Blinky Lights and Shiny Objects

I Only Have a Green Thumb in Video Games

2011-12-11T20:10:00.001-06:00

I play Minecraft. One of the things you can do in Minecraft is farm resources. I finished building a greenhouse around an island last night. Here is a screenshot of a view of the greenhouse taken from the glassed-in second story of my home base. That is where I grow wheat and pumpkins.

The sugar cane plants along the shore line are also part of my cultivation project. Unlike my gardening skills in real life, I'm getting significant virtual return on these plots.

DSLR on Vacation

2011-05-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't usually bring a large, expensive camera on a trip that is mainly about relaxing and sand. But, now I've got this older DSLR that just sits around most of the time and wouldn't get $200 on eBay if I tried to sell it. I took it to Cozumel for our vacation, and at the very least I loved having a real viewfinder to look through on those sunny days. I only brought a few lenses, none in my "first tier" class, but more than serviceable in the Caribbean light. I even treated the post-processing more casually than usual, simply clicking the "Perfectly Clear" box in Bibble 5 and adjusting very few other parameters. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

70-200mm f2.8 Sony G

2011-03-13T21:08:00.000-05:00

I figured out what lens I was going to get to cover the telephoto range. LensRentals.com sells used lenses after they've been rented out for 20 weeks or so. I bought a used copy of Sony's constant f2.8 aperture 70-200 zoom from them, which retails for $1800, for much less than that. I am so happy with this lens! I used it on a tripod to shoot a wedding ceremony, and with the in-body image stabilization on my camera I am also able to hand-hold it for walk-around shots like the one above.

The only problem is that now I want to upgrade all of my lenses to glass this nice. No one ever said photography was a cheap hobby.

50mm f2.8 Macro Lens

2011-03-09T23:01:00.000-06:00

Cross Country Audrey and Scott

2011-03-07T20:37:00.000-06:00

I met Scott in 1996, at the nerd camp "Operation Catapult" held at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. We both ended up attending RHIT for college, and we both moved to the Chicago area after graduating. Scott has been a wonderful friend, the sort who you don't see all the time because they are always booked solid but you know that they would clear their calendar to help you. In 2008, he took time off from his career to hike the Appalachian Trail, a long-planned adventure that didn't end the way he expected. He wasn't able to finish the trail due to an injury, but he did meet Audrey.

Audrey and Scott are now married, and starting off on crossing the country in an orthogonal direction to their mountain hike. You can get all of the details at Cross Country Audrey and follow along with them as they bike from California to Maine. The trip is being undertaken to raise money for an organization that helps people who have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This isn't a large-group corporate organized trip, this is just Audrey, Scott, and their bikes.

The journey started for real today. I wish the best of weather, health, circumstances, and experiences to both of them!

Gallbladder Awareness Campaign

2011-03-05T13:00:00.001-06:00

I would like to request that whoever is teaching the medical community that gallbladder problems are only for the over-forty set, to please stop it. After my previous post, I got tired enough of severe abdominal pain after eating that I decided to keep bothering my doctor until he figured it out and fixed it.

Symptoms, for at least ten years previous, include occasional sharp stabbing aching pain in my torso, near enough to my stomach that I was told it was "just gas". Pain started 20 minutes to 45 minutes after eating a rich meal, and lasted a few hours, then went away completely. Sometimes the next few meals would also cause pain, even if they were not rich or fatty. I'd told my doctors, and nurses, and family, but no one could figure out what was really wrong. They would test my thyroid again, even though I'd already had it tested and everything was normal. They would suggest it was a food sensitivity, or an allergy to a preservative, and I had to keep food diaries and do tests. Nothing made sense, and everything came back normal.

Finally, I had an attack of the pain while I was at the doctor's office, after drinking a glass of water. He poked around my torso until I yelled out in pain. "Oh, wow, it is your gallbladder!" he said, then prescribed an ultrasound to look for gallstones.

I went to the medical reference section of the local library to start learning about WTH a gallbladder was. It turns out to not be very important, but can hurt a lot for various reasons.

The ultrasound was totally normal, no gallstones, no obvious malformations. Strike out on that one. The doctor prescribed a HIDA scan, which is where they give you an IV of radioactive tracer and watch you under a gamma camera for two hours to see where it goes. My liver did it's job, and pulled all of the tracer out of my bloodstream very quickly. It then slowly, properly, seeped into the small intestine. The gallbladder never lit up at all. (They didn't bother with the CCK IV because there would be nothing to see.) That is not normal, so we finally had a diagnosis. Biliary dyskinesia, aka "It doesn't work right."

I ended up having surgery to have the non-essential organ removed. It went well, was done laparoscopically, and I have been free of that pain since.

The medical people who could have recognized my symptoms would usually tell me they didn't suspect my gallbladder because I wasn't OLD ENOUGH. Here is what I think: people over 40 that get gallbladder attacks go to the emergency room because they think they are having a heart attack, so they get diagnosed more often. An anecdotal sampling of my facebook friends turned up six other people who had gallbladders removed before they were forty. My doctor told me recently that in the months following my diagnosis, he has found biliary dyskinesia in three other patients, who he hadn't known what to look for before. So, my point is that the age boundary of 40 years old is probably a red herring, and shouldn't be trusted to rule out this problem in patients with abdominal pain.

Sinusoidal Scarf

2010-09-19T15:13:00.000-05:00

This is an easy pattern for a knitted scarf. I made it up to practice knit and purl stitches, to build up speed and work on keeping an even gauge as I go. It is supposed to be wavy when finished, resembling the shape of a sinusoid curve. This is done simply by alternating garter stitch sections, which lay flat, with stockinette stitch sections, which tend to curl towards the knit side. I alternate the side the stockinette faces to form the max and min points. So, this is a very nerdy project.

(Any yarn and needle size can be used, gauge is not important, adjust stitch count for the width of scarf you want.)

Yarn: St. Denis Nordique, 100% wool, 50g per 150 yards, 2 to 3 balls, blue eggshell

Gauge: 19 stitches for 4 inches

Needle: US 8 or 5.00mm

Cast on 30 stitches.

Rows 1-4: knit all stitches.
Row 5: purl all stitches.
Row 6: knit all stitches.
Row 7: purl all stitches.
Rows 8-13: knit all stitches.
Repeat rows 5 through 13 until scarf is desired length. Bind off.

The Color "Pants Left in Wash"

2010-05-30T11:54:00.003-05:00

(Title of post is from an Eddie Izzard routine where he talks about laundry.)

I wear enough red clothing that reds get their own load. Pity the poor white article that gets accidentally swept into that pile! One particular expensive t-shirt was abused in just that manner, oh, many years ago. I kept it around, not sure how to remedy the pale pinks and splotchy reds now decorating the whole of it.

Technology has advanced, and now they sell small packets of dry chemicals to remove evidence of this particular moment of stupidity. I tried out Carbona's color run remover on the shirt. After soaking for about an hour, most of the shirt was whiter than when I bought it. The commercially applied graphic was not harmed at all. There is a small splotch of very light pink where the darkest red splotch used to be, but you have to know it is there to see it. (I think the chemicals in one packet were exhausted by removing the rest of the color, and didn't have enough strength to take care of the last portion.)

The next time I was in Hancock Fabrics, I bought another box to keep on hand. I've also been very annoying telling my friends about this in person, so I figured I'd put it up here and tell all of you at once. Please do make sure the colors you want to keep are colorfast, or you'll have the experience of the upset Amazon reviewers who are blaming the product for ruining their stuff. Sigh... - only one entire panel of the box is dedicated to warning you against using it where it would damage the garment!

New Lens?

2010-05-03T20:09:00.005-05:00

Now that I have basically the nicest camera I can imagine, I've been working on upgrading my lens collection. In late November of last year, I bought a Konica Minolta 28-75 f/2.8 lens, used, from eBay. It is my absolute favorite lens ever, and I love having the constant f/2.8 aperture. The focusing is fast, and the only thing it is missing is macro capability. In most situations, this is the only lens I use.

My wider angle needs are covered by a Vivitar 19-35 f/3.5-4.5.

My candid very-low-light shots are handled by a "vintage" (thanks, Barb + Nik!) Minolta 50mm f/1.7 prime lens.

The hole in my arsenal is at the telephoto end. I've got a Minolta 75-300 f/4.5-5.6 (known as the Big Beercan style lens) that I also bought used from eBay but has MAJOR problems.

For example, it can't change apertures anymore and I think the AF motor has a short circuit inside the lens, so it is manual focus only.

I've got a Quantaray 75-300 f/4-5.6 that I bought used from a local guy, for $30, which is functional but not very good. I can tell from the shots of the Lens Align focus targets that it just can't resolve fine detail very well.

In the middle of March, for the special occasion of D&R's wedding, I rented a lens to cover this hole from LensRentals.com. I had a good experience with the site, and would recommend them to you if you need this sort of a thing. For $62.25 they shipped me a fully-insured Sony 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 G SSM to use for nearly a week. (A four day rental ordered on Monday to receive on Thursday actually arrived on Wednesday and they didn't want it shipped back until the next Tuesday because they don't consider the rental period to start until the first full day of use that you scheduled. Sure, I'll take it. All of this UPS-ing back and forth was included in the price.) It is supposed to be a very nice lens, and retails for $850. I thought I'd love it.

Eh, not really.

I used it at the St. Louis Zoo, and wasn't floored with the experience. I ended up not using it at the wedding at all, partially because quarters were so close, but mostly because it wasn't fast enough. (As in aperture size, not focusing speed. It focused very quickly.) The previously mentioned favorite lens took care of almost the whole event, excepting a few wide angle shots of the venue.

(The ducky shot above was taken with the Konica Minolta lens.) I was glad I had just rented, rather than buying, an expensive lens I ended up being less than thrilled with.

Now we come to the point of this post. I recently learned that a patent I am primary author on was issued! We get some $ as a reward for IP disclosures, and more $ when the patent is issued. I like to do something significant and optics-related with these bonuses. The first patent I got, I put the money towards buying a lifetime membership in SPIE.

I am considering getting a nice telephoto zoom lens this time. Specifically, the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 Macro which is also about $800 but does have the f/2.8, does have Macro, and is getting very good reviews. On paper, I'll love it. But, I'm wondering if I should rent it first, to be sure? That would be $84, insured, for another four day rental. If I don't like it, I send it back and keep looking for my knight in shining armor. But if I end up buying it anyway that adds 10% to the cost of the lens for the risk-reduction exercise. What do you think?

(P.S. If you know who I am in real life, please do not comment on WHICH patent I got on this blog. I don't need the Internet to know my full name, etc. Not that facebook gives a rip anymore...)

At the Mall I Learned

2010-04-28T21:14:00.002-05:00

If I don't start posting simple, small, things again, this blog may never restart. (I hope you are all using feed readers like Google Reader instead of checking this site manually, I'd feel less guilty for wasting your time.)

Anyway, at the mall tonight I learned that I am in a minority for wanting to wear boots all year, and am particularly stupid for trying to buy more of them at the end of April. I found a few pairs on clearance to replace the ones whose heels have worn down past the point of repair, then came home and ordered another pair from the Internet.

I also stopped in the Apple store. iPads are slightly smaller than I thought they would be. Maybe all the people in the promotional video are smaller than I thought, so the scale was not coming through correctly?

Challenge and Compromise

2010-03-01T20:30:00.006-06:00

Yesterday I finished participating in the 2010 Ravelympics as a member of the Crochet Liberation Front's Flaming Hooks team. My chosen challenge was to use Tunisian crochet and make a sweater from the Spice Market Tunic pattern. The rules for the competition involve starting a project no earlier than the Opening Ceremony for the real Olympics started, and finishing no later than midnight PST on the day they ended.

That is a lot of crochet in a short amount of time. Especially since I have a job to go to, other commitments to keep up with, and no previous experience doing Tunisian crochet. I worked crocheting sessions into spare moments, during long trips, over lunch, and put in a few marathon sessions when I had large chunks of free time. People would ask what I was doing, I'd explain it, then I'd get a variation on this next question:

"So, what happens if you don't finish?"

Maybe I read into it the wrong way, but it always sounded like they were wondering why I put so much effort into something that didn't have to be done. They saw me working towards an artificial deadline, with no real consequence for failing to finish on time. Nothing bad would happen, no penalty would be applied, it wouldn't go down on my permanent record as a black mark saying that in February of 2010 I failed to finish a sweater. Why, then, was I applying myself with such dedication, when no-one said that I had to?

I work hard for myself. My strongest motivations are internally sourced. I took on this challenge as a personal test. Could I do this thing? Finish? Crochet faster and better than I ever have before? Would I get a bright red sweater and a shiny blog badge or a half finished pile of frustration and tangles? The answer to those questions is what I would get out of it. The only bad consequence would be having to answer, "No, you can't pull this off" to myself.

And now I know I can. I could, I did, I'm done. There is a bright red sweater in my projects page on Ravelry.com. It is marked finished, in time, on the correct day. The stitch-work is even, the seams are neat, the pattern of tps and tss alternating on the front panel is perfect. I win.

