Category: LiveJournal

The Big Four Oh!

Wow! I’m 40! It doesn’t really feel any different from my other ages. Go figure.

Winter break has been a blast and I should have been keeping up with my journal about it. But it’s been a busy (and fun) one. judiang and elsaf are visiting and it’s been great having them here. We’re watching ABC at the moment through my converter box & antenna. (I haven’t missed cable for the most part, but I needed to see the dropping ball and later today is my parade! I can’t miss my parade!)

Hope that 2011 treats all of you well! And to the rest of you in the ’71 Club – 40 isn’t so bad after all!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Hope everyone enjoyed the shortest day of the year! Some of you might even have been lucky enough to have seen the lunar eclipse last night. I didn’t, but I saw several photos and it looked like a good ‘un. (For you Southern Hemisphere folks, I hope you enjoyed your Summer Solstice and your longest day of the year!)

Today was our last day of school for 2010. And we had an early dismissal. Yay! I actually got almost half of the catapult reports graded before I left today, which is an accomplishment. And I’m now done with the wood burning & shellacking of the various frames I’m making for gifts for family. There’s one hold-up yet with the crafts, which I hope to work on some during downtimes with the fambly the next couple of days.

Speaking of fambly – tomorrow is Baking Day for me & mom. Then tomorrow night, the girls arrive – Amy & Rachel should be flying in around 10pm. Yay! Will be great to see ’em again!

Will likely be busy with family stuff, though I hope to post a bit before The Big Day. But if not, I’ll just say to you all – Happy Holidays! Hope you are getting some quality time either with family or friends or even just with yourself.

Here’s the state of things…

… to her life she clings. Matrimonial devotion doesn’t seem to suit her notion, burial it brings, here’s the state… Oh wait, that’s the lyrics from a Mikado song. (Unfortunately the song is now stuck in my head. Here’s a how-dee-do!)

Anyhoo, I’ve actually had some productivity of late. Probably not enough (catapult reports still languishing in my bag, being brought to & from work daily), but more than had been. I even got one of my crafts done (though it’s actually a belated birthday present, not a Christmas present). That, in particular, was due to our day off of school yesterday.

Oh, you say, a day off of school? How was that accomplished? Well, see, winter’s going pretty strong here, even though it doesn’t start until next Tuesday. We got a fair bit (OK, under 4 inches) of snow between Sunday and Monday morning and with the blowing snow & lack of snow fences (why on earth don’t they put those up anymore around here?!?!) the road conditions yesterday morning were horrible. Despite only getting 3 calamity days for the year, our superintendent had to call off school yesterday. (Only 2 schools in Miami county were open, and they weren’t hit as bad, apparently.)

So yesterday I was able to continue with Sunday’s productivity. And then head over to Troy to celebrate mom’s birthday with her and dad. She’d already received her birthday gift from dad about 2 weeks early (a new wifi Kindle) and so I complemented it with a nice cover/light. And it’s red, which really impressed mom. (She’d only seen the black ones online.) Then we went out to Outback for steak and lobster and drinks. I tried their strawberry peach sangria which was pretty tasty. Yummy dinner and great company.

I’ve even tried being somewhat productive today. I’m hanging up pictures using lovely Command picture strips and needed to clean my walls first. Break out the Bissell Steam Shot and clean dem walls! Woot! (Well, actually, newegg.com.) And then for grins I tried out the squeegee attachment and cleaned the kitchen window. And then tried unwrinkling some curtains.

Anyhoo, the house is somewhat straightened out and sort of clean and definitely decorated for the holidays. New blinds are installed throughout the house and I’m trying a new curtain in the library to see if I like it. (So far, eh.) I still have many crafts to make before Christmas, but I’m a procrastinator so there’s plenty of time. Ha! And of course those darn catapult reports…

The holidays are coming and I’m excited! Not quite ready yet, but I think I will be! Yay!

Done with Shopping!

