Its been 4 months since I posted anything on my blog. Its unfortunate that its the death my Uncle that has motivated me post these pictures of our visits in Europe during my honeymoon (Vicenza, Italy 2003) and during my trip to France to study image analysis (Stasbourg, France 2006).

In better news over the last several months,

Jeff and I went back to Illinois for graduation. We also got to see Julie (in Indianapolis before driving to Champaign), Rachel and Elizabeth - and their families.

I hiked Dog Mountain to see the Alpine Meadow full of wild flowers

I was a referee at two jiu jitsu tournaments. Kids (and their parents) made this a stressful job but ref'ing the women's divisions was good. I've been teaching women's jiu jitsu class at my new gym since January. Tracy is one of my regular train partners. I also harassed some high school students while judging the Oregon state science fair.

My parents came to visit.

I broke my finger training for a jiu jitsu tournament that weekend, so luckily for me, my mom was around to baby me. I didn't get to go to the pan-ams like I'd planned though, the bone came through the skin. You can see where in this picture.

Jeff and I took a trip to the coast with Rachel, Glen and Michael-in-the-oven (i.e. no Rachel juice for Rachel) before they headed back to Champaign.

And we hosted a super bowl party

The name of my blog is bjjchic. Since I'm training for the Pan Ams again this year, I've decided to use this as a training journal along the way. Also, now that I'm teaching a women's jiu jitsu class, I have a hard time keeping the new stuff I'm learning plus the stuff I'm teaching straight in my head.

What I'm working on right now: Passing the half guard. My favorite pass starts with a knee through. I'm able to find this pass from a variety of starting points but now that I'm training with this big group of higher belts at Impact, I keep getting stuck in some variation of half guard. The finer point that I've been working on it keeping my opponents back to the mat while I work for my pass. Previously, I would use a frame but I find it opens me up to have my back taken. I've tried an under hook but that leaves my elbow vulnerable to attach. I'm liking a lapel in the top side shoulder right now. Grab the lapel and push on the shoulder to keep the opponents back to the mat. Then sprawl the hips down against the opponents bottom leg to open the half guard and start the pass. Keeps the hips low while rotating the legs out. Transition to shoulder pressure with the hips pressure if the opportunity arises. Keeps the hips down until you gain cross side. Keys points right now: Hips low, hips low, sprawl and keep the hips low. Keep the opponents shoulders to the mat as much as possible.

A new move I learned yesterday: Opponent on side facing away from me. I'm half way between mount and taking his back. Happens when I've mounted and opponent umpa's to escape. I open up and let him rotate under me. I have one knee at his back and my foot on the ground in front. I have two options: (1) grip his head and shoulders, pull him over my body, opening his legs and allowing to me take his back or (2) if I get a collar but can't finish the choke, rotate him onto his back, block his shoulder with my leg (but don't put it all the way over for an arm bar) and go for the collar choke in the same way as if I were doing a bow and arrow choke but without the top arm.

What I'm teaching: spider guard.
Basic sweep - two variations. Finer detail, grab pant's leg with free arm, set up from wrapped spider guard is opponent blocking wrap by moving in the direction of the sweep.
Billy Hunt's spider guard sweep - one foot in bicep, one foot on the knee.
Triangle choke pull from spider guard.

Other options I'm considering: omoplata from spider guard

Its been a while - a long while - since I posted anything on my blog, which is funny because so much has happended since my last post. Rather than writing, here's a photo overview of the last few months.

I did my first science fair project as a freshman in high school on a wastewater organism called a water bear. Here I am at 30 in front of my (award winning) WEFTEC poster, which was about another wastewater organism - those aquatic earthworms. On a somewhat unrelated side note - I signed up to judge the Oregon State Science Fair in April recently.

After WEFTEC, I defended my PhD. We have a tradition in the Morgenroth research group of making PhD hats. The current group members put a menagerie of stuff on the hat that represents graduates grad school experience. Memories on my PhD hat were: my trip to France to learn image analysis, the demolition derby, my jiu jitsu training, my color changing reactors, my worms, membranes and a mixing impeller, my scooter, my small car worth of peristalic pumps and off course Cafe Kopi.

Jeff and I went hiking at Silver Falls to see the fall colors.

