Happy Pi Day

Today is J.D.'s favorite "holiday" and I say that in quotes because celebrating this day never, ever occurred to me. Today, March 14 (3-14), is Π Day, the Greek mathematical symbol that roughly rounds to 3.14.

So weird. But in honor of today, I suggested that we frequent the establishment a few blocks from our house - Marie Calendar's. Because who doesn't want a slice of pie on Pi Day?! And we've only eaten there once the 10 months we've lived here ;)

I have no idea what kind of pie I want! Fruity, chocolate-y, creamy, who knows?

We're such dorks, it's awesome. What weird/different holidays/festivals do YOU celebrate??

Let the rain come down

With all the rainouts we've been having at our baseball games here on campus, we filled time during Saturday's 46-minute rain delay in very interesting fashion.

While all the players hung out in the dugouts and the fans flocked underneath the umbrellas on the concourse, I played the following clip on my stat laptop, and we projected it with sound on the giant video board out in right field.



Such a fun day! (We ended up winning both games on Saturday even with the rain delay!)

New car on the horizon?

I've been thinking about it a lot. and I believe currently I'm in a financial position to outright purchase a car (but then I'd have nothing saved up for any large purchases in the future). However, I don't wish to do so just yet. And when I decide to go for it, I think I'd only put half down in cash plus the trade in value of my '04 Taurus (obviously have to get a new Ford then).

So as I've stated before I'm very into the Fusion or the Edge right now. Leaning towards the Fusion more than anything because it's cheaper and has a hybrid option.

But Ford also will offer something at the end of this year that I just can't refuse!


When the 2011 Fords are released (this summer!) sync will be standard. And it looks like the new version is going to be touch screen with climate control, automatic Bluetooth upon cell phone recognition during calls, iPhone applications, free Internet radio stations and Twitter/text messages read aloud by the car (yes turn by turn directions are also part of this package).

So essentially, my car's touch screen console could virtually be another extension of my iPhone. Yep, definitely trading in my car this autumn at the earliest! (Dang, that means I need to get a phone upgrade pretty soon, too!)

Read the article... It's so cool!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

If you put an A in "definitely," you're definitely an A-hole

My sister shared this gem on my Facebook wall this morning.

I don't know if it's because I was an English major, or used to be an editor, or because my biggest pet peeve is when people misuse further/farther, affect/effect, their/there/they're, or because I'm a grammar nerd, or plainly because I love manatees.... but she was dead on. I found it SO awesome.

(Side note: I did my animal report on the manatee in third grade. By fifth grade, I was a full-fledged member of the Save the Manatee Club. Currently I have a manatee Christmas stocking, Horny Manatee shirt - thanks Conan O'Brien, and numerous likeness of manatees, from thimbles, to stationary, etc. I love manatees.)

(God, isn't that thing cute?!)

So anyways, back to me being a dork. The link my sister shared is called "10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling." Might just be the greatest thing, ever!

I can't be that big of a dork, seeing as how I thought this book was kind of an overkill. It's funny if you can stand it in small doses though:

Oh and if you're keeping score at home, that was 18 words, not 10. (10 word pairs would have been more accurate, but not like I'm anal or anything.)

Eventually I'll get there

Clearly, I've figured it out!

I just played around in PhotoShop and googled HTML help. I'm pretty impressed that I can do (computer) things on my own.

I also got into such a groove that I even updated my header. Wow, I should invest this time into working out or reading or something. So with that, I'm going to go read Devil in the White City! And then after, working out with my new EA Active for Wii.... ugh, so fun. I'm such a dork, guys.

New signature

I've been trying to play around with the look of my blog. So I've created (well, I've at least attempted to) a signature.

I'm still not 100% sure how this works, so if anyone's mastered this yet, would someone point me in the right direction? How do I: a.) get rid of the photo border and b.) remove all the white around the text? I made a cropped image in PhotoShop that doesn't include the white, but it won't let me upload a PSD file.

Hmmm, what's a girl to do?!

*UPDATE* My temporary solution has been to merely change the background color from white to blue. So now, I just need to figure out how to not include a border on a selected photo!

101 in 1001

Thank you, Meghan, for appealing to the OCD in me and getting me started on the 101 in 1001 project.

The 101 in 1001 project is a realistic list of 101 things you'd like to accomplish in 1,001 days (about 2.7 years).

Some common goal setting tips from the website are as follows:

1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Stay Focused. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.

3. Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.

4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.

5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

Here's my 101 in 1001. Obviously, I still have a few more to fill out :)

I'm 2-for-2

...Just like our women's basketball team. We lost seven straight and now have won two in a row since the Christmas break. And tonight, I got to broadcast a super exciting overtime victory down here in Northridge (for you non-Californians, Northridge is in the Valley... of "Valley Girl" notoriety). P.S. I love it here. 75 degrees in the dead of winter? Yes, please! After our 76-70 OT win, we bussed down to Orange County tonight and have the entire day off tomorrow! I can't wait. I'm moving down here some day.

Again, I've managed to start things off with a tangent.

Well, in my quest to blog every day in January, I'm going to start with the book Michelle and I are reading for our "book club" (feel free to join us so we seem more legit, otherwise I'm just another babbling English major here!): Devil in the White City, which follows The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago back in 1893. It takes an interesting point of view, tracking one of the main architects of the exposition and the murder behind the dark ending to the Exposition. However, I've only gotten as far as the background information and narrative about the main architect.

I'll get into the book the further I get into the reading, but I couldn't help but think when I first opened the book, "What the heck is an exposition and why don't we have them anymore??"

Now, I don't claim to be an expert since reading this by any means, but I did take the time to do a bit of Internet research on the topic.

Prior to reading Devil, I only knew one thing really about the World Expositions. They gave us probably the most notable, visited, recognized, amazing structure of all (that is in my subjective opinion):


But really, what else do I know about World Fairs/Expositions?

Essentially, the phenomenon began as a way of flexing a country's might, power, wealth and affluence during the highly developmental period better known as the Industrial Revolution. Ironically, the first large-scale expo to take place was the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in Hyde Park, London, 1851. Even this was not the first, but the first at the level to which the British took it.

In 1844, the French Industrial Exposition was part of a larger display of French national industrial expositions aimed at improving national output in areas such as agriculture, technology, etc., beginning in 1798. The Exposition included the construction of a highly-visible temporary structure located on the Champs-Élysées.

As for the Exposition in London, the Crystal Palace was erected in Hyde Park to draw attendance and spark interest, and exhibits ran the gamut from precious gems found by British explorers, to modern lock technology, to improvements to the structure of the piano and even included the chance to rub elbows with some of England's greatest poets/novelists of the day. A veritable Who's Who of England, visible on a global scale.

Not to be outdone at their own celebration of nationalism, the French then returned the geographical rivalry in 1889, trying to top England with the Exposition Universelle (a universal expo, in just the name alone, must be greater than England's mere world expo).

Hidden behind the guise of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the Universal Expo spanned widely throughout the center of Paris, to what would become one of the largest cultural centers in the world. Constructed to attract fair-goers was the arch entrance and proclaimed as one of the largest eyesores in the history of construction, or more fondly known today as the beacon of the City of Lights, The Eiffel Tower (And to think, it was originally designed to be placed in Barcelona).

Needless to say, the Universal Expo was the best yet. It included world-renown opera, talents and concerts of the top composers, "Wild West" gun displays and an even larger, more brilliant diamond than the one previously on display in London.

With France and England duking out their cultural and industrial progressiveness, the United States did not want to miss out on the arms race going on across the Atlantic Ocean. Each exposition got bigger and better, leading to the birth of the skyscraper in Chicago, during the 1893 expo to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World.

So that's all in the glorious, murky, industrially-clouded and sooten past. But have you ever heard of world fairs since the Industrial Rev?

Supposedly, into the Cold War, San Francisco and Stockholm took their shots at becoming "the (cultural) centers of the universe" for a brief period of time. Montreal held the Expo 67 (thus lending its name to the now defunct Montreal Expos baseball team), which set the single-day record for a world fair's attendance. And beginning in the 1980s, world fairs transformed to become a vehicle for city improvement on a global scale (let's be honest, as if that hadn't always been the case??).

In the contemporary period, the Olympic Games have invariably morphed to take on the same characteristics as the world fairs, but under the guise of healthy, athletic competition (which is a different means, same end result, world "dominance"). For example, Spain held the Expo 92 as well as the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. How could one not argue Spain's monetary dominance over the world that year?

In my lifetime, no big deal has been made over a world exposition. Perhaps the Olympics have taken over in that realm? Well make the case for China being THE world power right now, after hosting the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they are the next country to host Expo 2010 in Shanghai which will run from May to October this year. Shanghai is trying to exert its prowess as the world's major economic and cultural center in the new decade. Currently plans for a new train and transportation networks are in the works.