Well, no, I’m not done with all shopping, ever. That would be sad. But I am done with Christmas shopping. This might be the earliest I’ve ever been done shopping. Weyhey!

This weekend was a particular productive one, both in shopping and in other things. On Saturday, Bruckner Nature Center had their Winter Arts Fair, which was excellent. (And it was especially lovely since it was snowing the whole time we were oot & aboot.) We (the folks and I) were there over an hour looking at all the booths and buying quite a few things. And seeing a fair number of people that we knew. Last year was the first year we attended and I can see this becoming a yearly tradition.

Afterward, I took the parental units up to Piqua for a bit of shopping there. I found a larger wreath for my porch and got new window lights as well. Then at the Sears in the mall, I found an air purifier that was actually quiet and energy star compliant. After I dropped the folks off at home, I went to Lowes and picked up some cabinet pull-out drawers for my kitchen and some blinds for the library and bedroom. Once I was home, I finished my Christmas shopping online. Phew!

Sunday was Productivity Day wherein I did laundry and rehung my outdoor decorations and got the tree upstairs and made more ornaments and stuff. And last night I got one set of my cabinet drawers installed (the two-tiered one). This will definitely make getting stuff out for cooking/baking MUCH easier.

Still much to be done. Finish decorating the tree. Decorate the house. Make the home-made Xmas gifts. Install the blinds. Install the other cabinet drawer. More stuff that I can’t think of right now. 🙂

Hope things are going well with your holiday plans (if’n you have holiday plans)! Hard to believe there’s only 10 more school days of 2010!

And December Begins!

Today was our first half-decent snowfall of the season. Yay! This evening we were without power for about half an hour. Boo! But I spent the time reading on my cellphone, so that was OK. Yay!

Been busy of late, so I’ll do a quicky summary.

  • Had the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off. Got some stuff done in the house, such as installing my blinds, which had been sitting around for ages. (Need to get more for the other winders.)
  • Thanksgiving was very nice. Made Thanksgiving cheeseball (which I also took to the staff carry-in the previous Tuesday) and sweet potato souffle. I also prepared two Market Day pies – Apple and a chocolate pecan cream pie that was quite a hit.
  • We held the Short gathering for Thanksgiving at the Clubhouse at mom & dad’s community. Most of the family was able to attend – yay!
  • Didn’t rush off to stores on Black Friday, just hung out all day with the parental units. I did some actual Christmas shopping after I got home that night and hung out at Amazon.com, Edmund Scientific, and other stores.
  • The weekend was a nice relaxing one with some exterior Christmas decorating (which has since fallen down – guess I didn’t have the right sized Command strips…)

Keeping busy and avoiding productivity at home of late by playing World of Warcraft (and I’ve already pre-ordered Cataclysm!) Hopefully I will start productivity up again soon!

The Weekend before Thanksgiving…

I’ve had a very nice weekend. Yesterday was just lots of fun and today was somewhat productive. And then I have a two day work week and then 5-day weekend. So yay me! (And if you’re wondering what possessed me to use my “Spring!” icon, it’s cuz I had one of my windows & back door open today. Lovely weather!)

I wound up heading to mom & dad’s on Friday evening in order to help dad with a computer issue (trying to copy a DVD we’d made before). He offered me free supper in the form of Hothead Burritos, so of course I said “yes!” 🙂

After dinner, mom and I made plans for the next morning. I’d wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie during opening weekend, and the folks were willing to come along as well. (We’re all fans of the movies and dad and I enjoyed the books as well.) We decided on the first showing of the flick, which would cost us only $4.50 each at the theater in Piqua (which is nicer, or at least has nice seats, than the one in Troy).

So Saturday morning, I didn’t sleep in as much as I usually do and was at the folks’ by 10am. We got to the theater an hour or so before it began (it was an 11:15am showing), but the theater itself wasn’t open yet. So we stood in line with the other folks who were there. It was foggy and chilly, but not really unpleasant.