We visited my Grandfather in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving.

Jeff and I made christmas cookies.

The pacific northwest (and the rest of the country) had a record weather pattern and Portland got a rare 4 inches of snow. The city is covered in white lights and decorated for Christmas, so wandering in the snow was like a winter wonderland. Jeff and I did lots of Christmas shopping on foot then stopped at El Gaucho for hot buttered rums and dinner. It was a magical day. That's our apartment building on the right next to the street car. The other pictures are taken at the park across the street.

By the way, check out the links on the right for my jiu jitsu school and the cross fit gym Jeff and I joined.

With a very tight writing timeline to finish my dissertation, its extremely important that I find the right Portland venue in which to work. Unfortunately, the coffee shop with the best coffee isn't so comfortable to work in even though the atmosphere is great for just hanging out. The coffee shop with the best hang out and work for hours atmosphere has horrible coffee, and the place with the yummy vanilla black tea that I switch to in the afternoon so as not to disrupt my precious sleep is different from the other two. I am missing Cafe Kopi, that comfortably provided all PhD completion requirements without an ounce of pretension.

although I should mention that despite my complaints, Portland is still awesome.

After leaving Mount Rushmore, I headed to Bozeman, MT to visit my friend Ryan. The scenery through the Black Hills was breathtaking so when I passed a sign for Devil’s Tower, I impulsively took the exit and followed the small road through the forest to our first national monument. I had the road almost completely to myself and the hour and half detour was completely worth it.

I stayed two nights in Bozeman because the cats and I needed a break from driving and I haven’t seen Ryan in almost seven years. Ryan had to work on Thursday so I spent the day wandering through downtown Bozeman. I found a coffee shop and worked a little, then hiked up Peet’s Hill for views of the city and the surrounding landscape. Bozeman is really a nice little town, a little bit like Champaign but better because its nestled in the mountains. I wonder if UIUC is such a good school because the professors there don’t have any distractions (ie. hiking, biking, fishing, skiing) and therefore work too much. We went on a hike to Grotto Falls just outside of town in the early evening, which was nice. There was a layer of clouds hanging over the mountains threatening rain which, coupled with the early evening lighting and the dense pine trees gave the trail a Twin Peaks kinds of feel.

Its another 11-12 hours to Portland from here. I’ll probably stop in Washington tomorrow night and finish the last 3 hours of the drive along the Columbia River Saturday morning. Jeff is in Texas so there’s no rush to get to Portland and I’m enjoying my laid back cross country drive.

Devil's Tower, Ryan and some deer, me at Grotto Falls

...and then there were two. First Cathy, now me. The grad school married ladies are slowly moving away :(

Its been a crazy week, from packing up the house and officially handing the keys over to the new owner to my many Champaign lasts and goodbyes. Honestly, its all rather sad and hard to write about because I'm leaving a wealth of good people to start fresh in Portland....but they did a good job making me feel loved on my last weekend and I am infinitely greatful for that. Now I'm on the road, driving to Portland with Rex and Dina. I'm sure I'll post random photos along the way.

Going away Party at Rachel's


Last day in the lab

Badlands and Mount Rushmore

I have a million things to do which means I really shouldn’t spend time blogging but things are happening so fast, I want to make sure I write them down so I remember it all. Amid all the chaos around moving to Portland a month earlier than expected, I’ve also been training for the No Gi Worlds. I decided to enter this tournament because after the Italy trip, all I had to do this summer was write my dissertation (there's some sarcasm in that statement). Jeff was in Portland already and I was pretty bored and lonely a lot of the time. I figured I could remember the summer as the summer of writing, boredom and loneliness, or I could remember it as the summer I trained for the No Gi Worlds….I guess its clear what I chose. Not only did it keep me distracted, but it reminded me what a great group of people I’ve been lucky enough to train with for the last several years and it got me in great shape. BTW, I came in second.

I also visited Portland last weekend (the one before the tournament) so Jeff and I could find an apartment. We rented a great place downtown in the Pearl District, there are pictures on Jeff’s flickr page if you’re curious….or just come visit us once we’re settled in and see it in person. Portland is a great city to live in and to visit. The only down side – we’re going from a 1,000 square foot house with a garage and full basement (ie. really 2,000 square feet) to an 800 square foot downtown apartment. We have WAY too much stuff. My junk fetish is genetic on both sides, from my dad and my mom’s father. I’m in awe of Craig’s list which has helped with the purge and earned us $300 in the process.

