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Thursday, July 24th, 2008
caitlin
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7:51a
Crafty stuff...
Well, I just finished a not-quite-shrug thing. "not quite shrug" because it's actually long enough to be a short sleeved cardigan thing.
400 yards of Schaefer Yarns Laurel in Empress Wu Jhao colourway. Crocheted. If anyone wants pictures, I can post them later.
I keep reading and hearing about the "crochet takes more yarn than knitting"... and I have to say... I don't think that's the case.
I crocheted socks using Maizy and used just under 2.5 balls of sock yarn (I have big feet). I bought four just in case.
My next project will likely be to try and finish another pair of socks. Or maybe something simple. I don't know yet.
C.
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aaaamory
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12:15a
Cookies, sleep, and school.
I don't post often, but I'm just looking for an excuse to use my one of my new avatars.
The first coupla weeks of school were pretty cool. I was up overnight typing before I had two classes on monday. Language of Animation and Film is cool. The teacher has started the last two classes by having us describe how we got to school by spending 30 minutes making an illustration or storyboard that included some of the stuff we had been learning about, and include a fantasy element. Last week it was an illustration and I drew the train flying on tracks that arced through the atmosphere like Rainbow Brite's horse running along a rainbow. This week we were to draw a series of storyboards that included a close-up, a medium shot, and a masked shot, so I drew myself looking at the clock (5:30), and then stepping out the door and covering my eyes with my hand because the sun was rising and shining in my eyes. Through the masked shot that was made with my fingers was a unicorn. That was as far as I got. I was going to jump on the unicorn and ride to school but we ran out of time.
In Intermediate Drawing we did this exercise where we sculpt three interesting-looking shapes out of modeling clay and arrange them inside of a shoebox, and then we try to draw everything as accurately in proportion as possible. Having the objects in a shoebox helps... as long as the shoebox is drawn accurately. I fell asleep a few times and when I looked at my paper one of the objects that I had drawn had mysterious lines all over it. Another time I woke up when the teacher came by to see how I was doing. A lot of people were struggling, and I got compliments on my accuracy, and how I was drawing angle lines to get things in the right positions and stuff. She also corrected my drawing in a few places, I was drawing my object's bases too flat.
There was another exercise that was a cross between observation and visualizing inside my head. We had to pretend that we were small and standing among the objects inside of the shoebox, and drawing what that would look like. It was really fun. I had to look at the stuff in front of me and try to think of what it would look like from another angle at the same time and draw it. We were supposed to draw twelve drawings like that, but I only finished nine.
When I decided to spend my time afterwards working on my photoshop homework, I fell asleep at the keyboard after only managing to download two fonts and create a document in the dimensions I wanted. I didn't want to work like that, so I left. The Digital Principles class is in the evening on Thursday so I will go around noon to work on it before class.
I have a new workstation on its way. I will be able to run Photoshop on it so I can have more opportunities to do homework when I'm rested. I got a good deal on it because it's made with refurbished or remarketed parts and ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zlatohrbitek gets an HP discount for being an employee. And an extra discount through the end of the month because they have a promotion going on. It comes with a 17" monitor and I was thinking it would be pretty sweet to set my new computer up with two monitors, because it will be able to do that. And at my Language of Animation and Film class the teacher was talking about how hard Maya was and that we should all do the tutorials and practice starting tomorrow even if we don't start doing 3d stuff for a few quarters so we are comfortable with the key commands. Some students have taken the class three times before passing. That made me kind of nervous. My new computer will be able to run Maya and they have a free version for download for practicing with (though the files you make are useless), so I should be able to go through some tutorials with it.
