Overlord Anniversary

August 14, 2011

This month marks the Five Year Anniversary of my little furry overlords coming to rule this household. I’d been meaning to post some recent photos of the speebies (the word you get when your tongue trips while saying “sweeties”), so tonight I am doing just that. Thank you, Linus and Lucy, for coming into my life five years ago! You’re the delights of my eyes. 🙂

Lucy & Linus Enjoy a Snack

Linus in Repose

Lucy in Repose

Linus under Cover

Lucy’s Path to Napville

Linus on the Scratchy Pad

Lucy Poses for the Camera

Hello, I’m drinking a beer!

July 20, 2011

People may be surprised to learn that today I had a BEER with my lunch! OK, so I only got a 12oz (since they didn’t have half-pints), but it was a real beer, not a malted beverage (Mike’s Hard Lemonade) or hard cider.

Kate, our instructor, wanted to have at least one field trip where we got to see one of the local industries at work. Her original plan to get us into one of the pharma companies fell through despite her starting on it over a month ago. So she came up with a tour of Upland Brewing Co. which is located in Bloomington.

So after our morning lesson (where one of the chemistry librarians showed us around the online chem library – excellent resource!), we headed off to Upland for lunch and then our tour. Kate drove those of us staying on campus, but everyone else drove themselves.

For lunch, I ordered the fish & chips and, after Kevin let me sample his beer, I also got a beer: Upland’s Weizen. Although the taste itself wasn’t all that, I liked the yeasty aftertaste. (I think I’m supposed to use “finish” instead of “aftertaste.”)

Once again, Kate was overly generous and bought our lunches (she rocks, you know). And then we headed off to the brewery section to have our tour. Photography was allowed, so photograph I did! Visit my gallery for a detailed tour of Upland Brewing Co. Very educational and informative. And Kate even managed to relate it to stuff we’d been talking about in class. Great day!

A Good Time for Dicks & Other Things (wait a second…)

February 13, 2011

I know, I know, you think I’m talking about Terrance Dicks in that title. But no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

This has been my week for reacquainting myself with my favorite Detectives. Last weekend I started rereading my collection of Albert Campion novels. This week, the latest DVD set of Columbo movies came out. Then I got back into watching Monk, where I’d last left off near the end of season 6. So I finally got around to ordering seasons 7 & 8. And to top it all off, The Doctor Who TV Movie finally came out on DVD this week in the US.

So of course, on Thursday, I received two packages in the mail. I knew one was one of the two seasons of Monk, and suspected the other of being Columbo and Midnight Riot (a mystery/sci fi novel by Ben Aaronovitch) which I’d ordered together. I decided on the walk home that if it were season 7 of Monk, I’d start watching it, but if it were season 8, I’d watch Columbo first.

It turned out that Amazon combined two of my orders together (probably to save themselves the shipping costs, since I always go freebie when I can) and the package ALSO had the TVM! Well, Sylv trumps all, so I watched the TVM with Sylv & Paul commentary first. And then have been freebasing season 7 of Monk ever since. (I watched 4 eps today. Might watch another after some computer time.) It helps that the latest Columbo batch has only one story that I really love (it’s the one written by Peter Falk, of all things…) The last batch will have quite a few gems, including my favorite story of all, Columbo Undercover. (It’s the only Columbo where no one is murdered.)

Midnight Riot, BTW, was a fun read and I’ll be getting Ben’s second book, Moon Over Soho when it comes out. I wound up reading for almost 4 hours straight last night to finish the book. I love freebasing on books too, apparently. 🙂 Hope he gets some more novels out there for my enjoyment. 😉 (The Also People by Ben A has been in my top 3 Doctor Who books list since I first read it. The other two are Left-Handed Hummingbird and, hey, a book by Terrance Dicks: Timewyrm: Exodus. Maybe I was writing about Terrance Dicks in my title after all!)

In other news, I spent my birthday money from the folks and my sisters on a Kitchen Aid mixer, which arrived early this week. And today I finally used it – to make bread! Yay! I include a photo for your disbelievers!

My first loaves of bread and my new mixer!

