in an ambulance. We found out she was pregnant, and had a baby. But when I went to the hospital, the baby was tiny and missing an arm. Someone that was there needed a postage stamp, and I happened to have one, so I went down to the parking garage to get it, and the elevator malfunctioned, catching my arm and causing a scare, but I was lucky and unhurt. As I got to my car, I decided to go somewhere and then a carjacker appeared in the garage and pointed his gun at me. I slammed on the accelerator to get away, and ducked to miss getting shot. However, my car just wouldn't speed up, so the man was able to walk up to my car. As he was about to shoot me, I woke up.

As my husband decided that he is now ready to have children this weekend, he also gave me a glimpse into the depression that rules his brain. I think my brain was trying to work out why every good thing also comes with a bad thing.

I Can't See What They're Thinking

I have quite a few blind and visually impaired acquaintences. It helps to understand the struggles, since I'll likely be there, myself, at some point in the future. Meanwhile, one of the things that always causes problems for them is our stinking US paper money. Some of them have elaborate ways of folding different denominations so they can find them in their wallets. Some keep certain bills in one pocket and other bills in a different pocket to keep them straight. But nearly always, they have to rely on other people to tell them which bills are which, and this results in trust issues and sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they are taken advantage of.

And then you go anywhere else in the world, and you see how that country's money wouldn't present the same challenges that ours does. Each denomination is a different size, or has the demonination numerals punched out in the money, and often different colors, which helps the folks who can see a little. Obviously, this would make their lives easier.

But in a recent statement from our government, they are appealing a ruling by a district court that our paper currency is discriminatory to blind people. The district court had noted that there are 180 countries in the world with paper money, and we're the only country that doesn't accommodate for visual impairments with our money in some way. The ruling says we can punch holes in our money or put Braille lettering on our money or make them different sizes, but we have to make it possible for all people in our country who use our money to be able to use our money.

Our government claims that it would be too hard for the vending machines to get switched. Is the Vending Machine Lobby honestly that powerful, that our government would send out a stupid sounding appeal? Thay also claim that varying the size would be inordinately expensive. Then vary the color and punch out numbers or add Braille dots!

Meanwhile, they say that the money isn't discriminatory, because blind folks can use portable currency readers. Oh sure, they can all afford to spend $270 to find out which money they are spending. The other option the appeals brief offers is that they could use credit cards. Can you find any segment of people that all qualify for credit cards? And since when does every retailer in the US take a credit card? One of our favorite restaurants over here only takes cash and check -- so blind people just aren't allowed to eat there because the VML is more important?

Questionable Pictures

Recently in the local news, there has been much buzz about a teacher who took pictures of girls at his school. He's taken pictures of their rear ends in the hallway at school, and even took pictures of them going up and down the escalator in the local mall, all without their knowledge. Obviously, this guy must be a sicko.

You may know where I'm going with this, but just in case you don't, I'll continue.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't get where the problem is in this "crime". The girls didn't know they were being photographed until the story broke. So, it's not like he took them into a room and forced them to dress a certain way or pose provocatively. Just girls walking through the mall. Surely the pictures couldn't have been that sexy if they were doing their normal thing out in public at school and in the mall. Well, they could, but this is not a post about skimpy teenage fashions. Regardless, they weren't forced to do or wear anything they didn't choose of their own accord.

I honestly don't care if he takes a gazillion pictures in public places and jacks off to each and every one of them during his sad life at home. It's kind of like how my husband doesn't like me to line-dry my underthings in the back yard, because there is an apartment building behind us, and he's concerned that some sick guy is getting some pleasure out of looking at my bra hanging there. Personally, that doesn't bother me at all. As long as the guy never involves the girls directly, it seems like a victimless activity. The girls didn't know they were being photographed, so how could that be traumatizing to them until the story details became public? According to the stories, the teacher never made any threats to the girls or touched them inappropriately or tried to get them alone or anyrhing like that. So what is he being jailed for?

My concern is that he is being charged with the assumption that he would try to physically do something in the future. The logic there is that the pictures now would lead to molestation or rape at some point in the future. It is totally unacceptable in the United States of America that we would jail someone on the supposition that they might do something at some point in the future. That gets all Minority Report and creepy. Even more creepy than some dude taking picture of girls in the school hallway.

It sends me down a whole other tangent about jailing terror conspirators before they've actually done anything. But that will have to be left for another day.

