Where's @weswie

I have a fun game for you to play if you happen to be at the US Open. I played it in March at Indian Wells so this is also an appropriate #tbt (throwback Thursday) post. It's kinda like Where's Waldo but substitute Waldo with @weswie.

So how do you play? Easy, you find @weswie, come on now you could have figured that out on your own! Silly question. Now let's see where I found her on the tennis grounds at Indian Wells. 

I found her at the East side entrance/box office

 Oh look it's @weswie and Nobu at Stadium 2

I caught her trying to get into Stadium 2 before it opened (Roger might be practicing there, she had to try to get in )

In the shadows of the trees.

Peek-a-boo I see you @weswie and lovely new shade structure.

Sitting with the recyclables...who took this picture, what an awful angle. 

With zombie Rafa, seriously though WTF?!

Sitting outside the main stadium in the comfy chairs.

Going to her seat.

Inside the main stadium almost all alone.

Waving to friends across the court.

Taking pictures, how she can most often be found.

 And if Roger should lose please spare a kind thought for a sad @weswie you may see. Buy her a drink or an italian ice to help soothe her pain.

Water Conservation

I've recently become aware that more people are concerned about the drought than I thought so I figured why not visit some easy water conservation techniques pretty much everyone can do. 

Let's start with the easiest, turning off running water. How much simpler than that can get it get, right. Now let's talk about running water and when you should be turning it off. In the bathroom, while you brush your teeth and even soap up your hands or face. In the kitchen, when rinsing fruit and veggies, they don't need running water, a small bowl of water will clean them just as well. If you feel you need running water to do these things do them over a bowl and collect that water to be used elsewhere. 

Using this collected water is also a lot easier than you think. My bathroom sink often has a small bowl in it and I wash my hands into it and use this water to water a potted tree on my patio. If you don't have any plants to water but need a way to use dirty water, flush your toilet with it. This is a lot simpler than you think, you don't need to open up the tank and do anything complicated, just pour water into the bowl. You might have to figure out the best amount of water to use for your toilet, a small bowl that fits in my bathroom sink isn't quite enough to get a good flush in my bowl so I use a bigger container I add to and can then use to flush. While we are on the subject of toilets, there is the old if it's yellow let it mellow, if it is brown flush it down. If you think this is gross please take a minute to remember that we purposefully take perfectly clean water and piss and shit in it, that's gross and wasteful, letting a little bit of watered down pee sit for a bit isn't that gross, toilets have lids and they are in a room that is dedicated to them. 

Other simple way to save a lot of water is catching your shower warm up water, I don't know about your shower but mine takes a bit to get to a temperature I am willing to stand under. Put a bucket under the faucet or shower head and collect the water while it gets up to the perfect temperature for you to shower in. This water is clean and can be used for pretty much anything you want. You can use it for soaking dishes, bring it to your kitchen sink and pour it in. While you are showering, be quick. I am awful at this one, but I shower once maybe twice a week so I guess if I take a 15 minute shower it isn't as bad as a daily 15 minute shower. Also think about turning the water off while soaping and shampooing, there are shower heads (you should be using a low flow shower head for optimal water saving) out there with shutoff valves on them. I have one that doesn't shut off the water completely but takes it down to a trickle, which can be collected as well, so the temperature of the water doesn't drop when you turn it back on, no one likes a sudden shot of cold water. 

When it comes to washing clothes and dishes, always ALWAYS run full loads in a washing machine, it's just a waste to do otherwise. If you are a homeowner, don't have a real grass lawn, just don't, it's not worth it. If you really want one or you must then water it at night and don't water it too often and find a kind of grass that works best for your area. Make sure your sprinklers aren't watering sidewalks and driveways. If you live in a complex, voice any concerns about the way they water, if you notice a lot of runoff or sprinklers watering sidewalks or driving/parking areas, let management know. Same goes for any shopping or public area you frequent and notice these things, let management companies know about any leaks or water wasting you see from their property, they pay for all this water, they don't want to just waste money. 

In the kitchen, if you are a coffee or tea drinker, only make enough hot water or coffee as you are actually going to drink. If you make a lot of pasta or steam a lot of foods use this water for plants or even in soups or other food you're making, it can add a bit of extra flavor. If you are really serious about trying to reduce you water footprint I suggest you do a little research of your own on how much water goes into the production of your food. Yes you need to eat but do you need to eat that much red meat or that much chocolate (YES, YES I DO!), both have very high water footprints. 

There is one thing I don't think you need to worry about, doing the ice bucket challenge for ALS. If you want to do the challenge but feel guilty about the water, use shower warm up water, it's more than enough to make some ice with and then dump on yourself. Or just DONATE, but that isn't as fun and isn't spreading the word as much because let's be honest seeing someone freak out when they get soaked with ice water is a lot more fun than seeing a picture of a donation receipt and there is no way that is ever going to go viral the way this challenge has. I think the benefit of something like this way out weighs the waste of water and I am pretty sure anyone who has or knows someone who has ALS greatly appreciates the viralness of this phenomenon. (Did I just trick you into reading a post about something when it was really about something else, yes, yes I did)

GoT talk with my brother

We added Starz to our cable in January so we could watch their pirate show Black Sails, I also used it to watch The White Queen on demand. After Black Sails was over we decided we would get rid of Starz and pick up HBO for their new show Silicon Valley, which has a few of our favorite funny people in it (Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, T.J. Miller, and Zach Woods) AND is created by Mike Judge.

