A Lofte Life

Today, Dave and I went out to eat. Dave ordered two fish tacos, ate them, and didn’t die!

Most of you probably don’t understand why this is worthy of such excitement. Well, you see, Dave is deathly allergic to fish.

Dave grew up eating a lot of fish as a child. His dad would fish in the Monterey Bay regularly and smoked salmon was a common meal at the Lofte house. This was, in fact, Dave’s favorite food. One day, when he was about 10 years old, Dave’s throat swelled up when eating fish and was rushed to the hospital. The doctor concluded that he was allergic to fish… a very sad day for Dave.

Over the past 18 years, Dave has had reactions to fresh water fish, shell fish, and saltwater fish. Once, he was in a room with garbages filled with rotting fish and this was enough for his throat to start to swell. Another time, someone lied to him and told him that fish sticks were chicken strips (what an ass).

A couple years ago we were at a restaurant that served a lot of fish and I stressed to the waiter that Dave was allergic to fish. The waiter informed me as if I were an idiot that Dave’s chicken plate would not have any fish. I made it clear that even a little fish juice would be enough to trigger a reaction and the waiter rolled his and told me he’d tell the chef. Sure enough, Dave had a reaction to the chicken. The waiter nervously ran off when I told him and came back shamefully admitting that his chicken was indeed cooked in a sauce with fish juice. I wanted to punch him.

This spring, the dentist that my mom works for tried to convince her that she had too many heavy metals in her system and needed to do some special detox. My mom believed it was a hoax, but played along anyway. She had to make some weird little cilantro mixture every day for like a month to see if there was improvement. You see, my mom and I can’t wear earrings without our ears itching. It doesn’t matter how expensive of a metal the earrings are made of, our ears itch. Even necklaces bother my mom. Well, her dentist assured her that this little detox would change that. So when the month was up, mom put on some earrings… and her ears didn’t instantly itch – improvement indeed!

Next time she was at work, she told her boss she was now a believer and wanted to know more. He told her about this bottle of liquid you could take and it was supposed to be an excellent heavy metal detox. It’s called BioRay NDF Plus. One bottle of this stuff was good for two people… and it cost $250! Well, my mom, being the good mom that she is, bought two bottles – one for her and my dad and another for me and Dave. No, Dave and I did not have a choice in the matter.

Let me tell you… this process sucked. We called it the “drops”. This is how it worked – the first day you took one drop in the morning and another drop at night. (By the way, these are eye dropper drops… tiny.) The second day you took two drops in the morning and two more at night. The third day… you get the idea. This pattern continued until day 26 when you were doing 26 drops twice a day… TWENTY-SIX!! It’s is not fun counting out 26 drops from an eye dropper! Then you had to continue doing these 26 drops until the bottle was gone. The whole process probably took about 2 months.

So what does this have to do with Dave’s fish allergy? About halfway through this obnoxious detox, Dave did some research on it. He found out that one of these heavy metals was mercury… which is in fish. Further research showed that doctors will have people who are allergic to fish go through detoxes like this and it often gets rid of the allergy. Suddenly this whole detox thing this didn’t seem so bad.

A couple weeks ago, Dave bought a package of smoked salmon to test if the detox worked. It took him all day to eat the package because he was nervous, but he ate it all without a reaction!

Now today we went out for fish tacos. He did not eat slow and cautiously this time, instead he devoured them and I had my phone ready to call 911. Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my phone and Dave got to finally enjoy some fish… something he hasn’t been able to do for 18 years!

Oh, and I can wear earrings without my ears itching…

Last week I experienced a first and shot portrait photography. My cousin Michael is a senior in high school this year, so I took his senior pics. It was pretty fun and I think I did a decent job considering it was my first time. I was most nervous about poses and brought my mom along to help. It also helped that Michael is photogenic and a natural poser anyway  We went to two different locations: Carmel Mission and the Monterey City Hall.

I took 416 shots total and a good 100 of them were of Mikey flipping his head back to “fix his hair”. Sometimes his hair would look the best I’ve seen it in my life and then, bam, a hair flip. So funny.

