More pointless filters

Ah, digital photography. How else would I be able to take a run-of-the-mill photograph and make it look as though it was taken with a cheap Soviet camera?

Maybe by using a cheap Soviet camera? Although I guess that they're made in China these days, aren't they.

Ok, to be honest the main reason this particular shot got run through the fake-lomo grinder is that I didn't like the way the spider web was hidden in the normal colour view. That led to playing with sepia and black and white, which didn't quite do it for me. That in turn led to excursions in saturation and other exciting effects which just made things worse, and that, eventually, led to the Lomo filter. And there it stayed, because by then things were getting silly.

For anyone who hasn't been a long-time devotee of the blather (and no, I don't honestly believe that the blather has devotees. I sniggered as I typed that), when I start to get bored with my photographs for whatever reason -- whether it's just that they're bad or boring or too many on the same subject or THINGS ARE STARTING TO LOOK TOO MUCH LIKE FALL sigh -- I start to play. I don't play with any aim in mind. I'm not looking for artistry or trying to make you see things differently (ok, maybe occasionally trying to make you see things differently); I'm just trying not to be bored.

Short attention span here, remember?

Ah well, be that as it may. I got too busy with a few other things this morning to think of a real blather, so this'll have to do. For anyone with a spare half hour on their hands (or brain, if your hands are the ones busy with other things) who wants to know one of the other things I was doing, I was revisiting this video (part two here; part three here). Nearly ten years old now, but still worth a watch. Especially when you consider that he would have no idea he'd be spending eight years as a cranky American doctor.

Ah, television. We could have intelligent and funny stuff like the links above, or we could have Real Housewives and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (did I get that one right? Is there really a show called Here Comes Honey Boo Boo?). And we chose...?

Sigh.





I've been sighing a lot lately, it seems.

Probably means that there's a fair bit to sigh about.

Chapter 1631: Wherein Dee is mildly depressed

Only mildly, mind. It's just that it occurred to me as I was editing the photos I took in Dad's yard yesterday that they could best be classed as FALL photos.

Sigh. It's too soon.

You'll be seeing those shots in the coming days, but I can't face it yet. So... you're going to have to put up with a pointless photo of my rings instead, which I adulterated with filters to the point where it now looks like a particularly bad instagram shot.

Ah well. Ignore that. And ignore the guest appearance by my bare foot in the background as well.





You can't now, can you?

I got bored the other day when I was in bed trying to get past that cold (feeling much better now, thanks), so I had a bit of a five-year-old moment and decided to play dress-up with my motley assortment of accumulated rings. Why? I did say I was bored, right? Anyway, I occasionally refer to these things in blog posts when I wear them to work, so I figured that if anyone wanted a mental reference (and if so, why?) I'd post a picture to give the idea. Oh, and to avoid more bad at-work shots from the 3DS. You're welcome.

Aaaaanyway. Again. Here's the rundown of what you're seeing on my extremely unphotogenic hand:

Index: the infamous 80s silver cat ring, and the nail I mentioned the other day. See? I wasn't kidding about the nail.

Middle: My high school ring (the "stone"? Mother of pearl. I refused to pay money for a simulated birthstone when my birthstone isn't expensive in the first place), a signet ring that my parents gave me on my 16th birthday (the engraving is almost totally faded out now), my university ring (Green and gold, Quacumque vera... um, sorry. I was in the Mixed Chorus. I'm one of the comparative handful these days who knows the Cheer Song), my grandma's topaz (lots of November birthdays in my family), and a Black Hills Gold ring of the same grandma's that I imagine my uncle bought for her.

Ring (finger, that is): a pearl ring of my mother's (the pearl's so worn, though, that it'd have to be replaced if I ever wanted to wear it), two gold bands from my grandma (I'm pretty sure that one of them is her wedding ring, but I couldn't tell you which), my grandma's blue topaz (all the same grandma, yes. She had a few rings), and my mother's aquamarine that I've posted about before. I've been wearing it a fair bit. I kind of like it.

Pinkie: a tiny tiger's eye ring (I've had it since I was a kid. My brother had one too, if I remember right. I occasionally wear it on a chain these days), another Black Hills Gold ring (yes, same grandma), and, mostly hidden, the plain silver ring that I generally wear every day.

Isn't this exciting, boys and girls?

Of the rings, I'd say that maybe a third get worn on a regular or semi-regular basis, another... oh, maybe three get put on occasionally, and a couple come out on weird mood days. The rest? Drawer fodder.

Or blog fodder, I guess. I'll try to come up with something better tomorrow. Accompanied by a sigh fall photo, probably...

What do you have on your finger today, Dee?

A nail.

No, not a fingernail... although I'll admit that I have that too. I meant a nail, as in goes with hammer. A squared-off handmade nail that's been formed into a ring by a blacksmith. It came from one of those recreationist historical village places. Can't remember which one now. I've had the thing since I was a kid.

