Thirty-Six Hours, Three Thousand Miles

It's 10:00 p.m. on Sunday night. Exactly one week ago, at this very time, I had just checked into a hotel room in Washington D.C. Less than 24 hours later, I was back on a plane headed home. Given obvious time restraints, my sight seeing was limited to a view of Arlington National Cemetery from the highway, a view of the capitol building from a high-rise in Virginia, and a trip to the Smithsonian store in the airport.

Needless to say, one week ago I was experiencing an agonizing temptation, for I was sitting in a hotel room three miles from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., knowing this was my only opportunity to hop on a train headed downtown and catch a glimpse of something, anything. But my mature, responsible, adult side prevailed. As I got ready for bed instead, I was a little bit heart-broken and a little bit proud.

Michael and I Were Tight

This summer I went to the Experience the Music Project in Seattle. I stumbled upon an impromptu memorial to Michael Jackson, who had died only a couple of weeks earlier. It inspired me to add my own impromptu moment to this video.

Brought to You by MacBook Pro

My laptop died a couple of weeks into the semester. For the next month I used a loaner from the law library, an oversized, bulky Dell. Then, two weeks ago I came home and found a beautiful surprise from Chris quietly sitting on the table.



(Insert lots of excited exclamations here!!!!!)

The box opened to reveal a computer nestled in a perfectly designed package, with clean compartments and tabs for the few extras included. Inside the box I discovered one sexy piece of technology. The slim body opens and closes like a glove, the solid casing is made from one piece of aluminum, the key board is backlit, and the power cord is pure genius. Most importantly, the computer operates as well as it looks. Aside from the geeky specifications that make the machine run smoothly, I love that it powers up and powers down in a matter of seconds. And the battery life is awesome.

Given my disdain for the loaner laptop I was using, one may wonder why I hadn't already purchased a replacement. After my HP Pavillion DV2000 died, I was shocked to discover that there was absolutely no laptop on the market that would fulfill two of my laptop requirements. I wanted a laptop with a 14 inch screen size and no shiny or matte black casing. The MacBook Pro, coming in at 13 inches, was the closest thing I could find, but I was deterred by the price. I was not deterred by the price, however, when accepting it as a gift from my husband, thus ignoring all concepts of community property learned in law school.

Not only is my MacBook Pro sexy, sturdy, and functional, but it also makes me look sexier. Here are a couple of pictures I took using Photo Booth.





Well, the last one isn't so sexy, but it is ferocious.

What else can I say except that my husband is the best, and this blog proves it.

Just a Few Balloons

Chris and I went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta earlier this month.


The balloons come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.


Just a few balloons and a few spectators...


Stand clear of the flame shooter.


I was excited to see the Target balloon calling me home.


Chris was excited to see this balloon, perhaps calling him home too.


Thanks to my aunt, uncle, and cousins who shared their home with us over the weekend. We enjoyed being your guests.

It's Not Disgusting If It's Yours

One morning Chris and I were leaving the apartment for the day. As we were coming down the stairs we saw a pair of underwear lying on the landing below us. One of us made a remark about how we do not like to see disgusting underwear lying around in our apartment complex. As we got closer, however, we realized that it was Chris' underwear. Apparently it had fallen out of the laundry basket the night before while we were doing laundry. It fell out on the way back to the apartment from the laundry room, meaning it was clean and not really disgusting at all. We are not the type of people who leave disgusting underwear lying around.

What's In a Name?

Sias is a name that no one can spell or pronounce correctly. As a Sullivan, I never had problems. As a Sias, I've learned that when giving my name over the phone, I should say, "First name is ..., last name is spelled S-I-A-S," with a snake-like emphasis on the S's so as to distinguish them from F's. When sitting in class, I know what common mispronunciations to listen for.

People often comment that they have never heard the last name Sias before meeting me. So, for those of you who mistakenly believe that Sias is an uncommon name, I present to you the following:

First, Sias is not just a hispanic name. According to the Sias Family Genealogy Forum, we are brown, black, and white.

Sias' are known academics. Excluding the obvious example (the author of this blog), Sias International University is the first solely American owned University in Central China. And don't forget SIAS Summer Institutes, designed to support the development of scholarly networks and collaborative projects among young scholars from the United States and Europe.

But we're not just geeky; we're also very athletic. Haven't you heard of the Ed Sias Invitational, a cross country running event?

The winning combination of brains and brawn make the typical Sias a very resourceful and innovative person. Take for example Sias, a leading developer and supplier of innovative multi-tipped robotic XYZ liquid handling systems and robot friendly functional modules for Laboratory Automation. That's right, we make things that the average reader can't even comprehend.

With all the great things that Sias's do, why doesn't anyone recognize our name?

