| Thursday, December 24th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
8:49p |
Crafty crochet
It feels good to be making things with my hands again. I don't have time most of the time when school is in session. It's one of the things I'm hopeful will change once I'm no longer teaching at the university level. And I've been going crazy collecting crochet patterns recently, both purchased and free ones. Some people are good at just about whatever craft they lay their hands to. I am not one of those people. I have one craft I'm really competent at, and crocheting is it. I'm glad to be doing it again. |
seishonagon
|
3:23p |
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| Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 |
gaudior
|
11:30a |
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| Sunday, December 20th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
9:03p |
Way to go, county!!
My county just closed for the rest of this week. We only had two and a half days of school anyway, and there was no real chance of school being open tomorrow. For that matter, we were already expecting a 50% absentee rate this week, so an increase in absences due to weather just made everything even more pointless for having school. Which means, two full weeks of winter break! |
seishonagon
|
2:44p |
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gaudior
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1:04p |
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gaudior
|
9:36a |
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| Saturday, December 19th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
8:00p |
Snow update
We have knee-deep snow. We've basically given up on going anywhere for a while, which is kind of refreshing. I feel like I'm hibernating. Maybe that's why I'm so sleepy. It's also really beautiful, coming down outside the window. |
pandaposse
|
12:12a |
Two Towers
Yeah I just got back from the travel-from-hell for work which without going into too much detail amounted to the following schedule: 5AM - Wake up 5:30AM - Get picked up by my car service to get taken to Logan airport 8AM - Fly to DC 10:30AM - Work on a 300-ft tower in 30-degree weather and it being just a little windy outside 6:30PM - Finally descend from the tower, work completed, and grab some Wendy's 7:30PM - Show up at the ground station/mission control area and begin doing more work 3AM (no I am not kidding) - FINALLY FINALLY THANK GOD WE GET TO LEAVE THE MISSION CONTROL AREA, THANK YOU BABY JESUS 4:30AM - Check into our fancy hotel on Penn Ave (the Marriott) 5AM - Sleep 9AM - Wake the hell up and prepare to do more work on another tower 12PM - Climb the tower, it is MUCH MUCH colder this time, cannot feel my feet 5PM - Got done, leave the tower, head to the airport in rush hour traffic 6:30PM - Missed our 6:30 flight, the next flight doesn't leave until NINE, and the airport restaurants aren't what I would call fantastic 9PM - Leave DC, get picked up by the car service, go back home to WORK ON CHINA DVDS auggggh 1AM - Sleep I am sleeping like the dead tonight and will love it. |
| Friday, December 18th, 2009 |
pandaposse
|
11:58p |
Snack Street
I edited a clip from my China Trip DVD I made for my family and put it up on YouTube. This seemed like the most interesting part with the fewest shots of the fam (you know, the boring parts): I basically cut out a conversation at the end of this clip where we were talking about the grossest things we saw at the Snack Street stands. I think the contenders were the sheep's penis and dogmeat patty. Though I think since I had spent all that time filming the scorpions they definitely made an impact on my mind. I think I was silently screaming a little while holding my little Flip Mino. Also yeah ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mkeda had asked where I had come up with the Wiggles song "Fruit Salad" to put in the video. Well Mike, we're getting pretty old and now my friends are starting to have kids who have nothing better to do than to eat, sleep, make messes, watch TV and listen to at-first-catchy-and-then-impossible-to-b lock-out songs. "Fruit Salad" being one of them. I was at home with some friends watching a Bengals game one afternoon and the friend who was hosting the party was singing to herself the "Fruit Salad" song and then when we asked her about it she played it for us and by then I WAS STUCK HEARING THIS SONG. At least the lyrics are easy to remember. I hope you guys like the video! |
| Saturday, December 19th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
10:58a |
Let it snow~!
So far we have about an inch and a half of snow, but it's stopped for now. If it stays at this, the whole storm has been a mountain made out of a molehill. If not, and if it accumulates more at the same speed that this inch and a half showed up... then I expect to be completely snowed in tomorrow. ETA: Aaaaand, snowed in. We've got about a foot, and it's still coming down like crazy. |
| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
9:58p |
Our dog is too smart.
He has figured out how to disable an anti-barking citronella collar while it's on his neck. God help us all if he ever figures out how to use his paws to their greatest effect. Or, you know, realizes he can actually jump high enough to get over the baby gate and out of the living room. ...how can one animal be so smart and so stupid at the same time? |
pandaposse
|
10:38a |
Video making burnout
I am so beat from making videos. I really should have not procrastinated so long and just sat down and steadily worked at it, but what did I know? But there is an end in sight and I hope to make that end tonight -- in which all of the 3-7 minute music montages that I've put together (there are 15 of them -- one for each city/giant landmark that we visited!) will somehow be sequenced into some coherent family vacation DVD. I like each sequence, so hopefully the whole will be greater than or equal to the sum of its parts. Then comes the blehhh part -- encoding. WHICH WILL TAKE FOREVER I BET AS IT ALWAYS DOES. Then the meh part -- burn, baby, burn! I estimate I will need 13 DVD's to give to the respective parties (my family, our family friends who came on the trip, and Jon's family) so I'm just going to go ahead and make 15 and have some spares lying around. The packaging part is coming along nicely -- I had Jon make me a DVD cover for the cases I bought. I suggested to make them in the Cultural Revolution propaganda poster-style, and he came out with a product that exceeded my expectations. They are hilarious!!! I have to get a picture up once Christmas is over, as they are supposed to be a surprise. I just hope that my parents and my parents' friends have a good sense of humor about such things. It really is hilarious. We still have to label the DVDs to, but we might just save time and give a straight-laced label to the DVDs instead of Jon's idea of cropping the DVD cover into a smaller version for the labels. I don't know, someone might want to show the DVD to people without having to make excuses for the creators' tasteless humor/love of irony! I brought my laptop to the lab so I can work on the best part of the vids -- the night market/"snack street" in Beijing. Gross stuff! But I found the best song to set the music to -- "Fruit Salad" by the Wiggles. |
| Monday, December 14th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
9:42p |
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seishonagon
|
7:33p |
Bittersweet...
I just bid farewell to one of my university classes. I won't be seeing that group again. |
| Saturday, December 12th, 2009 |
seishonagon
|
10:21p |
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