Why am I wearing it today?

No idea. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose.

If you can't already tell by the return of the random jewellery nonsense, I've got nothing today. I even tried to have something, but I can always tell when it's going to be too forced to be bothered with.

Sooo... I won't bother.

We'll try this again tomorrow. Or the next day, since my tomorrow might be a little busy.

----------

Edited to add that I just read on our Twitter feed (what? We follow lots of news via Twitter here at work. It's part of my job to have Twitter up and running) that Neil Armstrong has died. Wow. That's going to be a sad thing to a lot of people. And the fact that he was 82 makes me feel kind of weird. The Apollo program really was a long time ago.

Shouldn't we have been living on the moon by now? Or at least have scientists working there?

Sigh.

Can you hear the hamster wheel turning?

Before I start this particular, two things. One, I was a little snippy yesterday, wasn't I? Ah well. Two, I'm currently remembering why I don't wear bracelets to work. Being left-handed, I tend to wear bracelets (on the extremely rare days when I wear bracelets at all) on my left wrist because my watch is generally on the right. That makes mouse pads murder on watch straps, but I can live with that. Wearing a bracelet on my left wrist, though, means that it is constantly dragging against everything. It's extremely annoying.

And I nearly got a snake caught in it just now. Long story, but just remember that my workplace is weird.

Anyway. Speaking of my weird workplace, this post has officially been delayed for an hour now since I started typing. Work stuff -- and pleasant enough work stuff -- but it sort of takes the steam out of my rant. Let me just say, then, that I think that my ancient cell phone (or at least its battery) is finally on its way out. Went to plug it in last night and got an "invalid battery" warning (sort of makes you think that the battery's in hospital, that). Unplugging it and then plugging it in again got the charger working, but when I turned the phone on this morning it said invalid battery again. It was fine when I shut it off and tried again, but you have to know that this doesn't bode well. New phone time.

The problem? The reason I have such and old phone (besides the fact that it's worked well for a lot of years) is that I let my cell provider's contract run out a few years ago. I'm still with the same company; just no contract. It's been nice. Now, though, I need to make the should I stay or should I go? decision. Changing providers could probably get me a better deal, especially as a newcomer. On the other hand, starting a new contract with my current provider would give me a new phone and save me whatever hassle comes with trying to move my number to a new company. Is it a hassle, these days? Anyone out there know? I know there were problems with that at first, but maybe things have smoothed out a bit?

I guess I'll find out soon enough, one way or the other. The battery did take on a full charge once it decided it could charge, so I know I've got a few days on this. Guess I better start shopping...

NO, I DO NOT FEEL BETTER

Just saying.

Ok, so maybe I'm a little ticked off at the moment because I took a few days off from the world to try to get this cold to move along a little faster, and it most patently hasn't worked.

That's not fair, is it? Rest, fluids... my butt. Colds just last as long as they're going to last, and I don't think that it matters a single bit what you try to do about them.

And yes, I'm sounding like a five-year-old. I don't care. I've given up on trying to coddle my cold, and I'm giving up on the non-whinge policy about it as well.

Um, anyway.

I should probably explain that along with the whole cold thing I'm also in the middle of putting together our quarterly newsletter here at work (well, of course for work. I certainly wouldn't do it as a hobby), and it always puts me a bit on edge. Hard to get submissions in; hard to motivate myself to do the editing. Every quarter, yes.

I guess what I'm saying is that you should probably be expecting this to turn into the pointless complaining blog rather than the pointless blather blog for at least a couple of days.

Hey, at least I'm warning you, right?

Personally, I think that was very kind of me.



*cough*

Pointless photo and very few words of the day:

Yeah, still not feeling great. Or talkative, I guess.

Still, the pumpkin flowers are nice, don't you think?

Pointless photo and lack of whinge of the day:

It's a crab spider with its prey.

And I haven't whinged yet, you'll notice.

I do want to explain the lack of words you're probably going to be seeing here for the next little while, though. Without whinging.

Is it fair, do you think, to be away from work for the better part of a week, and then -- just as you're ready to get back in the swing of things -- to come down with a cold?

That wasn't a whinge.

It was a question.

Yeah, feeling kind of cruddy at the moment, so don't be surprised if all you get on the blog for a day or several are pictures. All the pointless with none of the blather? Actually sounds kind of good to me.

Let's give it a try, then.



AND THIS WAS NOT A WHINGE.

Pointless photo of the day:

Well, I'm back at work and obviously have a little bit of catching up to do, so this will be quick.

It occurred to me that I may have sounded a little harsh on the cat while I was at Dad's, so today's pointless photo is proof that Max and I do, in fact get along. We get along to the point where he's rather incredibly spoiled...

Oh, and please note the music stand in the background again. He really, really likes the music stand.

