The reason why I don't blog as much is that I'm hunched over my workbench making jewelry. Right now I'm trying to get out as many new pieces for LosCon38 this coming Friday as I can, as well as for a holiday event where my husband works in early December.
The first piece below is an assemblage of copper floral bits on a copper oval with a copper cuff bracelet base. I'm very happy with how it's turned out.
The next set are a few of the assemblage pieces in steampunk style that I'm going to make pins and necklaces of.
Finally, here's a necklace with some gears on the chain, delicate antique watch face, a really lovely engraved vintage watch part with ruby jewel, brass filigree and brass chain.
Of course I'll have my usual lanyards, bracelets and a few other steampunk pieces on display as well. If you're going to be near the airport (LAX) Marriott the weekend after Thanksgiving, check out LosCon and come see me in the dealer's room!
Hmm, new Blogger posting interface - too soon to tell if I hate it or just am uncomfortable with its newness.
If the living room, downstairs bathroom (which I have used for every part of my 'getting ready to go out' routine except showering, so it's not just two guest towels and some dusty dish of soap), the kitchen, the dining room and 90% of my office/bead workshop are packed doesn't that mean I'm almost done? Doubts have been raised - probably because I have huge amounts of clothes and shoes left to pack in two upstairs bedrooms.
look at this happy fellah taping a box...hey, look who's carrying the heavy one in the background
I probably need to join Clothes Hoarder's Anonymous. I haven't quite hit bottom yet, I guess. Yes, I do have things I haven't worn for over 2 years. No, I am NOT going to give up my 3 sizes too small classically tailored suits just because I can't fit into them yet!
If this were my closet and not clip art it would represent barely a 10th of 1% of my stuff....
Know how you follow a link somewhere and end up not only spending hours on that site but following other links out to other new and fascinating places on teh intarwebs? Yeah, you know. Boing Boing linked to a place called Popehat which was posting about a scam they were hunting down. Then I read other posts and got to one about the TSA agent whose "pat down" was tantamount to rape. This is a site I now have on my reader, you might find it interesting, too.
hey, it was the best free clip art I could find, ok?
If you are familiar with me from the Absolute Write forums (which, I swear I'll be back at soon as this damn moving epic is over) you may also be aware of the "blame Dawno" phenomenon. I won't say much except that there has been a hashtag on Twitter and now there's a Facebook page. If you're on Facebook, do come join the Blame Dawno community.
Dawno
Again, free clip art - we do what we can....
Oh, last thing - if you are the slightest bit OCD, ADD or just getting older and sentimental - moving is going to set off Every. Single. One. of your quirks. I have found myself tearing up over finding old school photos of the kids (she was so cute in that dress, why is he glaring at me in that picture?). I have sat for half an hour reading through old papers. I have left one room to get something and spent two hours packing up another room before I remembered I'd just come down to get some tape. I have meticulously arranged by color or alphabetically organized things that could easily have just been tossed into a damn box, ok?!? *ahem* sorry about that....
My sister gave me wonderful advice: "dare to dispose". I just wish I could follow it better!
Next post will probably be from my new home in Pasadena, sitting amidst numerous half unpacked boxes wondering why I didn't follow my sister's advice more closely.
Longer answer - my office/beading workshop is not an easy thing to pack up. Fiddly little beads - even in bags and bins need to be organized in their boxes just right or they'll end up all over the bottom of the boxes and, perhaps, even leaving a trail from here to there as they're hauled down to L.A.
I still have a lot of miscellaneous stuff to figure out how to pack - including the loose beads in the drawers of a craft cart that can't just be taped closed - it's very open sided and all the beads would just fall out of it. They're going into these giant Ziplock(tm) bags. I love Ziplock(tm) bags, by the way, great for dumping teensy fiddly bead stuff into. Also these plastic cover thingies that look like hotel shower caps that I'm fitting over the paper plates I use for beading lap trays. Cover the plates with them, stack 'em up and pack 'em up. I believe two more large boxes and a couple more mediums and I'm done in here.
