Installing ThinkUp

Well, I believe I have successfully added ThinkUp to my site. Only problem.... I'm pretty sure the wordpress app only applies to Twitter! Problem because I haven't posted anything since our last dailyshoot assignment. I was kind of excited to see all the facebook data since I'm a facebook junkie, but I can't seem to access any of it.

Anyway, I created a separate page for this application, because I wasn't really sure what it would do. I started off my downloading a random plug in (which is why my header is gone, bye umw soccer!), The first five I tried said they would screw up my header, so I just decided to change it and be done with it. So, once I got a random plugin (it was actually a twitter plug in ha-ha), I went to editor, erased all of it, and c/p the thinkup data. I'm getting ahead of myself.

So BEFORE all that, I went to the ThinkUp site, and clicked the download for the wordpress app. I opened the file folder, opened the PHP document, and when prompted, I clicked the option to open it with Notepad. From there, I copied the entire text that appeared in notepad, and pasted it into the plug in editor. As a side note, this sounds like it took 2 minutes. It took me about 30 before I figured all of this out. phew.

So next, in order to figure out what to do, I opened the ReadMe file for ThinkUp. There, it tells you to go to Settings in wordpress, choose ThinkUp, and edit the settings to include your twitter name. It also gives you things to paste into a post (things with [brackets] around them, not really sure how they work). So I posted the brackets into my new ThinkUp page, and fingers crossed went to check it out. It came back with, There are not recent tweets from StratCat. Success!!

Doesn't sound like success, but at least I know it works! So I went ahead and tweeted something. Still hasn't shown up on my page, but I'm not sure what the turn around time is. Anyway, yay for archiving nothing!

Homage to Sport Science

So, as much as I would LOVE to recreate my own episode of sport science, I do not posses any of the technology needed to do so. However, I do own equipment to do basic physics experiments in my kitchen! With the help of my family and a few friends, I've created my own Kitchen Science video.

I left a lot of this unedited in order to truly capture the essence of my family dynamic. I hope it gives you a good look into the Strat family, because not only am I obsessed with science, as much as I hate to admit it I'm a big fan of my family's quirky nerdiness, too.

Ankle Update

So there have been a few more twists in the adventures of Karen's ankle. I went to my pre-op appointment last week where my doctor was going to read my MRI and CT scan. He determined that it is inconclusive what exactly is giving me pain (either the extra bone or the sprained ligament) so therefore he wouldn't perform the surgery. He then told me to wear a walking boot for 8 weeks to heal the ligament. I obviously was not very pleased with this conclusion! I went from being able to have a simple surgery to fix my problem to not even knowing what is wrong with my ankle anymore!

I decided to get a second opinion from my teammate's ankle doc, whom she really likes and recommended. So this new doctor took a look at all of my images and took a few more x rays. She determined that the ligament (which I've been wearing this stupid boot for a month now) is not what is giving me pain (which is what I've been sayin the whole time! I didn't even know that ligament was injured). She also pointed out chips of bone in the ankle joint which have come off of my tibia and fibula (the two leg bones that make up your shin), but those aren't the problem either. She thinks that the extra bone definitely broke off of my talus, and has reattached itself. However, it's possible it could have reattached itself in a different position, therefore getting in the way of my ankle's range of motion and causing me pain. The procedure to fix this would be to simply remove the extra bone, approximately 3 weeks recovery, which was the original surgery I had planned on getting all season.




OR, she thinks that I actually fractured my talus and since it went undiagnosed it wasn't allowed to heal properly. Normally, bones take 6 weeks to heal, especially in young people. It's possible that it never fully healed and the blood supply could be cut off to the bone (bones have a lot of blood vessels running through them). She said worst case scenario, if I keep running and doing high impact things my talus may actually collapse on itself. Scary. The procedure to fix this would be to actual drill into the bone, which would stimulate bone growth and ossification. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that would mean at least 6 weeks in a non weight bearing cast, plus more recovery time on top of that.

So, next week I am getting a bone scan. I wasn't really sure exactly what this entailed, so I went to WebMD. "For a bone scan, a radioactive tracer substance is injected into a vein in the arm. The tracer then travels through the bloodstream and into the bones. This process may take several hours. A special camera takes pictures of the tracer in the bones. This helps show cell activity and function in the bones. Areas that absorb little or no amount of tracer appear as dark or "cold" spots, which may indicate a lack of blood supply to the bone (bone infarction) or the presence of certain types of cancer. Areas of rapid bone growth or repair absorb increased amounts of the tracer and show up as bright or "hot" spots in the pictures. Hot spots may indicate problems such as arthritis, the presence of a tumor, a fracture, or an infection."
So based upon the bone scan, the doctor says she will be able to determine what treatment will solve my problem. I went to the hospital today to pick up the initial x rays I had done the night of the injury. The two men working there were somewhat confused as to why I needed x rays that were taken over a year ago.... I told them it confused me, too! Hopefully these can help rule out some more possibilities of the mysterious ankle injury.