But, here is the compromise mentioned in the title of the post: there are no sleeves. The pattern has sleeves. What happened? The sleeves are made last, after the front and back pieces are done. I had been crocheting for 8 hours (counting stitching time only) on Sunday before it started to become painful. Half an hour later, at 2.5 hours in to the first sleeve (and about halfway done with it) I decided that I could not continue with Tunisian crochet motions. My fingers, wrists, shoulders, and back were simply too worn out from the speed and the strain I was subjecting them to. [The yarn had already caused brush-burns on the fingers of my left hand as it wrapped over-under-over for tension. I had put bandages and cloth tape over the reddened skin to keep going in less pain.] My rational brain knew that the sleeves would not be finished yesterday. I acknowledged that my original goal could not be met and put down the hook.

A great thing about internal motivation is that when you want to change direction, you only have to convince yourself. Also, in sewing patterns they often include two versions of a shirt or a dress in one envelope. There is a sleeved version and a sleeveless version. The only difference between the two is that you don't make the sleeves - there are no other changes to the bodice pattern pieces. So, leaving off the sleeves is a design decision. In this particular case it was encouraged by my situation.

In the end, I still win.

(P.S. Now I have a crazy idea brewing to add a skirt and sleeves made from fabric and trimmed with the yarn, and turn this into a dress. Later.)

Hey, Look, More Pictures of Trees!

2010-02-18T22:35:00.003-06:00

I went to a Pro/E Technology day today in Wheaton, and it ended at 3pm. Since the weather was so nice (sunny, near but still above freezing) I decided to visit the nearby Morton Arboretum for the first time. I went ahead and joined for the year at the individual membership level. (This also gets me in many other gardens that participate in the American Horticultural Society's Reciprocal Admissions Program.) I had my big camera, warm snow boots, and two hours before the park closed. There is a sculpture exhibit that opens in April, Steelroots by Steve Tobin, but the sculptures were already placed among the Conifer section. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip:

Papercrafting for Prizes

2010-02-16T20:14:00.004-06:00

Did you know it is National Engineer's Week? They celebrate it all week at work. They give us cake, and gifts, and hold competitions with nifty prizes. Today I won a portable hard drive by making the strongest table out of 8 sheets of newspaper. A few years ago I won a laser level by making the strongest tower out of index cards and staples. (I do real engineering, too, where they let me specify aluminum and stainless steel to make parts. But that is all year.) Happy National Engineer's Week!

The Last Inconvenience is Now Convenient

2010-02-10T20:37:00.003-06:00

I was as surprised as you were when I turned the corner at the grocery store and discovered from a display set up in the center of the cereal aisle that they now make INSTANT Irish Oatmeal! That means I can have Irish oatmeal whenever I want now, not... never.

I got my introduction to real Irish oatmeal on a horseback riding trip in the Canadian Rockies that I went on with my family a long time ago. I even bought myself a bag of the stuff from King Arthur's Baker's catalog. But then I think I prepared it a grand total of ONCE. It takes a looooong time to prepare, especially for a breakfast food, so I always passed over it in favor of other choices.

Not anymore. I am eating it for dinner right now.

Luxury

2010-02-04T22:31:00.005-06:00

Luxury is making beautiful things because I want to, not because I have to.

Top to bottom:
The Irish Eyes motif from The Harmony Guides: Crochet Stitch Motifs: 250 Stitches to Crochet.
The Clover Hat from Crochet in Color: Techniques and Designs for Playing with Color.
Cold Shoulders from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker.

(Luxury is also new pillows, fresh windshield wiper blades, a good song stuck in my head, and a cat on my lap.)

When Your Grandma Gets Her iPad

2010-02-03T20:54:00.003-06:00

please send her over to Ravelry.com. We could use more crocheters to balance out all the knitters who have taken over a little.

Seriously, I didn't bring my laptop on vacation last week, and I got along fine just using my iPod touch for Internet consumption. Ravelry works well on the iPod/iPhone, the only problem at the moment is that it has trouble marking forum posts as "read". That, and the screen was too small - I had to keep zooming in. So, a giant iPod (aka the iPad) would have worked even better.

Will I get one? Ask me again when the 2nd Gen comes out. One problem is I wouldn't be able to carry it constantly like the iPod. First, it doesn't fit in my purse. Second I doubt I could legally bring it into work with me like I can with the iPod. (It is a bit too much like a computer and not enough like a phone or an MP3 player.) I'd lean towards the model with the largest hard drive, but no 3G service. I do like the display specs - it would be wonderful for viewing photos.

Actually, I'd like any high quality, high resolution computer display that had LED back-lighting and good color gamut, interfaced with my laptop, and wasn't gigantic. Unfortunately everything I've seen in that idiom would take up most of the dining room table. Anyone have a suggestion?

Discards

2010-02-01T20:52:00.002-06:00

I finally canceled my free Classmates.com membership. They are no longer relevant now that we have facebook, and their most recent privacy policy update was concerning to me.

I also sent in my cancellation notice for my L.A. Fitness gym membership. A new fitness center has opened up at work. It is free, convenient, and I won't fear for my personal safety. (That comment is about the parking lot at our specific L.A. Fitness, not meant to be a joke about the unfortunate murders in a different state.)

I un-joined facebook and Ravelry groups I don't care about much, unsubscribed from marketing email lists, (except for the ones that send good coupons), lightened up my Google Reader subscription list, cleaned out my iPod apps, and cleared some of the mail off the dining room table.

It feels nice, like I'm a little lighter.

I Hadn't Seen One of These Before

2010-01-29T10:44:00.003-06:00

We saw this in the distance off to the north, after walking up to the St. Louis fort in Marigot, St. Martin. B thought it was a water spout. It did start raining once those clouds got to where we were, about two minutes before we got back to the hotel.

The "Chewbacca Rock" was on an overlook point on another hill we hiked up in St. Martin, at Loterie Farm. B and I were joking about how we tend to "find a hill and climb it" whenever we go on a vacation. Maybe it is because we don't see hills with views in our day to day lives in the Chicago suburbs.

As usual, clicking on the pictures will take you to the Flickr page and you can see the rest of the album. There are photos of B and I, but you've got to be my friend or family on Flickr to see them.

LEGOLAND Pictures

2010-01-02T16:57:00.003-06:00

First, full disclosure: I was sent four free tickets for admission to LEGOLAND Chicago, as a result of either my previous blog posts or some email conversations with the promotional staff. So, K, R, D, and I were not spending our own money to wander around this morning. We almost made up for it in the gift shop, though.

Here's my favorite picture - poor Batman doesn't know what he's in for:

Little Santas had taken over the Chicago skyline and appeared to be rioting in the streets below:

Upstairs in the open-play area they had these huge soft bricks, almost like a ball pit, but actually usable to built things with:

One main objective of the trip was to take engagement photos for D and R while they were in town for New Years. Their wedding date is 3/14, Pi day, and there will be Pie. So if you are a friend of mine on Flickr and are looking through the album, that should explain the various "cute couple" poses and the engagement ring on top of the LEGO pie. All other nonsense will remain unexplained.

Home-Ec in Real Life

2009-12-30T09:11:00.004-06:00

Next year, when I get a great idea for a Christmas gift to make everyone, and buy the supplies in July and have everything set up to start working WHENEVER, I need to start actually working on the gifts prior to a few weekends before Christmas.

I like how all the pillows turned out in the end. The last one was finished at about 10:30 pm on December 23rd.

So, there's the sewing. For cooking, here's some eye candy:

I suppose I collect herbs, spices, and seasonings, too. That's an ELFA over-the-door storage system, which will definitely be coming with us if we ever move. Those larger spice containers in the fourth and fifth rows from the top are from Valli Produce, and cost something ridiculous like $2.39 each. Some not pictured are in the wings to refill the smaller bottles and canisters - so the contents of the Kroger canisters are not all from when I lived in Terre Haute.

Puffins!

2009-11-27T16:12:00.003-06:00

H had mentioned he was looking for photographs of Atlantic puffins. I decided to spend time today finding and scanning these negatives. These photos are from the summer of 1998, when I went to Maine with my then-boyfriend's family. I am fairly certain this is Machias Seal Island. The scanner I use now is an Epson Perfection V500 Photo, the camera I used then was my Minolta Maxxum 650si, the lens was probably a Promaster 28-200. Each image has been adjusted in Bibble 5 - just rotation, crop, white balance, and some exposure balancing. There are visible grains (it's consumer grade film, some ISO 800, some ISO 400) dust (I'll re-scan any important images with the dust removal tool enabled) and focus errors. I don't miss film.

First Pictures from Sony Alpha 850

2009-11-07T20:14:00.003-06:00

Here you go. For the first set of photos from my new camera, I decided to take pictures of one of the first cameras in my collection.

After downloading the RAW files to my computer I discovered that Bibble does not yet support the a850 (Bibble 4 goes up to the a700, and Bibble 5 preview 2.2 has the a900, but the a850 is not in that release. I hear the next preview release is imminent, but I JUST GOT A NEW CAMERA and I WANT TO PROCESS MY RAW FILES!)

The nice looking picture above and immediately below were processed using DxO Optics Pro 6, free trial edition. I'd be more impressed if it hadn't crashed three times and taken so dang long to complete the batch. Bibble has me spoiled for speed, that's for sure.

The foggy version below is what happens when Picasa 3 converts the files to .jpg. I'm really not impressed at all. What were they thinking? I kept this one for reference and deleted the rest.

I haven't even installed the Sony software, other than the plug-in that lets Windows explorer preview the RAW files as thumbnails.

We went to a park this afternoon so I could take some outdoor photos in the daylight. Our weather this weekend is unseasonably warm, so it was a very nice walk. For today, I switched the camera to take RAW+jpg, so I'll just upload the .jpg versions and wait for Bibble to catch up before using the RAW files.

My plans do include taking detailed pictures of all of the cameras in my collection, so this blog may be very photo-geeky for the near future. I'm having fun, at least.

Hot Wok Village is Closed

2009-11-01T20:25:00.003-06:00

I know this will be crushing news for some of you, but Hot Wok Village is closed. The sign is gone, the doors are locked, the lights are out. I've got mixed feelings on the situation. It was an interesting place, serving interesting Indo-Chinese food. But, the last time we went there the food I ordered put me into so much pain that I was out of commission for the rest of the night. And I don't mean because it was spicy - I think there was something chemically wrong with what I ate.

We've got other options. There are many Indian and Chinese establishments in the Schaumburg area that haven't tried to kill me. The Himalayan Restaurant serves some Indo-Chinese food, and the service we've gotten there was very attentive. Yu's Mandarin is the best Chinese restaurant in all of space and time. And Udupi Palace is a great place for vegetarian selections - with a wonderful lunch buffet.

So, I'm sorry RK, you'll have to find another source for coconut water served in a real coconut. (If anyone knows why HWV closed, please leave a comment. Thanks.)

Waiting for Trick or Treaters

2009-10-31T15:39:00.003-05:00

Official trick or treat start time in our town is 3pm, and no one has showed up yet. (Okay, we finally got a group at 3:47.)

What have I been up to? Mostly work and crocheting. Being on Ravelry.com has encouraged me to finish projects faster than before. But, I think my next project will be a sewing project, to make something to hold my crochet hooks.

I'm very close to ordering a new camera - the Sony Alpha 850 - with the justification of doing the wedding photography for some friends early next year. This is exciting because the a850 is a full-frame sensor, which means that the FPA is the same size as a 35mm piece of film. So, it will let me get nice wide-angle shots again with my 17-35 zoom lens. The APS-C sensors multiply the apparent focal length of a lens by 1.5, which is nice at the telephoto range, but I prefer wide angle drama.

The weather is getting colder here, but at least today is sunny. Most of the week has been rain, but at least it isn't snowing yet.

Same old, same old, you know?

New Church Organ

2009-10-04T15:35:00.002-05:00

One of the organists at church posted this video to YouTube of him playing a recessional at the end of service. (I'm not in the group you hear singing in the background - I missed church this morning.)

The video shows the altar set up in "contemporary mode" as it is for most of the year. For Lent, they go "old school" and put back the beautiful carvings. Here is what the altar looks like on Easter:

(There was a slight change to the pipe configuration after I took this. I should go back with the good camera and take more organ pictures.)

Homecoming Bonfire 2009

2009-09-27T20:38:00.002-05:00

The wood was too wet, so the structure was still standing by the time our group left the scene to go to dinner. I think this was the best ignition I've seen - a flaming something was launched at the bonfire using a trebuchet!

Get-it-Out-of-My-Head Crochet

2009-09-14T06:34:00.003-05:00

While we were at Cedar Point (yes, again) last weekend, one topic of discussion in line ended with me thinking about if a Klein Bottle could be made in crochet. I poked around online, and found that while several people have patterns or product for sale using knit and crochet, no-one has something like what I've been mentally designing. The concept is stuck in my head, like a song you keep remembering, and I've spent enough time refining it that I think I can actually make it work in real life.

