Weekend Update (wedding shower recap)
Wow, I haven't done a weekend update in quite a while, have I? Sorry. Mostly, that's because we've been doing lots of wedding planning stuff on the weekends, and I vowed not to recap the wedding planning lest it drive me stark raving mad with stress. I can see why people elope, really. Our friend Jen threw us a really...
Journal
These are all my deepest, darkest secrets. Sure, like I'd put those on the internet. [632 entries.]
David Guadagnoli
Our dear friend David had a heart attack and died in his sleep Sunday night. I really don't know what to say about losing such a warm, wonderful person. I'm having trouble believing it's true. I've taken nearly a week to figure out what to say, because it has to be right. And even now I'm not sure I'm doing...
Ego dilecto meo et dilectus meus
We bought our wedding rings this evening - they are Latin Poesy Rings that are engraved with the phrase Ego dilecto meo et dilectus meus - "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine" -- (Song of Solomon 6:3) And because I failed to show a picture of it before, some images of my dress:...
Bottle Cap Art Car Project - Ready, Steady, Go!
This weekend we worked on a couple of big things -- lots of lawn and garden work, and the beginnings of the art car. Dunno if I've written much about the Art Car Project - it's something Stephanie has been wanting to do for a long time, and now is a great opportunity for her to tackle it. She has...
Major A. Riddle and Old Lady Riddle's House
A while back, I was looking up the history of our house in the Old Northside Historic Plan, and I noted that the third owner of our house was Charles L. Riddle, who owned a lighting store in town in the 1920's. I found a picture of the store in the Indiana Historic Archives, and posted it to my blog....
Homebrew Stand-Up Desk
After reading a couple articles on the health benefits of stand-up work stations, I decided to give it a shot at work. The top is a shelf from my locker/cabinet, and the books are, well, books. I originally planned to find a table of the appropriate height; the shelf/books idea is from my co-worker Rich. Turned out to be a...
Photos from SXSW
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR....
On the Tarmac for 6 hours for SXSWi
Yesterday we had one of those nightmarish plane trips you hear about on the news every so often. Our American Airlines flight to Austin, Texas had a (supposed to be) short stop in Dallas/Fort Worth airport. The first leg from Indianapolis to Dallas went smoothly, and we got on the plane 1717 for the 36ish minute flight from Dallas to...
I has a package
The post office gave me a notice to come pick something up from them. I believe it would be my wedding dress. Yay! Wow, I've had a distinct lack of blogging here. That's not for want of things to write, just time. I think I have three books I need to note on my "have read" list, and a couple...
So much to blog, so little time
I actually have things to write about lately, but haven't geared up to do it. Lets see, where were we when we last tuned in? Oh, yeah, I was probably playing Packrat. Well, the gloss has come off that Facebook game somewhat, as I got collected most of the cards I could get a hold of easily and was stuck...
This weekend's to do list...
Things we want to accomplish this weekend... sign up for green power through our local electric company - estimated $2, addition to our bill, considerably higher peace of mind. Sign up for a local food coop delivery service to get fresh local food. finish adding addresses to address book finish sending out "save the date" cards for our wedding register...
Suddenly, I See
I woke up this morning with much improvement in my vision. It's still not 20/20, but I can read text at a distance, and such. I'm back at work - one thing I've noticed is that I still can't see facial expressions at a distance, so I can't tell what my co-workers are doing/expressing when they're walking down the hallway...
no glasses
Seeing with my own eyeballs, after wearing glasses or contacts since second grade....
Vision normal for this stage, says eye doctor
I visited the eye doctor this afternoon, and she took out the bandage contact lenses and checked out my eyes. She says everything is normal for this stage of PRK surgery, and that my vision should improve drastically in the next 48 hours. My cornea has healed completely, and the blurriness is caused by a slight ridge from the healing...
okay, that's a bit better
My eyesight has improved quite a bit overnight, and I can read text at least. It's not perfect, but at least I'm seeing progress. I'll probably still spend the day listening to audiobooks and watching dvds (I'm part way thorough The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was puttling me to sleep, and a mystery story that was pretty good.)...
Buyer's Remorse
I gue4s from what the doctor's were saying, with the PRK surgery (as opposed to lasik, which is quick to heal) it's fairly normal for my vision to still be pretty bad, even today and tomorrow and even on Thursday. But had I known it would take quite so long and be such a disabling and frustrating thing, I probably...
Eye Update
Forgive me if I make more mistakes than usual; it's rather hard to see the screen right now. After my last blog post on Saturday morning, we went to see the eye doctor, who told me my vision at that time was perfectly normal one day after surgery. I had 20/50 vision in my right eye and 20/70 in my...
PRK Eye surgery - day 1
Boy I hope this gets better. My vision is somewhat improved, but not nearly what I expected. From what they said in the office, it should be 20/20 today, and then get more blurry on sunday and monday, before turning around and improving again on Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. It's definitely not 20/20 now. In fact I'm sitting with my face...
Getting my eyeballs replaced
As someone at work put it. I'm getting laser surgery (specifically PKR) done on my eyes tomorrow by Dr. Waltz of TLC of Indianapolis. I'm doing my traditional "Stress relief by just not thinking about it" form of denial, so I don't freak out. It couldn't possibly be worse than the surgeries I've already had. Anyways, I'm taking several days...