My Obsession: Sport Science

So, I would like to share with everyone a show that I love called "Sport Science." Barely any of my friends have heard of it, so I really wanted to spread the word. This show is a fascinating mix between athletics and physics. They slowly break down all of the minor components of the physiology that goes into simple (and not so simple) athletic movements. The show brings in all sorts of professional athletes, most of which are pretty famous, and has them run the tests for the scientists to analyze. There is a lot of interesting and unique technology that provides all of the data. So here's a taste of a few of my favorite episodes, in order to let you get a better feel of this show.



Who can squeeze tighter, a boa constrictor or a wrestler giving a head lock?
Who can run backwards faster, a sports car in reverse or a corner back?
Who can run faster forwards, an ostrich or a wide receiver? (they seriously had an ostrich)
How well can a receiver catch a football in a variety of circumstances, including being hung upside down?
What types of lies can a golfer hit a ball out of? Sand, popcorn, jello, spaghetti?
Who can punch harder, male or female boxers of the same size?
How much can a person eat in food eating contests?
How difficult is it to bite off someone's ear like Mike Tyson did?
How force is required to break a backboard?
Who can run faster, a zombie or a golfer? (just kidding, that ones from you J Groom)

What's really embarrassing, is that I recalled all of these episodes from memory... in about 2 minutes. Anyway, to pay homage to this great show, and maintain the theme of my blog, I really want to share this episode. It compares the force of blocking a punt in football to standing in a wall and blocking a shot in soccer. As a defender, it's REALLY important to block shots. Granted no one we play against can kick the ball as freakishly hard as the pro in this episode, but it still sucks to be so vulnerable! Hope you like it! You can find more clips of episodes on youtube if you're interested!

Meet Dubs

Meet Marianne Dubinsky, also known as Dubs. She attended Blacksburg High School where she ran track and played soccer. She is now a junior at UMW and plays defense for our team. Her freshman year, she gained all-conference honors after scoring two goals and adding one assist. She also started all 19 games. Dubs didn't play her sophomore year, but this past year she consistently started, playing both midfield and defense.






Marianne is a jokster. She tells the best jokes, always has a smile on her face, and wears a lot of colorful clothes. She's just a fun person to be around! She's very smart and a hard worker, both on and off the field. The past week we have been doing baseline fitness testing. Dubs tore apart the 1.5 mile run, finished 40 seconds faster than the 2nd best time. So far she can do the most pull ups on the team, too! Dubs is an athlete, that's for sure. I'm not sure what her major is, but I do know at one point it was math, then chemistry. I also think she wants to go into food science. Maybe her mind changed after she had been working at McDonald's for a few weeks (she worked at mcd's across from jepson before they started the renovation on it). Basically, dubs is awesome. How many of your friends have worked at McDonald's?

Fan Fiction: Part 2

So, I just spent an hour at seaco with Amy, where we were brainstorming our obsessions. I learned that Amy LOVES Gilmore Girls, french fries, some book series about a bounty hunter, the twilight books, Outback, The Notebook, Mean Girls, Taylor Swift.... the list goes on! She immediately would get extremely enthusiastic and would slightly bounce up and down in her seat from excitement. I, on the other hand, racked my brain for something that would make me jump for joy like her. We decided that I love eating, but don't like to cook. I love dancing, but don't know much about music. I know nothing about celebrities or movies or tv shows. I'm pretty lame, apparently.

Something that I really like to do, on the other hand, is explain to Amy (despite her lack of interest) the biology and chemistry behind all sorts of things, mostly fitness related stuff. Such as why bones heal faster than ligaments, why lactic acid is produced in muscles, even how we have evolved from monkeys. Once I even explained to her why ice cream gets slightly less sweet and becomes gritty over time. I love talking about this stuff! It was around this time, that my mind took me back several years ago to an AWESOME show that I would record on DVR all the time. This show is "Sports Science." I don't think any more episodes are being produced, but for the one month where I think I watched every one of them, I loved it. So there is my obsession: analyzing the science behind everything, but more specifically the science of sports. All of which, was captured in a TV show. Amy's gonna be mad, I'll probably dig up a lot more stuff to explain to her!

