Crow Feathers

Great story on an effort to support local agriculture

2008-10-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town

The Devil Who Sells You Prada

2007-09-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

Interesting interview with Dana Thomas about her book, "How Luxury Lost its Luster".

I think the ultimate effect of this is that the true cognoscenti will be abandoning Prada etc. and buying their goods from little hole-in-the-wall companies that still make stuff by hand. When the luxury brand name is so diluted that it's become a mass brand without a luxury cachet, the people who can afford well-made stuff will spend the money for something that nobody else has -- a really hand-made leather satchel or hand-sewn suit.

The Entitlement Generation

2007-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Franklin's post about an encounter with a college student with an overwhelming sense of entitlement is, as usual, just perfect.

It makes me realize that my email encounter with a twit about something on my website wasn't really an isolated incident. Yes, some people really DO have an overwhelming sense of entitlement, and have no idea how rude they are.

I feel relieved, and somewhat justified. (Well, I felt justified before, but now even more so.)

The short version:
Twit emails me ~~asking~~ demanding that I take down pictures/descrition of an item from my website, as she now owns the item (a piece of vintage clothing), and my having a description and photos of the item on my website (taken, with permission, from the website of the person who was offering the item for sale) constitutes copyright infringement.

Um, no.

a) I had permission from the person who wrote up the description of the item and took the pictures (i.e., it was her intellectual property), and that person has not rescinded her permission. The reason I posted the pics / description in the first place is that the seller didn't want the additional traffic that would be caused by my simply putting up a link.

b) You can't own "copyright" on a 200+ year old item of clothing, especially one as common as this one. It's public domain. The design is not copyrighted, nor could it be.

c) Ms. Twit was confusing physical ownership of the item with ownership of any intellectual property pertaining to that item. (Yes, really. We went around and around on this point, several times.) I told her that what she was demanding was the equivalent of telling an author they had to retract any articles they'd written about an item when one museum sold it to another.

Oh, and sis, before you contradict me again, yes, she was really rude; no, she had no idea what copyright law said on the issue, and yes, I will send you all the relevant posts if you really want to see what I'm talking about.

"A Troubling Thought"

2007-04-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

Rod Dreher says, more eloquently, some of the things I was trying to say last week.

"It's Not Just Pet Food"

2007-04-24T05:01:00.000-07:00

Another reason to eat less processed food: ingredients from China that go into much of our processed food and vitamins aren't well-regulated, and likely contain heavy metals and other harmful substances.

Oh, yay. Well, given my allergies, I don't eat a lot of processed foods anyway, but I do take vitamins. Think I'd better start looking at where those vitamins come from.

Radioactive

2007-04-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

A friend recently started treatment (radiation, chemo) for cancer. She shaved her head preemptively, and is refusing to wear "cute" chemo hats etc., opting instead for a baseball cap. Her SO says she looks better bald than Britney (which wouldn't take much, frankly).

I ordered her a tshirt with the radiation symbol on it. I think it'll suit her twisted sense of humor.

Heck, what else can you do in the face of Death but flip him the finger?

The Vortex, 2

2007-04-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, this kid, Cho, was beyond the edge -- he'd been living IN the Vortex for a long time, and the system failed to help him or prevent him from hurting others.

It's apparently very difficult in Virginia to get someone psychiatric treatment if they're delusional and refuse treatment. That needs to change. The kid who shot up the police station in Chantilly is another case in point, and there were a number of articles and essays in the Post about how hard it is for the parents of mentally ill kids to get their kids proper treatment; the kids wind up being a danger to themselves and others. This is the latest instance.

The law used to make it possible to commit people who were not mentally ill, which was wrong. But now it's gone too far in the opposite direction. I hope the state of VA takes a serious look at this.

---------------------------
The rant he mailed to NBC is interesting. He targets rich kids and our consumerist culture. That certainly doesn't justify his actions, but it's clear that alienation and bullying aggravated whatever else might have been wrong with his brain.

The opposite of alienation is connectedness/community. He was uprooted at a young age (8) and thrown into a completely alien environment. That's a difficult experience even for kids who don't have mental health issues. Some come through it (Cho has a brother who is, by all accounts, highly successful), but in this instance, maybe it pushed a fragile child further toward being broken.

The Vortex

2007-04-17T04:57:00.000-07:00

Re: the VT shooting --

So all the chirpy media types are going on about "how could this happen?" I want to smack them upside the head and say, "Fuckin' DUH". Another poor kid was teetering on the brink of the abyss of rage, alienation and despair, and fell in. It was suicide. Only he decided to take other students with him, which is the difference between him and, say, a random student who might have hung himself or taken pills. You never hear about those kids on the national news, because they go quietly. This one decided to go with a splash.

--------------------------------------------------------------
From "Dark Matter: The Psychology Of Mass Murder" in today's Post:
"They're not looking for highs -- they're depressed, angry and humiliated. They tend to be rejected in some romantic relationship, or are sexually incompetent, are paranoid, and their resentment builds. They develop shooting fantasies for months or years, stockpiling dreams and ammunition. The event that finally sets them off, Welner says, is usually anticlimactic -- an argument, a small personal loss that magnifies a sense of catastrophic failure.

"But they don't 'snap,' as you so often hear people say," Welner says. "It's more like a hinge swings open, and all this anger comes out."

They plan everything about the killings, he says, except how to get away.

"It's about suicide," Welner says. "It's about tying one's masculinity to destruction."

It's also rare for them to be truly psychotic, he says."
--------------------------------------------------------------
So. Alienation, disconnection, frustration, rage. Modern dis-eases, sicknesses of the soul.