I want to share with you my favorites. Feel free to provide feedback, both negative and positive are welcome.

This first one was taken at Monterey City Hall. I saw this archway and thought it was a great location. My only disappointment with it is that I wish I would’ve noticed his cell phone and asked him to take it out of his pocket.

This next one isn’t your typical portrait since it’s taken in landscape, but I still like it. This was also taken at the Monterey City Hall.

This one was taken at the Carmel Mission. He’s standing on some stairs so he had to look down at me. I wish I had something to elevate myself so that I could’ve been a bit more level with him.

The next one went under some obvious photoshopping. I loved this hallway, but when it was all said and done, the original photo just wasn’t that great. The contrast between him and the dark hallway wasn’t dramatic enough. It just looked like bad lighting. So I went ahead and adjusted the midtown contrasts and increased the color saturation. That version looks pretty cool in my opinion as well, but there’s something about turning off the color that makes this shot best. Taken at Carmel Mission.

This was a last minute spot we chose in front of City Hall. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the typical leaning against a tree pose, but went with it. Well, I like it.

Of all 416 photos, this last one is my absolute favorite. I love the pose, the look on his face, his hair, everything about it.

If you’re interested, you can see more shots here. What do you think?

This past weekend was spent at the lake with a bunch of my family. It was fun and good to see aunts and cousins that I haven’t seen in awhile. While there, I decided to experiment with some night photography. I don’t have much experience in this area and thought it would be fun.

The first two were taken on a very clear night.

These last two were taken on a night that started out clear and rapidly turned cloudy. As you can see, we were dangerously close to getting caught in a thunderstorm. This would’ve sucked since there were 5 people sleeping on top of the houseboat, including me and my husband.

This first one had an exposure time of 30 seconds. So as you can see, the clouds were moving pretty quick.

Once I started seeing lightning, I got really excited as I have always wanted to capture a lightning photo. It never failed though, every time lightning struck, I had my camera pointed in completely the wrong direction. After about 10 failed attempts (probably at least 45 minutes) I finally got it!… well, kinda. I’m sad the the bolt runs off the edge of the frame. This ended up being that last strike of lightning in our view and my very first lightning photo ever! =D Now I can’t wait for another thunderstorm.

This past weekend Dave and I hung out with our good friends Adam and Shawna. Shawna’s family has a cabin in Pinecrest, CA and we stayed there for a night. This cabin was the cutest little house ever! The whole thing was made of knotted pine and it was recently remodeled with beautiful tile floors, granite counter tops, and modern bathroom. It had one bedroom and a loft. I could easily live there if it wasn’t so far away from normal civilization. We had a great time and so did our dogs. Adam and Shawna also have a dog, Lucy, and she is quite the little princess. It irritated her to see our dogs play with each other.

Part of the cabin’s appeal was that it was out in the woods away from it all… but with that comes the lack of things like cell reception and internet! I knew there was a chance of being disconnected, but didn’t really believe it would be the case. When we were about 20 minutes from the cabin, I pulled out my iPhone to tweet my location and to my dismay read the words “No Service” across the top! My heart skipped a few beats and I quietly panicked. I wasn’t about to voice my anxiety as Adam, Shawna, and Dave would tease me relentlessly, so I just looked out the window and mentally prepared myself for the next 30 hours with no connection to the outside world.

Shish Kabobs!

I felt much better after getting to the cabin. It smelled so good outside and the cabin was absolutely adorable. We went for a nice walk outside with the dogs, barbecued some shish kabobs, played hearts, and had a grand ol’ time. The next morning, Dave congratulated me on not having a breakdown. Is it sad that I could tell that he was actually proud of me? I can’t help that I love technology so much! But I was pleased to learn that I CAN survive a short amount of time without it. And you know what, it was kind of refreshing! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I’d gladly pack my iPhone and MacBook away for any length of time for no reason, but I’m willing to give it up from time to time for things like a weekend at cabin in the middle of pine trees with two of my most awesome friends, or a vacation on the lake with my family (that’s for you, Mom), or a few days in Yosemite for one of my best friend’s wedding

That last one is what’s coming tomorrow. My friends Kevin and Corrie are getting married in Yosemite on Friday and we leave tomorrow. I’m a bridesmaid This time, I’m expecting not to have any cell reception that way if I do, it will be a wonderfully pleasent surprise! We shall see!

