And The Winner of the Improptu Contest Is...

This is a still from the scooter video. Not too shabby for a cheapie $100 video camera, eh?

Wow, there are some pretty awesome names for my sweet ride in the comments of Obsessed.

I should have sponsored a naming contest. Winner gets to take my sweet ride out for a spin. (Best contest ever!)

Purple Passion. Purple People Mover. Purple Haze. Purple Devil.

Purple Passion would be excellent considering that was my drink of choice in the 10th grade. My BFF Lori and I would score it however we could and commence to thinking of ourselves as hard-core boozers. If memory serves me it came in two-liter. Can you still buy that stuff? Yikes.

My Purple Passion days were also only a few short years ahead of when my middle school boyfriend, Travis (real name), rode me around on his Honda Elite. (Me and Honda Elite's go way back.)

Excellent suggestion, Big Bri. You had no idea the history I could attach to that.

Purple People Mover is cute, mostly because apparently there is a train/bus/large cab called that in Detroit. Jen I'm going to need more information on this here Purple People Mover.

And the Blue Angel would be totally flattered if I named my scooter the Purple Devil. And I like to make the Blue Angel happy.

But Amy's Purple Haze suggestion is the name I had started to think of too. Mostly because at 35 mph, the only thing people will see of me is a haze of purple when I fly by on it! Ow!

And it sounds more bad ass than Purple Passion. (Though barely!)

Amy and Big Bri, please report to my dead end street this spring to redeem your prize as winner and runner up - free scooter ride!

Side note, you can still buy Purple Passion, though they fancied up the bottle it appears. What, no street cred with the two-liter?

Turns out, Lori and I were more hard-core than I thought. That grape soda-tasting swill is made with Everclear. LaToya Praeter, who ever that is, has a funny blurb about Purple Passion in her list of Top 10 Classiest Drinks. It's number 9. Cheers to that LaToya.

Hmm... I Don't Feel Any More Sculpted

Tonight I hit the Total Body Sculpting class at my gym. There was definitely some burning, but mostly it was in my quads because we did about 300 squats and lunges, so I'd say overall it wasn't a "total" body sculpt. Maybe they should rename it "Total Quad sculpt."

A colleague of mine couldn't walk for three days after taking the "Tone and Chisel" class at her gym. Sounds scary/awesome. I wish my gym had a class that sounds as bad ass as that.

Which got to me thinking as I was lying on the Bosu Ball cranking out chest presses - classes at gyms should have more fun names, such as:

• Ab Shredder - A class featuring myriad ways to make your insides feel like they're coming out

• High and Tight - After this class, your butt will be like a Marine's haircut

• Sick - Not only will you feel like throwing up from this crazy hard-core work-out, but your body will be totally sick afterwards (in a good way)

I could probably start my own gym with these terrific class ideas. It's what 50 chest presses will get you.

Last night I went to Pilates class.

What's up with all these classes, Gina?
Oh, the Tall Drink of Water is in Florida for four days, so I have nothing else to do but go to the gym.

The instructor was kind of mean. Not the normal, coddling "You're doing great!" kind of instructor. It was refreshing.

As I was wollering around on the floor like a beached whale I started calling her the Pilates Monster. In my head. One girl groaned when we had to do planks and the teacher made us all do "around the world" planks. Which are even more horrible than regular planks. Thanks groaning girl.

That could be another class, Groaning Girl - it's like boxing, only instead of heavy bags you punch the girl who complains and makes everyone do more work. It's a great cardio workout.

Obsessed

Unless I'm blogging/talking/writing about my new scooter, I'm pretty much uninterested.

On that note:

• I've decided I should buy a house, so I can park my sweet ride in the garage. If said house doesn't have a garage, I will have my dad build me a shed.

• Late Februrary/early March will be busy. That's when I'll take my motorcycle license exam (required by Ohio to drive a scooter) and thusly become a certified bad ass.

• Charity fundraising scheme #1: Offer scooter lovers the chance to drive my Elite down the dead end street. Donations gladly accepted. (There is no charity fundraising scheme #2 - yet.)

• Attend summer cook-out at Metro Scooter, where Dave, my new scooter BFF, sold me my first helmet - A lovely red Bell helmet. (Discounted $40 because "No one will buy the red ones.")

• Figure out best way to transport fruits and vegetables from Findlay Market/Hyde Park Farmer's Market. Milk crate with bungee cord? In a sack on the floorboard? A backpack? These are serious questions that must be answered by spring.

• Imagine myself crashing with loads of fruits and vegetables strapped to my back. Painful, but kinda funny.

• Rename blog "Gina Blogs All About It, It Being Her Scooter: The Official Blog of (To-Be Named) Scooter." I think it has a nice ring to it.

• Perhaps you'd like to know more about my scooter. Please call/write/come over. Any time. Really. I'm always up for chatting about it.

Scooter Wow!

Merry Christmas To Me!!!

My sweet "new" ride.

Video coming tomorrow!

Yay! (What's a Giraffe Bed?)

Nick Lachey made his hometown proud last week by winning Clash of The Choirs.