Most of us dance around the vortex. Many of us develop ways to cope. Some don't. The difference between the shooter and the rest of us isn't that big. Or maybe the difference is that we're hanging on to hope with our fingernails. Dostoyevski's little oak leaves in the spring, the damned dandelions popping up their optimistic yellow heads despite death, destruction and Roundup. You just have to keep going.

April is the Cruellest Month

2007-04-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

....

Ich bin ein curmudgeon

2007-04-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

People suck. In particular, I've been dealing with two people -- one is a friend, one a complete stranger -- who attacked me for doing things they thought were wrong. In the first instance, the friend is a known "sea lawyer" (i.e., someone with no legal background who gets into arguments on subjects he knows nothing about), and he tried to tell me I was "price fixing" when I was simply negotiating my wholesale price with someone who wanted me to make an item for his shop (it's not price fixing if you aren't the sole supplier, and I'm not). In the second instance, I was attacked by someone (and yes, I mean attacked -- you should see the emails) out of the blue for posting something on my website that I have full permission from the author to post. The attacker now owns the item in question, having bought it from the author, and thinks she owns all the intellectual property pertaining to that item as well. Which is ridiculous.

Yeesh.

You know, being an author (even of a relatively obscure book) can be a real pain in the ass. I have no delusions of grandeur about this book. It's netted me a few thousand dollars, which has paid for my garden beds and some plants and otherwise paid off some bills. It's been a modest success in the hobby. But I still have to go to work every day to pay the bills, and I still put my socks on one foot at a time. I don't like the kind of fawning adulation I get from some people; any competent writer participating in the hobby could have written the book. It's not that big a deal. Worse yet are the few people I run into who think they have to score points off me by proving me wrong in an argument. That's just dumb, and ugly.

All this has put me off writing any more books. I really should write #2, and get it published, but there you are.

I can only imagine what a huge pain it would be if one were a truly famous person. Makes you understand some of the famously reclusive authors. At least I have the option of switching hobbies and being completely unknown again.

B.C.: Johnny Hart is an Ass.

2007-03-16T04:37:00.000-07:00

Johnny Hart is an ass.

Today's comic: One character (a caveman, fittingly enough) says "Show me a magpie of a wife who hasn't said a word in three weeks...", and the other answers, "And I'll show you a husband who's running seriously low on duct tape."

His comic strips routinely make fun of women. Since Hart is a well-known Christian fundamentalist, this is obviously his idea of being a "good witness" to the Gospel. Sort of like having a bumper sticker that says "God is my Co-Pilot" and then cutting people off in traffic, eh, Hart?

RIP Sparky

2006-09-05T06:08:00.000-07:00

He was a very good dog.

Cats that look like Hitler

2006-08-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

Here

Now they need dogs who look like Mussolini, or something.

I love Caller ID

2006-08-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

Apparently we got a telemarketing call from the Dove Foundation. We didn't actually answer the call, but their number is now blocked.

More on this fraudulent organization here.

American Thermidor

2006-07-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

American Thermidor
"...There is a strong sign that the political tide has turned, away from the 25 year belief that "a tax cut is a pay raise" – and towards the belief that a market owned by corporations isn't really free."

Amen. More here.

I'm embarrassed that I had to look up Thermidor.

Clothing

2006-07-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling rather insecure about clothing lately. I think there are several factors involved:
a) It's summer. I usually hate summer fashions. They show too much skin for office wear (IMO), and I also hate the usual summer colors, which are way too "cotton candy" for my taste, which runs toward more muted colors. Never mind that I really hate current fashions, too -- way too late '70s/early '80s. I remember that stuff the first time around, and had to wear them as thrift-store buys in early high school days, so I associate those styles with penny-pinching and tight budgets, never mind that they're just plain ugly.

b) There's a contingent of young, skinny, fashionable girls in my office, and I feel like an elephant next to them, because, at 5'7" and with fairly wide shoulders/hips, I'll never be that willowy, even if I dropped 20 lbs. I've also never been that fashionable, even when I was their age. (Yes, this is really more about my state of mind than about them; so it's fixable.)

I used to get the J. Jill catalog, but they stopped sending them to me because I couldn't bring myself to pay that much for their clothing. They make beautiful stuff, but it has always seemed too expensive to me. Another thing that put me off (which is silly) is that they seemed to be marketing to "women of a certain age". I think, however, that I'm going to start keeping an eye out for sales and shopping for their clothes on Ebay. Their styles are (relatively) timeless and graceful, and probably won't need fall out of fashion too quickly.

And, well, at 37 years old, maybe I am a "woman of a certain age." Nothing wrong with that.

Twit Olympics

2006-07-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

It's becoming more and more obvious that our Dear Leader is the American equivalent of the Upper Class British Twit. Also see RW's comments at Cunning Realist about what it means to be a legacy -- social promotion, being given a "pass" even when you don't deserve it. Obviously ok for the upper classes, not so much for everyone else.

Joss Whedon's Strong Women

2006-07-19T04:20:00.000-07:00

on YouTube, via Slacktivist

Sake review

2006-07-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm not a sake connoiseur. We drink the house brand when we go out. I'm much more conversant with single malt scotch.

That being said, I went out with friends last Saturday to a sushi restaurant that had a pretty extensive (and expensive) sake list, and we decided to buy two bottles to see what they were like. One bottle was unfiltered sake, which I hadn't tried before; the other was a filtered sake that was said to have won awards. Both were served cold. Neither was very good.