Yesterday, I was home alone all day without a car. So instead of sitting at my computer for the entire day, I decided to walk Ally and Epsilon to the park in a nearby housing development. It was such a beautiful day for it too! Ally got to chase a lot of squirrels and Epsilon rolled on random stuff… good times. Anyway, I brought my D90 along and wanted to share some of the pics I got.

You may notice that Epsilon got a haircut and I left his mustache. I’m not too sure how I feel about it. I think it’s funny, not necessarily cute

Me with the puppies

Epsilon and Ally

Me

Close-up of Epsilon

Ally's tongue

Epsilon

Ally

And here’s a quick video of Epsilon being a weirdo and rolling around.

A little sidenote: that video was taken with my iPhone 3GS and loaded directly to YouTube It’s the first video I’ve posted to YouTube that way! Very cool!

Yay! I am still playing around with different themes and the look and feel of the blog. So don’t be suprised if it looks different each time you visit for the next couple weeks

Thank you @zyber17 for your help

So this is just a quick post to share the video I made of our vacation and share a Flickr link to photos from the lake trip. Our vacation was at Lake Oroville in California.

We had a lot of fun! My sister and her boyfriend were able to show up a few days into the trip. My brother wasn’t able to come We have another big vacation in August though and he should be able to make it to that!

Enjoy!

Flickr

So it has once again been too long since my last blog post. This past month has been pretty busy. So the 2 of you who read my blog, I’m sorry :/

I am now pretty much finished with the school year. I have a few more labs to grade and a “final” to attend at a nearby bar. Yes, you read that correctly, instead of a final, our class will be hanging out at a bar. My professor’s email informing us of this was so awesome, that I just have to share it with you:

Folks,
We will have our last presentation Wednesday. I will also return some homework and the midterm, and make some comments on the latter. Then we will do evaluations.
My habit of long standing is to retire to a nearby bar for a little socializing in lieu of a final exam. This is a celebration of the completion of two quarters of hard work learning about automata. I see no reason to break this tradition, but if you have objections, now is the time to air them. In the absence of such objections, I propose we meet at Jordan’s at 6:30 on Monday, the day of our scheduled final exam. (The final is scheduled at 2, but that’s too early to drink beer, and [name removed] said she had a final at 4.) Kindly let me (and everyone else) know if you’d like to make other arrangements.

Is that not the most awesome thing ever? Even better was that in the next class I got my take-home exam back with a grade of 85/85!! I about had a heart attack trying to contain my excitement.

Much of the free time I’ve actually had to spend away from school has been at The iPhone Blog. I have recently started writing reviews for them as well as moderating their forums. I have a lot of fun doing this and love the group of guys that run the site. TiPb also had a video contest recently and I won! I spent quite a bit of time making this video and was so excited to win! I really wasn’t expecting to.

Chocolate Puddie Pie

A recent “hobby” I have started is baking. I have long wanted to bake for my husband but never really have. So I bought a Williams-Sonoma Pie & Tart cookbook and have baked 4 pies: banana cream, chocolate silk, cinnamon apple crumb, and chocolate pudding pie with cookie crumb crust. All of them came out wonderfully except for the chocolate silk. I think it actually came out ok, the recipe was just way too rich for Dave’s or my liking. I’m quite proud of myself for sucessfully making all 4 of these pies because food preparation has never been one of my strong suits. I’m the girl that took 3 boxes of Mac & Cheese to get it right. I may not be able to cook, but I’m discovering that I can bake! This makes me happy. I feel like a better wife after each pie I make!

