Baracky II

You know it's a bad day at the office...

when you see this on the door across the hall.

Star Wars meets Flash Dance

I can have it all!



My parents have an old home video of my sister and I running around in shower caps and Superman capes to this song (playing on the record player!), and I've always had a fond memory of watching this movie with my dad.

Chuck and I rented it about a year ago and it was NOTHING like I remembered! The music was great, of course, but the movie was terrible. Of course, it has the positive message for our young people that if you work hard and sleep with the right people, you too can achieve your dreams.

I really hate 80s music but the soundtrack is great.

The original:

I'm around!

I have been woefully absent from the blog and I apologize. I promise, summer pictures are coming soon! Wedding! Vacation! Russell Olympics! Dogs! Family! Updates!

I am currently training for another half marathon August 31st, preparing for an audition the week after, and getting ready to move in exactly one week.

In the meantime, let's have a PHOTO CAPTION CONTEST! Leave your caption in the "comments" section below. The funnier the better!

Here's the photo, a sneak preview from Annie's wedding.

Celebrity Sighting

Do you listen to NPR's Performance Today? Fred Child, who is the host of the show, is here at the School of Music today giving a lecture and he just showed up in the Dean's Office. Is this what you thought he looked like?

Several months ago Noah Adams called my office. That was pretty cool. He sounds just like he does on the radio!

Chuck's Slideshow from Barcelona

Here are some of Chuck's pictures from his trip to the competition in Barcelona!

Niskode'-Dossett Wedding Review

June 1st, 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Indiana - A local couple exchanged marriage vows yesterday in an emotional ceremony blending cultures and families. Amanda Niskodé, a PhD student in Higher Education, and Aaron Dossett, a Kelley School of Business alumnus and now an executive for Target, married before family and friends in the Hall of Murals at the IU Auditorium.

The organization and planning of the celebration was evident from the moment guests walked in the door. Events unfolded seamlessly as friends of the couple and Auditorium staff greeted guests, gave them their programs, and guided them to their seats. The intricately designed personal guest book, featuring photos of the bride and groom, and the exquisite programs, tied with ribbon and emblazoned with the couple's double-A custom monogram, were designed by the bride's sister and best woman, Priya.

The proud parents and bridal party entered the hall to beautiful and well-timed music provided by a string ensemble, complete with a handsome conductor directing. The groom and groomsmen wore high-buttoned tuxedos, while the bridesmaids wore gold traditional Indian saris over mauve blouses, reflecting the bride’s family heritage. The bride, wearing a deep blue sari with gold trim and a haute couture designer gold blouse, descended the staircase and paused before proceeding up the aisle, clearly overcome with emotion. She was adorned with traditional henna on her hands, arms, and feet, and her makeup was impeccable. The couple joined hands and walked up in to the mandap, a traditional Hindu wedding canopy, draped with beautiful white cascading flowers.

The presiding minister shared his advice, learned from his own many years of marriage, about the equal partnership of marriage, and its sacrifices and joys. The bride's aunt, who had traveled from India, and the couple's friend Jennifer gave readings from Scripture about love. Priya, brimming with joyous tears, read a touching poem by the writer e.e. cummings. The couple emotionally gave their vows, lit a unity candle, and exchanged rings and floral garlands. The minister declared their union and introduced the couple with their new shared name, Aaron and Amanda Niskodé-Dossett. As the couple recessed down the aisle, the groom refrained from giving high-fives, as he had during the rehearsal, though clearly he was exuberant, as was the bride.

The guests, after greeting the beautiful Amanda and handsome bearded Aaron, were met by an exquisitely decorated dining room, featuring orchid centerpieces and white candles, again designed by the talented Priya. Tables were designated by locations special to the couple. There was a fun twist on the wedding favors. Guests were given a custom mug marking the date of the wedding, featuring the double-A monogram, and were invited to fill them with varieties of colorful candy, displayed in various sizes and shapes of decorative glass bowls.

