Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Sunday’s walk involved taking lots of photos. The sun decided he would play hide-and-seek with me most of the walk so I found myself standing and over-composing shots while I waited for a cloud to pass. This is different than over-composting shots, but often the result can be the same. And it meant my walk was probably not as exercise-rich as it could have been, but I got some lovely photos.

This shot is not one of the over-composed ones. I like how the exposure worked with the overly bright pink against the dark center of the tulip and dark background. Also if you look at the larger version (aka the full-sized original file which is 3.5MB), you can see the textures of the petals. I now have this set to be my desktop pattern. Feel free to use it too if you want – just open this link and right-click to save it or set it as your desktop image.

In playing with this I discovered a nifty thing about Firefox too. When I click on full-sized image link, Firefox cleverly resizes the image to fit in the window and scales it appropriately as I resize the viewing window. When I mouse-over the image, my cursor turns into a magnifier so that I can zoom into the full sized image just by clicking. When I click again, the image is resized to fit the window again. Fun stuff. Of course, I’m probably the last person to realize this… but I don’t view big images in Firefox very often. ;) Zoom in to the center of the flower – it’s so cool!

Do you actually see your desktop image? With all the windows and applications I usually have open, I don’t see much of mine. Right now I see the lower right corner of the image – a blurry green leave and a sharply focused edge of a pink petal. Of course, I am particularly bad about open windows in Firefox (thank the gods for tabbed windows!). But still, it seems like I only ever see my desktop image when I reboot (which is rare on my personal computers) or when I hide all my applications to find something I saved to the desktop.

desktop images, firefox,, flowers, macro, photography, pink, technology, tulips

I went up to NY last weekend to hang with lisaf and see Loreena McKennitt at Radio City Music Hall. We saw her there on her last tour 9 years ago so it seemed like a great idea to see her there again. For the record, it was an AWESOME idea. I don’t go to a lot of concerts and quite honestly live music isn’t my thing, but Loreena McKennitt and her ensemble live? It’s an amazing experience.

My favorite part of the concert remains the ensemble itself. There were 10 musicians on stage including herself. Most of them played more than one instrument through the course of the concert. Actually, many of them played more than two instruments or even switched between two in a given song. I love watching musicians play, I just can’t help myself. Every ensemble should have a hurdy gurdy player too, and hurdy gurdy solos for hurdy gurdy players to rock out on! The cellist was mesmerizing. Really, all the musicians were incredible. Every moment there was something interesting going on – someone switched instruments, a solo/duet, and the extended jamming sections of some of the songs…

I love my IS lens too. It really made it possible for me to get good photos. I’m just not cool enough yet to manipulate all my settings (mostly because I’m still figuring out what buttons do that on this camera). Since there were flashes going off unpunished, I threw on the IS lens so I could get some decent shots without being a jerk and using my flash. It’s kind of a big lens but I love it. I hadn’t even intended to take photos at the concert, honestly, but I had fun doing it!

I don’t usually go to concerts so describing concerts isn’t something I’m good at. Instead, I give you a selection of the photos. The glory of concert photos is that they can be a little blurry… in fact, they’re not blurry, they’re artistic! Right! Click here for the handful of photos I uploaded.

But back to the concert… because even a week later I’m not done gushing about it apparently.

They performed many of my favorite songs. I got goosebumps, as usual, during “The Highwayan.” I spent the whole concert just surrounded by the rich tapestry of their music. In some small part, it could be the venue since I’ve never seen Loreena McKennitt anywhere else. But I suspect it’s mostly that this group has a lot of fun playing together and being on stage is secondary to the music. The audience ends up experiencing the music of the hearts of these musicians rather than a rehearsed set list. Perhaps I’m too much of a romantic but Loreena McKennitt is a concert experience like no other I’ve had. (Feel free to chime in with other groups you think I might enjoy who provide similar concert experiences.)

The rest of the weekend up with Lisa was fun too – we shopped, dined, imbibed, wandered and generally had a lovely time.
concerts, loreena mckennitt, music, radio city music hall, weekend

I figured it was time for some gratuitous cuteness. Tennyson was about 2 months old when this photo was taken. This is proof that he was indeed small (less than 2 pounds!) once upon a time! He’s about 5 years old now and hovering around 16-17 pounds. I should take another picture with that same bonsai tree for fun.

While last Monday I posted pictures of snow from the nor’easter, today I’ll be taking photos of tulips and cherry blossoms out on my walk. It’s been very warm (low 80s) the past couple days, unseasonably so for April. It’s supposed to cool down starting tomorrow. It’s breezy today, as evidenced by my door slamming and opening every 5 minutes, so that bodes well for a change in the weather. Anyone still thinking global warming is a myth should look at the precipitation and temperature trends of the past few years.