I... have nothing

I've been a bit self-distracting this morning, and it's not going to lead to much of a blather. I've also been listening to a fair amount of old (we're talking 20s and 30s old here, folks) blues and jazz, and it's put me in kind of a funky mood. You know what I mean, I hope -- sort of a they don't make music like that anymore combined with you kids and your loud music these days. If you think I'm going over all music snob today you're wrong, though. I'll probably end up listening to AC/DC on the drive home, if the hard rock station on the car radio is up to its usual playlist.

Of course, I could always change the channel. I'm weird about that, and I admit it. I have a whole bunch of presets so it's not like it would be difficult to find something different to listen to, but I somehow never seem to bother.

I should say, however, that I often drive with my windows open (yes, even down the highway. I'm not a big fan of air conditioning in cars because it's so drying), so maybe I don't change stations just because I can't even hear the radio much of the time.

But, erm, that's not why you called.

Why did you, again?





See: post title. I really don't have anything today. Kind of just wrapping a few things up here so that I can hit the highway early enough to get my own place in some sort of shape before going back to work tomorrow. I don't seem to have got much done in the way of my own stuff during this week of housesitting, but that's so normal I'm not even sure why I typed it. I always come here with big plans of using the quiet to get things done, and then I end up doing silly things that have nothing to do with anything useful.

Inertia's a wonderful thing, I suppose.

Anyway, back to the grind tomorrow. I'll be leaving before Dad gets back from the airport, I expect, so here's hoping that the cat hasn't got any surprises planned in the few hours that he'll be alone. I wouldn't put it past him. He is a cat, after all.



And this is coming from someone who likes cats, remember...

Talking with the cat

Today's pointless photo is not of the cat.

Actually, today's pointless photo isn't even the one I thought I'd chosen to use. Must've had a slip with the mouse, I guess. Ah well. I'm willing to go with it.

Another draggy day for me, I'm afraid. I'd thought at first that a quiet, cool basement might do the trick to help me get onto an honest to god regular sleep pattern, but apparently that's not the case. Either that, or my brain doesn't want me to get used to feeling rested just in time to head back to my place tomorrow.

Stupid brain.

Anyway, the Cat Who Is Not Pictured. He and I have been having quite the chatty time lately, which is funny. You see, Max was always the less talkative of the two cats, but now that Penny's gone it's like he's taken it upon himself to fill the void somewhat.

I don't think he quite gets how that goes, though.

He's taken up squeaking, mostly.

Over the past few months he's developed a special I want outside voice, amongst other things. He used to have a very typical annoyed cat howl when the silly humans didn't seem to notice that the cat wanted out (I should say here that he's only allowed out on harness, so getting to go outside takes a bit of convincing on his part). Now? He squeaks. He'll stand at the doorway, look at you, and then do his best the cat wants out sooo badly that he's developed a sudden case of feline laryngitis impression.

It's kind of weird.

But then, so's the cat.

The cat, by the way, will probably NOT get outside today, and will DEFINITELY not get outside tomorrow. Poor cat. Yet another reason why he'll probably be out of his mind happy when my dad opens the door tomorrow evening. I'm ok company (and yes, Max has kept up with the OMG you'd better not leave again attitude he's had since I got groceries a couple of days ago. It's amusing), but I'm just not Dad.

 There's just not a whole heck of a lot that a not-dad can do about that, Max.



Well, one more day of this for me, and then it's back to the probably pathetic-looking plants on my balcony, back to the office, and likely back to more sporadic blog posts depending on what I find waiting for me at the Nature Centre.

At least there are no squeaking cats there.

Pointless question that I never in my life thought I'd be asking of the day:

What am I supposed to watch on television now that the Olympics are over?

----------

Not much to say tonight, because I've been a little off today. You know what a stupid thing to do when you're a known insomniac is? Stay up late to watch a meteor shower. It tends to screw up your sleeping even further. Ah well. It was a gorgeous night, they were gorgeous meteors, and if you haven't been out to stare at the sky for a while (or, you know, ever) there should still be plenty tonight so you haven't really missed it completely.

What else? Oh, I guess I could say that life with the cat has been kind of funny today. First I freaked him out by leaving to get groceries yesterday afternoon. Then I freaked him out by going outside at stupid o'clock last night and staying out for a while. Now? We're best buddies. I guess he decided that he wants me around after all.

That'll be it for tonight, I think. I'll try to get some proper sleep and be a little more wordy tomorrow.

Holding down the fort

I have no idea what this post is going to be. Not that different from any other post here, really, but I just thought that I should warn people that I'll be typing mostly off the top of my head here.

I'm still at my father's place, and rapidly gaining too-many-stairs knee. I guess I should be planning my trips to the basement (home of this computer and my temporary bedroom. The house is still a bit on the warm side to be sleeping upstairs) a little more carefully, since the bad knee is really starting to make itself known. Ah well. Not a whole heck of a lot I can do about it at this point.