Stupid weather. Stupid ORD airport. Sleeping in the airport sucks...they ran out of cots and blankets, I'm freezing, my checked bag is being held hostage, the guy sleeping down the way is snoring. After an amazaing trip to Portland where Jeff and I found a great apartment with an awesome view located downtown in the Pearl District, bad weather in Chicago shut the airport down and I got stuck. Stupid weather. Stupid ORD airport.

Just a quick rant about people who bring their screaming children into the coffee shop at 9:00 AM on Wednesday where I'm writing my dissertation. I haven't had enough caffeine to have a sense of humor about this. I'm sure my outlook will be different when I have kids of my own....but I don't yet.

Did you ever wonder what happens when ones husband moves to Portland, leaving her to do the yard work in 90 degree heat? She drinks two big glasses of Lambrusco (by herself) over lunch to recover (yard work sucks!) and ends up pleasantly giggly but unable to concentrate on the data analysis that needs done. I guess its only lab work that more fun buzzed. So, here I am at the coffee shop, dunking my almond anise biscotti in a small house coffee with cream, having nothing better to do than finish my Italian vacation blog.

Thursday May 22. We arrive at our Amalfi coast apartment outside Sorrento in a tiny town called Massa Lubrense to discover it is absolutely amazing. The view, which we enjoyed every night over dinner, looks out over Massa Lubrense onto the Bay of Naples. Aside from the sunsets, the apartment also came with the most friendly cat who would curl up on your lap and hang out and lemons that the owner picked fresh for us to make lemonade. Walking into Massa Lubrense required winding down the hill through these narrow little streets packed full of small town Italian charm.

Friday May 23. An easy day trip to Pompeii provided our last visit to Italian ruins. Pompeii lived up to my expectations and was amazing but I must admit the most interesting thing I saw was the ancient brothel, with stone beds and erotic art. Most of the interesting ancient porn has been moved to the archaeological museum in Naples - which we didn't visit. This wasn't the first time I had the thought that I'd like to come back to this area.

Saturday May 24. On Saturday, we spent the day in Capri, including a boat tour around the island. Very picturesque - in fact, I saw some of the scenery used as a back drop to a sexy, tanned Italian man in an Armani advertisement at the Naples airport on the way home. We visited the Blue Grotto, a natural cave where the water has this eery blue glow. It was touristy on the one hand, with an expensive price of admission (10 euro paid to some cigar chomping Italian guys on a little boat outside the entrance), crowds and the row boat driver pressuring us for tips - but worth the surreal experience on the other.

We had our best meal on Capri and I finally found my torrone - Italian nougat candy. Torrone candy is part of the Menniti Christmas tradition. The area around Johnsonburg where my parents grew up was settled with many Italian immigrants. The little Italian stores there still sell some "old country" specialties like these candies. They are delicious - and not just because they come with such sentimental attachments.

Sunday May 25. Jeff, Toni and I rented scooters for our last day in Italy. As we were renting the scooters, I asked the guy about traffic laws....he just laughed and said there aren't any, go slow and drive on the right. Even though I ride my scooter in traffic here all the time, the crazy Italian motorists took some getting used to - signs and lights are really just suggestions.

We decided it best to avoid the city and ride in the hills behind Sorrento. Jeff picked this little alleyway to ride up - really just a sidewalk but it had speed bumps indicating scooter traffic was okay. The path took us through a quaint neighborhood similar to Massa Lubrense, 2 feet from front doors on one side and 2 feet from retaining walls on the other. Suddenly, we pop out onto a steep asphalt path winding up the hill through lemon groves. It feels "off road" because a car would hardldy fit but the path was perfect for scooters and motorcycles. The view we found at the top was completely worth the sunburn I got getting there. I can't think of a better way to end our Italian vacation.....well, maybe one more sunset.

I put a link to the flickr page where Jeff posted a collection of our vacation pictures plus here's just a few good pictures from my mom.