Speaking of environmentalism and since Earth Day just breezed through… Here are some of the sites I feed the cute little (rabid) environmentalist in the back of my head:

• Grist: a great environmental news and information site. It’s not quite a blog, more like a news site with an opinionated slant. Oh wait, I just described half the “real” news sites. I’ll digress on the decline of media later…
• treehugger: a very green group blog. This blog collects all sorts of interesting news stories and information about going green, being green, eating green, and just green. Alternative energy, conservation, recycling and being a good environmental citizen are all topics touched on here.
• Living Plastic Free in 2007: The blog of EnviroWoman, a Vancouver 20-something who has decided to give up plastic completely for 2007 (anything leftover from 2006 is fine). She’s working hard to bring no new plastic into her life, especially the throw-away plastic you get everywhere. This blog is entertaining on many levels – EnviroWoman is witty and smart – but it also has made me think about how much useless plastic comes into (and is thrown out in) my life.
• Wise Bread: Not really an environmental blog as much as a sensible, money-saving blog, which often results in practices that don’t harm the planet quite so much. They recently ran an interesting series on Bottled Water Hype: Water, which is sort of ubiquitous, now arrives in plastic bottles, bottles that are polluting to create and polluting to get rid of.

And speaking of green, this week is Administrative Professionals Week and tomorrow is the big day (formerly known as Secretary’s Day). This means it’s time for my annual dredging up of a fabulous team project! Once upon a time, in a company far, far away, a beloved department admin mentioned she liked flowers. The result was Project Secretary’s Day: How to Build a Summer’s Day. If you’re really looking for a way to say thank you to the admin in your world, there’s no better “Thank you for doing a great job!” messenger than a fully landscaped cube. Seriously. I promise. A vase of flowers is pretty and all, but sod communicates true appreciation. Follow the link above for the full experience including “making of” pages to help you landscape your own (or your neighbor’s) cube.

administrative professionals week, cats, cube landscaping, environmentalism, green, how to build a summer’s day, kittens, project secretary’s day, random links, secretarys day, silly, tennyson, weather, how to build a summer’s day, project secretary’s day

So flying on the heels of a nor’easter is not the brightest thing ever. However my flight Monday night was smooth and relatively on time (only half an hour late). The landing in Providence was a little startling (it felt like we’d hit something head on) but otherwise uneventful. I had switched my flight to an a later flight that wasn’t running late and that turned out to be smart. Even with the small delay, the 8:20 flight still left well before the 5:55. I got to my hotel much later than I prefer but sleep happened and all that.

I got quite a bit done in the office this week even though I was only there for 2 days. The meeting I was in yesterday afternoon wrapped up neatly and early. People I’d never met before gave perfect feedback on the process. (Perfect as in just the right thing to say to improve it in ways I see need improving as opposed to saying the process is perfect.) I made new, exciting contacts. I made crazy impressions on people, but in a good way. I want to document our reports in a fun and useful way. The fact that I’m excited to do this boggles people’s minds. The fact is that I really am all about user education and it would be fun and easy for me to create a quick and easy presentation that project managers could use to figure out what reports are actually most important and how to use those reports. Okay, maybe that does make me crazy, but I’m here to help.

The flight home last night was also boring. I napped. Napping is never a good idea for me, honeslty. I end up more tired and silly than I started. But there was no avoiding the nap and it was lovely. When I got home I downed 2 liters of water and a bit of pizza for dinner. Gee, do you think maybe I need to work on my water intake while traveling?

It’s still raining on and off like the nor’easter is trailing a ragged train of rain clouds behind it. It’s been gray for so long I’d really like to see some sun this weekend. Handily the forecasts wish to help me with that desire.

So I really have no content of merit today. My cat has taken to hiding under the blankets on the bed. Evil Cat continues to hiss at him whether he deserves it or not. I don’t think either of these cats understands what hissing really is. Crazy cats.

The photo is of a cherry tree (I think) in the graveyard. I love its twisted old trunk and fresh, new branches getting ready to bloom.
cherry tree, flying, nor’easter, rain, travel, weather, work, nor’easter

So remember those delicate plum blossoms from Friday’s post? Most have been blown from the tree in this Nor’easter that’s ploughing through. It started in the wee hours of Sunday morning with heavy rain. I woke up at 8:30 yesterday morning to the sound of the sump pump followed closely by the realization that I had several loads of dirty laundry still on the floor in the basement. So much for sleeping in! It rained steadily throughout the day. We got some serious water in the basement, where serious = enough depth and current to float small paper boats. I got all the laundry done though!