The cat? Mostly ignores me, so I know where I rate in his world. I suspected. He's such a daddy's cat that it isn't even funny. Oh, he'll ask me for treats or the occasional rubdown, and if I'm on the couch he'll make sure he's up top on his blanket, but other than that he's just been going about his daily business. He doesn't even ask me too often if he can go out, which is sort of amusing. He's always pestering Dad about it, but me? Not so much. This cat assigns jobs, you see. I'm for treats and belly rubs; Dad's for sleeping with and asking to go outside. Personally, I think that Max is still amazed that I know enough to feed him and clean the litter box.

At least he's secure in the fact that someone's around. The day Dad left for the airport, I left shortly afterward to spend a few hours at the workplace. When I got back I definitely had a small shadow for a while. I think I gave him a bit of a panic by taking off.

Let's see, what else? Well, I should get a few groceries since I still haven't done that (haven't been out much, to tell the truth. Even yesterday's trip into the city didn't happen. Funny how that works when you go to bed at ten, wake up at midnight, and don't get back to sleep at all. I didn't think that I could be trusted on the highway, to be honest). I also need to get some work done, and oddly enough I think I'll have more success at it if I do it here rather than heading to the office. Aaand I really need to do some drawing, for work or just for me. Getting lazy about that, and I shouldn't be letting frustration at the shakiness of my stupid wrist get in the way of practicing.

Sounds like a full day, really. I wonder how much of it will actually happen?

I think that's about it for now. Congrats to any of our recent medallists that I haven't mentioned. My brain made up for yesterday's lack of sleep by letting me sleep in until 6:30 (Shock! Amazement! Yay me!), so I missed the bronze in the K1 200m. Hooray for men in boats, though. Women in boats? Sorry ladies, but you seem to have a bit of catching up to do at the moment.

I'm going to have some lunch now. You needed to know that.

Pointless photo of the day:

Juuust not feeling the blather tonight, folks.

Catch you tomorrow, probably.

Randomness

Yeah, the blather's going to be random today. I have enough of a headache that I can't be bothered with coherency.

No idea why the headache, by the way. Maybe I slept crookedly. Wouldn't be the first time that my bad neck announced itself with a day's worth of headache.

So. I guess we'll start with the pointless photo. This is my absolute favourite daylily in the yard. Well, not this specific flower -- I mean the plant as a whole. I love the flowers that this particular type of daylily produces. I have no idea what kind it is, since I'm not a daylily expert by any means. I only know that we have several plants that produce this nice, textured orange flower, and that it's pretty. And since I posted not that long ago on my love for lilies (daylilies count, even if they're not in the Liliaceae), let's move on.

I'm housesitting at my father's place this week (see? I told you yesterday to remind me to talk about that today. You didn't, but I'm going to talk about it anyway) because he's gone off to Ontario to visit my brother and his family. Housesitting here is relatively painless since it's the house I grew up in (yes, my parents never moved after they had a family. Ever. The first time in my life that I moved it was to university. Can you spell traumatic, boys and girls?), but it will mean pleasing the cat, who's getting a bit grumpy. He's allowed, I suppose. He's fifteen, which equals geriatric in cat years. Oh, he's still healthy and active; just grumpy. I've made points today by actually feeding him and cleaning his litter box (he seems to think that I don't know how to do either of those things), and by rescuing him from the carpet not once but twice in a morning. The second time was interesting -- he jumped up a bit to find a scratchable part of his scratching post (the carpet's getting more than a bit worn out, but at least he uses the scratching post more than the furniture) and got a claw stuck. He would have been hanging for a while, I think, if I hadn't been down here. Guess I better do some claw clipping later when he's asleep.

Let's see... what else? Well, congrats to the women's soccer team on their bronze, which, judging by the comments from the (surprise!) commentator, they didn't really deserve to win. Ah well. They didn't deserve to lose to officiating in their last game either, so it all balances out. I don't have much to say about the game; I watched part of it, but to be honest I find soccer pretty boring. Yes, even though I played it as a kid.

I haven't been watching as much of the Olympic coverage as I was, since A) I've been sleeping better and B) the rowing and paddling are mostly over, but I do have a couple of comments in general. First, I have to say that I discovered a couple of days ago that one of the reasons I've enjoyed the Olympics way more than I thought I would is that I've been watching the early coverage. I watched prime time on the weekend to see a couple of events that I missed while at work, and forgot until then about the "glory" of Brian Williams. For those of my two fans who are American, not that Brian Williams. We have our own. He's a sports anchor. He's also very mannered and slightly annoying, and if I'd only ever been watching prime time I think I'd have given up on the Olympics long ago. You go, Catriona Le May Doan. You and the rest of your morning crew are making a non-sports-fan actually care about what's going on.