Although the world fairs may not be as grand and as much of an arms race as their heyday in the 19th century, wouldn't it be great to witness such an event in a lifetime?

Ok, back to my reading.... :) Hope you all enjoyed your history lesson for the day.

Anyone good at building your own template??

On my other blog, I used a pre-existing template. For this one, I'm trying to build my own.

I made this one from the Wix editor page. But it's not exactly what I'm looking for. And I kind of gave up in the middle. So I guess I'll just keep playing around and trying to figure out how it works.


Unless anyone has any good recommendations for moi?! :) Until then, I'm just going to keep playing around and having fun being a nerd!

Waiting for the water to come back!

As I sit here in my hotel, waiting the water to be turned back on I almost regret working out for the past hour.

But then again, I wouldn't have been able to experience this:

The Life Fitness 95T Inspire treadmill.

I totally want to own one of these badboys one day! It's a treadmill with an iPod attachment that syncs to your workout, or gives you the option of watching TV right on the treadmill's touch screen console.

But the best part was the interactive console. You can choose what kind of run you prefer based on scenery (i.e. a rigorous mountain run shows you ascending Mount Kilimanjaro, where as a low-incline scenic run is a 5K map of running in the foothills, much like my old cross country days). Or you always have the standard high school track option, which shows marks at every 100 meters to aid in interval training, etc.

There is also an option of a cartoon personal trainer, male or female, which I imagine is very similar to the "trainer" in WiiFit.

Anyways, it was awesome. Whatever gets me motivated to get back into running.... I'll take it!

P.S. I've recently discovered through online browsing, that it's nearly $6,500..... yikes. Maybe I'll settle for a car, or an international vacation along with a trip to Hawai'i instead...

Close Encounters of the Fuzzy Kind

My boss is gone on a road trip to Pepperdine with our men's basketball team. Usually this time of year when he's on the road doing radio, he asks me to watch his two dogs. Since I'm a dog person, I don't mind. His dogs have somewhat grown on me.

The bus took off yesterday, so my boss drove to work and his car remained in the parking lot all afternoon. As soon as J.D. got off work, I promised him we'd come by and take his car back the half mile to his house, so it didn't look like he was gone for a few days.

Driving back from Sacramento adds on another hour and a half to J.D.'s commute than mine, so we decided to feed the dogs and return his car after dinner. I drove him back to my school lot where he picked up my boss' car, but I arrived at his house first.

Let me set the scene, it's dark and sort of misty on his block and the only light in front of me was the security light coming off the roof of his neighbor's house. As I pulled up to an empty spot on the sidewalk, I see a cat running across the grass and towards my car. Upon turning off my headlights, I realized that it wasn't a cat, but instead what appeared to be a domestic bunny.

Poor little guy, I thought to myself. It's escaped from some miserable kid and is wandering through the street!

Determined to get it and knock on a few of the neighbors' doors, I squatted down low and made clicking noises in efforts to usher the bunny towards me. Hearing my calls, it crouched low and began to hop towards me. Within arm's length, I felt confident that if I moved slowly enough, I could grab the little fur ball and keep it safely while looking for an owner. Even if I had to put up posters or post on craigslist.

It was at this point that J.D. drove my boss' car into his driveway. Making the sharp turn, his headlights shone into the hedges between my boss and his neighbor's yard. The light scared out at least three other rabbits from the bushes. These rabbits, I convinced myself, looked wild. They were dingy little gray rabbits, while the white one seemed to be big and had well-maintained fur.

With the white rabbit still inching closer to me, doubts began to fill my head.

Maybe this isn't a tame rabbit? What if it's a really friendly wild bunny with rabies who's hoping to be fed? Oh my gosh, what if it bites me and I get rabies?

Frozen in my tracks, J.D. tries to call me into the house to go feed the dogs, but all I can do is stare at these cute, evil little bunnies who are curiously staring at me.

At this point, the white one speeds up his pace and starts feverishly hopping after me. He must have said something to his fuzzy little friends, because the other three then joined him and all four bunnies hopped towards me.

Freaking out, I had convinced myself that they were wild and rabid.

Shrieking, "I don't want to get rabies!" like a crazy person, I ran through the grass and towards the front door. But slipped in several piles of rabbit turd.