Here's what we bought:
Unfiltered
Kuromatsu-Hakushika
Nigori Sake
Snow Beauty
Product of Nishinomiya Hyogo, Japan
Produced by Tatsuuma-Honke Brewing Co.
Alcohol: 15-15% by volume

Filtered
Hakushika Junmai Ginjo
Product of Nishinomiya, Japan
Produced & Bottled by Tatsuuma-Honke Brewing Co.
Alcohol: 15-15% by volume

The problem with the unfiltered sake is that it tasted pasty to me -- but also had such a strong taste that it was difficult to drink. The pasty texture reminded me of pepto bismol.

The filtered sake had less taste than I'm used to in sake. Maybe it's because it was served cold -- that might tone down the "nose" on the sake. It really was overwhelmed by the sushi, though, which is not a good thing.

We wound up mixing the two half-and-half to get something palatable, which is probably a major crime in Japan. But at least we got through dinner.

Funny tshirts

2006-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

at Noisebot.com

Zencast

2006-07-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

Zencast

I'm listening to the one on "Doubt" right now. The speaker just mentioned that Zen doesn't really encourage too much self-examination, because you get too caught up in a swirl of thoughts and feelings and it distracts from the practice of mindfulness (awareness).

Sounds true (for me, anyway). I get pulled into that vortex very easily; it's unproductive. Better just to drop it and move forward.

um, what kind of muffin was that, again?

2006-06-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

You ain't seen nothin', from Slacktivist

When I first saw the phrase "Prairie Muffin", I was thinking, "these women would name their organization after cow pies?" Apparently there are other meanings to the term "muffin". "Muff", I've heard. Hadn't heard the other term used in a sexual context, but I guess it's a natural extension of the phrase.

Anyway. Ooof. I'd be inclined to think the whole thing was a spoof, except that I do know people like this who are quite serious.

I don't know why I bother.

2006-06-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

I called a coworker to tell her some news about an upcoming departmental restructuring, and she immediately imputed the worst possible motives (power grab) to the parties in question. I disagree; the restructuring makes sense, and I've been wondering for a while why they hadn't moved in that direction before.

This coworker has a poison tongue, and always comes up with the worst motives possible for any action. Granted, she has good reason to be paranoid -- she's obnoxious, and has pretty much worked her way down the corporate ladder. "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you" definitely applies to her. But it's her own fault -- she's made her own bad luck.

Oh, well. 'Nuff venting. I told her I refuse to speculate about matters that I can't change and which probably won't directly affect my workload.

Crunchy Frog, anyone?

2006-06-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

Hotlix Candy

2006-06-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

Who Should Paint You: Salvador Dali

You're a complex, intense creature who displays many layers.
There's no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

Funny, I never did like Dali very much... Go figure!

Failed sump pump, water in basement

2006-06-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

6/27/06 -- So we got home around 10 pm last night and found that we had about an inch and a half (give or take -- there are low spots) of water in the basement. No electrical failures -- the sump pump just gave up the ghost. We messed with the water for about two hours, opening a drain in the floor (and I twisted my ankle) then went to bed.

This morning, we got up bright and early, and K. went off in search of a pump while I made breakfast (Home Depot won't have any until tomorrow, but the local mom & pop hardware store had a few left). Most of the standing water had gone; K. got the new sump pump installed, and I shop-vac'd the remaining squishy bits up, turned on the dehumidifier and a fan, and started moving the dry boxes of books upstairs. Eventually got to the bottom layer of books; we had to throw out only about 30 or so books, and I wrote down the titles in case I want to replace them later on. Most of our reenacting gear is in Rubbermaid tubs, so I just moved those from one corner of the basement to the other, leaving space for airflow. K. got another dehumidifier to supplement the first, and the space is drying out nicely.

It could've been a lot worse. K. ran into people at Home Depot looking for sump pumps who had a lot more water in their basements. I could have lost many more books. We could have had sewage or any number of other nasty occurrences.

We're going to relax for the rest of the day. We deserve it.

6/28/06 -- I'm sore. Sore ankle, sore back, stretched out hamstrings. Ow.

The basement is drying out, the sump pump is working. It smells a bit musty, even with the two dehumidifiers running, so I put the fan on -- we had an area rug that got a bit damp on one edge, and I think that's the main culprit, so the fan is directed toward the rug.

Feminism and guns

2006-06-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, if anybody bothered to wander over here from bitch phd's blog, here's the thing. I'm not a gun nut. I believe in safety first, as I said on her blog. I believe that we need mandatory safety training for anyone who wants to own a gun -- training, licensing, gun locks, etc. That gets me plenty of grief from my more conservative friends, but you know what? Laws get passed because people do dumb things. And it's ludicrous that you have to get licensed to drive a car, but don't need one to own a gun. (It's also ludicrous that people don't need a license to own a boat -- you can kill yourself and your passengers very quickly out on the water, but you can just go buy a boat and there's no requirement that people learn the laws governing right of way. But that's a rant for another day.)

Kids get killed by guns because of the arrogance and complacency of the adults in their lives, who think (usually), "My kid would never do that." Well, guess what -- kids don't generally have good judgement. Their brains aren't that well-developed; that's why they need adults to look out for them. There is no excuse for leaving a gun where a kid can get at it. Get a gun safe, or a trigger lock, or both, and use them.

That being said, I've heard anecdotes about how the number of kids killed by guns in a given year is lower than the number killed by drowning. So I headed over to the CDC website this evening to see for myself, and it's true. I ran a search for deaths with undetermined intent from both firearms and drowning for the year 2003, ages 0 to 14. If I'm reading this correctly, there were 13 deaths per 60,737,916 from firearms, and 19 per 60,737,916 from drowning. You can run the numbers yourself, if you doubt.