On a somewhat related note, I try not to be too much of a grammar granny, but every time I hear CTV's Olympic theme and I believe in the power of you and I I want to throw something at the screen. You and ME, you and ME, you and ME...

Ah well. This counts as a post, right? I'm doing well for August so far, but maybe expect me to be missing tomorrow. I have to go into the city for a staff meeting, and I might get a little bogged down at work (working at work? Is that allowed?) since I'm not there most of the week. We'll see how it goes. Otherwise, see you in a day or so.

Pointless Oh geez, is it really that time? post of the day:

Yeah, I forgot to blog. What can I say? It's been a busy day, and my schedule got screwed up a bit. On the plus side, when I got back and opened the door I got a royal greeting from the cat, who I think had decided that everyone in his life had left (oh yeah, remind me tomorrow to tell you why I'm housesitting). Poor cat. I'd feel a lot more sorry for him if I didn't realise how much he'll probably be annoying me tonight.

So. Um. Today's photo, I guess. A crow that was hunting something in the neighbour's abandoned yard (the property's for sale, I mean) while I was out taking pictures of spiders the other day. I don't know what exactly it was hunting, but it was pretty intent.

I like crows. One of the most intelligent species on the planet. I know that some people find their calls annoying, but for me, I'd rather hear crows calling than pigeons cooing. If that sounds weird, then you've never had pigeon problems. Dreadful birds, pigeons. Messy. And insistent. If a pigeon decides that it's going to nest on your balcony, pray for armageddon. That's the only thing that'll stop it.

Trust me. Voice of experience here.

Aaanyway. Long day, did I mention?

Yeah.

Long day, and while I was waiting for lunch/supper (what? You think I made my own lunch/supper tonight? Silly my two fans) I decided that I deserved a treat so I went into the only store in town that sells art supplies to see what I could treat myself with.

Relax, budget. When I say the only store in town, in this particular town I mean the stationery store, and their art supplies are definitely limited. I'd be ok if I was into watercolours, which apparently is the thing here, but you may have heard that I paint like a five-year-old. Ok, no watercolours. So what else is on the one shelf of art supplies, then?

Microns. MICRONS! I love microns. And... I have microns. And don't need any more microns at the moment. Damn. So what else? Stumps, got. Pencils, got. Wait... don't got that...

Yes, blogosphere, I treated myself. To... a blender pencil. Sigh. To the non-artistically nerdy, look it up. I'm too sad at myself to link. A blender pencil, and a new kneadable eraser since my old one is currently filled with chunks of masking fluid. Long story, but fun. I'm so boring, though.

Anyway, this is mostly by way of saying that for any of you who are fans of my art (and if so, why?) and have been wondering why it hasn't been posted lately, no worries. I just haven't been in the mood. I have some ideas, though, and obviously if I'm still buying art supplies -- however lame -- I'm still interested. Watch this space. Or rather, the space on the other blog. There should be something there soon, I hope.

In the meantime, I'm going to have something to eat. You should too. Unless you already have, of course.

I wouldn't want you to stuff yourself.

Pointless photo essay of the day:

First, a triptych that I'll title Hot Cats Think that Brass Music Stands are Cool:

Then, Spiders I Found in Various Places Yesterday:

 This is a Crab Spider (on Shrubby Cinquefoil, which used to be a Potentilla but has been put into a different genus now. I'm too lazy to look it up), and I'm thinking that it might be a Goldenrod Spider, although the markings aren't showing. Crab Spider of some sort, at any rate.

 Also a Crab Spider (and on the same plant, a couple of flowers away), and this time the markings are making me a bit more confident that this is a male Goldenrod Spider. The females are quite a bit different. And larger.

Crab spiders are ambush predators rather than web builders. They sit there on flowers (or leaves, depending on the species of spider) with their two front pairs of legs open, waiting for an unsuspecting bee or other insect to not notice them.

Very cool to watch.

I'm not sure what spider this one is. The markings look a little like a Hammock Spider, but I didn't get that close of a look. The sunflowers were pretty busy with ants... maybe this particular spider was in the mood for something acidic?

And finally, the spider that you can barely see. That speck there in the centre of the leaf, I mean. You can probably see the shadow better than the spider. Tiny spiders and autofocus cameras just don't mix. What's more a shame, though, is that you can't see the perfect web the spider made on that leaf. If it's still there today maybe I'll spray it down a bit so that it's more visible to the camera.

That'll do it for me today. I'm housesitting this week (more on that later), so you can probably expect a few more pointless yard photos than usual since I'll have more time for them.

Lucky, lucky you...

