really? snow for my birthday...

You shouldn't have. But thanks anyway!

gw service challenge update

On Tuesday, I went to GW's volunteermatch website to record the few hours of shelf-reading we'd done on Sunday (wherein I unintentionally redid the shelves I've done before but that's another story) only to find that the website was down. I wasn't sure at first that it was the website so I did a little searching around. I confirmed that the website was down but also found the main website for the challenge which I hadn't seen before.

The website happened to answer a question that I'd had: are they in any way indicating how the students are doing in reaching the goal?

Answer: yes, they are with this handy little clock looking thing below.

I'm not sure how up-to-date the data is as shown on the clock but it at least indicates that in 4 months with 4 months to go, the students are very nearly half-way there. I'm impressed.

I hope my measly 12 hours is helping!

too. many. options.

Last night to our surprise, we received a box from Will's sister, Kate. It contained our Christmas and birthday presents. We were happy to get the presents but we would have been happier had Kate been feeling better and not on call so we could have seen her more at Christmas.

Our big present was that each of us got a gift certificate to Timbuk 2. There are many things you can get from Timbuk 2 but the coolest is that you can design your own bag using their bag builder and they will make it for you just how you want it. Super cool.

Will's pretty much got his figured out. He's already got a small messenger so he went for the medium. A little maroon here and there. And he's about finished.

As for myself - I'm somewhat drowning in the options. I've picked my bag:

A small messenger

But here's why I'm drowning in options (and why I'm a nerd as you'll see in a second):

The menu to build the bag.

As you can see there's a myriad of options.

Now on to why I'm a nerd. I wanted to know how many possibilities there were.

So, I first had to remind myself of the difference between a permutation and a combination. In a permutation order "matters" but in a combination it doesn't.

So if your set is {C,A,T} and you have to pick 2; your permutations are {CA, CT, AC, AT, TC, TA} and your combinations are {CA, AT, CT}.

It matters which panel is which color; hence, it's a permutation. But none of this accounts for being able to reuse an element of the set. That's math I didn't look up.

I then had to look up to remind myself how to determine how many permutations could be made from a set - n!/(n-m)! where n is the number of elements, in this case colors and fabrics, in the set and m is how many are being chosen, 3 - one for each panel. For combinations it's: n!/(m!(n-m)!).

So here's exactly just how many options there are (not accounting for reuse):

Holy COW!

And that's just for the 3 panels, not to mention the logo (32 colors) and lining (10 colors) choices!

Anyone want to offer up some suggestions on the bag? Or more info on the math?

P.S. if you do, here are the colors I don't like: flame, gold, orange, burnt orange, citron, purple, light green, rusty, army, lavender, and hot pink.

g&p - 4 months

Time to start the new year!

fitness goals:

1. Lose 10-15 lbs. yeeeah.... I gained 5lbs for the holidays. oops.
2. Be able to lift 25-30 lbs dead weight with one arm at a time. I suck.
3. Be able to touch my toes. I've discovered that it's doable with yoga. I signed up for the next session which starts on the 7th.

projects: (in no particular order)

1. change thermostat to programmable in order to save more energy
2. refinish kitchen table - I still have paint stripper and still haven't started
3. recaulk tub
4. sell extraneous stuff on eBay and craigslist - I gave up on selling the chair, 3 lamps, and hockey skates and donated them to Goodwill on Monday. If they didn't sell after 3 postings, they aren't going to sell. I still need to take "inventory" before I start selling on eBay.
5. organize the basement, in particular label all the bins and boxes - maybe in January or February or if we get snowed in again.
6. wedding albums - professional - I sent our photographer a check on the 28th so I think we should have it in about 4-6 weeks!
7. clean wood floors
8. figure out our bedroom furniture
9. honeymoon scrapbook
10. clean Snuffles
11. get my knees checked out - my physical got pushed back to the end of January so no progress here until after then.
12. Christmas stockings - Leia, Sara, Autumn, Austin and Will.
13. sort through stuff at parents' homes - no further progress
14. get the bathroom fixed - ceiling, drains, and tub faucet - I have to call maintenance about the ceiling
15. organize recipes - They made it into a binder but still need to actually get organized into some comprehensible fashion
16. organize all of mom's pictures from the 80s and 90s.