That's still too many deaths, both from drowning and from firearms. I don't see anyone rushing out to outlaw backyard pools, but I do see laws requiring pools to be fenced in. The NRA crowd shoots themselves in the foot, so to speak, by being so rabidly against sensible legislation that would prevent such deaths.

On the other hand...

When I was in my early 20s, a few years after the stalking incident that constituted the final push toward feminism for me, Ms. Magazine (to which I then had a subscription) published a story written by a woman who owned a farm out in the Midwest somewhere. Some of the more loutish local men had been deliberately coming onto her property and drinking beer, leaving the cans/bottles where she could see them. If I recall the story, she did ask them to leave, and they replied with jeers or something. So she drove up to them and asked them to leave and take their empties with them. One of the drunk guys came up to her and said, "what beer cans?" "Those beer cans," she replied, pointing with her handgun. "Yes, ma'am!", they said, and picked up their cans and left. She apparently had no more problems from them.

I have friends (single girls) who were renting a house in rural So. Md. Someone decided they were good targets and robbed their house repeatedly. They got a dog -- the dog was tied up by the robbers, and the house was robbed again. I don't remember what they did next, but they were concerned that rape was next. The nearest police station was more than 20 minutes away.
A few years ago, I met a woman who had had a career that required a lot of driving on business, including staying alone in hotels in unfamiliar cities. She had carried a gun with her, and had once or twice had to let some would-be attackers know that she had it and was prepared to defend herself if necessary. She was absolutely unapologetic for carrying a gun.

What were these women supposed to do to protect themselves? Move? Leave? Stay home with the door locked? That's letting the bullies push you around. That's being a victim.

Guns are tools. I'm probably rare, in that I'm used to using tools. I put down most of the flooring in my house, using a staple gun and air compressor. I rented a powered post-hole auger to put in the fence around my garden. I also grew up around a gun -- my mother's, in fact; she was a bit of a sharpshooter in a local sporting club when she was a girl, and her mother owned a gun and was a bit of a crack shot herself. It's a skill thing. And we were always taught respect and safety. You'd no more fool around with a gun than you would stick your hand into the blade of a table saw.

So a gun, to me, is just another tool. It's certainly not one you want to ever have to use -- but it's a means of balancing the power in a situation where men (who are usually bigger and stronger) and women are unequal.

As I've said elsewhere, it's not a tool that everyone should use. Most women are afraid of guns. If that's the case, they shouldn't own one -- it's highly likely the gun would get taken away from them and used against them. For most women, a can of mace or martial arts training would probably be better options.

But I think that the knee-jerk reaction that most of Ms. Magazine's readers had to the story I mentioned, and which most feminists have to the whole gun issue, should be rethought. Yes, American gun culture is full of macho and swagger and testosterone. But guns are just tools. They can be used for good (to protect, as in law enforcement) or to harm.

Fear and Loathing in Middle Earth

2006-06-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Here -- scroll all the way down, link is on the right. Worth it.

Fire blight

2006-06-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I spent a lot of time pruning. Mostly I was up-pruning the birch/maple/elm/dogwoods so that you can actually mow under them, and to open the trees up to better air flow.

Unfortunately, I also had to take out a fair bit of several fruit trees (one of the pears, two of the apple trees) because they'd developed fire blight, which is a virus that causes the branches affected to look as though they'd been scorched. I found some online guides that said to prune back the affected branches to well below the start of the blight, dipping the pruners in a bleach solution between cuts. So that's what I did.

The buerre bosc pear tree is now half its former size. This is not a good thing -- severe pruning encourages watersprouts, which are also prone to blight -- but I looked at which branches had the blight, and decided to do drastic surgery. It's better than losing the tree. And even if I lost the tree, I'm hoping to keep the blight from progressing further on the other trees. So I need to spray the now-reduced trees periodically through the rest of the summer, and hopefully things will get better. It broke my heart to throw out the branches I pruned that had so many half-grown pears on them. But it was necessary. You gotta do what you gotta do.

I've been thinking about gardening off and on, particularly while weeding. It's really clear (esp. while weeding the back fence, which borders on wild land) that gardening is really the act of imposing order on chaos. I tend to be a bit of a chaotic gardener -- I don't like lots of pruning and fussing and coddling plants -- but I still have to keep the wild bits from taking over. And there's something about tackling a little corner of the garden and making it look good that makes the rest of life, no matter how chaotic, seem more manageable.

Ok, so I'm retro...

2006-06-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

We knew that.

You Belong in 1954

If you scored...

1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too.

1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all!

1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

What Year Do You Belong In?

Political Compass

2006-06-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here.

Hm. Well, I have been describing myself as a fiscal moderate (sensible government -- balanced budgets, please; sensible spending, with frequent reforms to curtail the fraud, abuse and cronyism endemic to government) and a social safety net, but no free handouts for life -- people should work if they can) and social libertarian (i.e., get the government the heck out of our private lives) for years. Guess that still fits.

Eating the Roses

2006-06-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this link, about edible flowers being used as garnishes. Nifty.

I've known about edible flowers for a long time -- in fact, I once ate a rose to tick off the guy who gave it to me (he was being kinda clingy and posessive). It worked, too.

