Stalked by a grasshopper

I'm being stalked by a grasshopper. Well, maybe..
It started last Friday. When I parked my bike at work, I noticed a grasshopper was on my bike. I thought, "hmm, that's strange" but then forgot about it. I saw her (I think it's a female) again on Monday while I was on my way to work. When I got there, I carefully brushed her off.
Today, I found heron my sleeve when I entered the building (it was raining, too!). So I brushed her off on to the pavement, over 30 feet away from my bike.
I went to an advising appointment at Kent during lunch, then stopped by my apartment to change (more about that later) and on my way back (it was still raining) I saw the grasshopper clinging to my right mirror. It was pretty sweet to see how she flattened herself out to avoid getting blown off.
Every time I got to a stop light, she would readjust her position. I left her on my bike this time when I came into work.. I wonder if she'll be back?
I actually have 3 theories for this one:

1. The grasshopper is stalking me.
2. My bike is a breeding ground for grasshoppers.
3. Rival companies have hired grasshoppers to sneak into my workplace and steal company secrets.
   

Consistently crazy

Work has been super busy of late. There's so much stuff to do and document - I love it, but it's crazy. Last Thursday our aging primary domain controller finally gave up the ghost, so we spent that day making sure the replacement DC was doing everything correctly, and spent the next day doing data recovery on the old one - which left me racing to beat a programming deadline on Monday.. =D

I've been working on my freerunning skills lately as well. The fivefingers are awesome. They give me great grip while still allowing me to feel the surface I'm on. I had a great time training at a local playground yesterday. There's an even bigger playground I'd like to check out, but it tends to have a lot of people at it. Maybe I'll go there on lunch one day.

One of my favorite things to do with fivefingers is climb. Climbing pipes up the sides of buildings is suddenly super easy. I really freaked myself out the other day, however, when I climbed down a 2-story pipe. About 5 feet down I passed over a buzzing bees nest that wasn't visible from the top or bottom. Thankfully, the bees ignored me. When I saw them, the only thought in my head was "don't let go, don't let go, don't let go..."

I'm also working on performing a front flip. So far I've only succeeded in landing on my back, but I understand what I'm doing wrong so hopefully I can change that. The technique itself is really simple; unfortunately, my confidence in the technique working is very low. I have a fear of landing on my head. This isn't a problem in rolls because I know I'm in control - I've taken 10 foot drops with no problem. But what gets me on the front flip is when I jump up, I'm not rotating. I have to generate the rotation by curling my body, but I feel like I won't rotate enough and will simply land on my head. Ah well, practice makes perfect.

On a side note, futon mattresses make good substitutes for gym mats, but bed mattresses do not. Although a bed has more padding, it is too springy; when I landed on the bed, I hit the ground with my butt, then got shot back up. With the futon mattress, there is no springiness, so although it has less cushioning, it ends up providing more.

You are like Nathan

I love Leverage and can't wait for season 2 to start (July 15!). I knew it was supposed to be close but wasn't sure when, so I went on TNT's website to check. While I was there, I took the "What Specialty Do You Bring to the Heist?" quiz, and got the result shown below, which I found to be rather humorous.

YOU ARE LIKE NATHAN

You’re the brains--smart, logical, and not afraid to show it. Pulling off a heist doesn’t have to be brain surgery, but you treat planning one as such just to make sure every detail is set. Even though you don’t help out at the scene itself, your crew respects you, nonetheless. Sniffing out snags and keeping the state pen out of the picture earns you that kind of appreciation. Yes, life’s good on the sidelines, especially if things go south quickly. After all, ideas can’t get you arrested, right?

"they scare me"

Well, I've had several different groups comment on my FiveFingers now. On Friday I went with Morgan and a bunch of our friends to see Transformers (great movie, by the way!) and their reactions were mostly a mix of "cool" and "weird". Saturday, Mor and I went to Border's and the lady who came over to "help" me asked me about them (judging by her interest in my FiveFingers, I think that they may have been her main motivation, but she was really nice anyways, so..). As I told her about them, I'm pretty sure she was beginning to experience a desire for a pair of her own. Her main concern was whether or not she would be able to wear them all day, to which I replied with the warning on the Vibram website about gradually getting your body used to them.
I received more comments on Sunday, mostly in the "they're ugly" category.. I don't know why people think so, I personally think they look sweet. I also got comments both Monday and Tuesday at work. One of the ladies stopped me as I was leaving on Monday and asked what they were, so I exhibited them to the group that was standing there. One of the guys said, "They must be really comfortable, but they scare me. ... They're scary.". On Tuesday she stopped me again and had me show two other people. She made a comment about how we should all get them, but that may have been sarcasm.
All in all, the reception to them hasn't been to bad. I only hope my boss doesn't have a problem with them (he gets back from vacation on Monday).