Late Friday early Saturday morning I was looking for something to watch and was checking out what was available on HBO on demand and what did I see, Game of Thrones. Did I want to jump into this now? Not particularly but all of it was available on demand so.....why not?! Everyone tells me there are plenty of reasons for not doing it, and they are the same for doing it. That night I watched four episodes. On Sunday I watched the rest of season one. While I was watching the second half of the season I texted with my brother about GoT, I choose my brother because we have similar levels of nerdiness and he is used to my ridiculous questions and way of thinking and he HATES spoilers so I know he wouldn't spoil anything, something I do not trust some of my friends with. Also as you will see he has the best responses to my ridiculous questions and has a few of his own. So here are my thoughts on GoT so far and my conversations with my brother about it.

There will be spoilers so DO NOT READ if you don't want SPOILERS.

Speaking of spoilers, I don't know the fate of many characters, been pretty spoiler free but of course I knew the king wasn't going to be around beyond this season and the fate that awaited Ned Stark. I also know Robb Stark dies at some point, season 3 I think, because I listened to Richard Madden on the Nerdist podcast and they mentioned Robb being dead, no specific spoilers with that death. And I knew Drogo died, or something happened because Momoa was no longer on the show, which honestly was one reason I didn't pick up watching after the first season because I like Jason Momoa and why would I watch a show he was no longer part of?! These are the important reasons to decide on watching something. I also already knew about the Lannister twins and Catelyn's sister and her son so I didn't have a reaction to that previous known information.

A few thoughts on the first episode: Pressing play and seeing it start with the creepy white walkers would have been nice to know, I probably wouldn't have started watching at midnight by myself in the dark. I don't like scary movies, I am not too affected by them now but as a kid it was pretty bad. That being said I do still have a problem with dark creepy things in a creepy dark forest, don't know why but I always have, I am afraid of the dark and dark evil things in the dark scares me still to this day. Luckily that scene wasn't too elaborate or long. Keep away the dark creepy evil forest when I'm watching late at night.

Since I stayed up until 4 am watching the first four episodes I was not texting with my brother about those episodes as specifically as I did the later six but we did cover some of that stuff in my texts. My text are in blue with the speech bubble coming from the right side and his are pink with the speech bubble coming from the left side.

Seriously, if during season one someone would have told me Mark Addy was the king I would have given a lot more thought to watching it. As I've heard recently GoT didn't really take off to where it is today until late in the second early in the third season so I guess that's why no one told me about him. If you are a fan of Mark Addy like I am and like fantasy watch the BBC's current show, Atlantis, he plays Hercules, yes THAT Hercules, no he did not lose a lot of weight for the role.

I have never seen anything Terminator related, I do know Sarah Connor is a characters name in that 'verse but I didn't know what connection there was to the GoT 'verse or if he meant the actor to another actor IRL, psh who talks about real life people.

Getting the Chunk reference is one of the reasons I like talking about stuff like this with my brother. 

Yes, yes we did go from Goonies to how a molten gold death would not be bloody to Doctor Who characters. This is EXACTLY why I choose to talk about this with my brother. 

Please excuse the nerding out about Emma Frost writing The White Queen, it's fucking ridiculous! RIDICULOUS!! 

These people get it: A real life Emma Frost writes The White Queen

Oh also, The White Queen isn't about Elizabeth 1 it's about Elizabeth Woodville, so many Elizabeths so little remembering of who is who.

More nerdiness, The Tick reference and WoW playing.

Prepared because of Whedon and Moffat and most importantly, 

YESTERDAY WAS REX MANNING DAY!!!!

So those are pretty much my thoughts on GoT. I clearly think about the important things. 

White carrots

Parsnips look like white carrots.

Calling something a white carrot is HILARIOUS!

This obviously is a story that needs to be told.

Let's rewind about 12 years, Rich and are on a date at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants. While enjoying our food he says how much he likes the food especially all the white carrots in the beef with broccoli (he might have said how there weren't a lot of white carrots in his beef with broccoli, it was a long time ago and small details have escaped me, he commented somehow about the amount of white carrots).
Of course I respond with, "Excuse me what?!"
"The white carrots." I continue to stare at him blankly as he picks up one of the said white carrots to show me.
This begins my almost unstoppable laughter and I attempt to explain that those aren't white carrots they are bamboo shoots. We do not agree on this point, they ARE white carrots, his mom told him so.
After dinner we go back to his place and he asks him mom about white carrots, she says, "Oh yeah, I just told you they were white carrots when you were a kid so you would eat them. I guess I never told you the truth."
Again I start laughing A LOT.

That is the story of how I told my adorable 19 year old boyfriend that he has not been eating white carrots but bamboo shoots.

Now let's go back to this past Saturday (it might have been Sunday, I am bad with details even when they are less than a week old). We are at the grocery store and I need a parsnip for a recipe I'll be making later in the week. We are at the veggies and ask him to get broccoli and a large parsnip for me while I go get mushrooms and garlic. He says he doesn't know what a parsnip is, I respond with it looks like a white carrot and naturally start laughing a lot. He gives me a bit of a death glare and walks away as the people around us are looking at me because I am laughing in a very amused and slightly evil way. I guess most people don't find things to laugh about when shopping for veggies.

And that is the story of white carrots and why it is funny to us. So funny in fact when I told this story to my mom she took a sip of her water right when I got to the part that Rich didn't know what a parsnip was and she knew exactly where this was going and the water almost came out her nose. She had to rush over to the sink and spit her water out.