The wind started to pick up late in the afternoon yesterday. Yay wind! Well, yay in the sense that it was getting boring to watch rain falling straight down. Sideways and diagonally are much more interesting! By the time I went to bed the wind was gusting with enthusiasm and not insignificant volume. I woke up a couple of times during the night to the sound of wind and rain but sometime early this morning the rain noise went away. I was thinking that the wind was trailing behind the rest of the storm. When I got up this morning I realized I was wrong. There’s some icky slush on the ground and snow and sleet are still blowing around out there.

I’m supposed to fly up to Providence tonight. The weather reports don’t bode well for tonight or tomorrow morning. If this snow moves north, I may be screwed. Ah well, worse things have happened.

We went to see Grindhouse on Friday. I didn’t expect to like it at all, honestly. Exploitive B-Slasher movies are very much not my genre. Then again, IMDB has the genre listed as “Action / Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller” which is actually remarkably accurate. And you know what? I enjoyed it a lot. Grindhouse is actually 2 full-length movies: the first is Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and the second is Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof”. Fake movie trailers and commercials are aired before each feature (including one trailer featuring Nicholas Cate as Fu Manchu in “Werewolf Women of the SS”). The two films contained an obnoxious amount of surreal violence, some of which was so absurd it made me laugh. I liked Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” better honestly- it was faster paced and had an entertaining, over-used, ridiculous plot. Rose McGowan was a hoot. Freddy Rodriguez can plan my escape from apocalypse any day. Bruce Willis was remarkably unremarkable as a bad guy. Tarantino (who had parts in both movies) was actually a more memorable and developed character.

“Death Proof” moved more slowly, especially after “Planet Terror”, and was not what I expected from Tarantino. In fact, it was more fun than I expected. Tarantino made the more up-beat movie… who’d have expected that? I will say that “Death Proof” was totally worth it for Zoe Bell (playing herself), a rockin’ stunt chick from New Zealand who is clearly utterly insane. Kurt Russell was delightfully twisted as well. There was an emptiness where his soul should have been. I guess I expected something edgier from Tarantino but I did thoroughly enjoy Zoe Bell’s car-chase stunts and enthusiastic personality. I do wonder if Tarantino wrote the story around an idea she had for a stunt that no other director would let her perform…

Death counts
“Planet Terror”: Most of the human race
“Death Proof”: fewer than 10

Important note: The runtime for Grindhouse is over 3 hours. Each movie is an hour and a half plus the faux trailers. Plan beverages accordingly.

grindhouse, movies, nor’easter, reviews, snow, spring, weather, nor’easter

Happy Friday the 13th!

The plum tree in the backyard started blooming. These photos are actually from 2 weeks ago. The tree is still going strong now. Over the fence in the neighbor’s back yard is a bunch of forsythia. The pink and yellow look fabulous together, especially with the gray and wet we’ve been having this week. It’s still gray today but the sun may yet show his face. The cherry trees down the street should start to bloom soon too. Presumably the ones in the park are already blooming since the Cherry Blossom Festival is already underway. If it’s not too wet, I want to go in for Sakura Sunday. Hurray for Taiko drumming! As long as it’s not raining… maybe the weather will cooperate.

In a fit of productivity, I started pruning some of the shrubs out front earlier. Yeah… um… poor shrubs. But the burning bush is slightly thinned out and I got one of the other bushes trimmed back from the walk too. Whee. I’ll go out with the actual trimmer tomorrow. By the end of the weekend I should be able to plan what will be in the gardens this year!

TGIF. Seriously.

I have more energy today. I’m in a better mood. Could be the green tea I had for lunch. Could be I’m feeling better and getting along with my new contacts and stuff. Either way, I’m glad. It’s no fun being tired and grouchy all the time… as such the last 2 weeks have sucked. Maybe I won’t start crashing at 8 pm tonight!
spring, plum blossoms, cherry blossom festival, gardening

Perhaps I am infectiously obnoxious. I was in a meeting this morning with a powerpoint presentation being shared of the web. The first slide read:

Project Support Team/Knowledge Transfer Team: Here to Help

I have infected more people with my catch phrase! *evil laugh* Once upon a time, I was between jobs. Since I was just job hunting and such, I saw lots of friends and showed up to many calls for assistance. My first statement upon arriving at a move, pre-party prep session, gardening day, etc. was, “I’m here to help.” After dropping a big box of books on my foot, “I’m here to help.” After teasing someone mercilessly about something silly, “I’m here to help, but I didn’t necessarily say whom I was here to help!” In a short time, my friends and family realized that I was trekking around for my own amusement and that accepting my “help” had a certain amount of risk associated with it since ultimately I was there for my own amusement.

When I did take a new job, it was a support management position so of course, “I’m here to help” stayed in my idiolect. No surprise, sarcasm crept into my delivery of the catch phrase and stayed there. When I changed jobs again, the sarcasm ebbed a bit and the genuine helpfulness returned. Of course, I quickly found myself in need of more help than I could give on the Project of Doom. The catch phrase fell out of my professional idiolect until the Project of Doom completed and I got assigned to the PST/KTT referenced above.

