Drinking from the Fire Hose

Scrapbooking a 100th Birthday

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:53:19 GMT

My mom's first husband's mother celebrated her 100th Birthday last month. Last night my mom called to relay a request for copies of the photos I shot at the party. Since I recently learned Costco has the ability to print 8x8 and 12x12 scrapbook pages, I decided to scrap a page highlighting my favorite pictures from the birthday celebration and include it with the prints.

Failed experiments with Felted Yarn

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:38:08 GMT

betagoddess, I don't think you received my letter yet, but in it I start to describe my recent crafty endeavors. Under the cut there's a photo (scrapbook page) with a description of the techniques I tried and photos of the rather disappointing end-products.

Notes: The blue rug is approximately 12x18 inches; the oval rug is is about 24x16 inches. What surprised me is that the oval rug consumed an entire skein of new yarn (not to mention 3/4 of a wool sweater (size M).

Crank is scary stuff

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:30:19 GMT

I've heard numerous times how toxic cooking meth is, but it's way worse than I thought. I'm watching Crank: Darkness of the Edge of Town on PBS and it's horrifying.

jebra and I found a new thing to celebrate yesterday...

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:57:59 GMT

Our anniversary is November 7 (11/7), making yesterday our Reversinary. We celebrated by going to 7-11. I'm sorry to note that only people who married within the first twelve days of the month have Reversinaries of their own. If you don't have one, I'm sure jebra won't mind if you share ours.

I had the green Slurpee. It's called Radiation Rush, it is Strawberry-Pineapple in flavor, and I found it to be rather tasty.

Thoughts on gardening and life in general...

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:39:47 GMT

maiac asked about the brush pile I intended to chip today. I had to wait for the brush to dry before chipping, as I have the world's worst chipper/shredder. The darn thing jams if you just look at it funny. In between weather, work, not being home, and laziness, the pile's been there since we cleaned the pond back in June.

The photo in the background shows the pond and, believe it or not, the area jebra cleared. It is on the right-hand side of the photo -- if you look close, you can see a bit of the path along the side. My guess it that there is seven feet between the north side of the pond and the fence; my plan was to have the elderberries grow between the path and the fence. The space is a bit too narrow for them though and they are doing their best to take over the entire pathway.

Thwarted by the weather

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:53:09 GMT

After a considerable amount of internal debate, I convinced my body it wanted to get out of bed and get ready for a thrilling day of weeding and chipping the pile of brush littering my driveway. I had breakfast, checked my usual batch of websites (boing boing, LOL cats, and woot), and realized it seemed a little dark outside. "Well," I told myself, "it could be simply overcast." I rolled up the window shade for a closer look and saw drops of water on top of the air conditioner. I went out to the kitchen for a better look and that's when the rain *really* began to fall.

It could be worse though -- I could have been outside, having hauled everything I need out of the garage, when the rainstorm started.

Gosh I love my friends

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 05:32:12 GMT

On Saturday, the South-East Michigan Gluttony Society gathered in Southfield. Someone noticed the Roomba sitting in the corner and asked the owner for his opinion on how well it works. This lead to a demonstration, which turned hilarious when someone else grabbed the stuffed pillow Dalek Tegan crocheted and put it on top. The image below doesn't do it justice -- this is one of those things you have to see in motion to fully appreciate. (But you can click on the image to take a closer look if you're interested.)

Paging my flist

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:40:31 GMT

Paging desert_rifka

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:25:40 GMT

Paging madtechie2718

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:05:20 GMT

Hope your day's a real winner!

Paging amazonx

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:32:40 GMT

Paging arrow00

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:14:10 GMT

Paging maddiec24

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:05:34 GMT

and

Cover art for Road Work

Mystery Plant #2

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:39:47 GMT

Y'all did such a good job identifying the mulberry, maybe one of you can tell me what this flowering shrub might be. I struck out with every nature guide I tried. I think it's really pretty, but its growing right next to my pond and I'm worried it will turn out to be invasive or produce berries that are poisonous to my fish. Not that I've seen any sign of berries yet, but still...

Last night at Heritage Park

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:40:32 GMT

Farmington Hill's newly constructed band shell was dedicated and the FCB Concert Band had the honor of performing the first concert on its stage last night.