I made honey whole wheat bread from St. Marten’s Table (Amy got me their cookbook this Christmas. Alas, the restaurant is no longer in business.) It’s pretty tasty and the smell is (as all bread) WONDERFUL. For supper I had a sandwich of the bread, Black Forest ham, Havarti cheese, lettuce, and baba ganoush. Very tasty! (It’s about 8 points, but I think it’s worth it.)

Oh yeah, points… We decided to try Weight Watchers at work and I figured “what the hell…” We started Thursday, though I actually started keeping track on Friday. Been dipping into my extra points bucket this weekend, but I’ll probably do OK. I’ll be interested to see if I lose any weight over the 12 week period.

Been having some quality parental time of late as well. Had dinner with the folks on Thursday (we went to Club 55 where I had ravioli stuffed with smoked artichoke hearts – yum!) and then yesterday was Hoity Toity Grocery Day. After a lunch at First Watch (a breakfast & lunch joint) we shopped at Trader Joe’s, and then on the way home stopped at the ginormous Kroger in Englewood that has everything from an olive bar to a sushi bar. (It’s where I got my baba ganoush.)

Today I did laundry and baked bread. Those two go well together. 🙂 Oh yeah, and watched several episodes of Monk. 3 good things that go good together!

Photos of another time…

February 5, 2011

One of the projects I’ve been doing these days when I’ve been unable to go into work (basically, we went in Monday and that was it for the week) is scanning in negatives from the Bad Old Days when I had to use film to take photographs.

A couple of years ago dad and I co-purchased a nice slide/negative scanner (plustek OpticFilm 7200) and a staticmaster brush (with polonium!) so that we could each scan in our slides & film negatives. I had it for awhile and barely did anything with it, so then I let dad use it and he pretty much scanned everything that he wanted to. So I decided to give it another go, starting with my 1998 trip to Australia & New Zealand. I’ve now got 5 of the 14 (!!!) rolls scanned, and have 120 photos thus far. Alas, I’m disappointed that the images aren’t as crisp as I’ve gotten used to with today’s goof proof digital cameras. But I’ve found a few photos that I really like so far.

My favorite so far is an odd little shot. It’s from Sydney Harbor and isn’t a typical tourist shot. But I loved the play of the colors. I fiddled about with Photoshop to see if I could exaggerate the colors some, so I’ll let you decide if I’m just odd, or if you, too, think it’s a nifty little shot.

Seagulls at Sydney Harbor.

I decided to include a shot of me sitting in front of Mrs Macquarie’s Road, just for grins. One of the few shots of me in all of the rolls, thankfully. 🙂

Me and Mrs Macquarie’s Road.

I’ve included two others as well.

A sailboat at the harbor.

Sydney at night.

Autumn Colors

October 19, 2010

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

Autumn Flowers
Flowers still showing off in autumn.

<
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
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!
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?
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
And a final colorful shot from the nature center.

Snownami 2010!

February 5, 2010

I must admit, I’ve been a bit jealous of everyone else getting snow this season. But today we’re getting all of our winter snow at once! I liked how gregmce described it – a snownami. (I wanted to post to the school website today that school had an early dismissal due to the snowpocalypse, but decided to use “inclement weather” instead.)

They’re forecasting 8-12 inches here. I understand some folks in this storm will be getting at least twice this much. I’m glad that I don’t have to drive anywhere (and the walk home was rather pleasant) and as long as the electricity stays on, I’ll likely have a very nice weekend. My heart goes out to people for whom this winter has not been so merciful.

Anyhoo, if you’re not completely sick of snow photos yet, feel free to peek under my LJ cut for the images. As a reward, you will also get to see Lucy, who was NOT amused.

Scene from back door

A view of the snow from my kitchen.

Scene from front door.

A view from my porch.

The trees are made of SNOW!

The snow is doing a great job coating the trees.

Another front view, facing north.

I stretched myself out a bit to get this shot (but still staying out of the stray snow on the porch).

Lucy doesn’t approve

Lucy either wasn’t fond of the snow or of me taking photos of something other than her.

Merry Christmas!

December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas, my dear flist!

And my gift to you this year? A cat macro!