Fan Fiction

Ugh. I'm trying to think of something, anything that I'm crazy about for our last project. I've come to the conclusion that, I'm not obsessed with anything. Ask any of my good friends, I'm really not! This is kind of embarrassing because according to Prof Groom's prompt, obsession is what drives the internet and it's creativity. Soo.. sorry I'm not contributing my share. So I don't really watch any shows frequently... I don't have a favorite song or artist or movie. I'm very nonchalant about pop culture. I guess I do really like to dance... and I'd dance around in my room to nsync when I was younger. So if we have to create some sort or mash up again, maybe I'd do something about dancing and music videos or something..? I also like watching football, but I haven't been good at following my skins lately (ugh, last night. now that was embarassing) so I can't honestly say I'm obsessed with them. I kinda feel like I'm going to struggle with this last assignment due to my lack of obsession :(

Google Maps- Ballston

Here is my tour of Ballston! Hope you like it!

Movie Mashup- How to Train Your Mean Girl

I definitely struggled with this assignment a bit. The windows move maker didn't have all of the features that I wanted, and this limited me on how much editing I could do (within our time frame and without me going nuts). I had tons of ideas in my head of where I wanted things, what order, a second added here, a couple seconds deleted, but I couldn't quite make them a reality. I got pretty close, but I'm not completely satisfied with the outcome. Hopefully you can pick up on my idea of "How to Train Your Mean Girl." On a side note, if you haven't seen How to Train Your Dragon... GO SEE IT. It's absolutely one of my favorite movies. I wanted to use it as my video (not audio) but it didn't quite make sense that way. Hope you like it!

Don't surf under the influence...

I stumbled upon this quote in my "quotes of the day" on my computer....

"The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect." -Esther Dyson

I thought this completely applied to our class, and I also think it's very true. I had no idea who Esther Dyson was, so I decided to use the wonderful tool called wikipedia to look her up. She is a journalist and commentator on emerging digital technology, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist from Switzerland. Other than that, there's not much else about her besides her very interesting view of both the internet and alcohol.

On another note...(this is slightly a different spin on what the quote is saying) is it possible to become addicted to the internet? Do we rely on it, and have we become dependent of it? Is it possible to have "internet-ism"? Is there such a thing as being on the internet too much? Of course there are no rehab centers for over-use of the internet.. should there be?

One thought jumps into my head initially, that kids (or adults) stay up waay too late playing video games, tweeting, facebook stalking, etc. I think it's definitely possible that some people are addicted to the internet and technology. Is this just the new social norm or is it becoming an actual problem?

Halloween Video

The women's soccer team takes on the annual pumpkin carving contest!

Booted.

So, I recently spoke to my doctor who will be doing my ankle surgery. I got an MRI two weeks ago as a pre-surgery procedure, so my doctor could have a better idea of what's going on in my ankle before he cuts me open. Initially when I got the MRI, he read it very briefly at his house and said that there wasn't much to talk about it. However, when I spoke to him on the phone on Monday, he says that the MRI shows that I have sprained ligaments in my ankle! He told me it was my deltoid ligament, see the picture below, but I have absolutely no pain or swelling there which is why I'm kind of confused.




Anyway, my doctor told me to wear a walking boot in order to heal the ligaments. He made me an appointment to get a CT scan (think 3D x-ray) to take a better look at the extra bone I have. He's now not sure if I really need the surgery (I think I do) so he wants to reevaluate me after the CT scan next monday.

So, I'm kinda bummed because well, first off, the boot is really annoying and people stare at it. But I'm also missing out on our teams 2v2 tournament, soccer tennis tournament, and a few other fun things. Also, I wanted to be able to go running and to the gym before my surgery. Looks like that won't be happening :( On the bright side, this twist gives me more to blog about!

that's all folks

Well, our season has come to an end. Our 3-1 loss to St Marys this past weekend knocked us out of the tournament. We just weren't clicking during the game. We were scored on early in the first half and came back to tie it up before halftime. In the second half we had several opportunities (as did they) but we couldn't finish our shots (and they did). On a more positive note, Chrissy, one of the three seniors, scored our lone goal, so at least she could finish out her season on a high note. Anyway, it was a bumpy season, but overall I think we did alright. Didn't make it quite as far as we had hoped, but there's always next year.