Weekend Update
Dunno what my last journal entry covered, so let me start at the top - we rang in 2008 at the traditional party at Dan and Doug's, which is always fun and pretty low-key, and thankfully a few blocks away so we don't have to risk life and limb. I got really toasted, but managed to not have a hangover...
New workspace
work
brrrrrrr.
we're in Valparaiso this weekend with Stephanie's family celebrating Christmas. It was 50 degrees yesterday; today it's 18 with strong winds. Minus 3 wind chill. We had to put Spike's hoodie on to take him out. Brrrrr. Yesterday we saw Stephanie's mom and in the evening we had dinner with Veronica and Raven. Today we spend time with her friend...
Dreaming about me
In the past week, I've had three different friends tell me they've had dreams about me. That's very odd, to say the least, but entertaining. Our friend David said in his dream, he took me to the prom, and I was crowned queen. That's so likely! I can picture it now. Oh, wait, no, that's a scene from Carrie. But...
Wow - busy time
Long time, no bloggy. Hmmm. Went to our traditional Thanksgiving trip; Grandma and Grandpa's house in Iowa with the extended Mineart family. Almost everyone was there - something like 48 family members all in the same house at the same time. Yep. I took lots of photos; most from the trip are up on Flickr. While we were there, we...
Dear Santa...
Oh, look, there's my Amazon Wishlist. Now how did that get there? I must have left it sitting out when I was working on my ThinkGeek Wishlist. Sure. Of course, I've been very good this year. What? I have!...
Our friend Joe's Obituary
From the Indy Star: Griffith, Travis J. Travis Joe Griffith 37, of Indianapolis, died October 30, 2007. Travis is the beloved son of Charles and Delores (Trover) Griffith, grandmother: Thelma Griffith, brother: Wayne (Paula) Griffith and half sisters: Debbie Aiken and Angela Miller, and several aunts, uncles and cousins. Funeral services will be Friday, November 2, at 7:00 p.m. in...
November is National Novel Writing Month
This year, for National Novel Writing Month - I have a plan! I'm going to do something really innovative -- I'm going to spend the month of November... ... building a website for my friend Chi. Yes! I know, it's not a novel. However... 1. I actually know how to build websites (unlike novels, which I seem to be unable...
Holy crap, that's a cute dog! (lol version)
A couple weeks ago, I was reading articles on line about dog food for Spike, and one of them was on the petfinder.com site, where there was an ad for an adorably cute dog named Chip who needed a home. I twittered "holy crap, that's a cute dog!" with a link to his page, and three days later the shelter...
My eBay Sales Items (testing the widget)
Stuff I'm selling on eBay this week. (Also, testing the ebay sales widget.)...
Holy Crap that's a cute dog! (part 2)
My friend Brad found a home for Buddy, the black lab I blogged about earlier this week. Check out these puppies that need a home, though: Their rescuer says: PLEASE help find them homes - otherwise, it's Animal Control- which means they only have 5 days. We've bathed them, sprayed them for fleas and wormed them.... but we can't keep...
Happy 20th Annual National Coming Out Day
Last year, I recounted the story of what I was doing on the original National Coming Out Day 20 years ago... so I've already blown that anecdote. You'll have to go read it; it was good. October 11th, 1987 was a great day for me. So officially, I quit lying about my sexual orientation over 20 years ago, and I've...
Dear Rena Corey
Dear Rena Corey, Please come over and clean my house. I have a lot more important shit to do. Thanks! Steph M....
Cute Black Lab
This adorable boy is Buddy, who is temporarily staying with my friend Brad. He needs a home, so visit Buddy's website if you're interested in adopting him....
Weekend Update/eBay Listings
Friday night: picked Stephanie up from Tune Tech after work because the clutch on the Honda is having problems again. Fortunately, it appears to be under warranty. With Phoebe's battery dead, we're down to one vehicle - the trusty truck. Saturday: Spent the morning helping with neighborhood cleanup by driving the truck up and down the alleys picking up branches...
Tumba Monkey in Des Moines
Sent from my iPhone...
visiting with grandma g
We spent the afternoon with grandma and talked to her. She was very sick but is getting better. She's in a temporary care facility here in Des Moines until a spot can open up in the Perry Nursing Home that she's visited before. They're hoping she'll continue to improve, possibly enough to be able to go back to her own...
visiting with grandma g
We spent the afternoon with grandma and talked to her. She was very sick but is getting better. She's in a temporary care facility here in Des Moines until a spot can open up in the Perry Nursing Home that she's visited before. They're hoping she'll continue to improve, possibly enough to be able to go back to her own...
Taking a quick trip to Iowa
I'm headed to Iowa after work today, with my mom. We're going to visit my Grandma Groenwoldt, who is in the hospital and not feeling well. I haven't seen her since my road trip in 2001, when I stopped to see her at her little retirement village apartment. It's sort of a rush trip so I'm feeling somewhat frazzled; like...
Big Blue Whale in Catoosa
We visited this Route 66 attraction this summer. Here's a video of some British guys who decided to dive into the murky water of the old swimming hole. It's not usually open for swimming anymore; the water isn't maintained and is rather gross. Here's what they were diving into: Looks yummy....