Soumya, a close friend of the bride, introduced the wedding party and served as a witty emcee for the evening. As guests dined, best man and brother of the groom, Lee, gave a toast to the bride and groom as they started their new life together. Priya offered a touching account of learning of the couple's engagement, and her appreciation of Aaron's respect for Amanda. Best man Ben humorously remarked on the groom's evolving sophistication through the years, and ended with a touching tribute to the good match the couple made.

After enjoying dinner, the guests were treated to the ornate wedding cake, ivory-frosted and adorned with exquisite gold beading, with the choice of chocolate or vanilla flavors. Dancing proceeded with a fervor, and guests celebrated into the late hours, joyous at the union of two treasured friends.

For more pictures of the event, please CLICK HERE.

Home from Spain

After a long airport saga, Chuck is home safe from Spain. He didn't make it to the finals, but he conducted well, and it seems like he learned a lot and got really inspired. He also got a day in Barcelona to see the sights.

Besides all of the fantastic architecture and interesting shops, he also saw two wire fox terriers.

Chuck will have his Barcelona slideshow ready for viewing for the Russell Olympics. It is the event for "Who Can Stay Awake the Longest?" If there is a tie, Dad can do a slideshow for the finals.

You may have heard that Indiana has had some flooding. Someone from the university took these pictures on campus last week. It is better now, but there was one day that it took me 45 minutes to drive home (a mile!) because there was so much flooding and so many detours.


Our apartment is fine, but my friends Pam and Emily had a lot of damage at their places.


The only problem that I encountered was that the roads to the airport were closed most of the weekend. But by the time Chuck's many-times-delayed flight arrived, one was open again (though down to one lane in one section).




There is a little bit of drama in my office. The three ladies from the other Deans' Office are camped out in mine because they have been installing new carpet. They were supposed to be here Monday through Wednesday. That was before they installed the carpet - crooked. So they will be here at least until Monday. It's crowded but also kind of fun having them here - they're all very nice.

My friend Susie was vacationing in Montana and got to go to a Michelle Obama event. She got HUGGED by Michelle!!!

Susie and a few other people are coming over tomorrow evening to do an Obama button assembly line - hopefully it will be a lot of fun.

Actualización de España

That's supposed to mean "Update from Spain."

Chuck conducts at 7 p.m. tomorrow (1 p.m. Eastern time) and it turns out that there are 69 competitors, not the 50 people that the competition said they accepted. He said he is in good company, with a lot of people he had heard of, several friends, and talented people.

Good luck Chuck!

Update on Chuck

I just heard from Chuck. His flight was delayed two hours, but he made it to Barcelona and then to the competition site. He's checked into his hotel and the competition people have very kindly allowed him to compete tomorrow instead, last after everyone else. What a relief! He said no one there speaks any English so he was grateful for his high school Spanish. He is resting and eating and later tonight he gets to go over and watch the other competitors conduct. I'll post more updates as I hear from him.

The last few weeks

The action never seems to stop around here. Saturday was Aaron and Amanda's beautiful wedding (pictures coming!) and we had a wonderful time, though things were pretty hectic in the lead-up to it. Now, Chuckie is stuck at the airport in Newark. He is supposed to be in Barcelona for his big conducting competition - the opening ceremonies are starting right now. The first round lasts for two days, so hopefully he will catch a break and be able to compete the second day. He will be there until next Sunday. And of course, we are really looking forward to Annie's wedding (and vacation!) in three weeks.

I never reported on election night. Someone told me that they were sorry Obama lost Indiana, but I was actually thrilled with the results. We came within 2% and surprised everyone. My town went about 65-35 for Obama. After the victory party, I got to hang out with my friend Pam at the city clerk's office while they counted all the absentee ballots, until about 1 a.m. We were the second-to-last county to give final results. Pam was in charge of calling in results to the national campaign so they could determine delegate allocation. It was very exciting to be there and see everything happening first-hand. And that was the night that changed everything - Tim Russert and the rest of the media declared that Obama would be the nominee. It felt great.