To boldly go

Ok, today's photo -- which accidentally ended up to be one of my most truly pointless creations ever -- is going to take some explaining. In honour of the Mars Curiosity Rover landing, I was going to take a picture of the Apollo mission models that I played with when I was very little. I thought I knew where they were in my closet here at Dad's, but that box turned out instead to have plastic Inuit models in it. An igloo, a man in a kayak, a polar bear... I have no idea why I have them.

Then I thought I might know where the Apollo stuff could be downstairs. No luck, but I did find my collection of patience cards (you know, those mini cards you use for playing solitaire. I like solitaire. I liked it even as a kid. That's probably sad, isn't it). I wasn't in the mood to delve into searching the store room just for some plastic models, so in the spirit of something spacey I decided to pose C-3PO on the shuffle board (I didn't pose the shuffleboard rocks. They were already there). Then I added Jasper the Bear (whose faded sign says CANADA. Well, where else would you find Jasper the Bear?) and an assortment of small boats because my family keeps weird stuff.

It, erm, made sense at the time.

Also, I need to clean the cat hair off of the shuffleboard. I notice that you can see Max's launch pad to the basement window ledge in the background...

Anyway.

I didn't stay up for the Mars landing, and to be honest I was astonished that it went off successfully. When I saw the descriptions of what was supposed to happen I could understand what the JPL was calling "seven minutes of terror" or however they put it. It just sounded so unbelievable that something so complicated could work. But it did, and I imagine that it wouldn't be hard to find a few happily hung over rocket scientists in California today.

I bet my two fans are waiting now for me to tell them that I've always been a huge fan of the space program and... no. I'm not going to be saying that, actually. I'm interested in the space program and I'm not against it by any means, but I'm not one of those who follows each mission with fish breath (you know, baited). I was a little too young to understand the Apollo missions (although I'll admit to being alive during all but the first moon landing. Well, I was alive even then, I suppose. Just hadn't made my entrance), I don't remember Skylab. I was aware of the Shuttle program and, as a reformed Trekkie, was sort of nerdily thrilled that they named the first one Enterprise, but that's about it. Yes, I remember where I was when the Challenger blew up (I had a spare first period that day and was watching the whole thing on live television as I got ready for school, in case you wondered), but then that's not the kind of thing you forget even if you don't really care about space exploration.

So why am I even bringing the Mars Rover up if I'm not a space junkie? A few reasons, I guess. First... IT'S ANOTHER PLANET. We've landed something on another planet. And we've done it more than once. A small step in the grand scheme of the universe, yes, but it's a pretty big thing for our species. We have the opportunity to study a whole different planet, and I think some of us forget just how science-fictiony that really is.

For those who deplore the waste of money, well, I see your point. Really, I do. If a person has to look at things from a purely economic standpoint I suppose I could bring up the old saw of the potential spinoffs (think of Teflon and Tang. No, wait. Not Tang. That's a myth. Tang wasn't developed for the space program), but you've already heard that from other people so I'm not going to bother with it. I guess I fall more on the side of those who say it's important for humankind to keep exploring, although I don't do it with nearly as much enthusiasm as the space evangelists out there.We are more or less programmed to explore, though, and have been since our ancestors left Africa.

Oh, I just outed myself as an evil evolutionist there, didn't I? Well, I'm sorry, but despite what my beliefs about how life did or didn't start on earth are (and, frankly, you can't claim to know what they are even if you think you do), I can't ignore the masses of evidence that show that I wasn't created from Adam's rib.

We need to keep learning. We need to discover. The worst thing we can do is stagnate. We need to learn, and we never really know what benefits that learning is going to give us. That's my true interest in things like this. The science is pretty cool on its own, but the fact that we'll be able to look back at things like this fifty years (or less) down the road and see that this led to that which led to that which led to that is even better.

And I'm going to stop going down that particular blather avenue now before things start to sound preachy.

For any of my two fans who are now wondering if I'm excited about the prospect of people on Mars, I might surprise you a bit again by saying no. I'm not. We're not there yet, in terms of our capabilities. We likely will be someday, and maybe even in my lifetime, but not now. I'm all for working on figuring it out, but at the moment I'm far more excited about these rovers and the things that they might teach us. Let's learn a bit more before we take the next step, I think.

And in the meantime, I'll be following Mars Curiosity here.

One of those days...

I hate it when real life intrudes on my ability to formulate blather, you know? I have no idea how much of a post this is going to be, but I fully intend to fill the space by telling you why.

Oh, and today's pointless photo? Completely pointless. I just didn't want anyone to get confused, seeing as how you had two posts in a row of only SEMIpointless photos.

So, we're back in a hot spell, and will be for a while according to the forecast. Sigh. As is usual this time of year, hot days almost invariably mean severe thunderstorm warnings in the evening.

We had one last night. Both a warning and a thunderstorm, even. It was impressive. A very noisy, very loud light show accompanied by a helluva downpour. I don't think we had any hail, at least, so mostly it was just nature showing off.