At Stitches Midwest 2009, Habu Textiles had a booth. I bought many strange and wonderful things there, including two skeins of fique material. Here is a photo of the start I got on the Klein bottle next to the rest of one skein.

From a Gettysburg Monument

2009-09-11T00:34:00.000-05:00

Senior Project Whiteboard

2009-08-29T22:40:00.002-05:00

I found a stash of older image files on a backup hard-drive. It includes photos taken with my first digital camera, which was a Kodak peripheral for my Palm IIIc. Here is a picture of the whiteboard from some point during Senior Project at Rose-Hulman. I love that graph!

Tinfoil Hat

2009-08-23T16:37:00.001-05:00

DSCN2694
Originally uploaded by prismglass

I got my PIV (see http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/piv/index.html) on Friday. I put this pouch together this weekend. It is going to live in my purse and help shield my RFID stuff from bad guys. The Flickr set has more details in the captions for the other photos.

Low-Res, Content Rich

2009-07-30T21:57:00.002-05:00

I've spent more time at work in the last three days using Microsoft Paint than ProEngineer. There was a communication problem with a supplier about what surface finishes should go where on some of my complicated machined parts. The drawing depicts this information using tiny filled dots on each surface connected to leader lines ending with note callouts. NOTE 2.1 is irridite, NOTE 2.2 is hardcoat anodization, NOTE 2.3 is Aeroglaze over irridite, and so on. One finish (usually Aeroglaze) is the default for the view, and I have notes calling out the other finishes.

I'll be honest, the views look like porcupines. If that was all you had to go on, it would be tough to get a clear picture of what the finished part was supposed to look like, or even if I had any goal in mind. After consulting with the supplier and talking with the people who would have to do all the complicated masking, we decided that color coded pictures would be very helpful. I verified that no-one there was colorblind, then settled on red = irridite, green = anodization, blue = Aeroglaze.

Once back at my desk I started the process to make each picture in ProEngineer. First, to get rid of the gradient background I changed to "Black on White" view preferences. I opened the file, oriented it to show a lot of surfaces at once, zoomed in to fill the screen, switched to "no hidden lines" view, and Saved a Copy as a Tiff (Snapshot). This created an image file that was like a coloring book - all the details of the edges of the part in one solid color, on a white background. Rather than taking all the screenshots of the different part orientations at once, I left ProE set to this one orientation for reference as I colored the picture.

In MS Paint, I opened the .tif file and immediately did a save-as to add _color at the end of the filename. (Just in case I royally mess up, I like having a clean copy to start from.) The screen shot is never perfect, there may be a few pixels missing from the outline here and there due to rendering limitations in ProE. To find these "leaks" I first flood the background in pink. Then with areas to focus on I zoom in and use the eyedropper to sample the color of the outline. The pencil tool in "large" mode can close the gaps - usually it was fairly obvious where the pixel should have been. I scoot around the picture looking for other missing pixels before zooming back out again. Paintbucket to white, turn the pink to white again, and then get down to the real work.

I'll keep the .pdf of the official drawing open in a separate window for reference. (Oh, how I wish we had dual monitors!) These RGB pictures aren't official documentation, so they are overridden by the drawing, so it is important to make sure the two match. If not, our quality department could impound the parts upon receipt if the finishes do not match the released print. Paintbucket is the tool of choice, and I soon have that graphic completed. Then I save, import to PowerPoint, and start on the next one.

Three to four views are enough to describe each piece. One graphic goes on each slide, set to B size (11" x 17") paper so less detail is lost. I include a copy of the color key on each page at the request of the masking department. I finish by printing to .pdf and emailing out, then on to the next part.

I don't think I'd want to do this exercise for every single part I design. But when there are three or more finishes in one piece it is just so much easier to digest like this. Even the shaded 3D model is difficult to read correctly, because two out of three finishes I used here are black.

Bonus: pixels remind me of childhood.

Fashion News

2009-07-23T19:49:00.002-05:00

Lee now makes jeans cut to actually fit against the back of one's waist without a huge gap. I was very surprised when all four pairs from three different brands I brought into the JC Penney fitting room were wearable, including a clearance model that rang up at $3.98. That NEVER HAPPENS.

Cedar Point

2009-07-02T16:45:00.002-05:00

Our new favorite amusement park ride of all time is the Millennium Force roller coaster. We rode it five times over our two days at Cedar Point. Perfect dynamics, great views of the lake, fast line, secure hip-bar restraints, and occasional tunnels add up to a ride I always left smiling.

On our last ride of the second day, which we did on the Millennium Force towards the back of the train, I overheard a great conversation. A boy, maybe 10 years old, had dragged his mother to sit in the row in front of us. As we waited to board, she was expressing concern about being so far back - the back of the train goes over hills much faster than the front of the train, and I kind of picked up that she wasn't a fan of that. But, they stayed one row ahead of us anyway. As the train got to the very top of the first hill, I heard this:
Kid: "Can I cuss?"
His Mom: "Yes."
Kid: "sSHHIIIiiiii...."

Our second favorite ride is the Top Thrill Dragster. Due to maintenance issues closing the ride several times each day, we were only able to ride three times. Twice in the front row, once in the second row, so I had a good view of the track in front of me. Well, at least until my vision blurred from the extreme launch speed. Dragster is all speed and height, over so fast you don't feel like you even blinked, but etched into memory like it happened in slow motion. Highly recommended.

And, for all of you readers who "grew up near Cedar Point" and "went there all the time growing up" know that I am extremely jealous. We WILL be back, oh yes, we will.

Time to Sew

2009-06-21T11:23:00.004-05:00

While reading through some of the comments on a post for a sewing blog I read, I realized on about the 7th page that I've been spending more time reading about sewing than actually sewing. To quote our intern at work, "That's really lame." Why? Because my room was in a state that to sew anything I had to do about an hour of rearranging computer equipment. And to cut anything I'd have to find a home for six piles of magazines and paperwork that had migrated to the cutting table.

Weekend project! Yesterday I accomplished turning the lesser-used half of the dining table into the computer desk. A weighted USB hub and surge-protected power squid serve as a docking station. The scanner is set up and ready to use, which was another goal of the reorganization.

So far this morning, I've tackled the magazines and paper piles. I see the table starting to appear, and I've unearthed the pieces of the dress I was working on last. The whole room looks better, and I may be able to really sew something this afternoon.

T-Mobile Rocks

2009-06-20T19:41:00.004-05:00

I wanted to mention that I think it is awesome that T-Mobile phone support has a special support group for "unsupported devices."

In related news, I now have a phone that can receive picture messages. Yes, that is an AT&T model, but the T-Mobile tech support guy was able to update its software with just two text messages. It still has all the AT&T graphics and spam, but it works for picture messaging with my pay-as-you-go plan after the update. The old phone I was using still had all of its Cingular graphics and spam, so I'm used to that already.

P.S. We still have a land-line, and that is the most reliable way to get in touch with us. As in, I can hear those phones ringing anywhere in the house. My mobile phone is usually buried in my purse with a half-dead battery, so I'll find out you called in a day or two.

iPod Upgrade Helpful Hint

2009-06-18T09:36:00.001-05:00

I thought I had trouble with my iPod upgrade when it started acting
funny on my drive in to work. An album was playing, in order, but
each time I went over a bump it immediately started playing a
different song. Even when I noticed that it switched into shuffle
mode, I didn't understand why. On the walk in to the building I
realized what had happened.

When you upgrade your iPod Touch to OS 3.0, the "Shake to Shuffle"
feature is ON by default.

Thanks guys, really.

Lychees

2009-06-14T13:31:00.002-05:00

At Valli Produce yesterday there was a large bin of Lychees at $1.29 a pound. Patrons of Indian, Chinese, and other Asian backgrounds were circled around it, scooping the small red spiky fruits into plastic bags. I asked the group, "So, how do you eat these?" and immediately three people started explaining at once. One Indian gentleman demonstrated how you break into the peel at the stem end with your thumbnail, then work down the fruit splitting the stiff skin. The flesh is smooth, white, soft, translucent, and juicy. This is then popped into the mouth so your teeth can finish the job of removing the edible part. The other hint is "Don't bite on the seed, it is bitter." Each lychee has one large seed in its center, smooth, brown, and oblong.

A Chinese woman said that she had bought a few the day before to make sure they were good. They were sweet, so she had come back for more. At this point, even more people were crowded around the bin, and I was also scooping lychees into my plastic bag to try out.

The taste and texture resemble a peeled grape, but a bit more tropical and a lot easier to dismantle. I'd buy them again, and I'd recommend trying fresh lychees if your local produce store also has them in stock.

Resisting Twitter

2009-06-13T21:27:00.002-05:00

This is a test to see how well mobile blogging of short ideas goes
from my iPod. I'm slightly interested in Twitter, but I've already
got this blog I rarely post to. So, rather than add another page my
parents have to go to read how I'm doing, I'll try updating this one
more often.

Summer Plans so Far

2009-05-20T20:57:00.002-05:00

At the risk of inviting the Internet to my house, is anyone interested in visiting on Memorial Day weekend? I'm told there will be at least two grilling instances, one involving a whole chicken. Local and not-so-local friends are welcome - just let me know.

Later in the summer (dates TBD) B and I are going to take a trip to Cedar Point. We love roller coasters, and this is supposed to be the best park for those. The plan is to drive out on a Sunday, visit the park on a Monday and Tuesday, and drive back on a Wednesday. Does that sound like fun to anyone else? We could coordinate a convergence on the park, and stay in the same hotel. After-park parties could also be planned. (aka stop at an adult-beverage store on the way back to the hotel)

Today I got the approval to go to PTC/USER world conference. It runs from 6/7/09 to 6/10/09 in Orlando, FL. I've signed up for a nearly full agenda of seminars, training, and workshops. All of the sessions I'm taking are about Pro/ENGINEER. We've only had the upgrade to Wildfire 4 for a few weeks, so I have tons of questions. I'll be in "information sponge" mode. When I get back I'll be squeezing all that information into presentations and hints-n-tricks documents for the rest of our users. Seriously, I'm going to have fun doing this. This is what I do for fun. Really.

Rabbit Photos

2009-05-19T21:11:00.001-05:00

This rabbit was hanging out in our backyard for a long while tonight. I took pictures - they should be enough cute to get you through the rest of the week.

Oh, Right, I Have a Blog

2009-05-12T19:25:00.004-05:00

100th post, if you like round numbers in the base ten system that is kind of cool. I'm not going to write about anything special or monumental, just some disjointed thoughts and news items.

The herbs in pots in the kitchen are growing well. Much better than expected. At some point I will actually start using them to cook, but I didn't want to cut anything off so soon after transplanting.

The iPod touch (or iPhoney as I call it if I screw up and start referring to it as an iPhone) is both a monumental waste of time and a useful tool. I got an FM transmitter for the car so I'm actually listening to an hour of good music every day. The Genius playlist feature is now my friend.

I messed up a recent yarn purchase by not realizing that "one skein" listed on the pattern meant "one skein PER SOCK." Oops.

Just today I extricated myself from a major commitment at work that I wasn't really able to spend any time on, and wasn't excited about anymore. The relief I feel at having this burden lifted makes up for any lingering guilt about quitting the task. Also, I was reassured that I was NOT single-handedly holding up everything, as I had feared.

The Chase Corporate Challenge is next week on Thursday. I haven't spent any time running recently, so I'm planning to take it at a brisk walk. We'll see what actually happens.

Moving the GB Around

2009-04-18T16:44:00.003-05:00

There's a lot of data transfer happening on my desk at the moment. The iBook G4 is getting its hard drive content copied to an external drive via Firewire. My new iPod touch is getting all of my iTunes content loaded onto it from the Toshiba laptop via USB.

For the Apple laptop content, I'm just making a backup of EVERYTHING after already moving all the important stuff onto the Toshiba. B will then get the Apple (Power PC architecture, grr) to do whatever he wants with it. I've been told it might be partitioned and Ubuntu added once he clears the hard drive (all 60 GB of it) of un-needed files. The painful part of copying the files is that Finder doesn't just keep going if it finds a file with a really long name or other problems. So, I try copying large chunks and when it stops I pick smaller chunks and eventually get all the data moved over. So this project is in baby-sit mode.

For the iPod, I started the sync 20 minutes ago and it is only about 1/4 done. The story behind this purchase is that my 4th gen iPod (with clickwheel!) decided it didn't want to sync anymore. The hard drive on that thing was churning and not getting anywhere when connected to iTunes. (Unlike the two times the drive head got stuck and I saw the sad iPod graphic - fix by whacking on the upper right corner and restoring by the way - this time it just continued to say "do not disconnect".) It would also crash sometimes when just starting to play a song. Not a robust behavior for a piece of electronics, but it is five years old.

I am excited about using the iPod touch, especially as a Kindle and a portable web appliance in addition to a music player. If you have a favorite app for the iPhone or iPod touch I should check out, please leave a comment with your suggestion.