House Republicans and the War on Terror

2006-06-08T04:27:00.001-07:00

Just read this article about the links between Abramoff, Delay, the Marianas, and terrorism. Sounds to me like money takes precedence over safety. More business as usual, I'm afraid... The House Republicans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They should be doing everything they can to fight terror, but if it goes against their own financial interests, they make the wrong decision. But maybe there's hope, now that Delay's out:

In other news, House members are asking Bush to seek emergency funding for free credit monitoring for the former and current military personnel whose data was on that stolen VA laptop. I wonder if he'll do the right thing and ask for that funding, or just ignore it? This is a big deal -- if someone were to use that data to impersonate military personnel to get onto military bases, they could do a lot of damage.

Republicans and the War on Terror

2006-06-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

Just read this article about the links between Abramoff, Delay, the Marianas, and terrorism. Sounds to me like money takes precedence over safety. More business as usual, I'm afraid... The House Republicans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They should be doing everything they can to fight terror, but if it goes against their own financial interests, they make the wrong decision.

In other news, House members are asking Bush to seek emergency funding for free credit monitoring for the former and current military personnel whose data was on that stolen VA laptop. I wonder if he'll do the right thing and ask for that funding, or just ignore it? This is a big deal -- if someone were to use that data to impersonate military personnel to get onto military bases, they could do a lot of damage.

voices from the past

2006-06-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

So I got an email out of the blue from someone I knew in college -- one of my friends from my first two years, when I was a member of one of the more conservative Christian groups on campus. He and his wife and two kids are moving to the area (more or less) soon, and he wants to get together to catch up on old times.

These things are really awkward. I made such a deliberate effort to become a new person during the last year or so of college, and the couple of years after that, that it's hard to meet with people who knew me before that period. They don't really know who I am now, and I often don't feel like explaining it.

Not sure how I'll reply...

Yes, there really IS a Podunk.

2006-06-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

Article here

Extreme Mentos

2006-06-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

NPR tried the standard Mentos and Diet Coke experiment a while ago. Now someone has taken it to the level of performance art, recreating the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas. It looks like they've figured out a way to limit the outflow (holes in the lids?) and control the delivery of the Mentos into the Coke. Very cool!

(Tip o' the pen to Sullivan)

Fire extinguishers are a GOOD thing

2006-06-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

So, last weekend coming back from Fort Frederick, we got stuck in a backup, and then when we passed the source of the backup, it was a Jeep Grand Cherokee that had been burned to bare metal; the occupants were sitting on the guard rail looking forlorn.

Last night, we were sitting under our fly when the guy at the camp next to us lit his Coleman lantern -- except that it went up in large blue flames. He managed to get it out from under his fly and off the (plastic) table to 20 ft away on the grass. I rummaged in my First Aid box and got out the fire extinguisher, and he put out the fire. Kevin told me the propane tank would have exploded if it had heated enough. (Phew!)

I'm very glad I got a fire extinguisher for our kit. Have to go out and replace it before the next event.

Also have GOT to get an extinguisher for the car and the truck. I've been meaning to for years, and this should be a warning...

WalkyDog

2006-05-24T15:19:00.000-07:00

What's "WalkyDog"? This.

I ordered one last week. It got here today. Tried it out this evening, and it works great.

Wish I'd had it yesterday, because I took Molly out on her jog with her on a leash and me on the bike. We were riding/running on the sidewalk (dumb idea) and we had a Three Stooges moment, in which I went on one side of a mailbox and she went on the other side. I fell over, of course, and it's lucky I wasn't going any faster, because all that got hurt was my shoulder, which aches like the devil today. So, lesson learned -- we only bike in the street from now on, so she can't repeat that trick.

The WalkyDog attachment is a Good Thing, though, because it keeps her a definite distance from the bike, which the leash didn't necessarily do (though she was pretty good about maintaining a good pace and not running under the wheels).

Random Thoughts on The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me well know that I read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" years ago and that it's sort of my pet conspiracy theory. I do not believe it's true -- I simply think it's a fascinating alternative view of history, and it's interesting seeing how people react to it, in the same way that finding out people's views on the JFK assasination is interesting; only more obscure. (In fact, the whole bloodline thing in HBHG is probably an elaborate 20th c. hoax.) So of course I read TDVC when it came out, and enjoyed it on the "brain candy" level (like Anne Rice's early novels -- an absorbing read, not terribly nutritious, but enjoyable in the moment).

There are grains of both truth and falsehood in the whole story. It's true that the Catholic Church has a long record of spreading misogynist doctrines and repressing positive views of human sexuality; and has completely swept positive roles for women in positions of power under the rug. However, as many commentators have noted, the Gnostic traditions were actually not very sex-positive, by and large; in fact, their dualistic views probably made them even more inclined toward the "spirit=good/flesh=bad" view that gradually infected the early church and prompted the ouster of women from leadership positions, since women are usually identified with the "flesh" side of that equation.

I used to recommend HBHG to friends who I knew wouldn't take it too seriously as a sort of mental exercise in alternative reality. I'm not sure I still would do that, given the current atmosphere. But it is interesting to contemplate "what if the accepted version of history isn't the real one?", and I think that's what TDVC has done for the kind of people who wouldn't have read anything as heavy as HBHG. It's a radical question, and one that threatens whoever is in power advocating the current accepted view. It's not surprising that there are boycotts.

But people who don't understand the deep dissatisfaction that underlies the popularity of the book and the movie are really missing the point. People are reading the book because they want to believe there's something more -- that there's a more positive tradition within Christianity that affirms life, sexuality, and love. The fundamentalist traditions within both the Catholic and Protestant traditions have repressed this, and they're out of sync with what these people are looking for. On the other hand, the more liberal Christian traditions seem to dissolve into a mushy "kumbaya" land, where love etc. are preached, but it doesn't really mean anything.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

BitchPhD, on Nice Guys and Bitchy Women

2006-05-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Am bookmarking this here so I can find it again.