The shell's manufacturer described it as a "kit" in their sales literature to the city. From remarks made during the dedication ceremony, I gather "kit" translated as "a pile of lumber, miscellaneous hardware, and instructions." Nevertheless, the shell is beautiful and does a superior job of directing sounds on the stage to the audience. In terms of sound quality, the shell is almost as good as Harrison's auditorium. (And the band itself sounded wonderful.)

What I've been busy with so far this week

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:56:59 GMT

jebra and I began cleaning our pond last Saturday. I thought it would take about a day. Turns out, it takes two. And it's dirty, smelly, tiring work.

After work on Monday I was so tired and sore from the pond that I didn't do much more than sit on the couch. Although, come to think of it, that may have been the night I tried to teach myself how to knit the double moss stitch. I goofed up a few rows, but seeing as I was using left-over yarn and knitting yet another washcloth, it hardly matters.

Tuesday after work was laundry, dishes, and Quicken.

Last night was running errands. First to Bordines to buy water hyacinth. I picked out two, then was seduced by the water lilies and got one of them as well. Can't recall what kind (and forgot to remove the label from the pot before plopping it into the pond), but I know it's supposed to have yellow flowers. Hopefully it'll get enough sun to behave as the perennial it is. After Bordines it was off to Meijer to return pop cans and buy goldfish. The universe was smiling upon me as I had a wonderful clerk who didn't mind capturing specific goldfish out of two very crowded tanks. I wanted either white or brightly colored goldfish as the drab ones disappear from sight once they've been released into the pond. The next stop was FedEx, to finally ship my Jayne Hats to the California Browncoats. I didn't get home until nearly 8 p.m. and still had to acclimate the fish to the pond before releasing them, not to mention have dinner.

Today we're leaving work early so that jebra can perform with the FCB Concert Band at Heritage Park. Seeing as he's borrowing equipment from North Farmington High School, it'll undoubtedly be a fairly late night for us as we'll also have to return the equipment and the truck after the concert.

Can anyone identify this thing?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:32:37 GMT

Last summer I noticed a tree growing along the fence separating my yard from my neighbor's. At the time, it was about 3' tall. It has now reached a height of approximately ten feet, and, last night I noticed that it is bearing fruit. Is this some sort of evil weed tree that will take over my garden if I don't keep an eye out for volunteers?

Am I correct in thinking it is a White Mulberry Tree (Morus alba)?

Paging betagoddess

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:19:41 GMT

Question for fanfromfla

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:30:29 GMT

Have you ever seen Holmes, Sweet Holmes: A Floorplan of 221B Baker Street?
I hadn't until this morning, when it came up on antennapedia's LJ.

Neat, huh?

Oh crap

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:50:09 GMT

Even though I've had my CPAP machine for a couple of years, my memory for new events is still somewhat wonky. Some things stick, others don't. And, as far as I can tell, there's no rhyme nor reason for the lapses. This morning I spotted this article on Science Daily.

In short, UCLA researchers have discovered that people with sleep apnea show tissue loss in brain regions that help store memory. Principal investigator Ronald Harper hypothesizes that repeated drops in oxygen lead to the brain injury. During an apnea episode, the brain's blood vessels constrict, starving its tissue of oxygen and causing cellular death. The process also incites inflammation, which further damages the tissue. "The reduced size of the mammillary bodies (structures on the underside of the brain) suggests that they've suffered a harmful event resulting in sizable cell loss," Harper said. "The fact that patients' memory problems continue despite treatment for their sleep disorder implies a long-lasting brain injury."

While the above explains what's going on, continued memory problems is not something I want to have.

Paging shadowserenity

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:15:30 GMT

Paging siberian_skys

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:40:21 GMT

Fun day

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 21:23:27 GMT

After getting my allergy shot this morning, I went up to Auburn Hills to see if there was anything worth shooting at the Cars Inc. Open House. There were plenty of beautifully restored classic cars, but the best part of the excursion was getting a ride on the Kriewall Swing Bike.

Crafts Finish

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:26:23 GMT

Yesterday I finished knitting the messenger bag I plan to use this summer. Today I made a matching checkbook cover.

Paging fanfromfla

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:01:06 GMT

And for a closer look at Lee's patch, click here.