I think a majority of the books have been packed - I don't even want to tell you how many boxes full. The DH is currently packing the china, crystal and glasses from the kitchen in the special dish and glass boxes he picked up from U-haul today. That leaves all my clothes and all the bathroom stuff. I don't actually belong on "Hoarders" but I do have several shelves full of toiletries, makeup (some of it way too old to ever be used again), soaps from hotels, sprays, potions, lotions and ghu knows what else that I simply have to be strong and throw away.
Then there are the clothes. Um, I really love to buy clothes and shoes...and purses. I've gone from one rather roomy walk-in closet to taking over another in my daughter's room and the one that was my husband's. He had very little actually hanging up in there and I just ended up migrating stuff into it. I know I should give a lot of it away to Goodwill but I really do wear most of it - at least when it's in season. Very little of what I buy is what one would call trendy and easily dated so it can be worn year after year. Since I have no idea what kind of job I may end up getting down in L.A., I don't dare toss out anything, yet.
Well, that's the long answer to the title question...and it still isn't fun.
Jello was a "grandkittie" who my son adopted and then left with my husband and I when he joined the Army. She and her brother (Pudding) had been guests here when they were very small kittens but they were a good size when they came to live with us permanently, so we missed a lot of the tiny kitten playfulness.
Jello was always rather stand-offish with my husband. She never liked being held but deigned to let him scratch her occasionally. She was a bit friendlier with me, often sleeping near by at night. As shown above, one of her favorite spots was up on a small shelf above the mantle where the stairs turned for the last flight down. It was a great vantage point from which to disapprove of all the folderol going on downstairs.
Sunday night when we got home from Reno, Glenn noticed she was very lethargic and lying in the kitchen, which was very unusual for her. He took her to the vet on Monday and the xrays showed that she either had a very enlarged heart or a large tumor. I took her to the cardiac specialist vet on Tuesday and the diagnosis was grim - final stage congestive heart failure. The right tricuspid valve had failed, the right atrium and ventricle were hugely enlarged. She had tachycardia as well. She might have lasted a few more months on medications or might have gone in her sleep at any time. Regardless, she was short of breath and just wanted to sleep all the time, so we decided it was best to let her go.
Back from WorldCon. Had a wonderful time, have posted on LiveJournal and G+ with pictures on my beading blog. Today I need to rest up and catch up. I made my househunting appointment with the relocation specialist down in LA for next week. Hubby is at the vets with Jello who doesn't seem herself today and he's worried.
My son is still in town, will be taking my car to Carmel for the next couple of days so I hope I don't need to be anywhere. I do need to go to the bank and deposit my earnings, but I guess that can wait until he returns.
I'll leave you with a link I got while scanning my Google Reader and saw posted by Regretsy: http://www.amandarynda.com/?page_id=10 Engagement pictures with a zombie twist!
Yesterday was a great day - my son has returned safe from Afghanistan!
The 525 BfSG marching in
Waiting for speeches and songs to end
Finally! Mom gets to hug her soldier!
After he'd gotten a chance to rest and shower he, my DIL and I went to dinner and saw Captain America.
An aside: I recently switched to Chrome so I could use a Google + extension that's only available on Chrome. When I tried to post this yesterday the photo uploader in Blogger refused to work. I was tired so I gave up and went to bed. Today I'm using Firefox and it works just fine. Anyone know why Blogger has this problem with Chrome? I find it odd that two Google owned things don't work together.
Today was my last day at Cisco. The company offered an "enhanced early retirement" package and I accepted.
What's next? Not sure - I know I'm going to take some time off to relax, visit with family, go to World Con in Reno...after that I'm not sure. I will have time for blogging, beading and catching up on my reading, though!
As part of a surprise anniversary gift to the hosts of the wonderful site Making Light, some of the folk from the fluorosphere put together this tribute. I'm in it at the 28 second mark:
Wow! The kitty video I posted on my other blog, Dawno's Beaded Badge Lanyards was noted as a post of the week by the very talented and lovely Hilary of The Smitten Image. As I commented there, I'm so thrilled! I feel like I just won an Oscar. Here's the icon:
I'll be adding it to the sidebar on my beading blog soon - will have to save it somewhere on the web so I use my own bandwidth for it and I'm too tired tonight. But I had to share right away. Thank you, Hilary!