I think I've dated a few of each of these. I think I'm married to Guy type #4, even if he does sometimes drive me batty (and vice versa).

Re: #1 -- I definitely dated one or two of these. I ate a rose once, to annoy one of them. It worked, I'm pleased to say.

Harold Speed

2006-05-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

I checked out Harold Speed's The Practice & Science of Drawing and Oil Painting Techniques and Materials from the library. Am only a small way into each of these, but so far greatly enjoying his biting and accurate critiques of what was to him "modern art" (both books date from the early 20th century). He decries the lack of craftsmanship in the artistic trends of the day, and it only got worse after he wrote -- I'm sure the likes of Pollack turned his stomach.

The Knitting Curmudgeon posted this quote a while back, and I'm sure Speed would have agreed with it:
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.--Tom Stoppard

Losing weight, and bicycles

2006-05-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to lose weight since the beginning of April. The incentive was S.'s wedding -- I didn't want the double chin to show up the way it did in my middle sis's wedding. Not that I'm anywhere near as heavy as I was then -- I was almost up to 200 lbs then. I lost about 75 lbs on Atkins/Protein Power about 7 (?) years ago, but regained a bit of weight and stabilized around 154 / 156 lbs for the last few years. This weight is low enough that I look presentable -- I was even called "skinny" by a coworker, but I think that's mostly a matter of reference -- but that chin thing still shows up in photos.

Our family has a problem with chins. If we put on even a little weight, we get sort of a half-chin (not a double chin, per se) that shows up unflatteringly in photos. I figured that if I lost at least 5 lbs between the beginning and end of April, the chin thing would be mitigated at least a little. I did manage to lose 6 lbs over the course of April, and now am down another 2 lbs, which brings me to 148 lbs. Don't get me wrong -- this has been difficult. And I hope I can maintain the willpower to lose more weight now that the wedding is over.

What I've been doing: I've been restricting my calorie intake to as low as I feel is reasonable and healthy, about 1200 cal. per day. I've also been trying to drink a lot more water, which does make one feel fuller (helps with the food cravings). But losing weight is tough; anyone who tells you differently or tries to make it seem easy is kidding.

According to this calculator, 148 lbs puts me within the healthy range (i.e., not "overweight") for my height. I'm happy about that. People generally don't believe me when I say I'm about 150 lbs., which means either that I carry it well, or that people have an unrealistic expectation of what 150 lbs looks like. I do need to get more exercize, though, since I don't get enough (aside from the occasional bout of gardening, which really is strenuous exercize but isn't something I do every day) and I've been feeling a bit lumpish lately. Which brings me to... bicycles.

I'll freely admit to being frugal, except when it comes to arts/crafts supplies and books. One reason I haven't bought a bike is that I wasn't sure I wanted to spend lots of money only to have it sit unused in the garage. (I'll also admit to being lazy.)

Well, our community yard sale was today, and I found -- a bike! Ok, two bikes. The mountain bike on the left was $10, and was so new that there were still nubs on the tires. The person selling it had bought it, then -- let it sit unused in their garage. For $10, I can afford to have it sitting unused in my garage and not feel guilty. I do intend to use it, however, and have already bought a bicycle helmet, for which I paid more than I paid for the bike (yes, that amuses me). I rode the new bike around the neighborhood today, and it works fine. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy biking.

The second bike was $5, and will be my "beater bike", if I keep it. I'm contemplating painting it and fitting it out with some old-fashioned bicycle baskets, and maybe using it as a WWII period bike. OTOH, I'm watching an actual period bike on Ebay that I would love to buy and restore.

The problem with riding bikes around here is that there really aren't a lot of suitable roads. I can ride around the neighborhood, and they've expanded the road from our subdivision out to the main road, including a bike path, but beyond that, my choices are a) a twisty, narrow two lane road on which people go too fast and don't look for bicycles; and b) a four-lane divided highway with good shoulders, but which is also dangerous because the traffic is fast (50 mph, but people routinely go much faster). They may eventually widen the former road, and it looks like they're adding a bike path where a new development is going in. Whether there will be a path between that development and ours is anyone's guess, though. I hope so, though -- I'd love to be able to bike to the grocery store or the library.

Update, 5/8: of course, it's raining today.

Darwinian gardening

2006-05-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

People think there's such a thing as a green thumb. I don't think so; plants die for everyone. You just have to stick it out, not giving up in the face of dead plants and other problems.

Because I hate having a huge water bill, I rarely water my garden. This particularly applies to the bed on the side of the house -- it's a nuisance to drag the hose there, and the dogs run through the middle of the bed and trample the plants, so whatever goes there has to be tough.

Currently, the main plants in the bed are: a quince tree, some St. John's Wort, a bunch of lambs ears, evening primrose, some yarrow, irises (Dutch and Siberian, I think), geum, and several varieties of sedum. The sedum isn't doing as well as I would expect. Surprisingly, the bee balm (mondarda) I put into that bed hasn't survived; nor has the red/yellow columbine.

I've had to remove some of the evening primrose to make room for other plants -- left to its own devices, it would take over the bed. Ditto the lambs ears. I think there are a few other plants hiding around the quince -- veronica, some shasta daisies (I caught one of my dogs eating the leaves, which explains why it looks so ratty), maybe some echinacea. I've got the bed half-weeded, and have had to Roundup some particularly stubborn rhizomaceous grass that's taken over around the quince. I'm thinking about putting some gravel on the dogs' path through the middle in the hope that that will make it easier to weed with the scuffle hoe.