Except.

I got in to work this morning (and on weekends I usually get here about an hour before the front desk staff does so that I can have some quiet time to get things done) only to hear the unwelcome but all too familiar buzzing of the septic alarm. We have an aging septic system that's a bit too low-lying, and the rain we had in July saturated things so much that any little bit of water will overwhelm it. Yay. So, off go the pumps. On goes the hope that an hour's worth of sitting will let things clear enough that we'll have bathrooms available by the time the building opens.

Um, nope.

So up go the out-of-order signs, and on goes the process of trying to coax the thing to clear by putting them on manual for a few minutes and then turning them off for a while. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I've got things working now (for the moment), but with a big warning to the girls up front to keep an eye (erm, ear) on that alarm. There's another storm predicted for late this afternoon, but if we can offer plumbing services to the visitors for the majority of the day I'll be happy.

Did I mention that while this was going on our fire alarm control panel started giving off error signals and we've had to call in the control company? Uh huh. I'm waiting for the HVAC system to go on the fritz next.

In the meantime, I'm supposed to be leading a plant walk this afternoon. It'll only be about 30C out there, with a storm looming. Here's hoping that the usual plant people are too busy with long weekend plans to show up. Not that I'd mind doing the walk itself, but keeping visitors' attention when they're hot and worried about being struck by lightning isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

Ah well. Back to work for me. I wonder how long it'll take for the ceiling to cave in?

How do you doodle?

I'm going to try to make this quick since I'm sort of in the middle of work things. That, of course, means that it won't be quick.

What you're looking at in today's pointless scan (ha! You thought I was going to say photo, didn't you?) is a page from the small moleskine sketchbook that travels in my purse. I was manning a booth at some event or other (can't even remember what, now), and there were long periods of nothing. Nothing isn't good for those of use with short attention spans, so I got out the sketchbook. I did do a couple of actual sketches which you're not seeing here, but after a while my brain went into pattern mode, which is a pretty normal tendency for Yours OLFly. The result is what you see here. And if you're thinking it's suggestive of of anything, well, that says more about your brain than mine. I was just making random shapes and filling them with checked patterns.

In case you're wondering, the inclusion of the ribbon in the scan was entirely deliberate. Now it's black and white and red all over...

Anyway.

The reason you're seeing this particular pointless pattern is because of this article about the value of doodling. It's worth a read. And you should also check out this link, which is from the bottom of the first one. Doodles by famous authors. It's pretty cool.

So, ok. Doodling's a good thing. But is it a good thing that if I'm doodling-doodling as opposed to sketching-doodling, it's almost always a pattern of some sort? It's been that way my entire life, really. My old grade school binders didn't have cats and flowers and possible boyfriends' names in them; they had patterns. Often the same patterns show up again and again. One you see above (this is the front inside cover of the same sketchbook. I was trying to make sure it was already "wrecked" before I started it. Otherwise I try to keep things too pretty. And the date? Well, I go through on and off periods with sketchbooks, so this one's been on the go for a bit. It's almost done, though. And if you wondered, I am, indeed, a doofus). One I've called The Brain because that's sort of what it ends up looking like. You've already see the checks; there's also a whole series of branching patterns where I set myself up some general branching rules beforehand and then see what comes of it.

I'm... kind of weird? Well hey, there's no surprise.

No grand conclusion's coming out of this, by the way. It was just a question I had. And if what you see here gives you more of an insight into my psychology, well then... um... good? Or bad, I don't know. After all, I am, in fact, a self-professed doofus.

----------

Congrats to today's medallists. I was able to see most of the trampoline competition before I left for work (including our gold medallist, who absolutely deserved it), but I'll have to watch the medal ceremony replay when I get home.

Which I have the option of. I don't know how you American fans can possibly put up with the NBC mess you've got on your hands. Here in Canada we're getting nearly twenty-four hour coverage, and on several channels. The live stuff's been keeping me great company on those sleepless nights (much better today, thanks). I'm almost glad for the difference in time zones, as inconvenient as it's making it for everyone else in North America.



Well? What other attitude would you expect from a sleepless doofus?

What's on your hand today, Dee?

Great shot, that. A truly pointless photo. Taken with the 3DS, since my two fans will remember that I feel a little weird about using the work camera to take pointless personal photos. And gotta love the angle -- I wasn't sure how to... um... "pose" to give you an idea of the wonder that is today's ring, so you ended up with an inadvertently strained pseudo-thumb's-up.

Ah well. The place is called pointless for a reason, after all.

What you're semi-seeing in the photo is a wonder of the early nineties, boys and girls. If you think you're seeing a silver cat-faced ring, then you have a pretty good imagination. It is, in fact, a silver cat-faced ring, but how you could tell that from a 3DS photo is beyond me. What you can't really see in the photo is that it's one of those rings that's adjustable and not joined up. It's kind of winding its way around my finger in a vaguely catish/snakish fashion. It has two sort-of limbs that make it look like it has its hands tucked in its pockets, and it's pretty much incredibly tacky. Real silver, though. Marked and everything.