Miles for Mom
My friend Cate is running a marathon tomorrow in honor of her mom, who died a few years ago of melanoma. Cate is raising funds for the Melanoma Research Foundation, and she's really close to her goal. If you had a few dollars to add, I'm sure Cate would be really thrilled. Cate with her mom Cate finishing marathon....
Apple Think Different Posters on eBay
I threw my Apple "Think Different" posters up on eBay - part of the decluttering efforts. Thomas Edison, Ghandi, Pablo Picasso, dancer Martha Graham, Maria Callas, Joan Baez, Alfred Hitchcock, Ted Turner. And I threw in a Macworld 2004 poster - it's of the 1984 superbowl ad, with iPod added in......
Photos from Dan's Birthday Cruise
See the whole set of photos Here are a couple of highlights: Miami from the Air Setting Sail In Jon and Carolyn's stateroom Dan, Me, Stephanie at La Te Da's in Key West The gang at the Southernmost Point of the US Doug winning at Trivia Dan the birthday boy and his birthday cake Mayan carvings at Tulum Blue...
Cruise Info
We're going on a cruise for our friend Dan's 40th birthday, along with 12 other friends. It's a Carnival cruise, on the ship "Fascination." The cruise leaves from Miami tomorrow, and we spend Tuesday in Key West, Wednesday in Calica, Mexico (seeing the Tulum Ruins, on a shore excursion) and then Thursday at Sea before returning to Miami to spend...
Colonoscopy Fun
So...... tomorrow I have to have a Colonoscopy. Woohoo! No, Katie Couric will not be there to film it. And yes, I am old. OLD. Just yesterday I was reminiscing about something that happened in college in 1987 - twenty years ago. a) I'm reminiscing now? Great. People just love that. b) I still think I'm a college student. I...
The name "Stephanie" on Babynamer.com
One of the blogs I read regularly pointed out the site babynamer.com in a blog post, because it's a nicely-designed and interesting site on baby names. They include a long definition and origin of each name, a section on famous people with that name, a long list of related alternate names, and then a funny feature - "drawbacks" for any...
Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville
For lunch. We like Lynn's Paradise Cafe a lot and have stopped here several times while in Louisville....
Photography
When it comes to my own photography, I'm having a lot of mixed emotions lately. I'm clearly not an artistic photographer by any stretch. I'm very much a snapshot photographer; which shows, doesn't it? http://www.flickr.com/photos/electrasteph http://www.commonplacebook.com/photos/big_things/ A great deal of the pictures I take are out a car window, which doesn't lend itself to composition. And I shoot everything in...
Writing? What me? I never do that any more...
It's been a while since I've sat down to write a real journal entry - since we arrived home from our trip, actually. I spent a lot of time organizing my trip photos, and working on a site design for one of my friends. Most of my day to day updates end up on twitter, and I've been so busy...
Harry Potter, Spoilers and Media Blackouts
After a friend posted a link to twitter displaying the last two pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - which I inadvertently clicked on and read, because I never received the previous "tweets" discussing what the link was about - I'm curtailing my media viewing for the rest of the week. Unfortunately, before I realized what I was...
Home Sweet Home
Home Sweet Home - It's Phoebe's 9th birthday today, and she traveled 5126 miles on the Route 66 trip. What did you bring me? Mom, while you were gone.......
Beetles Caravan
Beetle caravan @ Bob Evans While checking out after dinner, we saw this "Beetle Caravan" of toys for sale....
Route 66 Road Trip Morning, Day 17 in Joplin, Missouri
We made a lot better progress yesterday on the trip home; all the way to Joplin, Missouri. And we even got a couple of stops in at the Cadillac Ranch, the Bug Ranch, and the restored U-Drop-Inn Gas Station in Shamrock, Texas. See all Photos from Santa Rosa, New Mexico to Joplin, Missouri. Today, we head home, to finally see...
Storm on the return trip
Trying to photo lightning; no luck....
Morning, Day 16 in Santa Rosa, NM
We made it back to our desired destination last night, although rather later than we wanted. The restaurant we ate at in Flagstaff was an old Route 66 place called Granny's Closet, that used to be home of the very first fiberglass muffler man/lumberjack statue. They donated it to the University of Arizona as a mascot, but have a smaller...
Photos Uploaded and Organized
I officially have all my photos uploaded and organized (so far; I'm sure there will be more pictures of the rest of the trip home, which will wind up in the "headed home" set.) I will still need to add captions and descriptions and such for everything, but I created separate sets of pictures for each day, and a collection...
Googie Retro Signs on Route 66
While waiting for my photos to upload, I was doing some ego surfing and found a nice woman named Cordelia had blogged about reading about our Route 66 road trip - and she mentioned that she looked up the word "googie" because I used it several times to describe some of the old retro signs along Route 66. I had...
Kingman, Arizona for the night
We decided to make an early night of it in Kingman, Arizona; staying at a Comfort Inn because they have a indoor hot tub and free wireless. Ah, sweet high-speed internet, how I love thee so. I thought I would never see you again. This way we'll have some time to decompress and get an early start headed east in...
On the road home
I-4O to Needles, CA....
Good Morning, from the West Coast
Yesterday, we reached our destination, the Pacific Ocean, and the official end of Route 66. It was an exciting day, and I have all those bittersweet feelings you get when you're at the end of a big event and it's finally time to say goodbye to people and head home. There's lots I want to say about how nice the...