My other large purchase this weekend is less exciting. I noticed a bulge in the sidewall of my tire a few days ago, and remembered to look up if that meant something bad on Thursday. Friday morning, I was at the dealership getting a new tire. The tread on the others (replaced 10/07) was in good enough shape that they said I only needed to replace the damaged tire this time. Good thing, too, because the darn things cost $196 each. Stupid potholes.

Milestones

2009-04-11T09:33:00.003-05:00

My 30th birthday was a few weeks ago. It was so nice to have school friends, work friends, and my parents all together in our house for the party.

The Mazda3 reached 50,000 miles on Thursday. It is still in great shape and I feel very connected to it while driving. Like, it is a mobile feeling of "home" rather than just a way to get around.

In about a week, B and I have our 7th wedding anniversary. This is a good thing - another marker as we move forwards in our lives. Love you, hon!

Yellow Light Commute

2009-04-08T20:55:00.003-05:00

My morning drive into work can take anywhere from 20 to 30+ minutes on a normal day. I stay on local roads, so the time variation has to do with the traffic lights and any slow people I get stuck behind. Recently I've noticed a phenomenon and accompanying attitude that I'm calling the Yellow Light Commute. Green lights all the way = smooth trip = 20ish minutes from door to door. Red lights at particular intersections = stop and go = eh whatever.

But when I get yellow lights as I approach intersections, it forces me to decide. Assuming some jackhat isn't riding my tail and making it dangerous to stop I could go through or wait for next time. (Yellow lights here are nice and long.) On those days when it's yellow after yellow after yellow I find myself getting annoyed no matter what I choose. Hold speed and go through and I ask myself why I'm rushing to get to work. Stop at every light and I ask myself why I'm wasting time and gas. A green or a red light is easy, simple, and not my fault. A Yellow Light Commute is more stress and philosophy than I need at 8am.

Out Like a L.A.M.B.

2009-03-28T17:03:00.002-05:00

The forecast for tonight includes 4 to 8 inches of snow. March: in like a lion, out like a Laser Alien Mutant Bovid.

Extra Banana Suggestion

2009-03-28T16:25:00.002-05:00

On the countertop: five over-ripe bananas left over from the bunches I brought into work for my birthday. In my cookbook collection: "Perfect Light Desserts: Fabulous Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Made with Real Butter, Sugar, Flour, and Eggs, All Under 300 Calories Per Generous Serving". On page 77: Banana Loaf Cake, which uses EXACTLY 5 bananas. I followed the recipe as written, but didn't have the right size loaf pan. So, I used a muffin scoop to portion into 17 cupcakes instead, reducing the baking time to 30 minutes. HOLY COW THESE ARE GOOD!

What My Subconcious is Worried About

2009-03-09T20:51:00.004-05:00

Yesterday we watched Robocop - the unrated version - on Blu-ray over at the Pikafoop abode. That is an obscenely violent and completely gross movie. I was a little concerned I'd get nightmares.

Last night I dreamed that I had gone on a trip to explore a jungle canyon and had FORGOTTEN my CAMERA.

A Watched File Never Downloads

2009-03-05T17:38:00.003-06:00

In anticipation of my new computer arriving next week, I've been downloading programs ahead of time. I plan on using the downgrade option to XP Professional, and also adding a Linux partition. Here's what I've got collected so far:

Ubuntu and Kubuntu (I'll try both from the Live CD before choosing which one to install)
Bibble Pro for both Windows and Linux (already have it on Mac, they set up the licensing so you only pay once per user for Pro)
Adobe Reader for both Windows and Linux
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
iTunes 8 (my Mac running 10.3.9 is stuck at iTunes 7)
Mpix publishing software
Flickr Uploadr
Lego Digital Designer
TI-89 Titanium applications (NERD!)
Firefox
Thunderbird

I tried to download the Google Pack, but was repeatedly thwarted because I am using my Mac. Google kicks you out of the Windows download area and into a "here's what works on YOUR computer, loser" area if you aren't on a Windows computer. I sent a "suggestion" but if you know somebody who knows somebody who works there, could you point this out? Other sites that auto-detected that I'm using a Mac did let me download the Windows software once I clicked through to a special page. Unless there is some really good reason why the computer the software will be used on is the one that does the downloading, this is an aggravating limitation.

Enough ranting. The main reasons I wrote this post are to document the download links and to ask for more ideas. I use Windows at work (got the MS Office 2007 Enterprise suite through the Home Use Program for $19.95) but just for work-related tasks. (Sure, ProE or Zemax would be fun to have at home, but I'm not rich.) Which Windows applications do you like having and using at home? Which Linux applications should I be sure to install from the Ubuntu CD? Did anything in my list above kick your dog and throw up on your hard drive?

Exciting times. My iBook G4 has given me five good years, but it is time to move on.

Nearly Free Blender

2009-03-03T22:18:00.003-06:00

Big shopping score tonight:
This KitchenAid blender at our local Bed Bath and Beyond has a price tag of $119. I used a 20% off coupon from the mail for $24 off. I used three Discover cash-back bonus gift cards for $75 off. AND there is a $20 rebate on the model right now. $24 + $75 + $20 = $119 so I just had to pay sales tax.

Banana-Oatmeal smoothies for breakfast tomorrow!

(My old el-cheapo blender is no longer with us after an ice-cube and frozen-berries mixture didn't blend.)

Abbreviated Trip Report

2009-03-01T14:06:00.002-06:00

DSCN1745
Originally uploaded by prismglass

Cozumel was AMAZING. I managed to spend time actually relaxing on an actual beach with an actual tropical drink in my hand. San Miguel is a vibrant, friendly town, fun during the day and still hopping at night. We got to see one of the Carnival parades on our last night there. Hotel Flamingo worked out really well for us. We will NEVER go on a cruise, based on the behavior of the passengers on land and our reaction to a particularly rough ferry ride.

I spoke some Spanish, and some Spanglish, but mostly English. Getting pesos out of the ATM and using those instead of USD saved us a lot of money. Plus, we realized that a bottle of beer was cheaper than a bottle of water at restaurants. I ate fish, shrimp, fish wrapped in banana leaf, shrimp stuffed inside a chile relleno, fish tacos, guacamole, and "Mexican salsa, very hot." You'll even see a few pictures of the cats at the seafood restaurants, begging at the tables for scraps.

We spent one day on the mainland and took a Collectivo (shared taxi) to see the Tulum ruins. There were iguanas all over the place. In the evening we walked down the main drag of Playa Del Carmen. There were Europeans all over the place.

Overall a great vacation - I'd seriously consider going back again to do some things we missed.

Colors in my Memory

2009-02-16T00:07:00.003-06:00

Another sick day, another day of scanning. Today (technically, yesterday at this point) I concentrated on color negatives, which are more difficult to handle than the slides. Because of the way they load into the transparency carrier for my scanner, there is more variation in position of the frames. So, in addition to fiddling with getting the film strip loaded, I need to modify the marquee position for all eight shots. I've scanned four rolls of film today, and it has taken over six hours. That is just for the scanning - I've also spent another two hours post-processing in Bibble and uploading to Flickr, just for the first two rolls.

Why bother? In addition to still being sick and not wanting to leave the house today, I am really excited about bringing these photos back to life. These four rolls plus three more still to go are from our honeymoon trip to Arizona. In October of 2002 (6 months after the wedding because I didn't have enough vacation days built up yet in April) we flew into Phoenix and rented a car. We had no set plans. With a Motel 6 directory and a few good guidebooks we drove wherever we wanted and did whatever we felt like that day. I had brought my big camera, all my lenses, and my full-size tripod - photography would be an important component of the trip.

You know how disappointing it is when you get the prints back and the photos don't look as good as you remembered the scenery looking? The colors aren't right, the exposures are all washed out in the sky and the shadows are too dark to see inside? The red is gone from the rocks and they look normal instead of alien, so you amend your memories and put the pictures in albums and the trip is over.

Guess what. Digital photos aren't the first to have white-balance problems. With color-positive slide film, the colors are what they were. With color-negative print film, there is a lot of interpretation involved when making prints. Look at a negative - it certainly isn't exactly opposite of real-life color. Even in good photo labs, where the color adjustments are done by humans and not machines, those humans are not YOU. They weren't THERE. They are guessing at how those pictures are supposed to look, and they are going to get it wrong.

Solution: scan the negatives. Post-process in Bibble. Use click-white to choose areas you know are neutral, keep clicking on different points until the color balance looks correct. Use fill light to bring out the shadow details, use exposure adjustments to lower the skylight. Watch the histogram and the preview image. The information is still there in the negative - you are just telling Bibble how to interpret the inputs to create an output that better matches what you know you saw.

I'm very happy with the results so far. What do you think?

Slide Show

2009-02-14T21:32:00.002-06:00

090214_scan_95aug_089
Originally uploaded by prismglass

This is one of my favorite photos. I just happened upon it while on a walk with my camera.

I've spent most of today scanning slides and uploading them to Flickr. It has worked out well as an activity on a day that I am recovering from a nasty cold. Scanning is repetitive, not requiring much in the way of decisions or movement. Just clicking and waiting. On a normal day it would drive me nuts. Today it fit my capabilities perfectly.

ir de vacaciones

2009-02-11T06:28:00.003-06:00

In less than a week we fly to Cozumel, Mexico for our vacation. I've never been on a standard tropical-beach vacation before, but after the winter we've had it seems like a VERY good idea. It is fun to have "buy bikini" as part of the pre-trip checklist, because it reminds me how different the weather and the priorities are going to be down there. Having this to look forward to is helping my mood because it encourages me to brush away the little annoyances before they build up. Mental conversation example snippet: "This email I got highlights a problem with my design that I couldn't have anticipated. That's unfortunate, but I'm not going to let it get to me today because I'm going to Mexico next week."

I studied Spanish formally for four years, but never really felt like I "got" it. I'm not great at retaining memorized information, so when they would leave one verb tense to teach another, I'd forget the details of the first one. What works better for me is listening, reading, and absorbing from context. When used in addition to "book learning" grammar and vocabulary lessons, I do much better. My upcoming vacation prompted me to give Spanish another try.

Because of the demographics of the town we live in, I hear Spanish spoken frequently by the people around me in everyday situations. I can choose between several Spanish-language radio stations here as well. Plus, with the internet I can now get, for free, Spanish reading material from all over the world. So, even though my formal instruction is a set of Intermediate/Advanced CDs for the car and some review/practice books, I feel like I'm actually learning and progressing this time.

The last, biggest hurdle is getting over my hesitancy to actually use the small bit of language that I know. Cozumel is a tourist destination, so English is all we really need. Will I be able to get over my fear of saying something really stupid, or in the wrong tense, to a total stranger?

Sunday Dinner

2009-02-01T22:40:00.003-06:00

I've had fun recently by packing a few kitchen toys and prepped ingredients into bags, and cooking Sunday Dinner for friends in their kitchens. I made chicken thighs with peppers and onions for K+H, and just tonight did custom pizza for B+J. (Though, I almost left the pizza dough in the fridge here, and the second pizza turned into improvised calzones when I screwed up transfer onto the baking stone.) Sunday is the only day of the week I get a good solid block of time to spend on food prep and cooking. It is also prime hanging-out time with friends before getting back into the work week. By cooking and hanging out, I get the most out of my Sunday evenings.

I like the Produce Saver containers that Rubbermaid has out now. They have a vented lid and a tray at the bottom of the bowl to keep your fruits and veggies elevated, extending their life. I bought mine at our local Target. The larger size (14 C) has been really useful - a 5 lb bag of carrots will fit when peeled and sliced into carrot sticks. The 5 C size is good for one celery heart or a bunch of parsley. Thanks to these nifty plastic things, I can eat more fresh vegetables because I can process them on Sunday to use all week.

A lesser-used but no less loved kitchen toy is my stainless-steel saute pan by Cuisinart. The generous size is great while I'm cooking with it, not so good for cleaning. It absolutely does not fit in the dishwasher, and it barely fits in the sink. If it was a little larger, I'd need to clean it in the bathtub. All is forgiven: the results from browning meats are worth the hassle, and it is soooo shiny!

This May Not Work Out

2009-01-31T21:11:00.002-06:00

I'm trying to grow culinary herbs indoors, from seeds. The first few green shoots are appearing - so far so good. But, I don't have a good track record with indoor plants. (The ones I got at IKEA for my cubicle are still doing okay, but those don't mind being ignored.) If it works, great, I'll have fresh basil (x3 types), oregano, lavender, chives, and dill growing on a kitchen bookcase. If not, I'll be disappointed, but I'm not going to be surprised.

Reference Point for Cold Temperatures

2009-01-15T23:02:00.003-06:00

At -15 degrees F, or -26 degrees C, the packed snow/frozen slush on driveways and parking lots SQUEAKS when you walk or drive over it.

Rather than put on workout clothes that had been sitting in my cold car since 9 am, I laid them out on the bench in the gym's locker room sauna. Five minutes later the clothes and shoes were wearable and I actually felt warm for the first time all day.

I don't think they should be allowed to call it a "High" if it is only forecast to be -5 F. They should have another word for "Least Cold it will be Today" that does not imply that much relative motion of molecules.