Labor Day Weekend

Relaxing


Cousins


Cousins


Sias Family

Just a Quick Trip

Thursday Morning: I have to be on a plane in an hour, but I am frantically trying to retieve a document from my deceased computer's hard drive. I give up with 45 minutes until departure. I make it to the terminal in time for boarding.

I flew from Lubbock to Austin, via Dallas. Once in Austin, the plan was to take a taxi to the capitol building, but a friend on the same flight offered to let me ride downtown with him and his dad. Once in the parking garage, my friend's dad revealed that his 13 year-old daughter was very ill, quite possibly with swine flu. He confirms that he could be a carrier. On the upside, I didn't have to pay for a taxi ride downtown. On the downside, I may have been exposed to the swine flu.

Four hours later I was back on an airplane, this time headed to El Paso. On the upside, it was a direct flight. On the downside, the 89 year-old man sitting next me was the inspiration for the saying "say it, don't spray it." He was actually a very interesting man - thumb was sewed backed-on after cutting it off with a laso, spent a night wondering the wilderness on his 85th birthday, broke his hip sky-diving at 86.

Once in El Paso, I rent a car. The guy behind the counter scares me into buying extra insurance for hail damage based on bad weather the night before. Does it storm while I have the car? Yes. Does it hail? Of course not.

I stop at Wal-Mart before heading for my resting place for the night. I realized that although I have a B.A., and will soon have a J.D., I couldn't get a job at the Wal-Mart in El Paso because I don't speak Spanish fluently. A few years ago I went to America in Mexico (Cancun); now I've been to Mexico in America.

Fast forward to 9 p.m. I'm asleep on Grandma Cuca's couch, exhausted from my day of traveling and re-learning Spanish. It's raining cats and dogs, but the rain is not what wakes me up. Instead, I wake up to a lady banging on the screen door. Due to my groggy state, I was unable to comprehend the Spanish explanations for why a car was parked in the front yard or why a man with a plastic sack on his foot was escorted to the back room of the house. I decided to go to bed and accept this string of events as normal.

Friday monring: The lady who was banging on the screen door last night slept on the couch. I offer to give her a ride to the hospital, only neither of us knows the way. Like me, she is only visiting El Paso. Unlike me, she is from Chihuahua and does not speak any English. I sucessfully ask her for the address for the hospital and put into my Garmin. The next 15 minutes are a combination of akward silence and me forcing myself to strike up converstaion in Spanish. I discover that her name is Pilar and she is the primo-hermano (cousin-brother) of Chris, whatever that means.

The day goes by quickly and before I know, it's time to head home. Grandma Cuca feeds me a late lunch and tells me that if I ate her food everyday, I would get fat. I thank her for the fattening food, say my good-bye's, and head back to lubbock, via a connecting flight in Dallas.

Three interviews, five flights, possible exposure to swine flu, showered by an old man's spittle, and a refresher course in Spanish: Way too much for just two days.

Subleasing

During my ten-week stay in Seattle, I subleased an apartment that was basically 400 square feet of nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing. There was a lot of pink toule, a collection of cheap horror movies, a skull shaped candle, and dinnerware made by cavemen. My "landlord" was an opera singer, and judging by her apartment, she was a starving artist: No TV, no microwave, no real bed, no real couch, no real anything for that matter. A pile of charred remains lived in the oven, as if something spilled and then fused to the bottom. The basement smelled like the dumpters that lined the hall. The maintenance man needed a lot of maintenance himself. My neighbors were covered in tatoos, visible only because they wore very little clothing. Parking was a nightmare.

I had a great time in Seattle, and I even felt at home in my apartment after I hid all the creepy objects in a cubbard, rearranged the "furniture," and made-up the bed (my landlord slept on a nap mat in the closet). I loved that I could walk to work and downtown shopping (Macy's, Sephora, Loft, Anthropologie).

Do I miss Seattle? Yes. Do I miss my apartment in Seattle? Not so much.

Oh Motherboard

The saga surrounding my HP dv2000 notebook continues, or maybe I should say it's coming to an end. Today, during what I thought would be another routine day at the law library, my laptop refused to power on. I swiflty carried my computer to the tech support office, where I received nothing but grim looks and sad news. A few quick tests produced an initial diagnosis: the mother board needs to replaced. The mother board is the brain of the computer, and brains are not cheap. To make matters worse, preliminary research has revealed that my particular model number is excluded from an extended warranty program created to respond to the overwhelming number of defective mother boards in HP laptops.

I casually asked the tech support personnel if another laptop surgery was a viable option, explaining how my husband had brillantly replaced the screen only months earlier. They advised that replacing a mother board is much more difficult and knowledge intensive.