At the Pacific Ocean
Farina Beach All Photos of "Route 66 Trip - Victorville to Santa Monica Leg"...
Pacific - End of Route 66
Stephanie on Santa Monica Pier...
Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood Blvd....
Huntington Blvd
Huntington Blvd...
Southern California
Into San Bernadino......
Route 66 Tour, Day 13 - In California
Yesterday was a pretty tough day driving. We had to travel from Williams, Arizona (about 1/3 of Arizona left to traverse) to Victorville, California (most of which is across desert). As we traveled through the day, the temperature kept climbing - I believe it topped out at 127 degrees at one point. We stopped off in Seligman, Arizona and met...
California Sunset
Two more hours before we stop in Victorville, CA....
Gassing up in Needles, California
Palm trees 4 Mike Packer...
Seligman, Az
Angel Delgadillo, owner of Angel's Barbershop and Route 66 icon, is on the left, Jerry and Kathy are showing him Homer the baseball beetle. He was tickled pink with it. Homer got lots of attention everywhere we went....
Route 66 Tour, Day 12 - Morning at the Grand Canyon
Yesterday was pretty spectacular. We took Phoebe off to get a tire here in Williams, early in the morning, and got a call from everyone while we were there to say that we had to catch the earlier train to the Grand Canyon rather than the one we had reserved. So we left the car at the tire place, with...
Wow
Grand Canyon...
Day 11 - Morning in Williams, Arizona, near the Grand Canyon
Yesterday was a long drive from Albuquerque to Williams, Arizona, and the timezone changes haven't helped too much, because we keep staying up an hour later. But we had a lot of fun and a bit of trouble yesterday. We headed out in the morning with a couple of pitstops along the way. We really had to take I-40 most...
Route 66 Tour, Day 10 - Albuquerque
We drove into Albuquerque yesterday, which is really beautiful city cradled in mountains, so every view has a gorgeous backdrop. I can see why people move out west; the landscape is so stunning. The sunset last night was really pretty. A small part of the trip was on old Route 66, so we drove through Clines Corners, a pretty big...
Route 66 Road Trip, Day 9, Morning - Leaving Roswell
We're in the car heading out from Roswell with 14 other beetles, on the way to Albuquerque, which is back on route 66. It's a fairly short trip - just 4 hours - so we'll have time to stop at the VW dealer there to get Phoebe's mass airflow sensor. John thinks he can put it in for us. We're...
Day 8 - Sunday Morning, Roswell
Yesterday was the Car Show at the Roswell Convention Center and Beetle parade through Roswell; lots of fun; the weather was very hot. I have tons of pictures; the modifications on cars are dizzying; I can't keep track of them all. I found myself wanting a beetle, too. Today though, I realize I need to be practical and just take...
Saturday Morning, Roswell
Yesterday after blogging at the internet cafe, we visited several Alien shops downtown hunting for small aliens for our aliens vs. dinosaurs diorama in the car, then came back to the hotel for a nap before heading out of town to the Sky Watch Party, which is a bit more of people walking around looking at their custom jobs on...
Day 6 - Morning, Roswell
Yesterday was great; nice and leisurely. We really enjoyed Blue Swallow in Tucumcari. It was a nice change from the Motel 6, homey, clean and pleasantly retro. It reminded me a bit of the motel room in The Lost Room which does a lot to recommend it. Tucumcari has a long strip where the businesses have the cool googie retro...
Morning, Day 5, at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico
I'm up and about in the motel room; Stephanie's trying to catch a bit more sleep. We've been cutting it pretty short on the sleeping, by arriving very late and getting up with the rest of the caravan. Hopefully today we can hang out and be more leisurely; we only have about a 4 hour drive to Roswell. I'm on...
On to the Big Texan
We left Tulsa in some pretty tricky traffic, which is really fun in a caravan of 17 people. Our first stop was the shoe tree, but we did a drive-by, although I think one of our leaders really wanted us to stop. Our next stop was the Rock Cafe in Stroud, a 1939 Route 66 institution. The young woman who...
Rock cafe
Rock Cafe...
Morning, Day 4 - In Tulsa
Yesterday's drive from St. Louis to Tulsa was pretty long. I knew when we were still at the hotel and they had 6 stops listed before we were supposed to be in Barton Springs, Kansas for lunch that our trip leaders were a bit overly-optimistic about what we could accomplish. We hopped on parts of I-44 just to keep up...
Beetles at Devil's Elbow
Beetles lined uo outside the Elbow Inn...
Morning Day 3 - St. Louis to Tulsa
route 66, roswell2k, travel, vacation, road trips
Route 66 to Roswell, Day 2
I had some trouble getting my bluetooth connection to the internet this evening (this motel 6 in St. Louis doesn't have wireless) so I don't know if I'll be able to upload any of the 212 photos I took today. We woke up this morning and met the rest of the caravan, took tons of photos in the motel parking...
Did I say 5 other beetles? I meant 12
We finally pulled into the motel at 11 Chicago time, and saw a huge row of beetles lined up; very fun. Too dark to take photos. Traffic in Chicago sucked hard, but we managed to get into town, finally. We parked in a scary-ass parking garage with the steepest ramps I've ever seen, and went to the Summerfest in Lincoln...