This is my herb bed. I'm not quite sure what it needs, but it does need something. I just moved a birdbath and some slate from another area of the garden, which helps. But I think it needs a) some more color, and b) a better focal point.

Next to the bed are the two bikes I acquired today at the community yard sale. More on that later...

Below are the two beds at the back of the garden. You can see the difference between the one I've weeded and the one I haven't -- the honeysuckle and virginia creeper from the wild area in back of the yard are always trying to take over the beds.

I did find one columbine hiding in the bed on the left, so maybe there's hope. I bought some California poppies and some other xeriscaping plant (will have to go look at the tag) for these beds, in hopes of filling in the bare-ish areas where the tulips are. That's a difficult spot; it gets too much sun, so maybe tougher plants will do better there.

Unreal light

2006-05-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm watching a Bob Ross show (call me a glutton for punishment). He's painting a night scene in an oval shape, with purple misty trees in the background and a green meadow.

The lavender trees started out looking vaguely plausible -- until he put in entirely too many highlights for a misty, foggy night; and it looks even worse now that the meadow is in. The grass is much too visibly green for a night scene. And you can't tell where the light is coming from -- it's sort of emanating from the center of the painting, but then the highlights on the trees and grass etc. are all wrong. I think one of my art books called that "jumping the light", i.e., having light that comes from several different directions at once. And that seems to be a consistent problem with Ross's paintings. The mountains may have highlights, but the trees and bushes have inconsistent highlights, and may or may not have shadows at all.

This painting, in particular, reminds me of the post I stumbled across on Danny Gregory's blog where someone mentions that a friend painted a UFO into a Bob Ross-style painting. The UFO, beaming light down onto the grass, is the only thing that would make the light in this painting make sense.

The Five Love Languages

2006-05-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

The Five Love Languages

My primary love language is probably
Acts of Service
with a secondary love language being
Words of Affirmation.

Complete set of results

Acts of Service:		8
Words of Affirmation:		7
Quality Time:		6
Receiving Gifts:		5
Physical Touch:		4

Information

Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.

Take the quiz

Garden stuff

2006-05-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

My garden has been horribly neglected this spring, due to... well, spending every available weekend day at my sis's house, sewing. I really shouldn't use that as an excuse, though, since I really could have been going out for a few minutes every evening and weeding. I did actually do that a few times, and got some of the easier to weed beds under control. But the two major beds in the back, and the one on the side of the house, are disasters. In the back, the honeysuckle and virginia creeper vines are choking out the roses and other plants, and in the side bed, I've got more grass than plants, I think, and need to throw out the mugo pine and alberta spruce that I planted last year then neglected.

This evening I started weeding one of the back beds, telling K. to call me in after half an hour so I didn't overdo it. Good plan -- I got most of one of the big back beds weeded, which is more than I thought I'd accomplish. Must remember that for future reference; it doesn't take as long to weed those beds as I think.

Things to note:
Yarrow, while a lovely plant when blooming, is horribly invasive. I have pink yarrow, and it's threatening to take over parts of the back beds. The only nice thing I have to say for the stuff is that it holds its own against the honeysuckle.

Lambs ears -- same problem. I've found bits of the stuff where none should be -- in the middle of the lawn, for example. I think I'm going to severely cull much of the stuff in the existing beds; it'll recover just fine, I'm sure.

Columbines and coral bells are too delicate for my back beds. They get choked out by yarrow, honeysuckle, shasta daisies, and other more vigorous plants, and just can't compete. Being a lazy gardener (hate weeding in the heat of summer) and a frugal one (hate watering if I can possibly avoid it), I've been looking for plants that work for xeriscaping; so the picky and delicate plants will just have to go in more sheltered, shady areas - not the back yard, which gets full sun all day. Maybe they'd work in the front yard, when I eventually expand the bed around the birch trees.

I really need to get some plant markers. There are some plants that look awfully close to weeds -- particularly the asters and some of the hardy geraniums. I don't think I pulled up anything I shouldn't have, but I ought to get some of those metal markers anyway, to be safe (the plastic ones are all broken).

I also need to get my courage up and prune the apple and pear trees in the back, which are really getting a bit too tall for convenient harvesting. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing regarding pruning, but will have to just give it a go and hope for the best.

Veggies: I've decided that green beans are a waste of space for me. I'd better concentrate on tomatoes and cucumbers, which I really do enjoy. One can buy frozen green beans that are perfectly adequate; but there's nothing like fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm still not quite sure what to do with the third veggie bed (the fourth has asparagus). Maybe more asparagus. I have some horseradish in it now, but it seems to be growing rather slowly.

Pics from S.'s wedding

2006-05-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

So my youngest sis's wedding was this past Saturday. It was great -- they really know how to throw a party! And her dress got lots of compliments. I've posted a Flikr badge at the bottom of the sidebar; go there for pics.

Anyway, the wedding was lovely. S. was the epitome of the radiant bride, and T. was just glowing, watching her walk down the aisle. I swear he was tearing up, as was I. I managed to stifle the tears -- didn't have a handkerchief anyhow. They really know how to throw a party, too. The food, site, etc. were perfect, as was the weather (we thanked the site manager for ordering it up), and there were only a few minor annoyances, such as the cheeziest DJ imaginable.

The DJ got a small tip, since he didn't obey instructions and hardly used any of the music on S. and T.'s ipods as requested. You know, I'm sure the kind of people who become DJs have egos the size of Everest. But if your check depends on making the customer happy, do what they tell you to do. On the other hand, the kind of people who are wedding DJs at his age... probably suck at everything else.