I used to wear it a lot in university, which in itself is kind of odd when you consider that I was a zoology student and that my days were spent in dissection labs. Funny that it didn't poke through the gloves. Anyway, I haven't worn it for years, but on a whim this morning I polished it up and figured I'd see what it felt like.

Not too bad, all things considered, but I certainly wouldn't wear it for a pond study.

I'd mentioned a while ago a little bit of a resolution to try to vary what jewellery I wear, and it's been interesting. Oh, there's plenty of days when it'll still be the regular gold earrings and the silver pinkie ring you see in the picture, but I generally try to wear a chain or pendant instead of my flash drive around my neck, and I'll have at least a couple of days a week where I'll go fishing through the earring drawers to change things up a bit. Has anyone noticed? To be honest, I haven't asked and I don't really care. This is for me.

You see, I'm remembering now how I used to express myself through junky earrings and things like that. When I was (an awful lot) younger I used to match my earring themes to my programs. My family would give me interesting-looking earrings because they knew I'd always find a use for them, and I know one relative in particular who took a weird sort of delight in bringing back earrings from holidays that she knew I'd never find anything like around here.

Somewhere along the line I lost that.

I suppose it's a pretty simple combination of getting older and getting lazier, but I just stopped caring about adornment at some point. I still don't think it's especially important -- if I go out without a piece of jewellery on I definitely won't have a panic attack -- but I'd forgotten that it can be fun.

The last few months I've been having a little more fun again.

That's cool.

Anyway, back to work for me. And if anyone's wondering if the cat ring meant the sacrifice of other personal decoration (after all, I did have to take an extra thirty seconds this morning to polish it), the answer is nope. Rose quartz danglers, amethyst studs, silver ear cuff (I've been wearing that pretty regularly, actually), and a labradorite pendant. I'm the silver and stone queen today, boys and girls.

And it's sort of a nice change.

Type here

Honestly? The post title's a placeholder I use sometimes. I think it'll stay today, just because I have no idea what the blather's going to be. That's what happens when I get busy working at work, you see. Somehow I just get too distracted to come up with essay topics.

Hey, the topics here may be inane (or even insane, I suppose), but technically the blather sometimes does become an essay.

So, what to talk about? I suppose I could tell you what's been going on with the work day, but now that I stop to think about it the whole thing's going to sound like one of those you get paid for that? moments that happens so often in my interpretive life. Amongst other things, I've tweeted, I've "previewed" some nature games on a website (read that as: I played computer games), I did an old word find that we no longer had the answer for to make sure that the answer was both appropriate and... well, appropriate in more than one sense, let's say, and then I remade the word find on the computer since the original had been had done by hand back in the Nature Centre Dark Ages.

I've done more than that, naturally, but the above sort of makes it look like I'm a five-year-old pretending to work as an interpreter. Ah well, a little bit later I'll be throwing crickets at salamanders, and...

Hmm. Still a five-year-old, then.

In other news, it was nice to see the Ladies Eight get their medal this morning (yeah, I was up watching rowing at Stupid O'Clock again. At least the Olympics is giving me something to do when I've given up on sleeping), and the Men's C2 Whitewater competition was pretty amazing. Gold and silver for the home teams is kind of neat to see.

I was talking to my father last night, and he can't really figure out why I'm into the rowing and paddling events. That's all right; I can't either. The best I could come up with is that maybe I like people in boats?

Ok, in all honesty when it comes to the flatwater events I'm sort of fascinated by the combination of strength and strategy. And as for the whitewater, it's very definitely the wow factor. As in: wow, I could never even attempt that. Ever.

Ok, there's a post. I'll leave you with the reason for the pair of grape leaf photos, then. I was taking a shot of the front side (the top, here) because I liked the way the backlighting brought out the leaf textures. Then I noticed an odd spot and looked to the back of the leaves to find... THE SURPRISE SPIDER!

Always a good thing, a surprise spider. I haven't had nearly enough spider pictures these past couple of summers.

Ok, I'll try for a post tomorrow

No, really. It's just that right now I'm operating on tired brain and I'm not sure I could string the words together.

Which, of course, made my morning program just awesome.



Not sleeping did give me the advantage, however, of being able to watch the live feed of the Men's Eight winning their silver. A very respectable silver, considering that the Germans have been pretty much untouchable this year, and that our guys totally sucked rocks in their heat. Nice to see them get it together, and you have to admit that the last push was pretty darned exciting.

You know, if I could see rowing more than once every four years I might actually watch sports now and then. Just saying.

Now if I could only get my head around synchronised diving...