Smart cars in Chicago
Drove Smart cars in Lincoln park, ate dinner. Now headed to Joliet to meet caravan. Baby Zig Zag monkey came with us. He's having a monkey adventure....
Hey, guys! I'm blogging from the car!
The car, I'm blogging from it! We're on the road in Phoebe, with lisa and Jason behind us, headed up to Chicago. I believe the plan is to get some food and to go test drive a smart car at the Summerfest Music festival, before heading to Joliet, where we'll meet up with 5 other beetles and stay the night...
Pod o' Space behind us....
Pod o' Space behind us on the road....
all packed and ready to head out.
The car's packed, and we're waiting on Lisa and Jason to head out. Spacepod seems to be here! We're off to get our kicks on Route 66!...
Keeping up with us on the road
Our Route 66 Itinerary [Google Mapped] I will be blogging as regularly as I can here, uploading photos to flickr, and sending updates via twitter. The Route 66 caravan to Roswell will have a live Web cam along for the ride. Our friend Lisa Linn, Web geek extraordinaire and owner of Spacepod, runs live web cams on the road of...
Gots Promotion
Interface. I make U 1....
Not sure what to make of this...
Back in October of 2001, I was house-hunting in Herron-Morton Place neighborhood, and unfortunately I was competing for properties with investors who were looking for properties to flip, and since I had a loan and they had cash, my offers kept getting rejected. Anyways, I'm goofing around on Mibor.com looking at houses because one of my friends is house hunting,...
Bluetooth internet connections
So, I can apparently connect to the internet using bluetooth-enabled phone as a modem, as well, which opens up my options even further. We temporarily upgraded to the unlimited data package, so it won't cost an arm and a leg to do this on the phone. It's really slow, and disconnects rather spontaneously, so I don't know if a flickr...
Dial Up Access and MacBooks
Huh. I guess setting up dial-up access would be easier if I actually had a modem in my laptop. I forgot that they don't come built into MacBooks anymore, and I didn't order the USB one. Oops. Well, this will be interesting....
Blogging Via Phone - Test 2
Multimedia message, originally uploaded by ElectraSteph. Testing upload picture from laptop. Not only can I blog via a picture uploaded from my cellphone, I can also transfer a picture to my phone from the laptop and send that to my blog. That will work, in a pinch....
Blogging Via Phone - Test 1
Multimedia message, originally uploaded by ElectraSteph. I can blog via phone, apparently. That's cool....
Giant Brick Head
Giant Brick Head, originally uploaded by ElectraSteph. I'm testing the autoblogging feature from Flickr. If I can get this working right, I might actually be able to blog from my phone....
Prepping for the big trip
We have a big list of stuff to do, and we're slowly working through it. I'm not sure whether we should be panicking or not. I think things are under control. That's strange, in that this is a bigger vacation than we've ever taken before, and that we're trying to get the house clean for our friend to come and...
Something to knit for Stacy's Baby
Hey, mom... you should make this for the new grandkid: Here's the link to the pattern online....
Woo hoo! My sister's having a baby.
From my sister's email: From: Stacy Mineart Date: June 19, 2007 6:49:29 AM EDT Subject: In other news... Hey everybody! Just thought I'd drop you all a quick note to let you know you can expect some exciting news sometime early next January. Or as my charming spouse so delicately put it: "Hey Dad? I knocked up the missus." (Yep....
Route 66 Space Mix
I think I have something close to a final version of my music mix for the CD swap we're doing for our Route 66 trip. I want to listen to it through a couple of times. It's a bit on the cheesy and obvious side, but that's okay. I'd do better if I had all my music ripped, but that's...
Caturday!
It's Caturday! Here's the photo set of my birthday pictures! There's a really awesome picture of Dan in my birthday set; Stephanie snapped the photo just as a waiter dropped a glass in the kitchen and he jumped. And here are some pictures from woodruff place last weekend. See the whole photo set on Flickr. Also, a picture of...
What I got for my Birthday by Steph Mineart
So, I'm 3x13! Yay! From my Dad, I got $100 - which I promptly used to by a pair of Crocs, and the rest I put in the bank for our trip. From Elizabeth I got "The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World" - a book that some blogs have referred to as "library porn" because of the gorgeous photos....
Weekend Update (or - an extended twitter, for those who are not on it.)
We went to Woodruff Place Flea Market yesterday, and only got done with middle drive before I pooped out because I was hot and tired. It was also kind of a pain with Spike. I've taken him to it before, but it was far more crowded this time, so I had to think about him all the time, which was...
Route 66 Mapping
The Mother Road: Historic Route 66 - a great information website has "Turn by Turn" maps that identify where Route 66 is, since some of the original road is no longer, and most of it isn't marked with highway markers anymore. Turn by Turn Route 66 in Google Maps - Some kind Google Earth enthusiast has taken the maps from...
Unitarians at Arlington National Cemetery
Stephanie had some interesting news from her family today - Years ago when her Opa was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, his headstone was configured with the flaming chalice - the Unitarian Universalist symbol. Later her Oma was buried next to him, and recently her cousin Chip went out to visit them, and the flaming chalice had been changed -...
Random Facts About My Head
Attention, Everyone: My head measures 21 and 7/8ths inches around, which means I wear a 7 M sized hat, according to the Hats In the Belfry website. That is all. UPDATE: That is not all. Furthermore... Although I would never wear one, I really love these hats....