So.... that's it. zlatohrbitek got me some cider the other day, texting me, "I got you some apple cider! I hope you like it!" And I thought it would be a jug of delicious apple juice, but it was a pint of the real, alcoholic type of cider. I had it tonight, and it was delicious. Not as alcoholic as I suspected, which is great, I can enjoy the whole bottle without having to share the rest of it or throw it out after feeling like I've had enough. It's really good. Zlato called it a "dragon treat," which he has been getting now and then when he goes grocery shopping. Cakes or cookies or pasta or something like that. It's adorable. I tried making him a "fox treat" once when I baked some chocolate chip cookies by pouring some flax seed into the dough. I said, "Look! I made them healthy!" He took one bite of a cookie and we laughed.
current mood:  peaceful
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Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
nauta
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5:28p
Today
Today was shit. I got pulled into my supervisor's office (the one time she gets to work early) and told that "arriving late is unacceptable" the one fucking time I've been late.
How late was I? Five minutes.
Why was I late? Because the bus was late.
Why was the bus late? Because we haven't had the same fucking bus driver on the morning route for over a month. There's a different one every god damn day and none of them know the fucking route. I don't know how they can be given a route and not told what it is, but they sure act like that's the case.
This morning's driver missed a turn and I was half asleep so i didn't notice until it was too late. Then, instead of turning around, he drove almost a mile the wrong direction, pulled into a parking lot, flipped it around and then headed back, costing us more than five minutes which was whittled down to five by the time I got to work.
In addition, none of the drivers seem to understand the concept of "limited" or "non-stop" service. Even when they're told "We stop here and here but nowhere else" they still pull up to several other stops. Even if someone shouts out "We don't stop here" as the bus slows down, the driver still stops. Then, we're delayed further when the bewildered passengers (who got on a bus which doesn't normally stop where they wait) wonder why we're not stopping where they want to go, or stand there talking to the driver to find out where the fucking bus goes. ARRRGGGHHHH!!
So yeah, today sucked ass, partly from that, partly because even though I got the longest duration of sleep last night I've had all week so far, I feel the worst this morning (explain that one to me). Then of course I get home and everything's a bloody fucking mess but I'm not going to harp on that unless it continues. I'm at the end of my god damn rope here, seriously.
At least Wehr's coming over, and there will be pasta and coffee and Top Gear.
current mood:  pissed off
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westcoastfurs
[ jakkismagic ]
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1:11a
New ^^
Name/s, (Furry and/or RL): Lee/Jakk
Species, (Played or Favorites): Cardigan Welsh Corgi (Liver Merle and White)
Age: 17
Location: Point Loma, California
Gender: Genderqueer (lets go with Male for the ease of it)
Mated, Married, Single, Looking?: Mated
Children: After I am done with all my education
What brought you into the furry fandom and for how long?: I just kind of fell into it. There was not defining moment, no one moment were I told myself that I should join in. I just flowed into it before I realized anything was different with me than with others. I guess it would be fair to say about 6 years now since the start and about 1 year of really owning it.
Lifestyler, Fan, Role player, Other? I don't even know.... I would say somewhere on the low end of the lifestyler spectrum....
What you like to do when out gathering with other people into furry: I don't know because I never really have. My friends find it really weird and my boyfriend tolerates it to make me happy. I had a friend (that I miss dearly) that was a fur, but she moved away a long time ago.
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nauta
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6:50a
Wednesday
I'm going to try very hard this morning to make it through without getting a mocha from Dunn Bros. I did it yesterday, and I did it Monday. It's a little pricey at over $3.50 for a small, and I can't stand normal coffee so the free stuff they provide, however good it is, isn't an option.
At least we're going out for coffee this evening, and Wehr is coming over. It looks like I won't see him again until next Wednesday after tonight, since he's going out of town for a race in Brainerd.
current mood:  blah
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Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
nauta
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9:18p
Road Trip Mania
As I sit here listening to Nrasser idle his Beetle (one of the 60's models, not the new one) I contemplate the idea of taking a longer road trip in the Weasel each year. Last year, I drove it to St. Cloud, which was about 70 miles each way. This year, I drove to Elkhart Lake, WI, a trip of about 330 miles. Next year, I'm contemplating doing some kind of week-long visit someplace, using the weekends as transit time and taking the Weasel. It's already proven itself a reliable road trip car; the question is, where would I go?
