Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

The washing machine is still not fixed. The repair guy replaced a sensor yesterday and tried to leave without testing it. Luckily, I started testing it and it crapped out again before he got out of the driveway. So parts have been ordered. He’s called me again today to do further diagnostics for him to rule out stuff he probably should have ruled out when he was here. It’s still broken and seems to be getting worse. Hopefully we’ll have a functional washing machine by the end of next Tuesday when the repair guy comes back with the part. This machine really really doesn’t like finishing the spin cycle…

I got exciting news that a couple old friends are moving to Philadelphia this summer. I’m very happy about this because he loves Philadelphia and I miss them. I’m looking forward to having people around whom I’ve known for more than just the 5 years I’ve lived down here. There’s something about talking to someone who’s known me elsewhere, in another time and place, that reminds me I have real roots or something. I’m very lucky to have so many old friends who help me out with this.

In other excitement, tomorrow is Fiber Fun Day with spinpsychology! I think I’m taking knitting and spinning over tomorrow. Must motivate on these projects! This has been a good week for opportunities in general too. I’m feeling enthusiastic all over the place. That could also be a result of the ten and a half hours of sleep I got last night. It was sort of an accident but a happy accident!

So there’s the random update for those of you excited by the mundane details of life. The washing machine is on strike, friends are awesome, projects are moving, and sleep is glorious.

house, friends, projects, random

I shall survive this week!

Monday night, after a long day of meetingness, I headed down to Mike’s house for dinner with his fabulous wife Lise and the superheroes. Lise is an secret super hero because she makes kick-butt guacamole. The little superheroes are really quite endearing. And clearly too smart for their parents’ own good. It was fun hanging out with children and adults – I could have easily stayed chatting far to late and ended up sleep deprived for tomorrow morning. While chatting, we saw two raccoons in their backyard. On my way back to the highway I saw 2 opossums and 4 white tailed deer, all does, all big. Well, big in the sense that they were taller and heavier than the little runt deer we usually see in the Philly area. Certainly more than match for the little Prius I’m renting this year.

The Prius is a cool little car but it feels a bit like a toy. I’ve put a lot of miles on it so far – enough that I had to put gas in it tonight. *gasp* I could definitely see buying one if I drove more… and I think I’ll be researching it a bit anyway.

Last night I went out with Ann and Andy to a fabulous Italian place in Providence called Siena. The wait was considerably longer than quoted but the comps and food definitely made up for it. The food was divine. The company was fabulous. The evening rocked.

Tonight we had dinner somewhat as a team. More Italian food which was tasty enough for delivery/catering food. After, I gave Andy a ride home, he, Ann and I sat in their gazebo for a bit talking. It’s so nice to sit and chat about randomness. I’ve done a lot of that this week and I have apparently missed doing it more. I’m not going to think about that all that much. Over-analysis leads to melancholy!

The all-afternoon team meetings have been bigger than I expected with a lot more people from external teams than I envisioned but mostly useful all the same. ;) We have 3 new people on the team I hadn’t met before this week so it’s been good to meet them.

I am all checked in for my flight tomorrow. It’s been a fun week filled with fun people so far – my fingers are crossed for the rest of the week to finish out just as well.

work, meetings, dining, adventures, people, fun, travel

So I have found a new and exciting way to be completely graceless. Today I tripped myself while putting on my socks. Actually, it may have been more of a throw given that the cuff of my jeans caught the ring on my thumb when I was straightening up after putting on a sock. I got a full 3 steps in trying to recover before a hit the floor. You know, being graceless didn’t use to hurt so much.

Right after this lovely crash, the Fop handed off things from fencing practice. Thank you so much, violet_amy!!!! I am now the happy wearer of gorgeous green, wool fingerless gloves! They really are fantastic! And they match my outfit today perfectly.

I also have a Pampered Chef catalog and I know how to use it! If anyone wants to participate in a catalog show I’m doing with the newly-minted Pampered Chef Consultant ownedbytwins, let me know and I’ll e-mail you the info. Some of you have no escape because I’ll be e-mailing you anyway! The rest of you are probably going to her open house this weekend anyway, so I’ll try not to bug you too much.

I’m headed up to New Hampshire tonight then Maine tomorrow to visit sewing machines this weekend. Hurray for free flights on Southwest! I finally remembered to look at the Awards section.

