The Weather and Everyone's Health

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

New and Notable

What's happened since last Thursday?

Thurs. evening went to Big5 Sporting Goods (in El Cerrito) on a tip from running coach. She knew I was looking for new running shoes and didn't want to spend $80. Big5 was having a sale, and I got a nice pair of Saucony sneakers for $30. Also, got a pair of every-day wearing shoes (they look sort of like Birkenstocks) for $13. Unfortunately, the uppers are leather, but I really needed a new pair of walking-to-BART shoes and they were so cheap and good looking. Also bought two 3-lb weights, $3 each. Interestingly, the 5-lb weights were about $5 each, but I thought I'd come back when I needed them.

Went for a run Friday morning that I was pretty happy with, and did some core work and upper body work with the new weights. Good stuff. Feels good to be approaching "in shape" again.

Last week my group presented a poster at the Human Brain Mapping conference on research that I helped with. For some reason, I am listed as second author! "The role of the fusiform gyrus in irregular- and pseudo-word reading: a VBM study on neurodegenerative diseases." Brambati S, Kalra P, Ogar J, Dronkers N, Miller BM, Gorno Tempini ML.

Yesterday I played with my brass quintet at City Hall for the Mayor's PrideWeek kick-off event. We got to see the mayor up-close and personal. He looks just like he does in photos--maybe even taller. There's a lot of the famous hair gunk in the front, but the top/back seems drier; I think this suggests he does his own hair. What a guy. (We had a substitute trombone player because our usual one is at home with her partner and their new baby boy. 9 lbs, 60 hours labor. Yikes! We are taking them a lasagna tonight.) There was cake at the City hall event: chocolate with apricot preserves between the layers and marzipan on top. Very impressive.

- posted by k @ 12:18 PM