I'd like to keep it to something I could *possibly* do in one day, maybe two. Leave friday evening, finish saturday and arrive that night. Depart my visitation on saturday morning and arrive home sunday afternoon. Something like that... Destinations which come to mind include the following:
- Detroit (11 hours, 686 miles)
- St. Louis (9 hours, 562 miles)
Other places I know people include Saskatoon and the Pittsburgh area, but both are 14-ish hour trips and really pushing my limit of road tripping. I don't know if I'm ready to tackle something that far away yet.
In other news, I found out one of my co-workers is into Top Gear today. One of the other contract employees who's only been there a couple of months, so I like him. I told him I'd burn him some "greatest hits" of Top Gear to a DVD sometime. He was quite fond of that idea.
Also, I just found out Anthrocon is slated to take place the weekend of July 2-5, 2009. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? o.o I may have to just end up driving my ass to Pittsburgh if plane tickets are ridiculous like they tend to be for heavy travel seasons... at least in mid to late June, they aren't so bad.
current mood:  contemplative
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tofani
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12:55p
Yep, it's been awhile, but I do post on occasion. Let's see, as far as interesting stuff goes, since my last update I have:
-Totally re-landscaped the front of the house
-Built 4 large raised bed gardens in the back yard
-Added a windshield to my motorcycle (yay windshield!)
-Built an arbor for my grapes
-Met a rock band (Safetysuit, playing with Seether, and they were pretty cool to hang out with me)
-Continued teaching at Lakeland, and now I'm up to 2 courses at a time (and I have two for fall)
Yeah, that's the highlights. I'm sure there are a ton of things I forgot. Hope everyone else out there is doing good!
current mood:  accomplished
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caitlin
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8:42a
Weather Geek check-in
Apparently, what happened yesterday is know as a "derecho".
DeRecho fact sheet
(ETA: 10:40am - OH NOES! Jim Cantorre is out in Texas, waiting for TS Dolly (Hello, Dolly!) to make landfall... RUN!) *snicker*
(ETA: 1:40pm - People in the general area are saying thing like "Oh, this is just some made up crap so they don't have to say it was a tornado and do not have to bear responsibility for not sounding the tornado sirens." SIGH. If it was not a real phenomenon, there would not be at least 15 instances cited on the NOAA site for this sort of thing, dumbasses!)
More later...
C.
current mood:  ditzy
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
baxil
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5:28p
A radical thought
The hippies used to say "Don't trust anyone over 30." But, being hippies and not computer programmers, they left a surprising amount of syntactical ambiguity in that statement. Even if we don't challenge the assumption that "thirty" refers to the number of Earth solar years since the target's birth, this still leaves the question of what the exact cutoff is, and to hold any sort of rational discussion about the topic, it's necessary to find a rigorous answer.
Linguistically, "over" implies strictly "greater than"; if "greater than or equal to" were intended, a phrase such as "at least" would have been more appropriate. So if we were writing pseudocode for a trust routine, it should look like:
if ($person.age_in_years > 30) then { $person.trust = 0; }
Even this doesn't answer the question: What is the precision of the comparison? Is someone "over" thirty when they are 30 plus a month? 30 plus a day? 30 plus an hour, a minute, a second, a nanosecond?
Tests of arbitrary precision could easily be constructed and executed, but this would then create a secondary dilemma: platform differences would not guarantee consistent trust results across runtime environments. For full RFC compliance, and to prevent security exploits in applications implementing trust webs, we must ensure that all interpersonal relationships are calculable in replicable ways regardless of native hardware. Removing the question of precision is recognized as the canonical response to this issue:
if ( int($person.age_in_years) > 30) then { $person.trust = 0; }
Which is a lengthy way of saying that, as of yesterday, you can no longer trust me.
--
Edited to add: No, I didn't just turn 30. ];=8) If int(baxil.age_in_years) needs to be strictly greater than 30, then 30 > 30 fails. Besides, I already turned 30 last year.
current mood:  older
current music: "Spy", Cowboy Bebop OST 'Vitaminless'
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nauta
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6:50p
Monday
On a scale of good to suck, the work day was far towards the latter end of the scale. I was informed today that I was chosen for neither of the two available positions I applied for. That makes thrice burned in my attempts to get a real job at this company. Apparently I'm good enough to work for them but not good enough to be their actual employee. Fucking figure that one out.
