A Juggler Rides The Bus

To the Peninsula in Record Time!

2009-11-28T21:08:50Z

It took us a over 8 hours to travel from Bellingham to Port Angeles this time. The Keystone ferry was canceled due to high winds. The Edmonds ferry was backed up. Once we did get across on the Edmonds ferry, the Hood Canal Bridge had opened for a boat to pass through.

Once I got to my parents' house it was a lovely Thanksgiving. We had delicious food and too much of it. My sister's children were well behaved. The dressing was vegetarian so Chris had plenty of options.

The return trip took only 4 hours and that includes getting gas on the way back.

New House = No Internet

2009-11-04T21:42:27Z

Chris and I got moved in just fine on Sunday. The Seattle end of the move was tough because we only had 3 additional people (thanks so much Carol, Ulysses and Mike) to help move all of Chris' stuff (many books and enormously heavy furniture) into a moving van that was parked across the street. I drove the van up to Bellingham with no particular trouble where the move got much much easier. For one, in Bellingham we were able to drive right up to our new house. Another extra easy part of the Bellingham move was the fact that many people showed up (thank you Mike, Echo, Greg, Amy, James, Jim, Ivy, Emily, and Karl). We even got most of my stuff moved from Mike's Manor.

A couple of amusing little quirks about our house are there are no grounded outlets in any of the bedrooms and Chris and I both think the master bedroom door opens the wrong direction. Other, more adorable, little quirks are the neighborhood cat that sits just outside one of our windows and the many squirrels.

A lot of my work got pushed to the wayside last week as I was preparing to move. All of this work is rushing back right now. Whew! I'm looking forward to being caught up and unpacked and able to relax. The time is just not now.

Back to work!

A Google Chrome Review

2009-09-13T20:26:07Z

When I got my new laptop I was on my way to download FireFox when Chris suggested I try out Chrome. "Sure. Why not?" I said. I'm so glad I did. I really enjoy the simplicity of interface and lack of screen clutter (on my smaller laptop screen Explorer's nasty big window header was very irritating). Also nice is the ability to Applicationize websites you visit (making even less clutter while doing things like checking email.) I have not found any websites that have issues with Chrome and it has all the settings that I used to use in Firefox. So far I'm a happy, Chromeville camper.

Random Dinner #2

2009-09-11T01:17:30Z

The first roll gave us the vegenaise/mayonaise page.
The second roll was just beyond the range of pages.
The third roll gave us how to store oils.
The fourth roll was Creamy Baked Pasta with Mushrooms and Cheese. It's in the oven right now and smells awesome.

Random Dinner

2009-09-10T17:24:44Z

Chris and I were getting bored with the things we always make for meals, so we got out the polyhedral dice and rolled for random pages from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. We got Braised Tomato Salad and Braised Tofu in Caramel Sauce. Yum and Yum! All in all a very sucessful experiment.

ValhallaCon is Over

2009-09-08T04:11:11Z

and I'm still chuckling over some of the things Jonathan and San said in the social comics panel. I had a great time. I got to see a whole lot more of the convention than I thought I would be able. Overall a positive experience. LET'S DO IT AGAIN!

Why I'll never be an expert chef

2009-08-07T20:15:24Z

Today, while making split pea soup, I chopped up a potato to add. I added half the potato and saw that it was enough. What could I do with the other half? Nothing, so I added it too even though I knew it would be too much.

Crosswords

2009-08-05T03:59:12Z

Today my NYT crossword calendar puzzle was by Merle Reagle. That's right, a Tuesday puzzle by Merle Reagle.

Why is this interesting?

It's the puzzle that was featured in the movie Word Play. I actually figured out that it was the same puzzle before reading a single clue.

I lost my little buddy!

2009-08-03T23:26:11Z

I had him last night, but today I walked to work without him and when I came home he just wasn't where I looked. If you've seen him (he's kind of rectangular and thin and sports a red blinking light and a safety pin on a string) please let me know. I miss him.

Muppets!

2009-05-25T23:50:42Z

This morning Chris took me to the EMP/SFM to see the new Jim Henson exhibit. It was not a large exhibit, but it was really neat and was included with the EMP/SFM entry fee. I got to see Bert and Ernie and Rowlf among others. The exhibit is leaving mid-August, so if you want to see it, see it soon.

And my predictions are . . .

2009-02-23T00:57:04Z

Unlike mykque01 I'm willing to take what the academy gives me.

