My absence is pretty hard to explain.  I’ve had more time in the past two weeks than I’ve had in a long time.  And I’m about to start a crazy year of working at the hospital and finishing my last year of classes.  I’ve been enjoying a random assortment of things so in no particular order, here goes:

I purchased these hiking shoes (Women’s Vasque Breeze, no GoreTex) last week on sale for $80 as well as a pair of REI Merino Wool Light Hiking Socks.  They are pretty comfortable and not as heavy as the leather hiking boots that are out there.  Most of the reviews I’ve read say that they don’t require a break-in period so I’m glad about that since we are headed to Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend.

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I spend most of my web surfing time reading through my Google Reader.  Especially with the convenience of Firefox’s Google Reader extension that has the option to load the website inside the reader, there’s really no reason to leave my Google Reader (except to read the Freakonomics blog which strangely doesn’t work inside the reader).  I really like the Google Reader iPhone app although I wish there was an option to “expand all” so that I don’t have to click into each feed to read it.

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I discovered this CD (Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone) on IMEEM and I’ve been enjoying it ever since.  The sound of a sorrowful cello is beautiful.

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I’ve been also trying to incorporate Evernote into my life.  I’ve been using it for school and also for brainstorming for future ideas.  I used to carry around a little yellow notepad to jot down ideas and books I wanted to remember to pick up or artists to check out.  Now that I have the iPhone Evernote app, I’ve ditched the little yellow notepad.

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This is the first time I’ve watched a political convention and I’ve really been enjoying it.  I wish CNN would show more of it instead of some of its pointless commentary but otherwise it’s been pretty good.  It still bothers me when the crowd starts booing or chanting in response to the speeches — and the speeches can get kind of hokey sometimes but most of the time I am inspired and encouraged by what I’ve been hearing.  I’m looking forward to Obama’s speech tonight although I might not be home to catch it– thank God for YouTube!

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Ever since Barcamp I have been using Twitter.  I noticed that I don’t twitter very much when I’m out of town.  We’ll see if that changes.  I wonder if there’s a correlation with being able to twitter and not feeling the need to write blogposts as frequently.

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I’ve been asked to join the Yelp Elite Squad!  I’ve been on a Yelping hiatus but now I’m back in full force! This is probably why they ask people to join the Elite Squad.  The main perks of being elite are that I get invitations to their parties, special deals and discounts, a free t-shirt, and pride!  This is kind of like when the husband and I got Gold status at Dave & Busters.  Too bad we don’t really go there anymore.