(I wish it would hurry up and be official though! Hopefully it will be tomorrow night.)



One of our weekends involved the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra picnic at Thompson Park. We brought Lenny and we all had a great time.


The president of the board presented Chuck with a surprise check - the orchestra had collected a "summer social activity fund" that was really to sponsor Chuck's trip to Spain for the competition. It was so nice.


Dan, who works in the physics department at IU, showed us all how to make our own ice cream in a ziploc baggie. That was a lot of fun.


Lenny was paying very close attention, but did not get his own ice cream. He got plenty of treats that day though.

This weekend

The Rob Riggle story from Bloomington finally aired this week! The rally starts about 3:50 into the clip.


We are so excited because this weekend is the wedding of our friends Amanda and Aaron. Plenty of pictures to come!

Bloomington Obama Rally

Last Wednesday, Barack Obama came back to Bloomington for a big rally in Assembly Hall (the same place where the Dave Matthews concert was and where we saw the Dalai Lama last year).


My friend Pam hooked us up with great seats, overlooking the stage. There were 13,000 people there, though some reporters said up to 17,000.


The rally was really fun. I enjoyed it a lot more than the town hall meeting in Columbus. Maybe it was because I was more relaxed because I knew I wasn't on TV!

Apparently, Rob Riggle from The Daily Show was there, but I haven't found any clips of him online.


So I am glad that everything is finally winding down, and still can't believe that Indiana matters so much. Unfortunately, I think Hillary is going to win by about 6 points here.


The good news: Bloomington will help Obama - a lot. The campaign has been doing a great job getting IU students to vote before they left after final exams. USA Today reported that "The heaviest absentee voting has come from the Bloomington area, where Indiana University is located, and where 12.5% of the county's 77,343 registered voters have already cast ballots."


I voted back in April, and Chuck voted yesterday. He had to wait an hour and a half in line.


Fired up and ready to go!

GO OBAMA!

My Half-Marathon

I DID IT!!!

Saturday morning was the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon, which I have been training for since January. I was one of 35,000 participants in this year's race, up in Indianapolis. It's the largest half-marathon in the country. The weather was gorgeous.

I was assigned to start in "corral" S (yes, we were herded kind of like cattle) and it actually took me a full 20 minutes to reach the starting line once the race began. But you have a chip tied to your shoe that counts your actual time once you cross the line.

Chuck was there to cheer me on (these are all his pictures). He caught this picture of me VERY close to the beginning - as you can see, I am still smiling and looking comfortable.

He was smart because he stood right next to a giant Obama sign, so it was easy to pick him out in the crowd on the sidelines. There were a lot of spectators.

I also wore an Obama bumper sticker on my back, but it fell off in the first mile. I didn't want to wear my Obama t-shirt and get it all sweaty and gross.

It was a bad sign when I started getting tired around mile 4. I was feeling how I expected to feel around mile 8 at that point. I was walking through the water stops (which were plentiful, thank goodness!) but my goal was to run the entire way other than that. So I kept on chugging along.

Around mile 6, the course enters the actual Indy 500 race track speedway. Or, as I now call it, the Never-Ending Asphalt Loop of Death. That was the most miserable 2 and a half miles I have ever run. The track is so big that you couldn't see how close you were to completing it. It just kept curving and never ending.

I really wanted to walk after that. But I knew I would be really mad at myself if I did. So I didn't.

It was nice because all along the course (except on the speedway track) there were live bands playing, and people cheering and ringing cowbells and holding signs. People would even say your name because it was listed below your number on your bib. It was really fun. (Except for the whole pain/exhaustion part.)


Chuck was about a third of a mile from the end to take my triumphant picture. He was waving to me, and the lady in the pink shirt to the left thought he was waving at her. I am just to the left of the guy in the red shirt.

You'll notice that everyone around me is walking. But I am not. I am running in my little shuffling baby steps to the finish. (I was okay when the speed-walkers passed me, but a little demoralized when the regular walkers started passing me!)