Motion Picture -- Milk
Actor -- Mickey Rourke
Actress -- Kate Winslet
Supporting Actor -- Michael Shannon
Supporting Actress -- Amy Adams
Directing -- Gus Van Sant
Screenplay for Screen -- WALL-E
Screenplay based -- Frost/Nixon
Cinematography -- Slumdog Millionaire
Editing -- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Art Direction -- The Dark Knight
Costume Design -- The Duchess
Makeup -- The Dark Knight
Original Score -- Slumdog Millionaire
Original Song -- Jai Ho
Sound -- WALL-E
Sound Editing -- Iron Man (My biggest complaint about Slumdog was its sound! Who nominated that?)
Visual Effects -- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Animated Feature -- WALL-E
Foreign Language -- Okuribito
Documentary -- Trouble the Water
Short Documentary -- The Conscience of Nehm En
Animated Short -- Presto
Live Short -- Auf der Strecke

I learned stuff last weekend!

2009-02-18T00:42:45Z

grouchychris and I went to Pacific Science Center to see Lucy this last weekend. A lot of the exhibit is about the history of Ethiopia. Some of the exhibit is about paleontology. You get a really good look at the real Lucy.

Things I learned: Ethiopia is a Christian country. Ras Tafari was a real guy (and became the Emperor of Ethiopia). Lucy's skeleton is about 40% complete which is amazing considering her age. Ethiopian food smells really good.

Through much of the exhibit I felt crowded, but I was able to get a close look at everything I cared to get a close look at and play with everything I wanted to play with. The one place that didn't feel crowded was the room with Lucy. They did a really good job of crowd control in that area.

I highly recommend going to see her. She's only in Seattle until March 8.

Meme land

2009-02-04T02:37:48Z

Took a nerd test. I guess I passed. Thanks Jack.

Tiffany

2009-01-24T04:01:29Z

Last weekend grouchychris and I went to the Museum of Flight. At the Museum of Flight they have a Concorde, which made me think of Tiffany. Back when I was a young miss I used to read Young Miss magazine (which was calling itself YM in preparation for the change to Young & Modern). In one YM magazine was an article about Tiffany the teenaged pop star. They mentioned that she flew on the Concorde (with some comment like "you know, that jet that costs more than most teens' allowances"). Thus the Concorde and Tiffany are forever linked in my brain. So I started to wonder "What's Tiffany up to these days?" The answer is Gay Dance Club Music. She's still preforming and competing with Brittany Spears for the top of the Dance Club charts. So now I know. Now you know too.

Where have you lived meme..

2009-01-18T17:29:01Z

1. How many cities have you lived in? 10 (If you don't count things like school, being an exchange student and working under a contract then it's only 5)
2. Which one was your favorite? Bellingham is my favorite!
3. Where have you visited that you would like to live? Nowhere. There's no place like home.

Finally, Post pics!

4. List the cities you have lived in, go to http://www.flickr.com and search for images tagged with that city's name that you like and post them!

A photo tour of where I have lived.

Port Angeleles, WA

Joyce, WA (I actually didn't live in this town, but I did go to school here. Does it count as a city?)

Hirakata City, Japan (Summer Exchange Student I lived here 3 weeks)

Kyoto, Japan (I then lived here for 3 weeks)

Portland, OR (For summer quarter school between my Junior and Senior Years of High School)

Sequim, WA (I lived just out of city limits, does it count?)

Forest Grove, OR

Hillsboro, OR

Bellingham, WA

Ketchikan, AK (Just for a summer while working as a tour guide)

Keyboard

2009-01-14T03:12:57Z

New toy day! I just go my new bluetooth keyboard for my Palm. This post is 100% mobile device based.

Disclaimer: This doesn't mean that I will be posting any more frequently, only that my excuses are even lamer than before.

Merry Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T16:31:01Z

Chris and I have been walking to the store rather than driving lately and we've been exploring Chris's theory that people who hang Christmas lights are more civic minded and therefore more likely to shovel their walks. It seems to be a big fat lie. Really what people who hang Christmas lights do is dig out their car. Walkway shoveling is extremely rare it seems. While we were out I took a few pictures of the snow, including this awesome snow Madonna.

If you'd like to see the rest click here.

Crosswords

2008-12-23T15:35:19Z

I've been doing a lot of crosswords lately. When grouchychris and I were down in Portland visiting friends I picked up The Little Black and White Book of New York Times crosswords at Powell's. At first Chris was a bit dismayed at my obsessiveness ("Diid you just start another of those damned crosswords!?"), but now we've been working on them together (a good indoor activity for snowy days). When we started working on them all of the crosswords offered some challenge, but as we picked up the standard crossword vocabulary (The Charles' canine is ASTA, a needlecase is an ETUI, Max BAER is a 1930s boxing champ, etc.) the Monday and Tuesday puzzles became really easy, so we've been playing with ways to make them harder. One variation we do is one of us takes all the across clues and the other takes all the down clues and we don't look at the clues in the other direction, which makes for a situation in which you can't be really certain how good a crossing answer is. Another variation we've tried is one does cross clues, the other does down clues but we start in a corner and are only allowed to do clues that cross previous clues. This makes even a Monday hard because you MUST get previous clues before moving on. Anyway, it's been fun. Much more fun than our little drive down to the Junction for cupcakes yesterday (Cupcakes and Coffee get an A, Roads a D-).