Ridiculous cold is very unpleasant and uncomfortable, but at least it isn't snowing again.

Sim City DS = Sleep Deprivation

2009-01-11T15:38:00.004-06:00

B&J got us GameStop gift cards for Christmas. I used mine to buy a used copy of Sim City DS. (Does anyone else just erase the former owner's saved game without looking at it? I'd rather not know what they may have left on there as a joke. Could be the most awesome simulated metropolis ever, or it could be something rude spelled out in trees.) Anyway, both times I've turned on the game I have then stayed up until 2 or 3 am playing. Last night I even plugged the charger in because the red light was blinking, and proceeded to sit down on the dining room floor and KEEP PLAYING. So, new rule is: no Sim Anything on work nights.

High-Quality Yoga Tools

2009-01-06T06:35:00.003-06:00

If you have a chance to try Yoga, you should. Most gyms offer classes, the Wii Fit has a good introduction, and of course there are DVDs for sale/rent/loan everywhere. I got my first tastes from a DVD, took my first "live" classes at my former gym, and I'm now taking (free!) classes at work. A few years ago I even took an all-inclusive yoga vacation at Kripalu after a really stressful project phase was over.

I've shredded a "deluxe" yoga mat after a few years of use. When it started leaving bits of foam on the floor and on me after a session, I decided it was time to replace the poor thing. One instructor would talk about his Manduka mat, so I looked into it. Amazon reviews were positive, so I ordered one. I'm very happy with it so far, and highly recommend it once you know you'll be doing yoga for a while.

The bare-feet aspect of yoga is uncomfortable to me, so I've also tried a few solutions to that over the years. (Leaving your regular socks on is too slippery.) First, I used shoes left over from parent-mandated jazz dance class. Then, I found yoga shoes (by Nike) on clearance at a sporting good store. Neither of these let me spread out my toes or put my fingers between my toes, which is actually part of some poses. Solution? Amazon Search! These ToeSox (yoga/pilates version) do work very well, with the added bonus of being machine washable.

Finally, if you are looking at yoga props, I'd suggest getting a cork block instead of a foam block, and a cotton strap (or other natural material) instead of a plastic-based strap. Cork feels more stable, and cotton feels soft instead of sharp. Target's sporting goods section is a good place to find yoga stuff like this.

Dessert for Breakfast

2009-01-03T07:28:00.003-06:00

Here is a breakfast that I make often. It feels like dessert and only costs 3 WW Points (TM) when figured with the Nutrition Facts from the individual ingredients. For one serving:

*1/2 C dry old-fashioned oats
*1/2 C fresh cranberries (stock up now and keep in freezer)
*water to the top of the oats (adjust as you like - this is on the dry side)
*1 Tbsp packed brown sugar

Microwave to your preference. I like my oatmeal al dente, so I use 3'30" on 70%. Actually, I like raw dry rolled oats (a favorite childhood snack!), so take that into account for the water and cooking time.

Best Wishes for 2009

2009-01-01T16:56:00.003-06:00

One amusing thing last night about watching the New Year's Eve broadcasts was the overtone of "wow 2008 sucked let's not do that again" that kept coming up. For the did-professionals-really-produce-this-show Chicago broadcast where the local news celebrities were forced to stand outside on the 16th floor of the Trump Tower, the attitude was "let's get this over with and 2009 HAS to be better."

Personally, I'm doing okay. I mean, if I ignore my 401k performance (I've got a while to retirement, so this is just a blip, or so I keep telling myself. Pretty painful blip...) the economic troubles of 2008 haven't hit home. The weather in Chicagoland was terrible, but just to the point of discomfort, we didn't suffer any property damage. The only memorable low point of 2008 for me will be the ordeal with the bathroom paint. I am very thankful for my luck, blessings, friends, family, work, health, and learning experiences of the past year.

Whatever your plans and resolutions are for 2009, best wishes for the New Year ahead.

Garden Humor

2008-12-29T18:51:00.002-06:00

DSCF3091
Originally uploaded by prismglass

I spotted this sign hanging from this historic plant in a Kew Garden greenhouse the first time I was in London. I then had to find it again on my second trip, both to show B and to get a photo of it. The language joke is a bit juvenile, but come on, that plant is older than our country!

(Yes, this post is nowhere near topical or timely - I'm just poking through some of my Flickr data and it jumped out as something I'd like to share with all of you. Don't you feel special?)

Christmas Eve Snow

2008-12-24T23:11:00.002-06:00

DSCN1348
Originally uploaded by prismglass

Here's our front walkway, shoveled this morning by B. The snow was coming down in huge flakes today, but I was grateful the temperatures were much higher than earlier this week.

Merry Christmas to everyone, if you are so inclined.

Easy Turkey Gravy

2008-12-19T21:47:00.006-06:00

Here's how I made the gravy for Thanksgiving this year.
1) B cooked Alton Brown's Roast Turkey, it turned out like this:

2) After that was lifted out of the roasting pan and the rack removed, I set the pan over two burners on medium and added one of these mini bottles of wine:

3) Using a flat whisk, I deglazed all the stuff from the bottom of the pan (wasn't much - the turkey retained most of its fat and juices) and stirred until it had mostly melted. B then helped pour everything out of the roasting pan into a medium size sauce pot.

4) The sauce pot went on another burner, also on medium. I had two measuring cups nearby: one had two Tbsp of flour dissolved into half a cup of water, the other was just a cup of water. Nowhere near all of either of these went into the gravy. Stirring constantly, after the solids had almost all dissolved (I got impatient) I started by drizzling a bit of the flour mixture into the pot. Since it was near boiling, this thickened the mixture immediately. I kept alternating between the water to add volume and the flour mixture to thicken until it "seemed like enough".

This makes an empathetically flavored gravy. Let me give you an analogy here >>>>
diner gravy : this stuff :: "pancake syrup" : 100% pure maple syrup

You don't need much. And the turkey doesn't need it for moisture because Alton's method turns out so well. OF COURSE THIS IS GOOD GRAVY - IT IS MOSTLY WINE AND FOND.

The Hoarse Whisperer

2008-12-19T20:28:00.004-06:00

I lost my voice last night because of the cold I've been fighting this week. I CAN talk normally, if I don't mind coughing up a tonsil after each sentence. Today at work I managed to communicate verbally by whispering. It worked fairly well over the phone, because I could be very quiet and the other person heard me just fine. Face-to-face was interesting because everyone tended to whisper back as a trained reaction when someone whispers to them. But, my ears are also clogged from the cold, so I couldn't understand what they were saying. So, I had to let each individual I talked to know that they needed to talk back to me at a normal volume. (Apparently this is difficult.) I got a lot more funny looks than normal today.

(Dad, are you proud of the pun in the title? I'm sure it is well aged.)

Pretending to be an iPhone

2008-12-06T17:45:00.004-06:00

I don't have any mobile devices that can see the Internet. My phone is so old you can't even send it photos. (Well, you can try and send me a wad of data, which it will not display.) BUT, I am loving the "mobile" versions of websites. Several sites that I try to use regularly take up so much bandwidth (*cough* my bank *cough*) or have slightly broken widgets (*cough* Weight Watchers *cough*) that I can't get reliable operation out of them.

Ah, but the Mobile versions are OPTIMIZED for tiny bandwidth and "just the basics" functionality. So, say it is lunch time at work so the network may as well be dial-up: in this case I can still check transactions at the bank or enter my meal into the online WW planner. Since I'm using a regular browser, this only works for sites that let you "force" mobile, rather than asking the browser if I am really an iPhone before giving me the goods.

If you want to try this out, usually the link to the mobile version of a site is on the main page. And, of course, there's always Google if the Flash-based broken-Java ad-strewn regular website is *gasp* hiding information.

Hiding

2008-11-16T11:14:00.004-06:00

Hiding, You're Doing it Wrong.
(Modeled by Nigel, who is just happy to have found a sunbeam.)

Another Post About Time

2008-11-14T22:59:00.004-06:00

First, thanks to everyone who responded to my post about vacation time. It reminded me how valuable it is to have flexibility, not just quantity, in work arrangements.

So, my watch stopped working this week. I went to put it on Tuesday morning, and realized the date display still thought it was Monday evening. The hands were not moving, either. I even pulled the knob out and pushed it back in, just in case that had been stuck again. I had just had the battery replaced not two months ago, so I was concerned something else was wrong. I took it in to the Fossil store in the mall, where they replaced the battery to see if that was the problem. No luck, it must be a mechanical problem. So, I get to dig up the warranty booklet (ha!) and send it in for repairs.

In the meantime, I'm reminded that I have no natural sense of time. I just can't tell how much time has passed without looking at a clock. I burnt two hours in the mall, when I thought only about 45 minutes had gone by. When I stepped away from my desk at work, (therefore away from my computer and its time display) I felt like I had gone "off the grid" - it was so disorienting to not know how long I was talking with someone or how long I had to get to a meeting. I finally bought a cheap watch at Sears, so it would stop driving me nuts. (To those of you asking, "why doesn't she just look at her phone?" it is because my phone is not attached to me.)

Only after I get home and have been wearing the new ($13.99) watch for a few hours, I remember that I have a nickel allergy. I have NO idea what the band is made out of. The watch back tells me that it is made from stainless steel, but no clues for the expandable metal band. Ugh. Well, if it starts irritating my skin, then I'll take that as a good excuse to just buy another watch. Of known metallurgical origins.

Quick Poll: Vacation Days

2008-11-12T21:15:00.003-06:00

We only get 12 vacation days per year. It increases to 15 days after 10 years of service, then 20 days after 15 years of service. Is this good, normal, or poor? It doesn't seem like enough, especially to both take a see-new-places trip and do a family visit in the same year.

We do get 12 holidays as days off with pay, mostly clumped at the end of the year for Christmas shutdown. Also, sick days aren't levied against us, so that is fair. Comp-time is an option, but that doesn't really count in my mind as time off (we can get paid for any overtime instead).

So, a quick poll: is your vacation policy better or worse than mine is? Do you feel like you get enough time off? Do you even get to use your vacation time?

Harvest Festival

2008-11-05T20:43:00.002-06:00

Somehow I totally missed this last year, though it seems to be an age-old tradition at my new church. Harvest Festival, also called Harvest Days, is November 7th and 8th (Friday and Saturday) 2008, at St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church. Hours are 9:00 am to 3:00 pm.

It is a combination craft fair and bake sale, with ALL of the stuff made by members of the congregation. Lunch is also a big deal, with BBQ and "Apple Slices" made from scratch at the church. (From how they have been described, Apple Slices are like apple pies the size of sheet pans.) Craft items include: jewelry, floral arrangements, woodcrafts, holiday decorations, fabric art, ornaments, greeting cards, quilts, and even a White Elephant table. (I don't think the White Elephant stuff is made by the congregation, more like DISCARDED by the congregation...) Bake sale items include bread, cookies, pies, and cakes.

St. John is located at 1800 S Rodenburg Rd. Schaumburg, IL 60193. They are at the intersection of Irving Park Rd. and Rodenburg Rd. If you exit the Elgin OHare Expressway westbound at Irving Park, turn left at the bottom of the off ramp. The church is on the south side of Irving Park Rd, with the main parking lot across the street. They belong to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

I finally went to a meeting for the Service Guild at church after someone clued me in that it existed. All women members of the church are default members of the Service Guild, and from what I could tell from one meeting, they appear to keep the church running. This is their major fund-raiser for the year. I declined to volunteer to work at Harvest Days, but I did say I would blog about it. If I'm in a cooking mood on Friday night I may make something for the bake sale. It is nice to feel more incorporated into the church. At St. Peter's I never moved beyond "Choir Alto #4" and I'm not sure why. Maybe because no one asked?

Six Flags Season Wrap-Up

2008-11-03T06:34:00.003-06:00

We went to Six Flags Great America one last time for the season on Saturday, their last long open day. Apparently, the draw of being the last Saturday in Fright Fest trumped the weather. Lines were 2X longer (time-wise) than any of the other days we went this year. So, not only did we wait an hour and a half for Raging Bull, our toes and fingers were going numb. Still, it was worth it for a day outside and riding 5 coasters. (Viper, Batman, Raging Bull, Batman, Viper) That last Viper ride, we got in line 15 minutes before close, and got on the LAST car of the LAST train of the night.

Here are my opinions of the significant roller coasters in the park:

1) Raging Bull: BEST ride at Six Flags Great America. Smooth ride the whole way, you aren't distracted by physical pain from noticing the height and speed. Designed to trick your mind a bit, there aren't really loops, but it does tilt the track to one side and another at the top of the tallest sections. Rather than being strapped in over the shoulders or secured by a safety-belt, you just get a molded lap bar that sits on top of your thighs. K observed you can hook your feet under the seat for extra security if you want. I am more likely to hold my legs out straight and my arms up in the air. If you don't remember what is coming next, there are three places in the ride where it suddenly drops. I suggest taking the last row of seats, with the braver people sitting to the outside. There are two places, one for each side, where you are sure that the outside person is going to slam into the safety railing flying at you. Overall really great, and not too short to enjoy.