The Pinnacle of Texas Sports

The top sport in the state of Texas is football. And nothing really riles up the folks in Texas towns like the high school variety. This weekend, I had the opportunity to go to a 5A quarterfinal game. My little sister's school was still playing, so I drove out to meet them and watch them play a tough game against a team that was bigger and faster. More exciting than the game (which was plenty of a nailbiter, and her high school will be playing again next week) was the pageantry that goes with the overall event.

To start, the teams ran through smoke in their inflatable tunnels with animal mascot heads to the sounds of bands playing fight songs, erupting crowds and the announcer reading off the list of all 44 starters (offense and defense for each team). The cheerleaders and mascots for both teams were then introduced individually. Then there was the playing and singing of the respective alma maters, a prayer, and then an announcement of what good sportsmanship really means to the UIL group regarding high school sporting events. The singing of the national anthem came next, followed by the bands playing musical challenges at each other. All of this before the game ever commenced.

I was struck by how many people really come together to make a high school football game happen. At our particular game, between players, managers, drill teams, cheerleaders, bands, and everyone else, there were 1100 kids participating between the two schools. Absolutely incredible.

Vacation: Returning on Tuesday

Tuesday morning we got up and drove back to the Cancun airport for our flight back to the US. We had no travel issues of any kind, and got back safely in the early evening. My Spanish got a little boost, but then it had no where to go but up. My metric also got a big boost, with road signs in kilometers, hotel scales in kilograms, and weather reports in Celsius. We got to eat good food and sleep well. We also got to really relax and refresh ourselves for regular life back at home, which is the point of vacation. I can officially call our vacation a success. Woohoo!

Vacation: Learning on Monday

Our plan Monday morning was to get up early and visit the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza before the tour groups got there, around noon. When we got up, however, the rain had other plans for us. It had rained for a while when we woke up, and it didn't really show any signs of stopping anytime soon. So, we looked for an umbrella or a poncho or something, but there wasn't anything in the room. We went down to the front desk and asked there. After several back and forths where they assured us there was an umbrella in the room and we assured them there wasn't, we finally found that they didn't have any extras. So, we resigned ourselves to getting wet. And the underwater housing for the camera came in handy.

The Mayans were obviously geniuses of stone work and construction. I don't know how much, if any, the ruins at Chichen Itza have been rebuilt or restored, but the overall complement of structures is mind-boggingly stunning. We started at the hotel's entrance to the ruins, but we might have ignored certain directional signs and gone some ways not so well traveled. We came, first, upon a temple that wasn't anywhere on our map, but it was also not corded off, as the later structures we saw were. There was no plaque describing this structure, but it was definitely a temple of some sort. While the carved stone altar was impressive, the most compelling things in the temple were the 50 or so columns. Each column was about 2 meters tall, half a meter in diameter, built like a layer cake with alternating layers of smoothly cut stone about 8 centimeters tall and layers of 3 centimeters of jagged small stones mixed in with the mortar.

The rest of the ruins were named and described on plaques in the ground. We saw many more temples, more of the columns, several platforms, etc. Some of the carved reliefs were very detailed, showing obvious reverence for snakes, eagles and jaguars. We walked out to a cenote, sort of a sacrificial sinkhole where offerings of various kinds were made into the water about twenty meters below. We saw a ball court where a Mayan version of a cross between soccer and basketball (as best as archaelogists can guess, apparently) was played. It was very neat to see that the basketball stadium and hoops really did have their roots in American history. :)

The Kukulcan Temple is the centerpiece of this ancient city, and the pyramid-like structure is nothing short of awe-inspiring. The whole thing is probably four stories tall and approximately 50 meters on each of its four sides. Each of the sides has a stairway to the top, and the sides of stairs end in giant serpent heads. The Mayans also knew the way the sun worked, so as the sun sets on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the stairstep sides of the pyramid make a shadow with the serpent heads such that the shadow looks like a snake slithering on the ground. We didn't get to see this phenomenon, as we were a little late in the year (or very early, depending on how you want to look at it). But it certainly looked believable that that kind of shadow could occur.

The motivating reason for the trip into Chichen Itza was the observatory. The Mayans were enamoured with the sun and the moon and the stars, and had studied and catalogued many astronomical events from this location. The placement of the windows and markings inside the domed building indicate study of the equinoxes, the highest and lowest points of the moon, and the various solstices. It was great that this was one of the structures they really let us climb around and through and on. Very impressive that they understood so much about the yearly calendar.

