Saving the Earf

In case you weren't aware, Charlie is on a quest to save the planet, little by little. He's dragging me along for the ride - not kicking and screaming, mind you, but I do have a hard time breaking bad habits. It's because of him, however, that I eat healthier (we're into Organic foods these days), exercise (still working hardest on getting that one to stick), recycle everything and even now we've started composting.

Sure, composting isn't a new idea by any means but we are new to it. The compost bin is on it's way to our house as I sit at my desk and write this. Last night the practice of scraping all of our leftover food & scraps into a ziplock bag commenced. A few stinky onions, a pomegranate rind and a mango peel later, let the decomposition begin! I'm kind-of excited to start making some good compost/soil/gardening material on our own. With so much of our food, etc that we waste it only makes sense to use it for something good - so we'll see how this endeavor suits us.

To recap, these are the things we're doing to be more "eco-friendly"; you can do them too!:
1. Replace most of our lightbulbs with the more efficient kind, compact fluorescents! They come in flattering color tones to suit your tastes. Don't worry, your house won't look like a garage!
2. Compost our miscellaneous waste (can include hair-like from the vacuum cleaner with all of your dog sheddings, food scraps) .
3. RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE (cardboard from those frozen meals and pizza boxes, plastic bags and wrapping materials/styrofoam, yogurt cups). Just make sure your recycling company takes the materials you wish to recycle - we can't get glass recycled here in Houston, it's verboten due to lack of demand for glass. C'mon H-town, get with it!!
4. Fuel efficient cars - both of our clown cars get at least 28-30 mpg on the city street, mid 30s on the highway. Not bad.
5. Conserve energy - Turn off the lights, computers, TVs etc at the power strip or unplug them when they're not in use. Our new TV and dish network system takes 5 minutes to boot up if you shut it off and that's annoying, but killing the planet is even more annoying, so we do it.
6. Keep your thermostat low in the winter, high in the summer. Use a programmable thermostat people! Luckily for us we're frugal with our A/C and keep our house at a toasty 80 degrees in the summer and ...well, cold in the winter. A couple of degrees can save oodles of CO2 emissions and also save money on those energy bills! We are fans of blankets for warmth and sweat for a cooling mechanism - embarrassing but true.

Please be kind to the earth and help us do our part to save the poor lady from our badness.
Peace out.

This message brought to you in part by:
The Marshiks
"The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook: 77 Essential Skills To Stop Climate Change" (David de Rothschild) http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Global-Warming-Survival-Handbook/dp/159486781X

2008

Happy New Year!!
Last night Charlie and I brought in 2008 with some good friends (John, Nujoud, Beth, John, Toby, Tanner and various others) at the Wilke Winter Wonderland new year celebration. Party hats, poppers, champagne drinks all flowed throughout the evening as we ate snacks and played Rock Band on their new PS3 gaming system. Yep, you heard me correctly: Rock Band. It's this game where a bunch of people can play different instruments in a band together - Guitar, Lead Singer, Drums and Bass Guitar (if you have a 2nd guitar). So we jammed out on what is now my new favorite instrument - the drums - and sang terribly. It was so much fun!

We didn't forget to kick it old school with MTV Jams '99 and a little O.P.P. (Yeah John Wil-ke!), so don't you fret :) Dance Party Wilke house was also in full effect - even if it meant just Beth, John and I were throwing our hands in the sky, romping around their living room. Charlie did join in for a little dance action, which was key. At 3:30 am we finally headed home (since Beth said "F-you all, I'm going to bed"...no, just kidding - but she did go to bed.) - Jaime was DD and Charlie was his usual Chatty Cathy self after he'd been boozin' it up all night. I think Wilke found a new favorite drinking partner in Charlie...and who could blame him?

Anyhoo, 2008 started out great. So don't hate.

We hope you all had a safe and happy New Year celebration - see you soon!

Merry Merry!

Hello everybody! It's been a wonderful year this year and we have been blessed with many good things - much travel, good memories and best of all great friends and family!

Christmas passed this year without much ado, but we got to see our friends 4 days out of 5 (or something like that) and that was quite fun. Jaime got a case of the flu (we think) over the holiday, but that didn't stop her from playing some serious Guitar Hero and mastering "La Grange" from ZZ Top...well - I wouldn't say she "mastered" it, but she channels and harnesses the power of her Dad every time she plays, so it's like she is the master of it. Charlie plays Guitar Hero every day, for at least a good hour. That's all we seem to do lately. Sleep, eat, Guitar Hero. Good times. We even got our friends hooked...poor saps...but they seem to enjoy it as well.

Today Jaime is at work (with probably only 15 other people on the NASA campus) for a half day and Charlie is hanging with the stink-pups. Tonight is a New Years Eve party at the Wilke's house (John and Beth and Syd) - COME ONE COME ALL!!

If you're out tonight, drive safe and drive sober.
Much love and Happy New Year!

...see you in '08.

Jaime's Motto

Get Your Mind Right.

Back in the U-S-S-A

Well, after a 21-hour travel day yesterday, I finally made it back to good ol' Houston. It was a lot of fun while I was in Munich - great people, great food, good fun.
I should be headed back sometime in January for Round 2 of the 1E mission launch attempt. I miss it already. Maybe next time I go there will be snow on the ground? That would be lovely!

***NEWS-NEWS-NEWS***
On 12/9/2007 my sister Faith gave birth to her first child, Noah Steven Turner. He weighed in at a tiny 7 lb 12 oz, 20" long, full head of hair. Mom, Dad (Shawn) and Baby are doing wonderfully. Now I'm an Aunt on my side of the family (4 times over for Charlie's side already)!