I didn't watch because I didn't want to jinx him. I feel like whenever I want someone to win and I watch, they lose. But if I want them to win and don't watch, they win. So... Thanks to me not watching, Nick won. :)

I'm a fan of Nick if not professionally certainly personally. Seems like a good guy to me. Nice. Laid-back. Friendly. My sort of dude. Plus I wanted Children's to win the $250,000 prize money, which everyone reported would be used for Giraffe beds in the Regional Neonative Intensive Care Unit.

Awesome! I imagined fun, yellow and brown Giraffe decorated beds that kids were like "Whoa!" when they see them. Like they're so huge kids forget about how sick they are.

Then I thought $250,000 sounded like a lot of money for plastic Giraffe beds.

Turns out a Giraffe bed is one of those clear plastic chambers teeny tiny babies are put in when they can't be contaminated by the world.

Or more specifically, it's a fully featured neonatal care station, with an X-ray cassette tray, internal bed tilt, integrated in-bed scale, warming drawer for diapers and blankets, mounting rail for IV poles, pumps and shelves; it's also a controlled humidifier with oxygen systems and temperature controls; and alarm noises and lights are designed so as not to disturb the baby.

It also has sleeves so physicians and nurses and moms and dads can poke their hands in without actually touching the baby.

It's quite a bed. I wish I had one.

Thanks to Nick, Children's can buy about 5 of them with $250,000.

Oopsy

Don't try this at home, kids. Bad news bangs.

Cold Busted

Instead of scraping my windows this morning I just squirted some wiper fluid on the windsheild until I could see out of a little hole.

When I needed to see out of the side windows, I'd just roll the window down.

Obviously I was running late.

On my drive I heard my text alarm go off.

I got to work and the text said, "Girl you better defrost yo' windows!"

Gleefully Insured

In between jobby jobs I had to go a month without health insurance.

I wasn't too concerned because I had 45 days to sign up for Cobra (which I was going to do if I got hurt or something) but I didn't really want to because it costs about a gazillion dollars, or something thereabouts. So my "plan" was just to stay injury/sick free.

And it totally worked. I skated through the whole month... without falling down and breaking my tailbone.

I woke up December 1 and before my eyes were even open I smiled slyly to myself and thought, "You're insured!" I even did a little insurance dance around the bedroom when I got up. I whispered into the Tall Drink of Water's ear, "Hey, wake up. It's a glorious day. My health insurance starts today!"

I get really excited about health insurance, especially good health insurance like I have now.

I pay four dollars extra a month for the supremo coverage, which means they'll bring me back to life for free should I find myself seriously dead.

I'm going to go drive across the Brent Spence just for fun.

Wee!

Overheard This Afternoon

Colleague 1: "Is it like, super-moldy in here? My eyes are burning."

Colleague 2: "I don't know. I noticed something this morning, that's why I had to turn my desk light on."

Colleague 1: "You're all blurry. I can barely see you."

Almost A Team Photo

It was a walking battle royale between me and this much larger, much older dude to the finish line today at the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Athritis.

Quite honestly I didn't think I'd be able to pull it out, but super-runners Dan and the Tall Drink of Water came back for me after they finished and escorted me to the finish, encouraging me to jog a few steps here and there to get ahead of him.

I beat him fair and square. My head cold however, according to my Nike+, finished dead last. Serves it right.

Thanks to TDW and Dan for making it out on this cold Decmeber day to usher me to the finish line. And thanks to my colleague Missy who also braved the cold this morning to participate.

And Big Fat Hearty thanks to Dave and Amy, who were so generous to donate to my Arthritis Foundation page.

It was so nice of all of you. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.

I chatted with Susie Daugherty (aka Mom) this morning and she wanted me to tell you guys that she's "very proud of us" and she thinks "it's just terrific and so sweet" that we walked/ran and donated.

And she hopes that we dressed warm.

Ban Comic Sans

I was in the research building last week and saw a big tank with a sign on it that said Liquid Nitrogen. The sign was written in Comic Sans.

Poor font choices make liquid nitrogen less potent. FYI, researchers.

Temporarily "That Girl"

The Man of the hour.

Never at parties or weddings do I take my heels off to dance.

I try to always wear quality heels that are comfortable, and even when they're not, I pride myself on my ablity to endure the pain and always keep them on.

The pile of discarded shoes at wedding receptions always makes me laugh, and while I don't blame any girl for shedding uncomfortable but fabulous shoes, I am never one of them.

Except last night I was.

After about two hours of dancing to a terrific DJ at Tabari's Sweet 16 (+14) birthday party - one of the rockin'-est parties I've attended in a long time, and at the CAC's UnMuseum, so fun - I finally succumbed to the intense pressure in the balls of my feet and took my shoes off.

My black patent leather t-strap Mary Jane's understood, and waited patiently until I returned. Except I didn't return. It was so freeing that the Tall Drink of Water had to bring them to me to put back on at the end of the night.

I could tell they had been crying.

I don't have any photos of the cast aside Mary Jane's, but I do have plenty of party and pre-party photos of the night here.

Happy Sweet 16 (+14) Tabari! I was proud to be part of your slide show. And the fade you had back in the day was awesome.