Gardening
You'll have to pardon me - this is on of those posts that's just making notes for myself to refer back to later. Last night I planted in the front flowerbeds: 1 purple lavender 1 orange symphony 1 summertime pink charma 2 Dianthus - Confetti Deep Red 2 Dianthus - Spangled Star A seed packet of Butterfly Flowers 2 Broadway...
Get Your Kicks on Route 66
At the end of June, Stephanie and I are going to take her new Beetle, Phoebe, on the annual road trip caravan to Roswell, New Mexico - Roswell 2k. This year there's a Route 66 version of the trip, which we'll be joining in Chicago, along with several of Stephanie's Beetle-owning friends. So we'll drive with around 30 other Beetles,...
Diverticulitis
Yes, I'm specializing in getting diseases (Diverticulitis, Pleurisy) that sound like things your great-grandma suffered from back in the 1800s. I plan on getting consumption next, followed by typhoid. Then I'll start talking about my Sciatica. This is ridiculous. I spent the night in the hospital; Stephanie took me there after work because I had severe abdominal pain. I was...
A Partial List of My Pet Peeves
Posted today for your amusement/irritation, to be updated as necessary on future occasions. People who walk up escalators... ...especially when they ask you to move out of the way. Seriously - go take the fracking stairs, Sporty. I'm using the escalator for a reason. I don't come over to your treadmill at the gym and hit the stop button. Don't...
Stephanie's Soon-To-Be New Car
Stephanie put a deposit down on this car the other day. (Yep, she picked the yellow and black.) She should get one sometime next year......
Weekend To Dos
Taxes - Stephanie is finishing these up. She's awesome. Hallway painting - I'm painting two walls in the upstairs hallway where the Beetle collectible display shelves will go. This will let us finally unpack and arrange those boxes. we've been delaying that unpacking because we didn't want to have to move the shelves when we got around to the...
Grrrrrrrrrr.
It's very rare that I have one of those days where I want to stand up and quit my job in the middle of the meeting, because I'm so angry at everyone in the room - but I'm having one of those today....
Dining Out For Life Today
Today is Dining Out For Life - Participating Restaurants will donate 25-50% of your food bill on April 12th to pay for local services in the Fight Against AIDS. Visit the website to see a list of participating restaurants....
Maxine Dangerous - Out of Hiding
My friend Maxine Dangerous is one of the funniest cartoonists I've ever read, and she's drawing this stuff in Microsoft Paint, which is probably the part I appreciate the most. I can only imagine what she would do with Illustrator. Today's episode made me laugh out loud. And another one of my very favorites. Which really just proves that it's...
Dear Internet, I'd like to complain about the weather
Serious, it's April, and I'm a bit tired of the cold. All last night I was freezing in bed, but I was too sleepy to actually get up and find another blanket. Can we get some more sun around here?...
What we're eating for dinner....
Mmmmm.... lamb. Like eating the baby Jesus on Easter. UPDATE: It was delicious. It came marinated in a burgundy wine sauce with rosemary, and Stephanie baked it and served it with potatoes and vegetables. Yum!...
More Twitter Fun
Adding the Twitter RSS feeds of my friends and family members to my feed reader, so I can catch up with them later if I miss something. I'm really excited that my sister Stacy is now on Twitter - just hearing little updates from England at about a 7 hour time shift is really entertaining, and especially just hearing the...
Learning Fetch
I think we need to start introducing treats into the fetch game for Spike, as incentive to bring back the object. Right now, we're playing with lamb, hippo, frog, and monkey, and the only one he'll bring back is frog, because it's his favorite. Hmmm. Positive reinforcement required....
Design Aesthetic of the Indie Developer Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
Design Aesthetic of the Indie Developer Moderator: Michael Lopp, Sr Engineering Mgr - Apple Nick Bradbury, Architect of Client Prods - NewsGator Technologies Inc John Gruber, Raconteur - Daring Fireball Shaun Inman, Designer/Dev - haveamint.com Michael Lopp, Sr Engineering Mgr - Apple...
Web Typography Sucks Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
Web Typography Sucks Mark Boulton, Owner - Mark Boulton Design Richard Rutter, Production Dir - Clearleft Ltd Slides located at: http://webtypography.net/sxsw2007/...
A Cloud of Bats in Austin
Austin is home to the world's largest urban bat colony; they live under the Congress Street Bridge, where the unique construction of the bridge lends itself to being a great shelter for them. In the summer, the bridge is home to over 1.5 million bats, and at dusk they leave the bridge to fly off down the river to feed....
SXSW thoughts
One of the first things I plan to do is take a closer look at Microformats and see where I can mark up my site appropriately. While I was sitting in the panel, I downloaded the firefox operator extension, and I've been playing with it. I also want to get OpenID set up on this site so I can use...
Open Content, Remix Culture and the Sharing Economy Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
Open Content, Remix Culture and the Sharing Economy: Rights, Ownership and Getting Paid Moderator: Eric Steuer, Creative Dir - Creative Commons Eric Steuer, Creative Dir - Creative Commons Glenn Otis Brown, Products Counsel - YouTube John Buckman, Founder and CEO - Magnatune Laurie Racine, Eyespot and DotSub Max Schorr, Publisher & Founding Ed - GOOD magazine...