After the door safely shut behind me, I texted my boss, "WTF?!?! You have rabbits living in your yard?!"

To which he replies, "Yeah, they are to get Rocky (his dog) in shape. ... They are my neighbors'."

Once I was done recounting the tale via text, he called me laughing. Explaining that the parents bought bunnies as pets for their kids, but one day the bunnies doubled. And then there were more, so they decided to rid of the males and keep all the females loose in the backyard.

Lately the bunnies have been burrowing and have dug holes under the fence and into my boss' backyard. He has since blocked off his yard from the curious rabbits and so their next move has been to run loose in the streets. And it's been this way for quite a few weeks.

Crazy, tame wild bunnies roaming the streets.

I think my boss summed it up best when he said, "The visual of you being chased by rabid bunnies is quite funny."

FML.

Fun with sweet potatoes & tequila lime chicken

Here are two of my FAVORITE home-made dinners in the last two weeks. We also sort of made these from whatever we had in the fridge and in our thoughts.... no recipe following in the creation of these dishes!

Basic Tequila Lime Chicken
-Season chicken breast with chili lime seasoning (pre-made from grocery store)
-But you could make it out of chili powder, cumin, lime zest and onion/garlic powder
-Salt both sides
-Lightly oil pan and turn up heat to high
-Sear both sides in hot pan for brown crust, then turn down the heat to medium
-Deglaze pan with the juice of two limes and 4 oz. (about 4 shots) of tequila
-Cook until chicken is thoroughly cooked and tender

Sage Butter
-Rip off a handful of sage leaves (2 T)
-Melt stick of butter in sauce pan over low heat
-Toss in leaves and cook on medium heat until butter starts to brown
-Remove from heat and take out leaves

Baked Sweet Potato/Yam
-Poke several fork holes in whole potato
-Cook in microwave for 2-3 minutes depending on power
-Poke more holes and cook for another 30 seconds
-Remove potato from microwave and wrap in foil to cook from within

Those combined for a plate of chicken with sides of baked sweet potatoes in sage butter and an heirloom tomato-mozzarella salad.

And for tonight's plate, inspired by double-decker tacos at Taco Bell when I was younger:

Double-Decker Santa Fe Chicken And Sweet Potato Quesadilla
-Prepare the basic tequila lime chicken
-Once chicken is cooked, remove from pan
-In the leftover juice, cook frozen white corn and bell peppers until blackened and flavored in juice

-Bake sweet potatoes in the oven until they're dry:
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees
-Lightly grease bottom of a casserole dish (don't cover potatoes in oil at all)
-Cover bottom of pan with potatoes and bake for 10-15 minutes (until dry outside and soft inside)

-Grease another, larger casserole dish
-Layer one whole wheat tortilla on the bottom
-Then place a layer of cooked chicken on top of the tortilla
-Cover chicken in two small handfuls of shredded Mexican cheese
-Top with blackened vegetables and roasted sweet potatoes
-Add another handful of shredded cheese
-Slice olives and celery and place on top
-Cover with another whole wheat tortilla
-Slather fat-free refried beans on top of second tortilla
-Completely cover beans with tortilla chips
-Top with more cheese!

-Bake at 425 degrees for 5-7 minutes
-Top with diced tomatoes, lettuce, guac and/or fresh salsa!

....Enjoy!! (We sure did)

French & Baseball: My two loves in life (Sorry J.D.)

Ah, French and baseball, two things I can't quite get enough of. And this weekend I got both!

It all started last week when I was messing around on facebook at work. I realized when I came back from the copy room that I had a couple of messages from my friend Ludo, who I went on a date or two with back in France. Anyways, it's been a while since I've spoken French really. But the entire time we messaged back and forth in a.) French slang and b.) shortened computer words. I nearly understood all of it, how easily it comes back.

Apparently Ludo's working in the Caribbean now and plans to come to the United States to practice his English, "since he knows someone living there." I thought he was joking and told him I planned to be living near a beach in California within the next two years. That's when he said, in French, "You better not be joking, I'm extremely serious about coming to visit." So apparently he wants to come hang out with la Californienne, practice his English, and continue my French education and get me back in the French-speaking groove for two weeks.

I'm really excited and hope he's serious! It'd be so fun to hang out for a few weeks and show him around my world, after he took me around his for a few months.