We had Mom, the bride and groom, my middle sis and her family, and some other good friends over for brunch the next day. The back yard was full of small boys for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to pull out my camera until it was almost too late to take any pics -- I really wish I'd gotten some of B.'s kids (head smack). It was nice to see the garden enjoyed by the kids, though. B's wife M. was horribly embarassed when her youngest kid (who is three) decided to enjoy the lovely day by pulling off all his clothes in the middle of the garden, but I was laughing my head off. I had a kid I was babysitting do that on me once, but it was in a much more public place, and I was horribly mortified at the time, but it's typical 2- and 3-year old behavior. I think there used to be pictures of me at age three up in a fig tree in the same state. The boys were very impressed by the basement, where we keep all the reenacting toys. They're a bit young to let loose down there, though.

sketching on kraft paper, & pen / ink

2006-05-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

So here are some sketches I did last week. The first pic shows exercizes from a book I got from the library, "Pen & Ink Techniques" by Frank Lohan. Great book -- particularly because the author gives you exercizes to do, rather than just showing you examples of pen & ink drawings and leaving you to figure out how to do them (as some other drawing books do).

This is a sketch I did of my friend G., reading. K. is camera shy and doesn't like being drawn, but I'll try to sneak a sketch of him in one of these days. I'm enjoying using the brown paper -- the paper itself becomes the midtone of the drawing, and you add the highlights with white chalk.

Trouble

2006-04-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

I've discovered that there's a Utrecht Art Supplies store about 10 minutes walk from my work. Oh, boy. They have supplies that my local A.C. Moore doesn't carry, and I can forsee lots of trips there on lunch hour.

On my first trip, I bought two sketch pads (one kraft paper, one pastel colored paper), a sepia-toned Pitt pen, and a Moleskine sketchbook (small) and address book. The small sketchbook will actually be a notebook, not used (much) for sketching, I suspect. I still need to fill up my existing sketchbooks, then I may buy the larger Moleskine sketchbook.

Next trip I intend to buy a bamboo pen, some oil paints, and goodness knows what else. I've warned my coworkers that if I don't return from lunch some day, I can be found standing in an aisle at Utrecht, babbling incoherently because I can't make up my mind what I want to buy next.

S.'s dress

2006-04-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

So my sis and I have been working on her wedding dress for the past few months (on available weekends), and it's almost done -- which is good, because the wedding's right around the corner. She put the zipper in earlier this month (did a wonderful job), and this past weekend we hemmed the bottom two layers of the skirt, which is made up of two layers of silk satin and one layer of silk gauze.

What still needs to be done:
- sash added to waist
- shoulders sewn on overlayer
- top (silk gauze) layer of skirt hemmed

It's going to look smashing.

Class study #2 - apples and peaches

2006-04-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the second class study from the painting class Sarah and I are taking. Much better than the sunflowers, IMO. I think the teacher was a lot more engaged with the class. We asked more questions -- and also, it was a smaller class, with four of the nine students AWOL. Not sure why they didn't show up; could have been the good weather, frustration with their efforts, who knows. But I think those of us who were there had a good time and felt we were making progress. I feel slightly guilty -- the apples were very hard to paint, and if they were feeling intimidated or frustrated by that, it's partly my fault, since I'm the one who brought them in. But I had my own problems painting them, and didn't expect them to be as difficult as they were (Gala apples, mottled yellow and red). Maybe I should've picked a more solid-color apple. And they could have brought in their own objects to paint, as per the teacher's request, so it's not entirely on my shoulders; I'm the only one who did bring in stuff to paint.

The next class we'll be doing abstract art, which should be interesting since that's the teacher's forte.

Paints and poppies

2006-04-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago I had a 50% off coupon at A. C. Moore, and decided to use it to buy the Windsor & Newton sketching set I'd been drooling over. I have watercolor paints already, and couldn't quite justify spending the money earlier but the coupon tipped the balance.

I also bought some artificial poppies while I was at the store. I have mixed feelings about painting from fake flowers (I think that if you're painting from fakes, the painting will look fake too, I guess), but these didn't look too bad, so... Anyway. I'm a bit out of practice with watercolors, obviously (see first pic), and tend to overwork the painting.

Sewing problems, and solution

2006-04-10T17:43:00.000-07:00

I've struck out twice on making a dress to wear at my sister's wedding. The first pattern was a Vintage Vogue; the second is this one from Decades of Style, also from the 30s. The problem isn't the patterns -- both actually went together rather well, and would look lovely on someone more willowy than me. I, alas, am not willowy. I have a farm-girl body, with big shoulders and upper arms, and I think I look like a stuffed sausage in these gowns.

So this morning I decided to try one more pattern from Decades of Style, and think I've hit on a good solution. I used some celadon dupioni for the first draft, and it works pretty well; but I do need to extend the waistline a bit (I'm longwaisted). So I'll use the silk I ordered for Gown #2 to make a blouse from the amended pattern, and an A-line skirt to match, and be done. Much better.

Catching up... dancing bones

2006-04-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic of an ink painting I found a while ago while antiquing. It's hanging in my sister's entry way. I'm still tickled every time I see it -- it's so opposite the usual cute flowers, birds, etc.

Why crows?

2006-04-01T04:03:00.000-08:00

I've always been attracted to crows. No, I don't have "raven tresses" or anything like that; I just like them. They're smart, inquisitive, and interesting to watch. They like shiny things.

For more on corvids, see Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich. He's a great writer.

Unfortunately, I have seen fewer crows around here since West Nile arrived. They're supposedly making a comeback, but I used to see them everywhere -- and now I hardly see them at all.