The team was new and still defining itself. In fact, I had a hard time figuring out what the boundaries were for our duties when supporting projects. At one point I turned to my boss and said, “So we’re here to help?” She said, “Exactly.” As things got entertainingly crazy, I repeated “Here to help” as a mantra. The problem with a loosely defined purpose is that it’s easy to get dragged in deeper and deeper until support becomes serious hand-holding. “We’re here to help” continued to accurately define our role even if we did say it sarcastically sometimes. My boss even queues me to say it during meetings team meetings. I tell my project managers that I support that I’m here to help them with anything I can.

Well, clearly it caught on. Some of the mischievous sense of the phrase has remained as well as the sense of “I didn’t say whom I was here to help.” Our team serves many different groups and organizations and juggles a lot of different best interests. The nice part is that we really are here to help. It’s a simple, straight-forward nice way of summing up what we do. Sure, sometimes we run around doing silly little things no one else has time for. Other times we dive far deeper into the data than anyone else. But it’s all encompassed by “Here to Help” and we’re communicating that mission loud and clear.

The photograph of the mossy rock is actually the top of the stone wall around the nearby graveyard. Click for a larger version – the focus is quite narrow/short and the effect is kind of neat.

communication, here to help, moss, project management, rocks, support, work

I slept a lot last night. By a lot I mean I went to bed at 9:30, was soundly asleep (thanks to Tylenol PM) by 10:30 or 11 and woke up around 8:30 this morning. I think I may do it again tonight depending on how my neck feels. I do feel much more alive today than yesterday except that my neck is a little more unhappy with me (probably due to crunching it too much while asleep Saturday night and then compounded spending too much time in bed last night). I don’t know if I’m fighting off a springtime cold or just dealing with allergies and such. The weather continues to be wild and crazy – comfortably chilly and it seems like it’s going to stay this way for the week.

I’ve been remarkably unproductive in general lately. I just feel like I can’t get fully recharged. Perhaps a couple more solid nights of sleep will help. Perhaps I need to go back to meditation via Tetris or something. It’s spring! The days are longer and brighter. I should be perkier! I have 3 different plots running around in my head yet none of them are coming out my fingers.

It should come as no surprise that I enjoy taking pictures of trees. I particularly like silhouettes. When I was wandering through the graveyard nearby earlier this month, I got a couple of very dark, contrasty shots of trees against the sky. The day was slightly brighter than these photos imply but I like the brooding tones of black on gray and the almost brittle contrasts.

I wish it were Friday already. I could do with another weekend right about now.

sleep, trees, weather

This is the Week of the Exploding Magnolia Trees – exploding as in blooming furiously! This is my fourth spring down here and I’m still finding the magnolia trees pretty fabulous. The trees get so thick with blossoms that it’s amazing. The petals are heavy but soft. The trees just seem to burst with blossoms every spring! Most of them are pink trees, which is less exciting than it could be – I like the white ones much more. (I love the back-lit white magnolia shown here.) I’m still waiting for my dogwood to show signs of life but I’ll post pics of plum blossoms later this weekend.

I’m still astounded by how prolific the blossoms are. The trees are just filled with blooms. My mother, up in Maine under a foot of fresh snow and without power all day yesterday, is terribly jealous. I am equally jealous of her snow so it works out.

I am adorably and annoyingly tired today. I wonder if I slept too much. I know I’ve had plenty of coffee. Really. Plenty.

Happy Weekend, everyone!

flowers, magnolias, spring, trees

In the spirit of Spring, the weather has been wild this week. Today and yesterday have been very blustery days and chilly. I love it. I should get decent sunglasses. My eyes were watering from the wind and brightness at the beginning of my walk. Today maybe I’ll remember sunglasses.

So it’s been about a month since I started walking regularly. I’m walking for a half hour 5 times a week now and it’s a very good thing. I’m no longer getting that bizarre spacey feeling after every walk. I am having some really great other beneficial effects. I feel like I have muscles in my legs again! I can actually feel them when I’m walking now. My body has come to the realization, “Oh she’s actually going to stick to this. I guess we’d better get conditioned for it.” I’m still trying not to over-do it but my back (and its general malaise of aches and pains) appears to be doing better with the exercise. These are all big “well duh” items, I know, but they’re still exciting.

I went to bed reeeeeealy early last night, 9:30. I watched a bit of tv then rolled over and was asleep shortly after 11. This morning I could not get out of bed probably due to the wonderful warm quality of my blankets versus the chilly quality of the rest of the house. I’m very much looking forward to a relaxing weekend of sleeping in.

exercise, sleep, spring, walking, weather, wind, flowers, forsythia