2) Batman (the older, suspended one): Now that it isn't "new" the lines are shorter than previous years. We feel that it is worth the extra wait time to get in the front row, otherwise all you see if the back of the row in front of you. The front row is crazy as you fly too close (not really) to landscaping and support beams. Keep your eyes open or you miss the best parts of the ride. K's father has me on his "list" now for making us take the front row of this ride! Which seat you get in the row doesn't seem to make as much of a difference in this one. If the line for the front is ridiculous, the back row makes it feel like your shoes are getting pulled off of your feet. The seats and shoulder restraints feel VERY secure, you aren't going to move at all in relation to your bucket during the ride. Fast, loopy, and spinny, even throws you at the ground a few times. It is over too quickly, however, to be completely satisfying.

3) Viper: Wooden, fast, pulled out of your seat at the top of the hills. Take the last car for the most free-fall events. The weekdays never had a line, even on Saturday it was only about a half an hour wait. Everyone forgets to take off the seatbelt before standing up at the end - watch for this, it is pretty funny.

4) Eagle: Wooden "racers" aren't always running both the red and blue sides. Classic coaster, less comfortable than the Viper, loud, jarring, but still fun.

5) Superman: New, flying coaster. Very long line for a very short ride. Do it at night if you can for a more intense experience. You are strapped in so tightly (even at the ankles!) you can't hold your arms out straight in the classic Superman pose. Which row you get doesn't seem to matter at all. Each row has a good view since you are facing away from the track. Sensations are totally different than other rides. I found myself not making any noise at all because I NEEDED THAT OXYGEN TO BREATHE!

6) Demon: 80's looping coaster. Short line, short ride, from back when the number of loops and corkscrews was all that mattered. Unfortunately the shoulder restraints look like they still carry the evidence of all the riders since the 80's. Ewwwww. I saw a lot of smaller children in line for this one, which is cool. Get them hooked early!

I didn't ride Iron Wolf at all this year because it HURTS, or V2 because it FREAKS ME THE HELL OUT. Great if you like those, I'll just go do Batman again instead. Or Viper twice.

7) The Dark Knight: They really should call this a fun-house ride instead of a coaster. Nothing like Space Mountain, other than it is indoors. The line is better than the ride, seriously, because of the nifty Gotham city maps. Worth it for serious coaster riders only if it is raining. Suitable for all ages, if not afraid of clowns.

Halloween Report

2008-10-31T18:49:00.003-05:00

I think I got home too late (but still before 6pm) and missed most of the Trick-or-Treaters walking past our house. They are still showing up, but only one group every 10 to 15 minutes or so. Costumes aren't fancy this year, but everyone is at least wearing something resembling a costume so far. Age range is mixed, including small children carried by parents and teenagers helping take their younger siblings around the neighborhood. We give out toys, which I love doing because none of the kids are expecting it and I get great reactions. I can get a gross of bouncy balls for cheap from Oriental Trading company, plus activity books, glow-in-the-dark stickers, and other fun items. Any leftovers get stored for next year.

I had my Halloween dress-up fun last night by pretending to be a rock star at Live Band Karaoke. Yes, I've been there every week for the past four weeks, and it is still fun. There are only two more weeks for the band to make a good impression on the nightclub and not get canceled!

Fight Poverty by Donating Light

2008-10-15T20:43:00.003-05:00

A while back I got a link from a friend to the website of the Freeplay Foundation, and today is Blog Action Day 2008 so it seemed like a good time to write about it. This charity fights poverty by designing and delivering electronic equipment to communities in need. But, nothing as glamorous as a laptop. They make radios and lights. There are still places in the world where artificial light is rare and dangerous! I'll be donating a $30 Lifelight in a few minutes here, and I encourage you to think about giving the gift of Blinky Lights as well.

Multi-Generational Photo

2008-10-14T06:48:00.003-05:00

Thanks to the gaming equipment museum that exists behind the TV at pikafoop's apartment, I was able to get this classic multi-generational photo. Nintendo Power Glove holding Nintendo Wiimote. (Power Glove modeled by pikafoop.)

Lessons from the Past Few Weeks

2008-10-13T19:44:00.003-05:00

Mini-golf = fun. Mini-golf at dusk = mosquitoes = less fun.

There is a wind farm in Indiana. If you take 41 between Kentland and Boswell you will drive through it. Those windmills are enormous!

Live Band Karaoke is now happening every Thursday night at Heat Nightclub in Schaumburg. October 9th was the first night, and we went early enough that they let us in free. Despite what the marketing material says, you don't need to call anyone or register ahead of time. Almost no one else was there to sing, so I got to do five songs in about one and a half hours. Having a live band, rather than an unforgiving recording, to sing along with, made it a better experience. The Karaoke Dokies are fun and supportive.

Not-fun things happened too. Our prayers and thoughts are with Amanda, Tony, and Olivia.

I showed Hannah, the three-year-old daughter of friends, how to use my point-and-shoot digital camera while she was visiting our house for a cookout. It made me think about how much benefit we are getting from photos now being, basically, "free". Rechargeable batteries, unlimited exposures on giant memory cards, and inexpensive high-quality compact cameras are a major change from when we were younger. I used a lot of my family's money on film developing and equipment as a budding photographer. Hannah will always be able to take as many pictures as she wants. Eventually, she may learn that she does not need to tell all of her subjects to "say cheese".

Yarn and Pictures

2008-10-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

I've gotten more into crochet recently, especially since finding projects that are shorter-term and wearable. Learning the foundation-extended crochet stitch so I no longer work into the dreaded chain is a big help, too. If you care about this paragraph, my Ravelry user name is prismglass, find me and friend me!

Realizing that the only content I'd be sorry to lose on my laptop hard drive (in case of loss or damage) is my thousands of photos, I now have a pro account on Flickr. Unlimited uploads and storage for 2 years for $48, plus I got three months free. Most of the photos I've uploaded are viewable by "friends and family" only. (Not everything is online yet.) You can get a free account to view the pictures, then let me know so I can add you as a contact. Again, my user name is prismglass.

Sense a pattern? I came up with the name in High School to play Yahoo! games. It seemed both professional (optics) and feminine at the same time. There are a few places where I couldn't use prismglass, because it was already taken. Amusingly, the LEGO forum rejected it because it contained the word "ass." Ooops.

One of Those Weeks

2008-09-13T11:02:00.004-05:00

It was one of those weeks this week at work, and now we have a rainy weekend. Puddles have formed in the front yard already, which usually has good drainage. At least the pressure is off to get anything done outside. And, I don't feel as bad for not signing up to run the Dundee Road Race 5k this year, which is scheduled for tomorrow morning - so is a 90% chance of getting an inch of rain. Still, I'm very glad it is not a hurricane, or any other form of weather that is trying to kill us.

Maybe I'll finish that crochet project I haven't worked on all summer. Or one of the books I'm theoretically reading. My minimum goal is to re-hang the sliding doors and track in front of the washer/dryer, to clear the last of the bathroom stuff from my sewing room. Oh, and to recover from work enough that I can face next week a bit less grumpy.

Anyone Need a Photographer?

2008-09-09T20:35:00.003-05:00

I have seriously got to get back into finding photography gigs, so I can justify buying the Sony A900. Anyone need a wedding photographer? I did three weddings as the official photographer in 2006, and it is something I could see myself doing in the future as a more serious side business. At this point, we just call it "hobby income" on the tax forms.

But, you say, "I was going to invite you as a guest to the wedding, will you only take photos if we pay you?" No, of course not, but if you pay me I will bring the big cameras, haul around a tripod and lighting equipment, and not drink at the reception. I also do not feel right taking pictures of all of the other guests unless I'm official. Your "real" photographer would start glaring at me. So, when I'm just a guest I concentrate on getting fun photos of people I know already.

Here are some pointers for wedding photographers and the wedding party, no matter who is taking the pictures:

1) Do not let the lights in the reception hall get really dim. Cameras can't focus quickly and reliably if there isn't enough ambient light. My flash would do auto-focus assist, but not when I'm using it in bounce flash mode, which is the most flattering way to light your guests.

2) Do tell the photographer if one of his or her main subjects smiles without showing teeth. All of our wedding photos look funny because I didn't realize the photographer was forcing B to show his teeth.

3) There are many good reasons to not allow others to photograph during the formal portraits, that have nothing to do with greed. Some wireless lighting setups are disturbed by other flashes. Time is tight, and waiting for people to put away cameras, or "just take one" picture can waste that time. But most of all, other lenses draw the eyes and attention of the portrait subjects. Ever see a group photo where one or two people are looking off to the side? Yeah, that was cause Aunt Ethel just waved at them to take a quick picture with her disposable camera.

4) Don't bother with disposable cameras on the tables. It is so common for people to have point-and-shoot digital cameras now, these may not even be picked up. If they are, they may be handed to small children, and you will end up with a lot of pictures of food. Inside of mouths.

5) If you get digital files of your wedding photos, use an online printing service rather than an inkjet for your album prints. The results will be more archival, less expensive, and the colors will be properly balanced. I like mpix.com because they take DVDs in the mail, so I do not need to waste hours uploading data.

6) Photographers appreciate cake.

Non-Standard Use Case

2008-08-31T18:06:00.002-05:00

Okay, most of the time, I am glad that my washing machine does not move around easily. Even when it gets imbalanced it will only move about an inch. But whatever makes it difficult to move on-accident is also making it difficult to move on-purpose. Lifting up the front edge from the bottom and dragging backwards works well enough for moving it away from the wall. But putting it back was much more involved, and I found myself needing to brace my feet against the opposite cabinet to get enough leverage. And that was just for the washing and masking step, I have to do that two more times for the primer then the paint. If only there were a switch to flip between "high friction" and "low friction" modes? (If you are an appliance designer, maybe you could drop this into the feature suggestion box?) At least the dryer is much easier to deal with by comparison.

My Problem with Exercise

2008-08-30T19:15:00.003-05:00

Why do I have such a hard time getting myself to the gym on a regular basis, when I always end up feeling so great while I'm working out? Lifting weights demands so much concentration that I am forced to not think or worry about anything else. Just movement, form, and counting for 45 minutes to an hour, a nice vacation for my brain while my body gets a challenge. Because, for the rest of the day, my body is sitting still in a chair while my brain runs laps on the computer.

But I let myself forget this, too often.

Quality of Life

2008-08-22T18:27:00.007-05:00

I love travel, but I just do not get enough vacation time from work to leave town as often as I would like. Rather than wait until retirement, I figured out a way to go on more trips more often. A month or two ago, I let my manager know that I loved to travel, and would love to go on more business trips. It worked!

At the beginning of August, I was sent to Israel for a three-day meeting. We (one program manager was on the trip with me) left on Sunday afternoon, got there on Monday, and had meetings on Tuesday (which ended early) and Wednesday. Since the meetings were so successful, we took Thursday off. Flight home left early Friday, and I was back home Friday afternoon.

The hotel we stayed in is on the hill in Haifa. Here is a view out my window:

On Tuesday after the meeting was over we drove to Akko, which is an old city on the Mediterranean Sea. Here I am, in front of the sea, the ruins of an old sea wall, and a random tour bus:

This is the most foreign place I have ever visited, and the most ancient. Humans have been here for at least 5000 years, building and destroying and building again. So there are incredibly historic places and structures with modern buildings alongside, sometimes integrated into the old walls and foundations. Not quite preservation, and not quite "urban renewal" demolition, just human history visible everywhere.

On Thursday we drove to Tiberius, on western side of the Sea of Galilee. Not having enough energy to do an extensive tour of all the historic sites in the area, we just walked for a while on the sidewalk that runs next to the shore. Unlike the Mediterranean Sea, or even Lake Michigan, you can see the other side of the Sea of Galilee from the shore. And, it has litter and graffiti and a water-park alongside the Roman ruins and sacred graveyards. People live here, and this is the lake in their "front yard."

Bonus: when traveling overseas, company policy is to buy Business Class tickets!

Note: comment moderation is turned on. I will not publish politicized, hateful, or spam comments. If this post attracts too many trolls, I will edit it to remove the names of countries and cities.

Amusing San Fran Photos

2008-07-28T22:19:00.007-05:00

Here are some pictures from the trip. First, this gas station in San Francisco has solar panels on its roof.
Next, I love the text on the side of this building. Unfortunately, the attraction was closed.
Of course, I took plenty of pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. According to the guidebook, the bridge is orange because people liked the color of the primer so much the builder decided to stick with it.
And I'll leave you with this warning sign from the Botanical Garden in the Golden Gate Park. Think they covered everything?

San Francisco Vacation

2008-07-23T17:45:00.005-05:00

We returned late last night from our vacation in San Francisco. I've never done so little planning for a trip before, but it worked out really well. Thanks to Travelocity's Last Minute Packages, we got a four-night stay plus airfare for two for a total of $1070. And this time I didn't need to spend a whole Saturday researching hotels and B&Bs like I have for the last few trips.