Linus has fun on his exercise bike. But something doesn’t quite work right…

School Tour

October 13, 2009

Ages ago, I think mentioned that we’re having a new school built. It’s been fun watching the progress of the building. Our superintendent tries to hold tours for the staff and neighbors about every 2 weeks. Here are some photos from two tours exactly a month apart. Neat to see the progress. For more photos (not by me, but by the Super) visit our school website and check out the New Building Updates pages.

Construction Treen

Let Construction Treen take you for a tour of the building.

Gymnasium, Sept.

The roof wasn’t on yet in September (8, 2009)…

Gymnasium, Oct.

… but a month later (October 8, 2009), roof! What a difference a month makes!

View of my new Laboratory, Sept.

A shot toward the lab side of my classroom from September 8, 2009. The opening to the outside will be a floor to near ceiling window. The pipes sticking up from the floor are drains for my sinks, I believe.

Classroom side, Oct.

A month later (October 8, 2009), the room is looking better. This is the classroom side of the room. The floor to near-ceiling window is boarded today.

Laboratory side, Oct.

The lab is looking good! The doorway beside the floor to near-ceiling window is to the storage room. (Oddly enough, there’s brick between my room and it, yet will be drywall between it and the biology room. What, they think we’d blow drywall down in chemistry? Heh heh heh.)

New mode of conveyance for students…

To help the elementary students get more exercise, the new building will have a new way for kids to get around. Ceiling mounted monkey bars! (Oh, OK, it’s conduit for the wiring. But I couldn’t help but think they looked like exciting monkey bars.)

The Secretarial Pool

I was amused to find this puddle in the exact spot where the secretaries will be in the new building. So *that’s* what a Secretarial Pool is! 🙂

Fireworks et al

July 4, 2009

Alas, elsaf is driving home as I type this. It was lovely seeing her again and I hope her drive back is smooth & uneventful.

After our fun time at Taste on Thursday, we spent most of the day relaxing. Toward supper time, Elsa cooked up Rogan Josh (a lamb curry) and Jasmine rice. Very yummy. Since we were nearly out of Bailey’s ice cream, I went to the market in judiang‘s building and got us each a pint of something. We finally got Judi to watch The Princess Bride. I think she liked it, but she did miss several jokes cuz the sound set up wasn’t quite right.

Friday was the day of the Grant Park Fireworks, so our focus of the day was making sure we’d be ready at 8pm to get to the penthouse to watch. I took a short walk in the morning to Dunkin Donuts to get us breakfast. I also walked with Judi to take the poochies for their morning walk. More relaxing, then lunch at a nearby diner/delicatessen Eleven City Diner. I had an open-faced Reuben and fries and cream soda. Very tasty.

Judi and I played pool in the afternoon. This time we were even on wins. She won solids/stripes and one of our 9-ball games. I won the other two 9-ball games. Alas, that’s the only kind of pool I’ll be enjoying this trip. Although the temperatures have been ideal, they haven’t been swimming-pool comfortable.

On our way home from the diner earlier, we’d picked up fixings for grilling steaks and making more ice cream. So for supper, we had grilled rib eye, baked taters, and the rest of the pineapple from Tuesday night (when Elsa grilled us burgers w/ grilled pineapple & onions and mozzarella). Then at 5 till 8, we headed up to the penthouse.

The place wasn’t at all crowded and we quickly found great seats on the balcony with a view to the Lake where the fireworks would be shot. Then we remembered the radio, so I went down to get it. Unfortunately, it didn’t pick up the station like it did down in her condo. Bummer, no synchronized music for us! Still, the fireworks were brilliant.

hergrace called us back (we’d left a Happy Birthday greeting on her answering machine earlier in the day) and we all got to chat with her while watching the Boom Boom Boom. It was almost like having her there as well (though she couldn’t see them). Glad you had a nice birthday, Steph!

This morning we got Elsa all packed up for her trip back. Then she drove us to Chinatown for Dim Sum at Three Happiness. Yummy as ever. We popped into Freida’s bakery for some (more) sesame buns and then hugged Elsa before she headed off. Judi and I took the El back.

Now we’re fiddling with YouTube and posting videos of fireworks. Behind the cut I have (I hope) the video that I just posted as well as a few photos. I’m impressed with what my phone can do!