As we finished up, the tour groups were showing up, and it was starting to get crowded. We returned to the hotel to get changed out of our wet clothes, and decided to trek into the little town of Piste for lunch. The food at the hotel was pretty bad, so this wasn't too difficult a decision. The hardest part was whether our Spanish was good enough to eat in a town where English probably wasn't spoken much. We ate at a place where a woman was grilling half-chickens at the storefront, with tables behind her. At the back of the 3-sided building was a man behind a counter. The couple's 7- or 8-year-old daughter was our waitress, and we ordered drinks and some chicken enchiladas. We then saw the little girl walk across the street to a market to buy tortillas and a few other things. I guess that's one way to make sure you don't have anything go to waste. The enchiladas were amazing, and when we requested the check, the woman told us they were 85 pesos. 85 pesos? Are you serious? That's like 8 bucks for two plates of enchiladas and a liter of bottled water. It was easily the cheapest and tastiest meal we had on our trip. Totally worth the couple of awkward conversational moments. Emboldened by our success, we went to a local grocery store and bought some cookies for dessert.

We rounded out our day with a nap, and packing to head home. That was Monday, and we slept well.

Vacation: Exploring on Sunday

Sunday morning we got up and packed our things and checked out of the hotel. It had been a nice stay, but now it was time to go. The conference was over, and we had other plans for the rest of our trip.

But, before we left Cozumel, we wanted to check out the rest of our temporary home. So, we left our bags with the bellman, jumped on our trusty scooter, and headed out to explore the rest of the island. We drove to the south point of the island, and walked around for a bit, but that eastern side was the nicest part, and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We stopped at one point where the reef rock shoreline was home to a wave-land blowhole. I'm not exactly sure how the phenomenon works, but every time a wave crashed into the shore, the pressure built up under certain rocks further inland, and the water shot straight up one to three meters into the air. It was kind of like a cyclical geyser, but mostly reminded me of the blowhole on a whale or a dolphin. Very nifty little oddity in nature.

We stopped a little further up the coast and enjoyed a pristine piece of beach where you could look forever and see no footprints in the sand or buildings on the beach -- just the untouched, natural beauty of the ocean meeting the island. The vegetation was stunning. I noticed how bright the greens and yellows and oranges and red and purples were. Nothing pastel here, only bold colors that indicate a world that is proud and strong.

We continued on, stopping periodically to take a stroll or a picture. We stopped at the San Gervasio ruins, but the guy in the booth talked us out of going to see them. "It's six more kilometers in, and then it'll take an hour to walk through it, and there's not even much to see there -- these are not the good ruins." How can you argue with a salesman like that? So we went on to complete our circumnavigation of the main island road, ending with the experience of getting gas for the scooter. Did you know we went all around that island for two bucks in gas? I've gotta get me a scooter. But I think a sidecar would make it more stable and less likely to skin my knee.

Once we got back to the hotel, my husband took a taxi with our luggage, and I took the scooter in to be returned. We met at the ferry there to go over to the mainland. It rained while we waited to be loaded onto the ferry, which wouldn't have been a big deal, but it was actually a bit cold and windy. We should have realized that standing in the cold rain wouldn't be the worst of it. The ferry ride started out fine, but I noticed that we were pitching back and forth with the waves quite a bit. After ten minutes or so, I remembered that my husband gets seasick very easily. I located the restroom, and then braced myself for how he'd handle the ride. As it turned out, I needn't have worried about him. He leaned his head forward and fell asleep for most of the 45-minute boat ride. Other passengers didn't fare so well. The crew handed out lots and lots of seasickness bags, and one poor girl spent the whole ride in the bathroom. She did emerge at one point for about twenty seconds before she dashed back in the door. But my husband was a champ -- he didn't even get woozy!

Once we arrived in Playa del Carmen, we dragged our stuff to the bus station and took the bus to the Cancun airport. There, we got the rental car my husband had reserved for us for the mainland part of our trip. Once all was settled, we began the three-hour drive to Chichen Itza, home of the most famous Mayan ruins.

We arrived after dark, and settled into our room with its carved mahogany doors and bedframes. The window shutters were most interesting. The windows were just screens on the inside and outside, the shutters were like four-centimeter-wide venetian blinds. But, rather than a string to raise and lower them, there was a lever to twist them open or sealed shut. Once the lever was in place, the knob at the end of the lever turned to lock the shutters in place. They are hard to explain, but they were a nifty little simple machine.

Throughout the day, we experienced quite the variety in modes of transportation: on foot, scooter, taxi, ferry, bus, car. By the end of it, we weren't sure it was still Sunday, but we went to sleep, and slept well.