This weekend I will be headed home to MN to visit my sister and her family - what a whirlwind of a month! I leave on Friday morning and return to Houston on Sunday night.
CONGRATULATIONS TO FAITH AND SHAWN!!
http://www.shawnandfaith.spaces.live.com/

Deutschland!

Hallo meine lieblings!

I've been in Germany for a week now and it has been pretty fun. I arrived last Friday (11/30) to the Munich International Airport, got my swanky, black Opel hatchback (only 226 km on it! brand new!), turned on my Tom Tom for a little GPS guidance and headed toward the town of Pasing (or thereabouts) to my hotel. The Gaestehaus Im Forum (http://www.gaestehausimforum.de/) is the hotel/apartment area that a bunch of us people are staying at, which is great. The people are really nice and I really like my room. It has a kitchen and everything in it, which has come in really handy!

(view of bed/living room, kitchen area, view of double doors looking out onto the rooftop patio I have, which overlooks the little square here).

We hit the Kristkindlmarkt in the Marienplatz of Munich for some Christmas Market goodness, another small market at the Seehof Castle not too far from here, took a quick road trip to Garmisch to check out the skiing there, saw the Olympicstadion, and have had some great dinners (Hofbrauhaus, Paulaner Brewery) and yes, I've even had some bier (Helles?). Garmsich was really pretty and after probably 15 years of not skiing (at least!), I think I'll try to hit the slopes with my hubbie if he ever comes out to visit - after launch and around Christmas.

(Natalie, Spicer, Me in a sleigh at the market)

(Me, Spicer, Natalie in Garmisch on a mountain I can't remember)

Unfortunately today we did not launch the space shuttle for STS-122/1E, the reason I'm here in Germany in the first place. :( BOO! We'll try again tomorrow, so everyone send good wishes by way of the Kennedy Space Center!

That's all for now - peace.

ps: I miss my man and my puppies.

pps: Faithie is still pregnant and last I heard was having contractions at 10-minute intervals. C'mon little Noah, no guts no glory! Love you Faifer!

Run, Part II

Per Jaime's special request, here are my race photos:
http://www.yoursportingimage.com/Thumbs.asp?BibNbr=marshik&event=1512&Locate=Locate

Veterans' Day 25K

As I'm sure you're all aware, Sunday was Veterans' Day. Although we were trying to make it a tradition to throw a Veterans' Day partay, we were not able to do it this year for a few reasons. So instead I (Charlie) ran my first 25K (~15.5 miles) run in the Theatre District in downtown Houston on Sunday morning.

Jaime and I were at a friend's birthday partay the night before, so I was only able to get a little more than three and a half hours of sleep the night before. Considering this, I was able to impress myself three times over:

1. I made it out of bed and to the race!

2. I finished the race (and earned a superfly microfiber pullover by doing so)!

3. I came out with a respectable time (in my mind at least)!

Here is the video of me crossing the finish line- I'm the topless guy with the beefy build:

It turns out that this is currently one of the top ten downloaded videos on the net right now. Good ol' net...

It's hard to pick up, but the crowd is actually going crazy when my name is announced- I think the were having problems with the mic or something. I've heard rumors that there were even riots after my performance- 2003 UofM hockey championship style.

Anyway, my chip time* was 1:57:54.2, which is 7:36 per mile. ~7:15 per mile is kind of my marathon goal pace, but I'm more than 20 seconds higher than that at the moment, so it's a long shot. But if I do it in the Houston Marathon (which I am currently registered and training for), then I would qualify for the Boston Marathon. How cool would that be? My time was good enough to get 9th of 59 in my age-gender group and 137th of 1600+ overall, so I'm pretty happy with it.

No pics yet, as they won't be posted for another couple days. But when they are, I'm sure I will have some unflattering snapshots to share.

Until then...

*If you're not familiar with chip time: in many races, you tie a little chip to your shoe that registers your time when you run past mats placed in various places throughout the course. Not only is this able to ensure that nobody cheats by skipping laps, but it gives you a more accurate race time since not everybody can be at the front of the pack when the race starts; your time doesn't start until you cross the start line.

Armadillos Abound

Recently we have discovered that our puppy Sammie has a special bond with armadillos. Since we've had her, she has always been able to sniff out piles of armadillo poo in our backyard. She then proceeds to roll into it, which is a great time for everybody- she'd even convinced Kirby to try it once, but I think that was a one time deal for K-dog.

But even more recently we have caught her randomly going nuts for no apparent reason at all: pacing the house, whining, trying to look out all the windows, etc. It turns out that she's been sensing the presence of her arch-nemesis, the armadillo. So we've been opening up the backyard to her, at which point she proceeds (often with a confused Kirby on her heels) to sprint into the darkness. When we're quick enough to grab a flashlight and shine it out there, we often find them chasing small, armadillo-shaped animals. It seems that Kirby has started to get into the act as well, spotting the little guys from her post in the second-story windows.

So we were able to snap a few photos of the little nocturnal 'dillies (as we call them) who've been digging up our mulch beds.

Halloween 2007

Yesterday was the holiday of Halloween, as most of you should know. Even with limited time and resources available this year, we were still able to pull off a decorated home to celebrate the occasion. Charlie and I even carved pumpkins at the eleventh hour, but we still made it.

We had a quite a few kids show up, including one group of at least 15 little grubbers! The majority of the kids were very polite and said "Trick or Treat!", but there were a few ungrateful, poor-mannered kids, who weren't nearly as fun to give candy treats to (eg: "Put the candy in the bag!").

My favorite part of the evening was when an innocent, blonde, 5-year old girl dressed as a Princess with her Barbie treat bucket said of our door decorations: "I like the blood on your door!" That cracked me up!

Below are pix of our house...note: we hope to improve greatly next year!

Enjoy!

Jaime's Pumpkin (above)

Charlie's Pumpkin (above)