We stayed at the Executive Hotel Vintage Court. Their location is convenient to cable cars and buses, and not too far a walk from the Powell street BART station. Front desk staff were friendly (but not that fake-smile friendly) and helpful. The room was a decent size, pleasantly decorated, and well maintained. Bonus: free wine in the lobby between 5 and 6 pm, free coffee and danishes in the lobby between 7 and 9 am.

Instead of renting a car and attempting to drive in the city, we were all about the public transit. We used BART for rides to and from the airport for $10.70 round trip. Then, $24 each for a 7-day MUNI passport, which worked on all cable cars, buses, streetcars, and underground light rail. We used each of these options at least once during our trip. I thought the cable cars were fun, a cross between a tow rope and a really small roller coaster. Downsides include being slow and cold.

Ah, yes, cold. I packed wrong. It was windy and cold in the daytime, mostly cloudy, and often trying to rain. It was windier and colder at night. So, a jacket and sweatshirt was required over every outfit for the trip. The sun did come out during the day on Monday, so I have a sunburn on my face with a pale patch in the shape of my sunglasses.

Armed with a single guidebook, the Time Out San Francisco, we walked and ate our way through a good cross-section of the city. Chinatown, North Beach, the Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf, Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park, Richmond, Castro, the Golden Gate Bridge, Ocean Beach, Union Square, and so on. In a departure from previous vacation patterns, we only went to three museums. First, there was the Musee Mechanique, with old video games, pinball machines, and other antique amusements. We dropped a few quarters there - everything was in working condition! Next to that, floating in the water, was the USS Pampanito. It was larger on the inside than I expected, but crammed just as full of equipment as the Titan missile silo that we toured in Arizona. On our last day, we went to the Cartoon Art Museum, where I read every word of every cartoon on the walls.

Other highlights include: walking along the beach beside the Pacific ocean, staying Internet-free for the whole trip, never getting lost, the best pot-stickers ever, sourdough bread, walking to the top of Buena Vista park, DS Tetris battles, great music stores and bookstores, historic bars, the view from The Bridge, and catching ourselves forgetting that we were still in the United States. San Francisco is a crazy city. It was fun to be a part of it for a few days.

Gourmet Popcorn Ideas

2008-07-15T20:59:00.002-05:00

Start with a bowl of plain popped popcorn. Spray your popcorn with PAM to help the spices stick. Generously sprinkle with kosher salt, sparsely sprinkle with granulated sugar, sparsely sprinkle with red (cayenne) pepper, and generously sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice. Shake the bowl a little to let the spices settle and distribute more evenly.

OR

Try these combos on plain popped popcorn:

PAM, salt, an even amount of Chinese five-spice powder and garlic powder.
PAM, salt, Italian seasoning, with extra garlic powder if you like.
PAM, salt, cocoa powder, chili powder, and cinnamon. (I like a bit of heat with my sweeter choices.)

Popcorn is so accepting of any other flavor, you could probably steal the seasoning mixture from any favorite recipe and come out with a good result. What is the worst that happens? You pop more popcorn and try again?

Shopping: a Good Hunt

2008-07-13T13:28:00.004-05:00

It is so nice when the exact item you are shopping for is on Clearance or Deep Discount in several stores. I got five short-sleeved polo shirts for an average of $15 each. And these are nice brands: Liz Golf, Martin & Osa, and Eddie Bauer. So, they should last a few seasons longer than shirts that are usually at this price point. It was a Good Hunt.

(I've been using that phrase for a successful shopping trip since I was much younger. Arriving at home with my Mom after an outing to the Bridgewater Commons, Dad would ask us how it went. If we found what we were looking for a good prices, the answer was, "It was a Good Hunt." If you think this implies that shopping would often be frustrating, with us unable to find anything that fit, you'd be correct.)

A piece of information that I had not realized until I read it on a blog, possibly this bra blog, is that all ready-to-wear women's clothing is sized for a B cup. It makes everything make sense now: why have I NEVER been able to find a blouse or button-down woven shirt that fits, no matter what store or what size I try? Because none of them are meant to fit! If I buy large enough for my chest, it fits the rest of me like a tent. So, I do not bother trying these styles on anymore. If I ever really need to buy another one, I'll get a larger size and have it altered. For me, knit is the way to go.

I do sew, and I have sewn my own clothes, but this is not an easy way out. They decided that if you are not a B cup, you do not deserve an easy time of anything. All easy-to-find patterns for home sewing are standardized to - you guessed it - a B cup as well. You need to do an "FBA", or Full Bust Alteration, manually to each pattern. There are a few patterns they put out occasionally that include pieces for the other cup sizes, and I buy them when I notice them. And there is software around that will take your measurements and custom-draft simple patterns. But, really, how much more effort would it be to provide cup-size grading for all patterns?

To end on a higher note, and bring the male readers back into the conversation, here is more LEGO stuff. You know those beautiful modular house kits? They are built on a standardized set of dimensions, so we can design our own houses and interchangeable floors and roofs. I do like having the guidelines to work from, sort of like a building code for the mini-fig scale world.

LEGOLAND Chicago details

2008-07-11T19:49:00.003-05:00

Thanks to some correspondence with people involved in the new LEGOLAND, here are a bunch of details that are not yet on their website.

"Soft" opening will be on July 25th, for press only in the morning and general public in the afternoon. The Grand Opening, with ribbon cutting, will be on July 31st. They will be open at 10 am each day.

Tickets cost $15 children, $19 adults, $17 seniors.
Year Passes for weekdays are $38 children, $48 adults.
Year Passes for all days are $53 children, $67 adults.
(I am considering the weekday year pass. I do not want to think about how insane this place is going to be on weekends!)

The literature says "Children 2-12 and their families". Well, I don't meet that criteria, so I asked, "are adults without children allowed to attend and participate? I am 29 years old, with no kids, and many of my friends (also with no children) are big LEGO fans. Which of the exhibits and attractions would we be allowed to work with, and which ones are off limits?" The response is, "Our attraction is focusing to give children from age 2 to 12 a great experience, but we will not deny any person access to our center because of age or no children." So, that's good.

The list of attractions does have a few things that I wouldn't be excited about. (Despite being in love with LEGO, I am not still eight years old.) Here are the things I am excited about:

(from the press release)
# Miniland – Wander through a LEGO-style Chicago skyline, built to scale
# Hall of Fame – Get up close & personal with LEGO versions of top superheroes
# Build & Test – Have fun with mountains of LEGOs, speed ramp & earthquake table
# Model Workshop - Work with a LEGO Master to build a masterpiece

I've never been to a LEGOLAND before, and as I understand it this is going to be less like an amusement park, and more like a museum. Cameras are allowed, so I will be geeking out on many different levels when I finally get to spend some time there.

Oh, and it turns out that Nigel, our cat, will try to eat the LEGOs that I have spread out on the floor. Not the smartest of his species, is he?

LEGO Discoveries Over the Weekend

2008-07-07T21:15:00.003-05:00

"Want to see what happens when an Architect and two Mechanical Engineers go to the LEGO store?" - me, on Sunday

I bought the first LEGO set for myself, with my own money, that I have in a very long time. (I'm not counting the boxes of simple bricks or the grab-bag of random LEGO parts that I have bought a few times.) I got the Scuderia Ferrari Truck set, number 8654, which includes a semi trailer that holds an F1 car and a whole pit crew (with tools!) for $40, marked down from $80.

Slightly more exciting, I discovered that LEGO now offers the LEGO Digital Designer software for FREE download. They were even considerate enough to let it run on my computer, which is an iBook G4 from 2004 with Mac OS 10.3.9 running on it. I feel more comfortable designing in 3D CAD systems than I do on paper, and much more comfortable than just winging it. Once you have a model designed, you can upload it to the LEGO Factory and actually buy the pieces as a set. Apparently, it arrives in a customized box, with instructions. Sweet.

Most exciting, I found out that there is a LEGOLAND Discovery Centre opening at Streets of Woodfield. Date of arrival is uncertain, the sign is up but there is not much evidence of actual construction activity inside of the mall. The guys at the Woodfield LEGO store said they had heard July 31st would be the day. This mall is only about 10 minutes from where I work, on my way home. Certainly close enough to go to for lunch (LEGOLAND cafe, anyone?) and possibly worth getting a season pass for. No pricing information online yet either. It is wait and see for now...

The Opposite of Lite

2008-06-08T13:23:00.003-05:00

As a relaxing activity for after lunch, I decided to bake a pan of brownies from a "lite" dessert cookbook. I dutifully separated the egg whites, used a small snack-size container of applesauce, and even swapped Splenda in for the white sugar. Not until AFTER putting the pan into the oven did I realize that I had microwaved and used the entire stick of butter, rather than the 3 tablespoons called for by the recipe. Ooops - auto pilot. Well, the texture will probably be wrong. But at least this screw-up can only make them taste better.

The Room That Prime(r) Forgot

2008-06-05T21:21:00.005-05:00

I've had a lot of time to think up a bad pun for the title of this post. A significant amount of the past week has been spent with a scraper in hand, attacking our bathroom walls. As far as I can tell, 20 years ago, whoever first laid paint on the fresh drywall of our bathroom did not use any primer. The paint is coming off of the walls in sheets up to a square foot in size, with very little coaxing.

Everything was fine until last Friday. I thought that a three-day weekend with nice weather would be great to finally repaint the bathroom. It needed it, because almost a year and a half ago, Brian and his father re-did the tile in the shower area. They primed the new drywall they put up above the tile, and also the ceiling above the tub. So, the walls in the bathroom didn't match. I volunteered to finish the paint job, then proceeded to stall. Eventually I bought the ceiling and wall paint, then proceeded to stall. Last Thursday I went to the library and chose some books on painting interiors. On Friday I was so hyped about the project that when the cat woke me up at 4 am I couldn't get back to sleep. So, I went downstairs and started planning on a pad of green engineering paper. What needed to be moved out of the room? What needed to be cleaned first? What steps would I need to go through to accomplish my goals? What were my goals? What were the hours and phone numbers of all of the local hardware stores? And so on.

Fast-forward through a hard day of cleaning and organizing, to about 5 pm when I start on the step called "repair wall defects". I started to scrape away at a terrible patch job that one of the previous owners had done over a spot where window hardware once hung. I got the lump of misshapen compound removed, and continued to remove all of the loose paint surrounding the patch. A few minutes later I was wondering if something might be wrong. All of the paint was coming off, easily. I could slide the plastic scraper between the paint and the drywall, and lift it right off.

????

The drywall is PRISTINE. There is no water damage at all. There is evidence of adhesion on maybe 1% of the surface, the rest is clean paper like it has never been painted. The sheets of paint are sturdy, thick due to many layers over time, and have an imprint of the drywall paper on the wall side. The room side of the flexible paint sheets is glossy, the wall side is dusty. I put a few samples in a zip-top bag and took them to Menards, then to our local ICI paint store. No-one has seen this before.

What caused it? Obviously, in 1988 they did something really wrong, like not using primer, not cleaning the wall after sanding, and/or using really cheap paint. Then, I disturbed it. I mean, obviously this bathroom has been painted many times before, and the 1% adhesion is enough to keep the paint up. (Jessie says it is like a floating floor, but on our walls.) It wasn't naturally peeling yet. But, the walls are in bad shape (lumpy) even without the paint adhesion problem. Some former owners appear to not believe in sandpaper.

So, I'm putting in the work to do it the right way. At the moment, that is:
a) remove as much of the paint that comes off easily, sand the gloss finish off of the remaining paint, clean the walls
b) use Peel Stop on any remaining paint so it never comes off
c) use Gripper primer on the whole wall
d) repair the drywall divots, in one extra-bad place putting in a square of fresh drywall as a patch
e) sand the patched areas, clean all the dust off again, prime over the patched areas
f) paint the ceiling
g) paint the walls

Progress so far: still on step "a". I did accomplish one goal for the project as I originally wrote down at 4am: "Decide if you would like to paint any other rooms in this house." My decision, if you haven't already guessed it, is "DO NOT WANT."

Annual Purchase Limit

2008-05-07T06:34:00.002-05:00

I hadn't noticed this one until the Bureau of Public Debt sent a reminder email. They've reduced the limit on annual purchasing of savings bonds to $5,000 per person. It used to be $30,000. The last time the limit was $5,000 was in 1973.

I'm not even going to try to guess the real reason they did this. But what it means is that one of the best places to keep cash without losing purchasing power to inflation, the I Series bond, is not as useful as it was.

I like I Bonds. The rates are continually adjusted to keep ahead of inflation. Right now, they are at 4.84%. They are sold at face value, have a minimum ownership time of 1 year, and only a 3 month interest penalty if sold before 5 years. You can buy directly from the Treasury Direct website for free, so there are no account fees or transaction fees to reduce the return. The interest income is even exempt from State income taxes.

Of course, I'm being a bit silly, because I've never bought $5,000 worth of I Bonds in one year. But I had planned to use them as the major cash component of my portfolio. They'd certainly be doing better than the stock I bought last year.