Dave and I will be driving back to CA soon. In fact, we’re beginning our journey on June 3rd, my birthday. Kind of a lame birthday, huh? I figure it’ll be fine, I’ll make it fun. I’m planning to make a mini travel vlog out of it. Also, Sims 3 will be out for both Mac and iPhone, so I will have plenty to keep me busy during the drive We’re planning to make a slight detour through 4 corners just for the heck of it. I know it’s not something that exciting, but what the heck, why not check it out?

Well, it’s 2am, so I’m going to bed! More blogging to come!

Don’t you love how elegantly I always end my blog posts?

…that I don’t what to get my PhD.

When I first decided that I wanted to major in mathematics, the goal was to get a master’s degree and teach at the junior college level. I did very well as an undergrad and received a lot of encouragement from professors to shoot for the PhD. I was never really enthusiastic about the idea since another one of my life goals is to be done having kids before I’m 30. But as my husband showed interest in grad school (in math) as well, I started to play with the idea. When it came time for grad school applications, I only applied to 4 schools and only 1 of them was for a PhD program. I decided if we both got into the PhD program, then I would give it a shot. Well, we did!

I am now nearing the end of my first year in grad school. It has been a great year and I’m enjoying it. However, I just don’t think I want to go all the way. My school specializes in analysis and algebra and I’m not particularly “excited” about either one of them. I feel as though that is a definite sign to not spend 4 years of my life researching in those areas. I honestly don’t think I’ll enjoy it.

I’ve never been too thrilled with the idea of research in the first place. It’s not what I enjoy. I just want to teach. What makes me want to get a PhD is so that I can teach the “fun” upper division courses. At the junior college level, the highest level mathematics course I’ll ever get to teach is multivariable calculus.

After some serious thinking over the past couple weeks, I think it will be worth it (for me) to end my education at the master’s degree. The only con I see is not teaching upper division classes. But there are many pros:

1. I won’t be spending 4 years of my life researching something I’m not passionate about.
2. We won’t being raising a family and going to grad school at the same time (only Dave will be).  Also, we wouldn’t have to try to time pregnancies so that I deliver in the summer.
3. I won’t be 29 years old when I finish; I’ll be 25.
4. I’ll be doing what I love in a little over a year.
5. I won’t have to study for months and months to hopefully pass the qualifying exams.
6. I’ll be able to afford a Mini Cooper sooner! =D (threw that one in for fun)

I haven’t made any definite decisions, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna stop at the master’s. I won’t be disappointed in myself.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of working for the goverment. Having a job at the NSA just seems so cool. They are the number 1 employer of mathemticians. I think I would really enjoy that type of work. However, I do not want to live in D.C. NSA has a division here in Denver, so if there’s an opening when I graduate, I might just have to apply!

On Thursday, Denver (and most of Colorado) was hit with a Blizzard. All the schools shut down, so I also had my first snow day

My husband was supposed to teach a class at 8a and didn’t realize school was canceled. He found it odd that the building was locked, but just let himself him. He went to class and wrote all his intro stuff on the board. While waiting for students to arrive, he checked his email: “The University of Denver will be closed today due to high expected snowfall”. He got home around 8:30a and I flew out of bed with excitement of the news! But then I couldn’t help but laugh at him when I checked my phone.

The University had sent a text message and left a voice mail in addition to the email. You see, my husband and I are always arguing (playfully, kinda) about how he never has his phone with him, or it’s off, or it’s lost, etc. If I didn’t make him, he wouldn’t even have a phone. Well, since he ignores his phone, he wasted his time going to school that morning and I got a good laugh

I know that this blizzard was mild as far as blizzards are concerned, but I was amazed by it. Remember, I’ve lived on the cenral coast of California all my life, I’m still getting used to snow in general, let alone blizzards!

Well, Ally absolutely loves the snow and she couldn’t get enough of it. She’d be out there shivering but still not want to come inside; She just continued to wag her little nub and look at me with that happy little face. Epsilon, on the other hand, found Thursday to be a rather terrible day. He was cold and miserable. Since he’s so little, it was very difficult to find places for him to go to the bathroom without him drowning in snow.

Anyway, here’s a video I put together of our blizzard experiences. Enjoy! (yes, I know I’m a dork).