And that’s all I have time for! I’m off!

Highlights collected! Click on your preferred violent activity below for more photos.

I plan to put up a full series including all the photos that aren’t duplicates or out of focus… later in the week probably. That way all you fabulous fencers can study all the photos in order and until your eyes bleed. In my uneducated opinion, there are some great looking parries not to mention even more poses in the full set.

• Fencing Highlights (and perhaps a few other random shots)
• Heavy Weapons Highlights

fencing, heavy weapons, kingdom crusades, photographs, photography, sca

There is a short set of photos from the Rapier Champions battle up on Flickr. By short I mean 59 photos. For those of you interested in paging through bout after bout, I exported a much larger set (259) and put it up on its own pages for your view pleasure. These photos haven’t been cropped or edited at all – something I will eventually get to with the shots I really like. But not now.

I want to thank everyone who wore sashes, capes, ribbons and other swooshy things – the photos are much more interesting when you can see that there was movement going on. Next tournament can I tie ribbons to all the fencers to make the photos even more fun? Pretty please?

Duncan’s bouts with Falling Down Woman start here. She drops her first sword here. Her dagger starts to fly here. If you start from the beginning and step through the whole set of bouts, it’s pretty entertaining. To me it looks like she’s always got her weight on the wrong foot (hence spending so much time on the ground). She does get one good shot in, but ultimately Duncan is victorious.

• Rapier Champions – full set
• Rapier champions – short set
• Other Pennsic XXXVI shots




• Ducan’s expressive fencing eyebrows
• Griffith chases that cute butt around the field – they were totally flirting…
• The Queen smooches Andre
• Um… are they dancing? – Pascual and Connor

photography, photographs, pennsic, pennsic xxxvi, sca, fencing, rapier champions

So I was sorting through the photos from Mike and Sue’s wedding. The photos I took of the groomsmen (when they deigned to stand vaguely still, vaguely all in one place and vaguely together) cried out for some amusing commentary so I fired up ComicLife. I started doodling with photos and text and soon ended up with what you see here. It’s such a fun little program. And Mike and Sue had a beautiful wedding that provided lots of opportunity for good photos.

Wedding photos are odd things. I have no small amount of trepidation around picking a photographer for our wedding. I’m very picky about photos of myself, not to mention everything else. However each of the weddings I’ve been to this month has been over-populated with people with digital cameras, myself included. (The wedding this past weekend also included a professional photographer – well several, since the one photographing the wedding was using the groom’s equipment.) I’m inclined to say “screw it” to doing professional photos and just encouraging people to bring their cameras. I can set up some of the classic formal shots and make sure there are opportunities for good photos. I could set up a laptop and card reader somewhere and have people download a copy of their photos for me before they even leave the wedding! (hmm… iPhoto… have people name the roll/import with their own name… very easy… saves money and saves me being annoyed with a professional!)

comiclife, comics, photographers, photography, wedding photography, weddings

In memory of Ed Yeung, fabulous person extraordinaire, I ask you all to be a little nicer to someone today and look at things a little more positively even if it’s implausible or even causes physical pain.

My heart goes out to Ed’s friends and family. I hope that their pain eases gently with time. He was a amazing guy and his passing leaves a big, Ed-shaped hole in the universe.

I worked with Ed when I was in Vancouver. He came in early for the 6 a.m. shift and I came in early to try to juggle Eastern and Pacific time zones to get my job done. He had an exothermic good attitude and was generally an excellent influence on this jaded IT chick from New England. He was easy to talk to about everything. We’d chat in the kitchen or I’d get side-tracked at his desk (which was between my office and my team’s pod of desks). Ed would have a good question or perspective on the evils of our job politics or just an encouraging smile when I needed it. I’d ask after his friends for whom he cared so much. Ed was one of those genuine, wonderful, caring people who passes through your life and reminds you that it’s good to be nice and that the world can be a better place. He was part of my “West Coast transformation” and probably never knew it. I am grateful he wandered through my life and deeply saddened that he will not be able be such a good influence on everyone.

So, brighten someone’s day or make it a little easier. Together we might be able to make up for the bright light the world lost when Ed passed away last month. And if it it works, maybe we can do it again tomorrow.

ed yeung, in memoriam, be nice