So, I get to look forward to continuing to make less than everyone else, pay more for the bus than everyone else (and even more come the fare hike in October), continue getting raped on my medical insurance and continue to feel like a second (or even third) class employee at this company.
And no, I still haven't found a job that's feasible. I've applied for a couple that pay well enough for me to consider but I haven't heard back from one (government job, go figure) and the other flat out told me I wasn't qualified. So I'm kind of stuck, it seems.
Other reasons today sucked included spending most of the day thinking about Grimalkin. I nearly broke down a couple of times for reasons I've yet to explain. It's been seven months and yet I felt like I just found out today. I'm better, now, but it still really gets to me sometimes.
Well... Enough about the part of the day that sucked, I'm going to enjoy the evening, grilling out with Nrasser, Sevron, Tim, Connal, Laguna and Connor. I think Wehr is working on his car since he didn't go into work today, and I hope he's enjoying himself because I miss him a ton...
Speaking of which, today I figured out one of the other clusterfuck moments we encountered on the way to Road America. It involves a couple of maps, so they're under a cut.
( This is worth reading, for how fucked up Wisconsin roads can be... )
current mood:  hungry
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kynekh_amagire
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10:47a
I have a PhD in horribleness.
Fell off Internets, due to plague given to me by eclipsegryph. I feel somewhat better today, although I'm still desperately grateful that I'm not at work; I got winded and shaky from walking across the parking lot to clandestinely check my schedule this morning. I hate being sick. It doesn't take much for me to start acting like a wounded tiger.
(Everything tastes weird and it's driving me crazy. ROAR. BITE. REND.)
I did not get to see Hellboy 2 this weekend, what with all the shenanigans and goings-on, but eclipsegryph graciously rented me some movies, including Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God. For the record: bloolark was right, it's not as bad as the first one. There's some genuinely awesome character moments (the "Poor Ona" bit with the dove in the maze cracked me the hell up), and the movie actually does have some relationship to the world of the tabletop game (ZOMG darkmantles!). Of course, "better than D&D1" still leaves an awful lot of room for SUCK, but eclipsegryph and I rent a lot of bad action movies, and are standards have been lowered accordingly. It's amazing what's actually pretty tolerable, once you've sat through two-thirds of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.
Okay, let me 'splain: we have one of those membership thingies with the local video store where you pay a flat fee and functionally get to rent all the movies you want. So we tend to rent anything that looks vaguely interesting, because for every Fire Serpent (so bad that it's really bad) there's also a chance that you'll turn up a Mansquito (so bad, it's hilarious). And every once in a while, we manage to nab a Banlieue 13 (FRIGGING AWESOME). But you don't get exposed to the Banlieue 13s unless you're willing to put up with the possibility of ending up with a Fire Serpent. See?
Fortunately, an eclipsegryph and/or illucian and a moderate amount of alcohol can make even the most rotten movie fun. Plus, if all else fails, Rifftrax will save us.
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painteddog
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12:13p
Things
Man this last week has been painful. My spine is aching. I had a really important rush order that's been keeping me busy around my other commissions. I'm getting really picky with it, but i can't stop myself. Mel came by on Friday we had tons o' fun. Went to the zoo. Just taking the day off was nice. <3 Haven't been sleeping hardly at all. Nightmares and crazy dreams waking me up in cold sweats. And just the plain ol' insomnia. Ended up staying up all night Saturday night and got lots of time with Josh who staid up with me. He's allowed to get tons of OT at work, so he's taking advantage of it, which is fantastic, but I miss him. Sadpanda. I just realized I have a con in less than two weeks. Hurrah. Woke up this morning feeling all gross, didn't want to get up at all, ears are all stuffed like they are getting infected. Going to try to get through commissions now. >.>
current mood:  nauseated
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