I'm clearly very bad at keeping up with my LJ, but I've just revamped my blog, and I'm going to try to keep something going over on http://proxc.net . I don't have a paid account here, so I can't make an RSS feed for you to keep track of my posts on your LJ, but if you have another feed reader, feel free to keep up with me over there. I might have the occasional post still here on LJ, but we all know what my track record is with that.

Hi all! Brief note before dinner. My friend whytraven is doing the Blogathon 2007! That's right, blogging every half hour for 24 hours straight for charity. She's picked Christian Children's Fund as her charity and as of this post is almost halfway through her 24 hours. Go check out her blog: http://www.ravensroads.com/ leave her a comment or encouragement, and if you can, sponser her (you can find that link on her site). Whee!

Notes from me later.... probably. :)

A giant Huzzah! to Markeroni. They just got basic map functionality, which I think will really make the experience that much better. Now, if I only had a GPS system so I could map markers myself. :)

Music recommendations:

Number 1 song to get you up, moving, happy, motivated, get work done?

A very nice person over at holiday_wishes gave me an iTunes gift certificate, and I'm so indecisive about which songs to get. So - what can't you live without?

I adore "Love Actually." Such a good movie. And the more times you watch it, the more relationships between the characters you pick up. So sad, and so happy at the same time. I guess I must be a sappy romantic at heart, because there's just something about this movie that gets me.

::sigh:: Back to the homework!

It's snowing. The nice giant puffy white kind of flakes. It makes me happy. :)

Yay for books! Yesterday I went over to a friend's house for some bookmaking fun. I deicded that I wanted to try something other than the standard hardcover binding, so I tried a coptic stitch. I know I didn't do it correctly, but I eventually figured out a method that worked for me, and I'm pleased with it. It was fun, and faster than the standard hardcover too.

Here's a link to a gallery of pictures of it:


I also blogged about it, but there's nothing too substantive: http://www.proxc.net/index.cgi/2006/08/27#copticminijournal

I have a funny, funny dog. While cleaning the kitchen, I see Anya ever so slowly creep up to the back door. Wondering what she sees, I move over to the door myself. Aha. A bunny! How dare it enter the yard. We stand and watch it in absolute stillness while it goes about its business of doing cute bunny things, such as washing its nose and hopping about on the grass. For minutes this goes on, as the bunny ventures closer and closer to the door, even onto the concrete of the patio. Soon, the bunny is within a dog's length or so of the door, and without warning, Anya leaps up and goes crazy. The bunny tore away as fast as it could to a safer corner of the yard. Poor Anya is just leaping at the door, pawing, whimpering, and barking, desperate to get out and to chase the offending bunny. It was hilarious, but you probably had to be there for the full effect. :)

P.S. I also blogged about my toaster pastry adventures from last night: http://www.proxc.net/index.cgi/2006/08/27#toasterpastries Tasty!

Question:

Does anyone here ever visit my website? I do think i want to keep my LJ and my "blog" separate, but I'd probably want to have the blog entries on LJ somehow too. Would you read them if I just posted a link? Should I just post them both places? Should I get an RSS feed onto livejournal?

What would you read? Or wouldn't you read either way?

--K

Apple just announced a recall for batteries from its 12" iBook G4, 12" Powerbook G4, and its 15" Powerbook G4. The recall is in effect for certain batteries/laptops sold between October 2003 and August 2006. If you have one of the listed models, you should check to see if your battery is affected. Mine is.

Battery Exchange Program

I just updated my blog/webpage.
Adventures with chocolate tortes. Tasty.
http://www.proxc.net/index.cgi/2006/08/22#chocolatetorte

This is brilliant: http://www.blackwidowbakery.com/demo/meatcake/

Crazy! So, awhile back, I saw a link to a site called blingo.com in someones signature. It said something about winning prizes for searching, and I was curious, so I checked it out. They choose random times throughout the day and if you enter a search at that time you win a prize. (The search engine is just google repackaged.) The prizes range anywhere from itunes or movie gift certificates to visa gift cards to ipods. I decided, why not, and chose to use blingo for most of my daily searching.