Bullet Tooth Web Design Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
Bullet Tooth Web Design: Plan Your Web Site like Pulling off a Robbery Andy Clarke - Stuff and Nonsense Ltd Jason Santa Maria, Creative Dir - Happy Cog Studios...
Design Patterns: Defining and Sharing Web Interface Design Languages Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
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2:00pm - The Growth and Evolution of Microformats Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
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1:30AM - The Future of the Online Magazine Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
1:30AM The Future of the Online Magazine (19AB) Moderator: Rufus Griscom CEO, Nerve Media Rufus Griscom CEO, Nerve Media Sean Mills The Onion Ricky Van Veen Editor, CollegeHumor.com Laurel Touby CEO & Founder, mediabistro.com Joan Walsh Editor in Chief, Salon.com...
10:00AM - Get Unstuck: Moving From 1.0 to 2.0 Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
10:00AM Get Unstuck: Moving From 1.0 to 2.0 Moderator: Liz Danzico Director, experience strategy, Daylife Liz Danzico Director, experience strategy, Daylife Kristian Bengtsson Creative Dir, FutureLab Chris Messina Co-founder, Citizen Agency Luke Wroblewski Principal Designer, Yahoo! Jeffrey Zeldman Founder, Happy Cog...
Panels I Plan to see today and tomorrow
Some of these overlap, so I'll have to pick one over the other. But a rough idea. Monday, 12 March 2007 10:00AM Get Unstuck: Moving From 1.0 to 2.0 (18ABCD) 11:30AM The Future of the Online Magazine (19AB) 02:00PM The Growth and Evolution of Microformats (18ABCD) 03:30PM Bullet Tooth Web Design: Plan Your Web Site like Pulling off a Robbery...
Me, giving a testimonial on Firefox
Oh, and while surfing YouTube looking at other's SXSW videos, I found a video of me shot yesterday by the firefox browser people, giving testimonial on the browser from the trade show space. I got a discount on a Firefox T-shirt in exchange. Which just goes to show -- I can talk your damn ear off, but if you stick...
Free Trip to Europe
Stephanie's dad called her today to tell her that he won a free trip to Europe from some contest on PBS - one that he apparently entered with the intention of giving to us if he won. So I guess we're going to Europe? Wow. She going to find out some more details....
4:05p.m. - Fictional Blogging Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
4:05p.m. - Fictional Blogging Panel Liz Henry, Developer Advocate - Socialtext Odin Soli, Dir Business Dev - Aveso Inc...
11:30a.m. - Making Your Short Attention-Span Pay Big Dividends (SXSWi 2007)
11:30a.m. - Making Your Short Attention-Span Pay Big Dividends Jim Coudal - Coudal Partners Brendan Dawes - Magnetic North awesome panel - my favorite so far, and the one that I'm going to do a presentation on for work. Dawes is a New Riders author, which is one of our publishing entities at work....
10:00a.m. - Every Breath You Take: Identity, Attention, Presence and Reputation Panel Notes (SXSWi 2007)
Moderator: Christian Crumlish Pattern Detective, Yahoo! Christian Crumlish Pattern Detective, Yahoo! Kaliya Hamlin Super Hero, Identity Woman Mary Hodder CEO, Dabble George Kelly Contra Costa Newspapers Ted Nadeau Founder, Dot Line Inc...
Sorry, Honey, I had to hang up
Stephanie -- I'm sorry I had to shut off my phone - it was right at the beginning of my first panel, so I couldn't answer; I wasn't supposed to have the phone on. On the bright side, a room full of 50 people think my "sunshine, lollipops and rainbows" ringtone for you is excellent - people asked where I...
Panel Notes Bad, Food Tasty (SXSWi 2007)
The notes I took for the last three panels are pretty bad, so I don't know that they're worth uploading. The grids panel was pretty visual, and there's a website that covers it. I also went to "ruining the user experience" which wasn't particularly great, and a panel on "tags to riches" that was completely worthless to me. It was...
Rockstar seating
I'm at the Grids Are Good panel, sitting behind Jason Santa Maria. I'm not being a fangirl, though. I'm totally cool....
Keynote - Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users (SXSWi 2007)
Keynote - Kathy Sierra Opening Remarks Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users (SXSWi 2007)...
11:30a.m. - Influence of Art in Design Panel (SXSWi 2007)
Influence of Art in Design Moderator: Dan Rubin, Creative Dir - Webgraph Inc (Superfulous Banter) Dan Rubin, Creative Dir - Webgraph Inc Patrick Haney - Not a Sausage Anton Peck, Web Designer - MultiAd Inc Erik Sagen - Erik Sagen Designs Glenda Sims, Sr Systems Analyst - UT Austin Dave Shea - mezzoblue.com...
10:00a.m. - Emerging Social and Technology Trends (SXSWi 2007)
10:00a.m. - Emerging Social and Technology Trends (SXSWi 2007) Moderator: Laura Moorhead, Sr Editor Culture - Wired Laura Moorhead Sr Editor Culture, Wired Andrew Blum Contributing Editor, Wired Robert Fabricant Exec Creative Dir, Frog Design Eliot Van Buskirk Columnist/Blogger, Wired News Peter Rojas Engadget Daniel Raffel Product Mgr, Yahoo!...