More Optics Gaming

2008-05-02T21:55:00.003-05:00

I am now the proud owner of a board game with a Class II laser warning. We can blame Karen, because she said that when I was first talking about PRISM (the DS game) she thought I was talking about Khet. She also mentioned that they were selling it at Gamer's Paradise in Woodfield Mall. The sales dude there introduced it as "laser chess" because of how the pieces can be moved. I'm terrible at chess, but I do have an affinity for bouncing light around with mirrors.

He also mentioned that one can purchase a pair of beam-splitting pieces as an expansion. Then, he started to explain what those would do. At that point, I did let him know I was an optical engineer. (Flashbacks to engagement-ring diamond shopping, I do already know what an index of refraction is...) He then said that there are rumors of a second level that can be added on. I assume it will really start looking like that funky chess from Star Trek.
But now that I think on it more, that could have safety issues because it brings the beam level closer to eye-level.

So, who's up for a game? With Blinky Lights AND Shiny Objects?

Fun Fun Fun

2008-05-01T21:44:00.004-05:00

Why has it been so difficult for me to learn to let go a little and have fun, or even to take control and make fun happen? It would seem that fun is what other people have while we are getting work done. I'm in the last year of my twenties, which is, I think it has been said, when we are supposed to be having all of the craziest fun of our lives. I started my twenties at Rose (party central, if you count Denny's runs at 2 am on Tuesdays). Then, when that was over, I got a real job, got married, and we bought a house in the suburbs. Work Work Work.

In an attempt to shove a decade worth of fun into the remaining two-in-the-tens-place time I have left, I have a proposal. Let's get together and do something fun! I'll still put in my hours at work, and I'll still get the laundry and the dishes done, eventually. But, I want to GET OUT. To DO MORE. But not BY MYSELF all the time!

Example 1: last Friday at lunch, a coworker mentioned she would be going to a party at a local nightclub. I indicated interest and she said I should go with her and her friends. So, I bought my ticket online, then went to the mall between work and home. (I had no appropriate shoes, or dress, or purse, or...) We got to the club (heat) at midnight and danced until they closed at 3 am. I have never done anything close to that before. Fun Fun Fun.

Example 2: Karen and I have season passes for Six Flags this year. Woo Hoo roller coasters!

Other ideas, please let me know if you are interested: cookouts, bowling, bicycling, camping, zoos, botanical gardens, concerts, fancy parties, dancing, road trips, canoe-ing, volunteering, 5k races, museums, photography trips, walks, shopping, Rocky Horror (I drove to Ft. Wayne to see my first "live" show, thanks to Carrie and Lucas), improv, downtown, pick-your-own, cooking club, karaoke, spa day, video games, picnics, hiking, scotch tasting, and just hanging out. Maybe even at Denny's at 2 am.

Adopt a Hymnal

2008-04-20T12:58:00.003-05:00

Fun surprise at church today: we could each take home a hymnal. They were dedicating the new hymnals (brown cover) to use from now on. The pastor announced that if we wanted, we could take one of the old ones (blue cover) with us, and give it a good home. I got one out of the choir loft, so it is in really great shape. Because of the occasion, and that it was Cantate Sunday, all of the songs today were about singing. Brian declared it meta-singing.

Yesterday I tried adapting a cookie recipe to use all-Core ingredients. See, flour isn't Core, so there are no official Core baked goods. I did have luck the other week making pumpkin pie Core. (Start with the recipe from the can of pumpkin. Bake in a casserole dish with no crust, Splenda instead of Sugar, and fat-free evaporated milk.) But now I've discovered why the WW message boards all repeat the same thing: yes, you could bake a cookie with Core ingredients, but you aren't going to like it.

I took a very simple cookie recipe that didn't have any added fats (unless you count eggs) to begin with, and switched out oat bran for the flour. It got really dry, so I added a serving of applesauce to moisten it enough to spoon out. The first two sheets, the cookies didn't spread out at all while baking. I had used a cookie scoop to portion them out, so they are all spheres. For the next two sheets, I tried flattening them with a fork, which failed, because they WANTED to be spheres, I guess.

We all know the shape doesn't matter, it is all about the taste and texture. The finished product is a really pathetic cookie. But, it works well as a giant granola-style cereal puff. So I added some spheres to my plain, fat free yogurt this morning and called it breakfast.

Minor Political Involvement

2008-04-12T16:48:00.004-05:00

[Edited post title on 7/9/08]

http://www.americasnewtanker.com/

Here's the text of the automatic letter that you can send to your representatives through the website above:

Subject:
Support America's new tanker - Northrop Grumman's KC-45
Required text:
(This text will be included in your message)
As your constituent, I'm writing today to let you know of my support for the United States Air Force (USAF) decision to award Northrop Grumman a contract to build the KC-45 Tanker. The facts behind the USAF decision are straightforward and compelling.

Northrop Grumman is an American company headquartered in Los Angeles with over 120,000 employees across the United States.

The tanker decision was based on an open and transparent process and the best team won. The USAF ranked each bid on five criteria and Northrop Grumman won on four out of the five and tied in one category. Both sides praised the USAF for the fairness of the competition before the award was announced. Both sides agreed that this was the most rigorous acquisition process in the Department of Defense's history.

The men and women of our military deserve the most modern technology to perform their mission. The existing fleet of U.S. military tankers is over 45 years old. It is critical to begin construction of the new tankers as soon as possible. The first aircraft for the United States Air Force is already built and flying. Northrop Grumman's tanker is proven and ready for production and deployment.

Northrop Grumman's KC-45 tanker will support 48,000 jobs in the United States and includes over 230 companies in 49 states that will economically prosper. There will be no jobs sent abroad.

I am requesting that you support the United States Air Force decision to award this contract to Northrop Grumman.
Your Closing:
Your Name:

Worldwide Inconvenience

2008-04-08T21:23:00.002-05:00

Ugh. I just got off the phone with Discover Card. I had logged in to my account to pay my bill online, and was greeted with the message that my account number had been changed. Curious, I called their customer service line.

They have actually changed the account number for EVERYONE with a Discover Card. EVERYONE. Now I, and everyone else, have to call all the places I have automatic billing through the Discover card, and tell them my new account number. And I've got to log in to all the websites that know my credit card number, and update it. IF I can remember all of them. Now Discover Card does say that they have "made an attempt" to contact all of the automatic billing places to update the numbers. But they still say that we need to "call to verify" that merchants have the corrected numbers. And since EVERYONE is calling to do the same thing, good luck getting through.

Also, the rep said they only did this for MONTHLY billing places. So those yearly subscription renewals, or occasional purchases (IPASS, for one), haven't been contacted at all. I'm planning to go through my last two years' yearly summary report to catch all possible merchants.

Look for your new card in the mail, I guess. Yeesh.

What's Going On

2008-04-07T21:02:00.002-05:00

Multi-Topic Post!

1) Diagnosis: ITB tendonitis in my right knee. The massive dose of Ibuprofen gave me a headache for two days (how is that even possible?) then heartburn that felt like painful hunger. So, on to the next anti-inflammatory drug. It was also a lot of trouble to find someone with a Cho-Pat strap in my size - they were all out of mediums at the doctor and the home-health pharmacy. I had to drive to Elk Grove Village today after my physical therapy session to go to the other doctor's office and pick one up there. Oh well, at least I have a name for the pain now. And thank God for health insurance.

2) Take Jessie's survey on blog use. It is for her graduate class in market research, and it is about why people read blogs. Help us skew her data set!

3) My bike is in the shop for a tune-up. This is the first tune-up since I bought the bike, like, oh, seven years ago. I do intend to ride it this year, I promise! We've got such nice paved trails in the forest preserves around here, I really shouldn't be making any excuses not to ride.

4) USGS has a website where you can download, for free, their topographical maps. You can also order printed versions. I've got one of the White Rock, AZ area, from when I did that summer internship in Los Alamos. If you think maps are nifty, you should play around with this website for a while.

5) My aunt and uncle got me a Nintendo DS for my birthday! Red, of course. My favorite game so far is PRISM. (Not a surprise.) All Optics nerds should be required to get this game. It also has an interesting cooperative two player mode for download play.

6) Many people spend winter pouring over seed catalogs and planning gardens for the coming spring. I was online ordering more car-care products. On Saturday, the weather was warm enough to wash and wax both cars. I used Zaino Z-7 Show Car Wash and Z-AIO to start with. Results are nice, but once I get the Z-6 and Z-2 on my car it will really start to look as good as it did four years ago when I first used the stuff.

7) My brother had an amazing senior recital. I didn't know clarinets could make such expressive sounds. I wish him the best of luck with his upcoming auditions for "real" jobs.

8) It's all who you know. My manager's wife was chosen to be interviewed in "W" magazine because she had done the hair for the wedding of the sister of the assistant to the beauty editor. Or something like that.

9) I'm glad it's acting like spring now. I was even glad to see mud again - that means the ground isn't frozen anymore.

Four Webcomics Worth Reading

2008-03-15T21:34:00.004-05:00

For your online entertainment, here are four webcomics worth reading. All four are strong in writing, artwork, characterization, and timely uploading. I'm giving four links for each: an example strip that lets you see the "tone" of the comic without giving any plot away, the base of the archives, the main page, and the facebook fan group. Let me know what you think in the comments - if you are reading this through facebook, you will need to go to the main blog to leave comments.

1. Suburban Tribe by John Lee: example, archives, main, facebook. Based in an advertising agency in Louisville, KY, this strip is nominally about having a normal job. But it also has adventure and fantasy, from an intelligent cat who uses the internet to the Halloween horror stories. I happened upon the strip nearly by accident, while I was shopping on Cafe Press. It has been on hiatus recently, but is supposed to start up again in April. Mr. Lee could use some more readers, so check this one out first.

2. Scary Go Round by John Allison: example, archives, main, facebook.
Based in the United Kingdom, this strip is about hip young adults having scary and supernatural adventures. I originally found Mr. Allison's work on Keenspot, when he was doing Bobbins. Scary Go Round is a fun, relatively clean, smart, and VERY British, so be prepared to have to look up words sometimes.

3. Questionable Content by J. Jacques: example, archives, main, facebook.
Based in a downtown of an American city, this strip is about indie chicks who work in a coffee shop and their friends. I think I found QC through a link from another webcomic. Also fun, also clean, and VERY Indie, so be prepared to have to look up band names sometimes. (I bought my Dad the "Math is Delicious" shirt for father's day.)

4. something positive by R. K. Milholland: example, archives, main, facebook.
Based in Boston and Texas, this strip is about all the crap that happens to Davan and his friends and family. I can't remember how I found this one. Depressing, dark, shocking, offensive, smart, real, snarky, funny, and thoughtful, this will not be for everyone. (Mom, don't bother, you'll hate it.) Oh, and there is a pink, shape-shifting cat.

In other news, we found out that it is pretty easy to replace the the battery in the Mazda3. Just remove the plastic covers, take off two easy to reach nuts, and lift off the top clamp. The only strange thing was not being able to shift out of park when the old battery was down to 6.5 V, so we had to jump it in the garage.

DVD Release

2008-03-04T07:05:00.003-06:00

They finished producing a DVD of that play I directed at work back in December. And guess what, I'm allowed to show it to family and friends! So I'll definitely be taking it home when I go back to NJ for the weekend of March 29th for my brother's senior recital.

My iPod has been very nice to have at work, to help keep me focused while churning out piles of drawings. But just putting it on shuffle was a little too, um, random. So I put together a smart playlist called "Unheard of" which has these criteria:
-Play Count < 1
-Rating is not 1 star (this is how I flag songs I never want to hear again and will eventually delete)
-Genre is not 9 Books/Spoken/Language (I've narrowed genres down to 9 broad categories. This one is the "not music" flag.)
-Limit to 500 most recently added

I then listen to this playlist on shuffle, and have fun hearing all the unfamiliar music.

Peer Pressure

2008-03-01T19:55:00.003-06:00

Here is a pile of random items that have been banging around in my head:

1) Herb says "everyone is doing it" so I joined Facebook.

2) I think I want an Amazon Kindle, but I'm not sure if that is just because what I REALLY want is more time to read books.

3) The Mazda3 is now four years old, paid off, and has 40022 miles on it.

4) I'm more bothered by the sirens in GTA than any of the other offensive noises.

5) If you have to "do" your eyebrows, I recommend trying threading. The pain level varies, depending on who is wielding the thread. But it is cheap, $6 where I get it done, quick, and the results are very nice.

6) The stock market can stop going down now. Please.

7) I've resurrected my Palm IIIc from 1996. It works fine.

8) It can stop being winter now. Please.

MBTI: ENTJ

2008-02-19T20:59:00.002-06:00

I attended a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator training today, where they handed out the results of our personality tests. It even went to Step II, so now I can identify myself as an "Accepting, Open-Ended ENTJ". Those first two descriptors represent where I tested "out of preference" by not completely fitting into the classic description of the ENTJ. But some points made in the provided literature are SO true. For example, I "readily see illogical and inefficient procedures and feel a strong urge to correct them." Yup.