And I just won a $50 Visa Gift Card! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They also have this friends program, where if you sign up using a friend's invitation code, the friend will win any prize you win too. (Signing up is just entering an e-mail - and I've never gotten any sort of junk for them, or even updates; just a welcome letter, and then something just now confirming my win.) You can also just use the search engine without signing up, but if you sign up with my code, I'd appreciate it, especially if you win anything!

http://www.blingo.com/friends?ref=5T7HbTuGjoHgkZ0LWwuG3-RlWVc

So anyway, you can bet I'm terribly excited. Anyway, EEEK!!!

I'm going back to "work" now; I have pictures to edit from a photography job I did yesterday.

Okay, brief update, since I need to get to bed (biophysics canoe/picnic trip tomorrow).

I've been ridiculously, crazy busy at work. Last week there were days when I stayed until 7, 8 and on Friday we stayed until 10! (Though, to be fair, our advisor bought us pizza, so it wasn't all bad.) I even went in on Saturday for an hour or so. Ya see, we have a proposal due on Thursday, and we've been desperately trying to get some nice data to go in there to show that we know remotely what we're doing and should get money to do more of it. Our actual experiment with the laser has been set up for a week or so, so we have data that should work. A lot of the time in the past week, then, has been writing/tweaking the data analyzing program. We've struggled with graphing programs that don't work well with real data, and many small mistakes in understanding and coding that have made getting it right a slow process. We're so very close, so it taunts us. We probably have something good enough for the proposal, but it's still not exactly right. Anyway.

So besides the crazy amount of work I had to jump right back into after Toronto, life has been good. This weekend I got to relax a bit, and read a whole book in the course of <24 hours, which I haven't done for awhile. I also got to make guacamole tonight to bring to the picnic tomorrow. Yum, yum.

On the other hand, I seem to be hurting myself a bit. Yesterday I sprained my finger. I had been pulling myself into a sitting position after lying on the couch, and as I scooted back over my hand, my left index finger got caught in the wrong spot and bent way too far back. It still kinda hurts, and it's not bending terribly well yet, but these things are slow to heal. Then, tonight, after I had diced the jalapenos and onions for the guac, I stupidly rub my eye. (Hey, I had rinsed them at least!) But anyway. Let me just say that capsaicin + eye = Bad. I spent the next 10 minutes or so trying to rinse my eyes (in the course of rinsing the one eye, of course some got into the other). After my eyes recovered, it still took some time for the skin around my eyes to get over the burning sensation. I don't recommend it, and I feel for people who've been sprayed with pepper spray. Ow.

Other than that, life is good, just busy. We had/are having crazy stroms tonight. The first phase that passed through wasn't really more than wind, and a few choice lightning bolts (without much of a thunder component). The power kept browning out and turning off for a minute or so at a time, so it was odd. Now, it looks like we're actually going to get the storm, so Anya's dutifully hiding under my desk.

Anyway, 'night 'night folks! Picture of the day update will have to come later.

Just a quick note before I get to bed. We're back home after our trip to Toronto; we had a great time, and pictures and details will come later. In the meantime, check out some sunsets and things as viewed from our hotel window:
http://gallery.proxc.net/view_album.php?set_albumName=timeelapsed

Here's the daily photo updates from the weekend:


My professor just lent me her IR filter for me to mess around with. Before I go home to figure out how best to use it, I snap a few pictures on the way home to play around and to try to get a feel for the exposures. I kind of liked this one, with the blood-red sky and the sihouettes of the buildings and what not. Now, however, I should try some real IR photos with my tripod and all, and the 20-30 second exposures my camera really needs for good IR pictures. Then maybe pictures I take will look good in the standard IR black and white. :)


We were visiting some family yesterday, and I noticed this guy on the flowers there. He hardly stayed still long enough to get a good focus and a shot. However, I'm glad I tried!


Today we drove out to see our area's first IKEA. It hasn't been open terribly long, so it must still have the new, novel quality to it. It was ridiculously busy, such that they had policemen directing traffic into the parking lot, and you saw people parking like in this photo. Way to block in a semi. I mean, really.

No, I didn't forget to take a picture yesterday, I was just really busy in the evening and so didn't upload it. So, today you get two pictures:


Wildflowers in front of the School of Natural Resources building. I thought they were colorful.


Eats, Shoots & Leaves. I just picked this up since I finished my last book. Really good so far; I look forward to finishing.