I would have had more French this weekend, because my family wanted to go to my favorite French crêperie out here in Stockton. It's owned by this recently-transplanted Breton, who always tries to get me to speak French with him. Since I'm always out with my boyfriend or coworkers, I get really nervous about speaking in French. I'm not sure why I've always been self-conscious about that, especially how everyone always complimented me on my French, even the administrators at my schools when I was living there, as well as my roommate and all her friends. Tant pis.... I'll get over it some day. But it's only open for Sunday brunch and since we had baseball until 4 p.m. last night, couldn't make it out in time to grab some crêpes. But I do have TONS of berries in the fridge, so maybe I'll make some of my own tonight! Those were the first thing I can recall learning how to cook, since my mémée (grandma) taught me how to make them when I was super young.

And while I briefly alluded to it, here comes the baseball part. We had a three-day home stand against the nation's No. 1 team this weekend: UC Irvine. It could have been better, could have been worse, but the best part for me was during Saturday's pre-game. I had just finished my radio broadcast for our softball game at noon (last game of the year, so it was my last broadcast of the year) and had everything in the press box/on the field set up and ready to go for the baseball game. Since it was three hours until go time, the players were starting to warm up before taking batting practice.

And I got to warm up and play catch out there!!! It was probably one of the best things ever. I felt so silly (being a girl playing out there with all the baseball boys), but I miss playing soooo bad. I'm really excited I got the chance to get a little catch and long-toss in before the game!

Just to let you know

That I have changed my format. I was getting a little bored with the old style and since it's been about a year, I feel like this is more fitting of "me."

Pictures from Easter to come! Until then, you can see them on facebook.

I probably won't be updating for a while since baseball's heading down to Cal State Fullerton this weekend. I finally get to see my sister Aimée's apartment down in Newport Beach. I think we're going out for dinner in Huntington Beach tomorrow night at some Mediterranean restaurant with our friend Gianna. I'm looking forward to it!

What happens when you're too ill to do anything

To say I've had a lot of free time in the past few days would be an absolute understatement.

Originally, I was supposed to work at the NCAA basketball regional held at Cal in Berkeley this weekend doing all sorts of media and press conference tasks. I drove home Thursday night and was planning on taking BART to Cal at about 11 a.m. on Friday morning. As I mentioned a few days back, I thought I had been victim of food poisoning earlier this week.

So come Friday morning, I could not sleep and essentially was up and ready to go at 5:30 a.m., feeling like garbage. I took my shower then called Kaiser around 8 in the morning to see if I could get an appointment in ASAP. Luckily, everyone at the call center was extremely nice and helpful after I described my symptoms and fit me in at 9:15 a.m. The day went on and I kept feeling worse, but pumped my system full of newly-prescribed drugs. If you're curious, they diagnosed me with a gastric intestinal virus which is super contagious I guess. Good to know it wasn't food poisoning.

A day later, I've called the people at Cal and canceled for the weekend, feeling really bad about having to back out a few hours before I was scheduled to work. But at least no one else will be getting my sickness.... except my parents, ha.

Needless to say, the past few days have been highly uneventful. When I'm not sleeping/watching tv/trying to hold down my food, I've been very preoccupied with a new gadget. J.D.'s dad bought him a new iPhone so guess what happened to his old one?!?! That's right, after wanting one for a long time now, I am the new owner of a slightly used iPhone. The best part is the data/Internet service is only $20, as opposed to the BlackBerry's $30/mo. charge. That means my service costs even less per month now with my new iPhone! And it couldn't have come at a better time since my BlackBerry kept dying on me, dropping calls and freezing up. So he gave me the new phone with all the accessories free of charge, when he could have sold it online or something similar! Love that boy :)

Long story short, it is extremely fun and distracting and just the thing to keep me busy when I'm sick. Because you know, the insane amount of homework I have piling up won't keep me busy.... I tried reading and laying out by our pool this morning, but instead got quite sunburned.

Maybe I'll just stick to being indoors.

"Girl You Really Got Me Now"

Twenty Questions (answered by your music playlist) - I stole this from Michelle on Facebook, I don't feel like tagging people as a note on Facebook, so I'll just do it here because I liked this survey :)

-Put your music player on shuffle
-Skip to the next random song to get your answer for each question...
-Write it down
No Cheating!!

How would you describe your personality?
"Inside Out," by EvE6

What is your best quality?
"Angel of Music," by Andrew Lloyd Webber

What do you look for in a lover?
"Rock You Like a Hurricane," by the Scorpions

What is your life's motto?
"Dude Looks Like a Lady," by Aerosmith

What do you think about all the time?
"Scar Tissue," by Red Hot Chili Peppers (sick!)