Tomorrow tech support will "slave" my hard drive, which is geek for save what's stored on my hard drive but currently unaccessible.

Oh, HP, why do you do this to me?

Friday

The thermostat in the classrooms at school was stuck on Friday. It was stuck on 52. As if it wasn't hard enough to sit in class on a Friday afternoon.

Dictionary

cholo
\cho-low\
noun

1. In modern usage in the United States, the term "cholo" usually indicates a person of Mexican, Mexican-American, or Indio descent, who is associated with a particular Southwestern culture. The term is used in Caló slang, but it in turn has infiltrated into mainstream American English use, specifically in association with American youth movements such as the "lowrider" subculture, or the hip hop scene in general. The word is sometimes associated with Hispanic gang culture, especially in popular media, but the origin and history of the modern usage is somewhat complex.

2. See Also:


Definition provided by wikipedia.

Home Again

My last week in Seattle was HOT! We're talking record highs of 104 degrees. I had multiple Seattle-ites refer to my ability to handle such heat due to my Texas origins. I quickly reminded them that everything in Texas is air conditioned. Seattle, on the other hand, is not equipped for such hot temperatures, so I basically melted on the bus ride home, only to melt some more as I sat by the window in my apartment hoping for some relief. I think the weather gods were preparing for my return to Lubbock.

Now that I'm home, I remember how much I love my little apartment. It's clean, it's cool, and it's mine. And best of all, it comes with a companion.

Last Weekend In Seattle

In my uncle's lovely garden.


During my last weekend in Seattle, I visited Mt. Rainier National Park.


A scenic overlook near Mt. Rainier.


These big black bugs loved the smell of my hair. You can see one to my right and one sitting on top of my head...


Me and my Great Grandma. I was in town to celebrate her 97th birtday with her.

Three-Day Weekend

Fog


Volunteer Park, Seattle.


Court House in Tacoma.


Look closely and you can see Mt. Ranier


Tamoca Narrows




Tacoma Museum of Glass - this is the glass blowing studio.


Cool reflection.




My "Bite of Seattle."


A frozen banana ended a day full of good food.


In Manchester, Washington


Hiking in Manchester

Cassette v. CPU

Today at work I needed to listen to a casette tape. Here is a picture of the cassette player I used.



I placed the casette player on top of my computer's CPU, only to discover that the two machines were equal in size. But that is where their similarities ended, as their style and processing capabilities are polar opposites.

I had to ask for help operating the casette player twice. The first time I found myself fussing at a high-pitched, high-speed playback that I could not correct. By the time the second snafu popped-up, I was more than willing to admit that I could not remember much about casette tapes.

So I can't operate a bulky, out-dated cassette player without help - so what. I may have been born in the 80's, but by the time I was old enough to buy my own music, casette tapes had been replaced by CD's. It was a bit humorous, however, that I couldn't figure out the few simple buttons on the tape player but had no problem with my much more complex computer.

Culture Barrier

Today I found this strange little Japanese store filled with ten times the stuff you would find in an average dollar store. The store carried just about anything you could possibly need, and a lot of stuff you would never need, including multiple shelves of tiny porcelain plates and cups. All of the tags were in Japanese, contained metric measurements, and prices in foreign currency. After aimlessly wondering around for a few minutes, I asked the cashier if the store carried Chapstick. Actually, I was pretty sure that in some small corner there was a small box of Chapstick tubes waiting for me, it was just a matter of finding it. The cashier's eyes lit up upon hearing my question, as if to say, "I know exactly where we keep the small tubes of Chapstick among these endless isles of junk." As I followed her to what I thought would be the end of my pursuit, I was impressed that she could navigate her way through the store so quickly. I was a little disappointed, however, when she escorted me to a tall display of chopsticks. I think this was the result of more than just a language barrier.

Ninety-Six but not Slow

A couple weeks ago I was at potluck with my great grandma. She is 96 years old and probably weighs her age. As we were waiting for our table to be called, she told me that the potluck line moves too slow. Whatever you do, do not be deceived by my great grandma's aged body, and do not get in the way when it's time for her to eat.

Fireworks on the Fourth

Chris and I went to a park on Lake Union to watch the fireworks. The sunset was great.


The place was packed. Even Lady Liberty was there.


The park is called Gas Works park because of the old refinery equipment still in the park. Note that this is just a fraction of the spectators waiting for the show.


The backside of Seattle, at night.


Awesome fireworks!

Trip to Marrowstone Island

Chris and I went to my aunt's beach house on Marrowstone Island. On the way we drove through historic Port Townsend.


This is a really cool court house in Port Townsend.


Chris loves hot dogs. We decided that this particular hot dog is suicidal.


At the beach.