You left this comment on a month's old post on my beading blog:
Correctly! Goes! [url=http://.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=acheter_levitra_ici_1euro&acheter-levitra]achat levitra[/url] In my opinion, it is actual, I will take part in discussion. I know, that together we can come to a right answer.
I was so disappointed that I couldn't follow your link. You need to learn how the html for links on a blog post Correctly! Goes! You were probably planning to make some money off every click. Or maybe clicking the link would send someone to a malware site where you'd be able to steal some important information via a virus. I don't know enough about links to know which, but it's a shame that won't be happening. Sad to be you.
And why post anonymously? How can we have a discussion? How can I come to *your* blog and spam your comments about my jewelry in return? Surely that would be a worthy discussion...I'd be thrilled to put a link to my Artfire shop in the comments on every post. I bet with all your spamming you'd get a lot of traffic that I could piggy-back on for profit! Another lost opportunity for collaborative synergy!
You kids today. You just don't know how to spam like they did in the old days.
I think my favorite part of the email below is the convoluted grammar, odd capitalizations and reference to DHS, "The FBI Seattle Division in conjunction with the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Has screened through our various Monitoring Networks and has been confirmed and notified that the transaction you have with the Financial Institution is Legal and you have the Lawful Right to claim your due fund."
Doesn't everyone with an email address know by now that if the email says to contact a "bank" in Nigeria that it's a scam?
Oh, and regardless of the "confidentiality" notice at the end, I'd like to see them try to take action against me for sharing this with you - there were no addresses listed on the email, so the "intended for the addresses (sic) only" bit - kind of hard to enforce...
subject
NOTICE OF YOUR FUND APPROVAL
Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Seattle Division 1110 Third Avenue Seattle, Washington 98101-2904
Our Ref: FRBN/NY/PA/INV/2009
NOTICE OF YOUR FUND APPROVAL
This is to inform that you are eligible to receive the sum of $7,500,000.00US dollars regarding to an over-due Inheritance/Award payment which was fully endorsed to be paid in your favor.
The FBI Seattle Division in conjunction with the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Has screened through our various Monitoring Networks and has been confirmed and notified that the transaction you have with the Financial Institution is Legal and you have the Lawful Right to claim your due fund.
Note that the reason for not contacting you before now was that firstly, the bank is responsible for the payments and as such proper work has to be done to avoid beneficiaries loosing their money due to false claim by some people you are advised to follow the procedure of the Financial Institution. They have their own legal procedure which we have examined and confirmed legal.
To effect and carry out the directives given, you are advised to contact the Payment Systems of Central Bank of Nigeria:-
Sir. Charles Ferguson International Claims Officer Phone: +234 803 755 5341 Fax: +234 014 563 234 E-Mail: centralbankng@chinaren.com
Note all above information is expected within 24 - 72 Hours that from when you receive this mail, should you not respond means your approval will be turned down and returned to the Government treasury account as unclaimed Funds. Modalities of transfer will be avail to you upon the receipt of this mail.
Yours sincerely, Mr. Richard Blair CC: Federal Bureau of Investigation CC: National Central Bureau of Interpol ******************************
***************************************************************************** DISCLAIMER NOTICE: Information contained in this email is confidential and intended for the addresses only. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication without prior permission from the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication, please delete it permanently without copying, disclosing or otherwise using its contents, and notify the sender immediately. *********************************************************************************************************
I should be happy - it's an extra hour of sleep! Did you remember to set your clocks back last night (well, except for you folk in places where it never changed in the first place)? Good thing they do this over the weekend, I bet a lot of people forget and end up getting to places an hour earlier than they should...and who would want to show up an hour early to work on a Monday? ick.
Found this while "wandering around the Beadosphere", by which I mean reading jewelry artist blogs on my Google Reader page. From Lori Anderson's Design Blog:
"The Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form. Here you can watch music videos, download songs, read lyrics and find links relating to the messages conveyed by the music."
This video features Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye and is so wonderful - goosebump wonderful...
Have you seen the previous one? Gorgeous, thought provoking...