What do other people think of you?
"Waiting on the World to Change," by John Mayer

What do you like to do when no one is around?
"Not Enough," by 3 Doors Down

What is your favorite hobby/interest?
"It Ain't Me Babe," Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix

What is your biggest secret?
"Scotty Doesn't Know," by Lustra

What is your life story?
"Simple Kinda Life," by No Doubt

How will you die?
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps," by the Beatles

What will they play at your funeral?
"Fortune Faded," by Red Hot Chili Peppers

What is the one thing you regret?
"It's Been a While," by Staind

If you could go back in time, what would you change?
"Love Me Two Times," by The Doors

What makes you laugh?
"Everything," by Lifehouse

What makes you cry?
"Damn Regret," by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

What scares you the most?
"Losing My Mind," by Maroon 5

What's the worst thing that could happen?
"Cyclone," by Baby Bash Feat. T-Pain

What is the meaning of life?
"Almost Easy," by Avenged Sevenfold

What title will you give this post?
"Girl You Really Got Me Now," by Van Halen

Finally doing it!

Yep, I'm taking the Jeopardy! online test, so I can remain in their database and possibly get called on to be a contestant in the future.

I'm such a dork. (But I've been answering a LOT of questions correctly lately and am pretty convinced that I could hold my own on the show!)

**UPDATE: I took the 50-question test and did it in NINE minutes! All the questions were sooo right up my alley. They ranged from French history (duh, speak it/studied it/lived there) to literature (English lit major at UCSB!), to sports questions (!!!!) and finally movies/tv with two answers being "Desperate Housewives" and "Moulin Rouge" the movie.

I better get called in for that show. I rocked that online quiz!

"What is UC Santa Barbara?"

Ummmm did anyone see Jeopardy! tonight?!

More specifically the Christmas-themed category, "Let's Go To Santa"? The $800 question, I believe was, "It is one of two University of California campuses that begins with the word Santa."

I would have owned that question and the Final Jeopardy question; I keep getting those bad boys right. I might consider trying out someday in my life I think.

Oh how I loved my undergrad.

Book club.... how about a book blog?

So I just had this interesting idea this morning. Whether or not people latch on to it will be a different story.

But everyone knows how much I love to read, right? I know some of you enjoy reading as well. So, why not start an international, online book club??! (This is so dorky, I know, but bear with me.)

Here's my idea: We get a group of people willing to read the same book each month, pick a date every month, and then we all blog our thoughts on the book, or comment on each other's book blog entries.

I sort of searched the Internet for something like this, but came up empty-handed. So if you already know of something like this, maybe you could guide me to those sites and we could latch on to an existing blog?

Or what the hell, enough people should (hint, hint) respond to this..... then we could start our own! (I'm a big dreamer, aren't I?)

UPDATE: I'm going to try and start a webring... if I can figure it out :) Spread the word!

Well, this is a surprise

Ok, I'm guilty. I completely ripped this off of Kari's blog post today. Hey, imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

It's either that, or I must be desperate to avoid doing any of my grad research and homework right now!

So today's post pertains to the world profiler, depicting the largest areas of frequency in last names worldwide.

And what do you know, Moyal is a French name. I know my family is Francophone, but I wasn't aware that the largest population of people presumably related to me lives in France. Most of my dad's side has come from either France or Morocco, many of which have also immigrated to Canada.


Well, France won with a 5.97 frequency per million. Next was Canada with 5.5 FPM, followed by Switzerland's 3.83, India's 2.42 and the United States has 0.51 Moyals per million habitants.

Interesting.

Look a little farther down the site and you'll see the top regions and cities populated by Moyals.


As a region, Québec leads all areas with a 39.47 FPM. Next is Ile-de-France (the greater Paris metropolitan area) with 22.32, and many distant relatives. But this one is the most exciting, the PACA region of France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur) where I've studied abroad and taught is the No. 4 most populous region for the Moyal surname, at 10.36 per million. I know for a fact I've got family down there, as I've visited quite a few times. Though you could make the case that they all have different last names than I do, but I'm sure I'm related to more people in the French Riviera than I am aware of.

As far as cities are concerned, four of the top five cities with the heaviest Moyal population are in the United States.

And No. 5 is in the Bay Area.

Shocking.