My Travel Bug Left the Continent!

2008-10-19T15:14:31Z

I just checked up on my travel bugs and Juggle Geek (the travel bug who serves as my userpic) is in The Netherlands! In less happy news CD Badger hasn't moved since last November. I hope he's not lost. (Update on CD Badger: He's lost. He hasn't been in the cache he's supposed to be in since at least the beginning of January.)

24 hour comic

2008-10-18T07:59:02Z

I was listening to mcjulie talk about drawing comics at the Ranch Room Thursday night and I got kind of jealous. I've wanted to be able to draw at various times in my life. At one point I actually took an art class. I woke up Friday morning with an idea for the kind of comic I would draw and an opening gag. Yesterday I actually drew a bit of it and it was fun. It was also not nearly as different from the picture in my head as I had imagined. I won't be doing the 24 hour thing, but I just wanted to say that I was inspired.

The Evergreen State Fair

2008-08-28T00:29:53Z

I hope to whatever powers there may be in the universe that I never go to a rainier outdoor concert than I went to last night. I thank my lucky stars that I'm Washingtonian enough to take my rain jacket with me even when it's a sunny day in August. I only wish I had thought to take my rain pants too. That said it was a great time and Weird Al was awesome. I sat right next to a couple of his true fans, young lads who probably weren't born when "Smells like Nirvana" came out, but yelled it out as their request.

We also went to the fair in general and the draft horse extravaganza in particular prior to seeing Weird Al. Much fair food was eaten and mostly I was disappointed. The stir fry was substandard. The Onion rings were greasy and bland. The blackberry sauce on the ice cream sundae was alright, but more like blackberry syrup. The one food item that did not disappoint was the scone (or scones, I ate two), mmmmmmmmmmmm freshly baked flaky goodness!

BMX

2008-08-12T01:56:46Z

GrouchyChris and I went to Mount Vernon on Saturday to watch my sister's children compete in a BMX event. I had never been to any BMX event before, so it was really interesting. I had expected the BMX track to be a loop of some sort, but they aren't. I didn't really expect to see people my age doing it, but there were. My 5 year old niece Madison won her event and got a huge trophy. My nephew (9) and other niece (14) didn't hurt themselves or come in last. Overall it was a lot of fun, but next time I'm going to watch them at a more organized track. The time between sign-in and racing was pretty long.

Ew sweaty

2008-07-30T02:34:57Z

I've been playing dangerdaisy 's Wii sports and boy howdy is boxing tiring. Yesterday I took the fitness test and got a Wii sports age of 46, today when I took the fitness test there were 3 different challenges and I had aged to 73. I was disappointed, but it could be due to my sore muscles from playing Wii sports yesterday.

Drat!

2008-07-16T03:56:15Z

I was prepared to be strong, but it looks like I'll have to buy Rock Band 2 when it comes out. They included the all time best singing in the car song ever, Wayward Son by Kansas. They have found my weakness.

I found my Legos!

2008-07-09T00:59:45Z

I went to visit my family for the holiday weekend and while I was there I saw my old Lego sets. I was very excited. grouchychris is a huge Lego fan and I had mentioned to him that I only had the girlie Lego sets when I was young (the Lego Bathroom, Kitchen and Family Room to be exact). They were still in the original boxes and we put them together to see if they were complete. I can make a complete Kitchen set including instructions and stickers and the others are all very close to complete. The Lego Family Room is equiped with a record player and a rotary dial phone. One of the problems with these sets was that there were stickers that covered more than one brick, which meant that you couldn't take it apart if you stuck things together correctly, so some of the stickers are on the wrong pieces. I didn't really play with my Legos much because there isn't much you can do with a Lego sink that only fits in the one Lego cabinet that will take it and bricks stuck together with stickers. One interesting thing about my sets is that my adult and preteen Lego people are bigger than the standard "minifig" size, their bodies are mostly made of 2X2 blocks and they are huge next to the minifig babies and toddlers.

The Lego corporation really hasn't done right by girls for the most part. Girls' sets tend to be less buildable and Lego women are few and far between. I was looking at a Lego catalog and in one of the police sets, the one female is having her purse stolen. Grrr.