Billed as "3 hours of geeks and music", the show was 3½ hrs long and definitely had geeks and music in abundance. Also, "special guest" video appearances of Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (being read by Wil Wheaton), which got a reaction of mixed laughter and applause, and Neil Gaiman, as seen in the opening credits of of a fictitious sitcom video clip (he's seen at 33 seconds in) who may have gotten the loudest applause that night for being in a 5 second shot in a video. Neil does add a lot of cool to anything he's seen in. The sitcom, which "...was canceled during the first commercial break of the first episode, and was ordered destroyed by then-ABC President Grant Tinker..." starred Jonathan Coulton (also not in attendance last night).
We spent nearly two hours on the freeway/city traffic to get to San Francisco last night to see w00tstock v1.0. Normally a 45 min to 1 hr drive, but traffic was slowed down considerably by rain, often very hard rain. Some of the delay was also due to me not giving the DH good directions and having to take a very long detour. Nonetheless, we did arrive before the show started and got fairly good seats even though they were in the very last row - it wasn't that big a venue, fortunately.
The majority of the w00tstock v1.0 audience, as far as I could judge, was male (rough guess, 60% maybe more), iPhone carrying, mathematical or ironic tee-shirt wearing, late 20's to late 30's people. As a 50-something female in a Jones New York blouse and sweater, with a rather old Motorola Razr, should I have felt more out of place? Nah, I had a great time, got most of the jokes and references, and occasionally laughed very hard. We got home really late, so I wasn't able to write this when everything was fresh in my mind, so these are just some general impressions.
The house lights dimmed and Wil Wheaton came out in his official Department of Geek Affairs tee-shirt. We were welcomed, told that the show was under a Creative Commons license (warm laugh from audience) and warned that the show is "in beta". My first clue, before even being told, was that Wil was reading from a folded sheet of paper. I didn't mind that one bit, nor the other little flubs and goofs - it was kind of like being a special guest to a dress rehearsal. Someday, when a more polished w00tstock is on tour, well, I can say "I was there for the first one" :-)
Paul and Storm performed some sets throughout the evening, but because I had seen them open for Jonathan Coulton, I'd heard the songs before - maybe not the Frogger one, although I don't recall. Then came Molly Lewis, who plays the ukulele, and Kid Beyond, whose first piece I missed while taking a break outside for a bit, but I got back in time for the end of his set, which featured two Muppet mashup videos and his commentary - which were quite funny.
The last guest was Adam Savage, who did a slideshow of his 100 Wishes which I found touching, sometimes funny and generally pretty cool.
We got home pretty late, nearly 1 am, which, especially this morning, made me wish the show had been on a Friday or Saturday night - maybe w00tstock 2010... As I write this, the second San Francisco show is about to start. There's one more show scheduled, down in L.A., tomorrow.
You can see some (fabulous) pictures of the stars of the show over at Laughing Squid.
In this picture on calixtonpix's Flickr site you can see the side of the audience where the DH & I were sitting, but we were in the row just behind the ones you can see at the very bottom and didn't make the shot. Note all the glowing iPhone screens...
In the Terry Pratchett book Making Money, Moist Von Lipwig learns about the secret in the basement. If you have not read Making Money and you do not want to read a bit of a spoiler, please skip this entire post. Here's a video of a kitten instead. If you don't mind the tiny spoiler, scroll past the kitten video and read on.
I had no idea that there was a realGlooper (you *are* a Discworld fan, right?)...wow! I found out about MONIAC (or Phillips Hydraulic Computer) because I just was introduced to 2D Goggles - a web comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage via BoingBoing.
Source: Wikimedia Commons "This is a faithful photographic reproduction of an original two-dimensional work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired"
Source: Wikimedia Commons: "A scan or photograph of a page from The Illustrated London News Newspaper by unknown staff artist Permission: Published in 1871, copyright expired 70 years after publication, 1941. This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired"
Here are two videos of the MONIAC at work:
Of course playing around with MONIAC doesn't actually make the world economy change, like Glooper did...or does it? I may have just invented a new world economic meltdown conspiracy theory.
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