It felt so good to finish. I can't even describe it. First of all, because I had been running for over three hours and I was sick of it, but most of all, because I actually accomplished it. I never thought I could have done that. It took me 3:11:48, about half an hour longer than I expected!

There were lots of goodies at the end, of course. Have you ever seen 35,000 bananas in one place?

You can see pictures from the local TV coverage HERE. (Including shots of the Never-Ending Asphalt Loop of Death.)

Thank you to everyone for your support as I made my "improbable journey" (as Barack says) to the finish line!

The Empire Strikes Barack

This guy is a genius. And he keeps using my favorite movies!

Big events

Obama pictures coming soon!


This will be me on Saturday, crossing the finish line of the half-marathon up in Indy. I have started hydrating and carbo-loading...and getting nervous!

Assembly Hall, IU Bloomington Campus, 8:30 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m.!

Obama news, good and bad

Barack Obama is coming to IU! Tomorrow! After work!!


I never finished the story about Obama's FIRST visit to Bloomington. After my big day in Columbus at the Obama town hall event, I drove up to Indianapolis because Chuck and were going to the ISO, and my 15K was the next morning. I got a voicemail from my friend Pam, saying "Drop everything and get over to Nick's RIGHT NOW!". [Nick's is the local bar/hangout on Kirkwood Ave.] But I was already halfway to Indy. It turns out that Obama came to the women's portion of the Little 500 race, made famous by the movie Breaking Away, and then wandered down Kirkwood to Nick's to shake hands!


The lady in the picture with the white hair is Pam. She got to shake Obama's hand, though she had already met him several times.


Here's some of the local coverage:

Barack Obama waded into Bill Armstrong Stadium on Friday and was greeted by a colorful array of spandex and a raucous student body. The race announcer credited him with bringing the good weather.

Friday's race was the women's contest - 32 teams in a 100-lap relay race around the stadium's quarter-mile track. This was THE sporting event in town. Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan, celebrating his birthday, was there. Local bars carried the race on television. And, of course, Obama and his entourage caused their own commotion.
...
A few minutes later, in downtown Bloomington, he drew a crowd of hundreds to the street as he made his way through Nick's English Hut, a popular and cavernous beer and hamburger pub. The race continued on television screens.

So what's the bad news?


Some **jerk** keyed my car this morning, and the one next to it. Both cars just happened to have Obama stickers. We were parked on the circle not ten feet away from the School of Music building - they vandalized the cars in broad daylight. Besides this scratch, there is one all along the right side of my car. How sad. Sometimes I really hate living in Indiana. I know this probably could have happened anywhere, but there are a lot of idiots out here.

Just a week left. I'm happy the craziness will end soon. Hopefully I won't get any more battle scars.

Happy Patriots Day!

Today is Patriots Day, and the annual running of the Boston Marathon. It was a year ago today that I promised myself that I would complete a 5K...and beyond! And here I am, two weeks away from my first half-marathon!

On Saturday the 12th I ran in the training 15K up in Indianapolis. Despite having gorgeous spring weather for the last two weeks, that particular day was windy and freezing cold.

I ran six and a half miles before deciding that I really didn't care enough about running the entire way to keep pushing myself. It was miserable. So I walked, and forgave myself. I walked a little over a mile, and then I ran to the end. So I figure I ran about 8 of the 9.3 miles.


Chuck cheered me on at the finish line. I finished in 2:02:22. Here I am, holding all of my loot - potato chips, a Panera bagel, banana, cookies - good stuff!

So I am going to do one more "long run" on Wednesday to prepare, but next week back off a little bit to rest up before the race. I am determined to run the entire half-marathon!

If anyone has any good suggestions for my iPod playlist, I'd appreciate it. I'm going to be running for almost three hours, so I need a little variety! I can only play the Rocky song so many times. :) My dad was nice enough to purchase a song on iTunes for me (hee hee, thanks Dad!) and I have my mostly-cheesy training tunes, but send me your ideas for some snappy music!

BARACKY!

In honor of my favorite movie and my favorite candidate...