SXSW Friday
The plane trip wasn't bad, aside from the fact that I forgot gum on the first leg and thus had a headache from my ears popping, and I managed to spill Starbucks on myself because the cup lid was borked. Nice. We got in around lunch, checked into the hotel, went to the Irowworks BBQ (highly recommended - definitely eat...
I Am Not An "Activist"
I hate the word activist. Mainly because it's one of those right-wing propaganda, tar-and-feather, hot button words that Frank Luntz cultivated to brand liberals as crazy folks who are out to burn down your house and roast your kids on the bar-be-que. (Read more about Frank Luntz and his language campaign - it's important to know if you're at all...
Drive-by Posting and Current Events
Due to supervising all the work on my old house over the past few weeks, and the work on our current home (which is still ongoing. Sigh.), and a busy time at work, and preparation to go to SXSW, I'm guilty of quite a few "drive-by" posts: where I mention important things without enough context (or appropriate editing, grammar, spelling,...
SXSW anticipation
I've been busy getting prepared for the South by Southwest conference, and the closer it gets, the more excited I am. I am hugely lucky that we're being sent by work - our whole web design team from both Indianapolis and New Jersey is going - which means I don't have to foot the bill (yay!). Of course I'll learn...
"The Chart" from the L-Word
The social networking site for lesbians - "The Chart" as seen on the L-Word is up and running. It's a bit clugy and lacking in features as compared to other sites, but Stephanie and I went ahead and created profiles anyway. Here they are if you're planning to get on. Stephanie's Profile My Profile...
Balcony Finished
The contractor we hired to re-deck our balcony finished in two days flat, which is pretty impressive. This was a new contractor we hired, because the guy who's been working on our gutters for eight months couldn't manage to get to the balcony job, and we've had water coming into our kitchen all winter. But now we have to paint...
Weekend Update
We had a pretty quiet weekend around here. I went to water aerobics with my new suit, which is awesome. Stephanie went skating. Her dad decided against coming down to visit because Valpo got hit with a storm, which knocked out the power for Stephanie's mom. We went over to my old house to check on the water removal from...
Swimsuits
Who knew swimsuits wear out so fast? Apparently, everyone who swims regularly I guess. The suit I bought when I started water aerobics in September is already faded and falling apart, which really surprised me. I'm used to a suit lasting for a couple years. But then, I wasn't getting in the pool three times a week before now, either....
Rheumatoid Arthritis and Wheat Intolerance
A friend pointed out to me that she has Rheumatoid Arthritis (which I've written about recently), and that under the care of her doctor, she has eliminated wheat from her diet to control her RA symptoms - because they're triggered by a wheat intolerance. So I've been doing a lot of searches on the subject, which will be showing up...
Reasons I'm Looking Forward to Spring
Can race in and out of gym for water aerobics in a t-shirt and shorts, rather than having to drag my coat and winter gear through the locker room. Can leave water aerobics with wet hair and not feel cold the rest of the evening. 200+ bulbs we planted in the yard will be blooming, and I can start...
The Whole Story
So apparently, sometime recently the furnace in my old house went out, and the pipes froze and burst. One of the people viewing the house found this, and the contractor they brought with them to see it shut off the water this morning. So the furnace needs replace, the pipes need lots of work, and more than likely the offer...
Bad Day Doesn't Begin to Cover It
This one's going to rank pretty far up there on the list of worst days ever....
Valentine Underpants
Stephanie stop at Old Navy yesterday while waiting for her hair appointment, and she bought a bunch of Valentine's Day merchandise on high discount, including several pairs of my favorite kind of underwear. Then she hid them around the house while I was at water aerobics last night, because she's leaving to go to a skating competition in Michigan for...
Valentine's Day, Snow Day
I had a second snow day today (I worked at home yesterday, due to inclement weather) and Stephanie had the day off as well because we couldn't get her car out in the morning. So we spent the morning digging out the street with the help of our neighbor Craig... and in the afternoon, I worked on a website design...
Sick of the Weather
I realize I'm just being whiny given that we has such a mild November and December, but I'm sick of the snow and cold. I just can't seem to get warm, and I have this constantly runny nose that just won't stop. Plus we're going to get a bunch of snow dumped on us tonight, which will either be good,...
Delicious Annual Nut Sale (Spay-Neuter Serv.)
I know this "true story" is true, because it's an actual memo that got sent around our work email.
Passive Aggressive Blogging
One of my favorite amusements lately is folks who read something I've written here, and rather than commenting/disagreeing on my site, or even going back to their own site and commenting there while linking to my post, they simply comment on their own sites in general terms, without providing any context to what they're reacting to for their other readers....
I Won a Colts Ball Cap
I won a very cool Colts baseball cap in our office party raffle. I'm still bothered by Tony Dungy raising money for an anti-gay political group, but I'm wearing blue and white, and having people over for the game, so I guess I'm not holding it against the team, am I?...
Must Be Naptime
I'm home for the second day n a row with pleurisy and a head cold. Today, though, I'm back on the helpful prescription, so I should back in business soon. Lucy and Huckleberry are snoozing on the bed upstairs, and Dru and Annabelle are curled up and dreaming on the trunk in the library. Spike is nestled under his blanket...
Twitter
Twitter is a strange