After half an hour or so outside, employees finally opened the door. Dad paid for our tickets (yay!) and mom bought popcorn & drinks (yay!) and we got seats about 4 rows from the screen. The place was full, but the audience was respectful. I, apparently, was the loudest laugher in the theater. At least mom claims the people in the front row looked back whenever I laughed… (OK, so I’m used to going to movies which no one else attends…)

We all enjoyed the movie. It apparently works well without having read the book before since mom found it comprehensible. I thought it did a great job of including as much as it did as well as gearing us up for the final part. I may catch it in the theater one more time before it moves to the small screen.

Lunch was at the pizza place formerly known as Cassano’s. Piqua’s Cassano’s was one of our family favorites, (the only Cassano’s we liked) but it is now Beppo Uno. We ordered the deluxe (now classico) with half no onions. It was yummy, but not quite the same as the pizza from Cassano’s. Their breadsticks were wonderful. So we’ll keep in on our list of restaurants to visit. (Oh, and for you folks keeping score, I contributed moolah to the purchase of lunch – I’m not a complete moocher! Well, actually I am a moocher, but I’m a generous one.)

Next was our trip to JoAnn’s where I was looking for a number of things, some of which I found. I got curtain rods for my bedroom (even though I haven’t finished putting up the ones for my living/dining room), some craft supplies for Christmas gifts, and something to use in my Advanced Science class (Styrofoam cones, if you’re curious). We popped home so mom could check e-mail in case Amy sent her a list of books she wanted for Christmas. No e-mail, but that didn’t stop us from heading off to the Bookstore.

Each late autumn, Jay and Mary’s Book Center has a 20% off sale weekend. And this weekend was the one. I found my children’s Christmas Book for the season (I’ve been buying one each year), a gift for my cousin Braden, and something for another relative which I won’t mention more details about. I’ve also figured out what I’m getting my little cousins (who aren’t so little any more) on the other side of the family.

I eventually made my way home with my purchases and vegged for the rest of the night. Then this morning, I slept in a bit to make up for yesterday. I got laundry done, including my bedroom curtains, swapped out the sheets on my bed (from winter flannels to Xmas flannels), listened to the latest Big Finish audio (mmmm, Sylv!), put up the new bedroom curtain rods, ironed the curtains, then hung those too. I also edited together the chemistry videos from my students into one DVD for showing this week. Phew – that’s a lot of work for lazy ol’ me!

So that was my weekend before Thanksgiving. I hope you folks have been having a nice time as well. 🙂

Bachelor Dad Weekend

I’ve had some family intensive weekends of late, which is a good thing in my case. Last weekend, Amy was visiting for a brief spell. Mom, Amy and I spent most of Sunday playing cards around at my Aunt Becky’s, which was a blast, and got quite a bit of quality Amy time. She left on Tuesday and then mom headed down to Florida with some of her friends on Wednesday. So I’ve had Bachelor Dad to entertain since then.

So Wednesday night, dad and I christened things off with dinner at Applebee’s. We took Thursday off to be rested up for the weekend, then Friday evening, we went to LeDoux’s for supper. And both of us had leftovers. Mmmmm!

The major plan for Bachelor Dad weekend was heading off to a Jesus Seminar on the Road in Ft. Wayne, IN on Saturday. When mom’s home, we usually head to Ft. Wayne on Friday afternoon, go to the Friday evening workshop, spend a night in a hotel, then attend the Saturday sessions. With no mommy, we opted to just do the Saturday thing. So dad arrived around 7am on Saturday morning, then I drove us (in mom’s car) to Ft. Wayne with father’s excellent navigation. We got there with half an hour to kill, so I availed myself to Second Breakfast and chatting with some of the folks who’d been at the previous evening’s workshop.

Charlie Hedrick and Hal Taussig were the scholars presenting at this JSOR. They talked about Jesus’ quips and parables (I always likes me some Parable Talk) and stuff like that. Not a lot of new stuff for me. And I managed to make dad laugh a few times with my own quips, which I’d carefully written down in my scribbled doodles. My phone’s been being a butthead lately and I couldn’t keep myself on task by playing Bejeweled, so I did it by incessently doodling. (And when I stopped doodling, my feet started tapping, so it was good that I doodled most of the time.)

We found a Chinese Buffet nearby for lunch and returned for the afternoon sessions. But we arrived back at the church early and the doors were locked. So we stood outside (it was chilly, but still pleasant) waiting. A lady who had arrived for a do happening at the church later that day (in their art gallery) saw us head to the door and brought her box of stuff, only to be disappointed that we didn’t have keys. It wasn’t long before someone with keys returned, however.

After lunch, dad got to do his “Come to Jesus (Seminar)” talk and introduced Westar’s new webmaster – which is me. Not that I’ve done anything yet. But hopefully I’ll be getting them hooked up with a Drupal-based site. Make it much easier for them to do up-to-date announcements, etc. The sessions were done at 4pm, and soon after, dad and I headed back home.

We stopped in Celina on the way home and ate at Taco Hell for supper, then returned home in conditions as dark as when we’d left earlier that day. We had decided to meet for lunch at my place today (eating our cajun leftovers from Friday) and then go to the Model Train Show at Hara Arena. So that’s just what we did today. Yay, model train shows rock!

Usually when we go to the Model Train Show, we just look and usually don’t buy anything. But today we stayed for several minutes at a tool stall which had loads of nifty tools. And they had the exact same digital calipers which I bought for school, only at a third of the price I paid for ’em. So I bought two more and dad bought one for himself. Quite nice. Digital calipers for $20. They even gave us spare batteries.

Anyhoo, I’ve been back home for awhile and have been doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and that sort of domestic stuff. Dad will be picking mom and some of her trip friends up tomorrow evening. I’ll probably get to see mom on Tuesday – yay, mom! I had a very nice weekend with Bachelor dad, but it’s always good when mom’s back too. 🙂

Any video editors out there?

Dad and I recently edited a 25-year video retrospective for the Westar Institute, and this has garnered dad the opportunity to do more video editing for them. The art director who’d been doing the job says he uses Final Cut Express, which is a Mac program. But dad is Winders/Linux. The main thing he needs to be able to do is sync to videos using their audio tracks so that he can cut to one camera when someone walks in front of/behind a speaker or get close-ups from time to time. We both use Pinnacle Studios, which has been sufficient for YouTube videos and the 25-year retrospective. And it may be sufficient for this style of editing – we haven’t tried it yet. He’s been informed that he’d be reimbursed for software expenses, so we could buy something if Pinnacle won’t suffice.

So, you budding directors out there, what would you suggest? Adobe Premiere Pro? Avid? Anything else?

Autumn Colors

On Sunday, I took a walk at Bruckner Nature Center in order to enjoy the autumnal colors. Not a lot of red this season (too dry, perhaps?), but the oranges, yellows, and browns were out in force. It was a pleasant temperature. Every man and his brother was out, but thankfully we spaced ourselves far enough away for the most part. Here are some of the photos which I took during the outing.

Autumn Colors
Autumn Colors
My favorite photo of the day. When scrolling through the images, this one made me pause.

Autumn Flowers
Autumn Flowers
Flowers still showing off in autumn.

Squirrel Overpass<
Squirrel Overpass
This tree was over the path and I watched a squirrel run over it to avoid running on the path. Clever squirrels to install a path overpass.

Sea of Trees<
Sea of Trees
Bruckner is a sea of trees – and currently a sea of orange trees, for the most part. (Soon to be bare trees. Then snowy trees.)

Don't Look Down!
Don’t Look Down!
The path I took this time had a stairway at the end. I much preferred going down the stairs than I would have going up.

Beaver Shack?<
Beaver Shack?
Not sure who or what built this little shack, but it’s cute (even if it isn’t one of my better photos).

More Colorful Trees
More Colorful Trees
And a final colorful shot from the nature center.