Only a few photos. They’re all at flickr. I also put a few photos from the Monster Truck show we went to on the weekend.
Left Only box:
Weird sad u-turn sign:
Disappointing book store:
I wasn’t kidding, the clouds didn’t break on the whole trip… except maybe a little on the highway on our way home, today.
Went to a meeting for work at the downtown corporate offices. The meeting was at 11.30 and included free lunch, which was cool. Then, around 1.00, when we got out, I got my parking validated for the whole day. I decided that I couldn’t just pass up free parking in the city, so I called Sarah and her mom and asked for some suggestions on how to take advantage of my free parking. I took a walk over to Millennium Park and took a few pictures on Sarah’s suggestion. I walked around a few blocks looking for other things worth shooting, but architecture is only so interesting and I wasn’t feeling cityscape or urban fragment sort of inspiration. Plus, it was still pretty cold and windy, so the longer I wandered, the more I felt pulled toward the car and heading home. It was fun, though. Still working through this modified Holga roll… no idea how many pictures I’ve taken or how many should be left. I shot with the digital a little bit. I think I’ve got a couple new icon/userpics for all the various sites.
I thought that the Dell had ended it’s extended lease on life, again, but it turned out to be bad drivers for my network card. It took way too long to narrow the problem from random freezing to maybe the Firefox beta to maybe just Firefox to anything internet to the new drivers from windows update. It’s been running normally again since I updated a few power management settings that were suggested on some forum. Acceptable solution, I guess. Before all that narrowing down was done, I opened it up again to make sure it wasn’t simply overheating. There wasn’t a whole lot of dust to blow out, though. Opening up laptops and fiddling with them isn’t as much fun as full sized PCs. Yet another reason my next laptop will be a Macbook Pro. Still don’t know when I’ll make that upgrade, but I thought about it a lot more, while trying to figure this thing out.
In other computer-related news, two of the hard drives I sent in for recovery have come back to be by way of a new external drive. Most of the data is intact and there are some original versions of photos from a couple events (shooting the house in Bedford, trip to Philly with Drew to see Olivia) from 2003 and 2002. The oldest drive was not recoverable, at least not by the company I went with, and should have all the photography from my first year or two with my Olympus and a bunch of other old band-related and website-related stuff that I’d like to recover. I’ll probably call around and see if anyone’s up for the task.
Adventure Ed starts up this month. We have a some new blood with us this season, so that should make things interesting. We’re also trying to shift the focus to skills training, which sort of sounds like what my last program was all about. There, we had a big long talk with the kids coming in to the program… explaining what we were going to work on. Here, we’re going to do it in a more subtle way, I guess, but there will be some frontloading of teamwork concepts, which I’m cool with it… just don’t know how it fits with the timeframe. We’ll see how it actually goes.
It’s been snowing a lot. I’m a fan of winter, I really am, but we’ve had enough of this stuff, now, I think. We still have rolls of film to finish, but there hasn’t been a great day to do it… either too cold or too gray. It was kinda fun to go through the House on the Rock stuff and get it uploaded. I think Sarah and I are both itching for a vacation. Maybe we should do another short road-trip. Montreal was suggested, but that’s a bit long for road-trip. I’m all for it, though. Sure it’s not the right season to go North, and sure the state of affairs with needing a passport/not needing a passport to go to Canada is still up in the air… but what’s the worst that could happen, we get stuck in Canada forever? Or take a road-trip and be denied at the border because our birth certificates aren’t notarized? It’s still sounds like a vacation.
So, I’ve been reading a lot more, lately. Reading instead of doing my homework for adventure ed seems to be my favorite pastime. I reread Childhood’s End around Christmas. I finally decided to give it another read after I heard about Arthur C. Clarke’s birthday. Sarah’s mom picked me up a cheap hardcover copy of Anansi Boys on the clearance rack of a book store in the Borders Outlet at Gurnee Mills and I read it almost immediately. Sarah challenged me to read a book I wouldn’t finish in two days and suggested House of Leaves. I think I spent five to seven days on it. I remember when Drew lived in Woonsocket the first time, He and Candace were reading it, maybe, possibly they were just admiring it, I never really talked to him about it, cause I wasn’t reading it. I suppose I should ask him if he ever did end up actually reading the whole thing. I started American Gods on Saturday. As I’m reading, I get to a part where they visit The House on the Rock, up in Wisconsin, and I can see each room as he’s describing it. I think about all the pictures that I took when Sarah and I went there and pop onto Flickr to check some of them out… and they’re not on Flickr. I somehow managed to not post any of them or mention the visit in my blog at all. I guess it wasn’t until November or so that I decided I want to write here more often.
Sometime in late September, Sarah and I took a trip up to Wisconsin to see a play at an outdoor theater. We booked a hotel stay with the tickets and then planned a couple little adventures around the show. We saw [most of] the Mount Horeb trolls and had a wonderful dinner there. We visited the House on the Rock and took two of the three tours. I really got a kick out of the 60s/70s vibe to all the rugs and appliances and the various collections were really awesome… There was also a life-size whale & giant squid battle that reminded me of Childhood’s End [and the They Might Be Giants Apollo 18 album cover], but the little plaque said nothing of taking its influence from the book. We saw the show at the outdoor theater… in the rain. It was very wet, but the show was funny. There were some near-spills due to wet stage and a complete false start, due to a downpour about a minute into the first scene. We also picked up some meat on a detour on the way home from a favorite butcher of the family. It was a mini-vacation, it was a lot fun and I still don’t know how I failed to mention it here at all.
I went through the pictures last night and picked out some decent ones and added them to my flickr. As I logged in to flickr, I shuddered at the thought of it becoming a Microsoft-owned and controlled site. The Microhoo merger seems like an all around bad idea to me. Maybe I’m still upset about Microsoft taking over HoTMaiL. I certainly stopped using it for anything but junk after that and it’s pretty close to unusable, now, with all the crazy Windows Live crap they turned it into. Yahoo didn’t ruin flickr. Hopefully, if that merger happens, Microsoft won’t either… but their online track record is pretty bad.
Before going through the pictures, though, I watched the game. I formally apologize to all of my friends back east who care about sports and to the Patriots for watching the game. I was completely aware that every Patriots game I watch turns into a loss for them, but I really wanted to see if there were any really funny commercials. In my defense, they were still in the lead when I paused it for dinner. So they may have lost while I was eating and not while I was actually watching… but I did return to the TV and watch the rest of the game. So it’s most likely my fault. Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your perfect season.
Technically, I guess it’s called the Spindle, but I like “Car Kabob.” The rumor is that it’s supposed to come down or (hopefully) get moved because Walgreen’s is expanding or something and it can’t stay where it is. We’ve been hoping to get there and take some pictures, and with all of our accumulating cameras, we decided to take advantage of the sun that was out there, today, even though the wind chill made it ridiculously cold outside. I brought my Panasonic and a bunch of fun cameras: the Holga, the Diana+, the Reality 3D, the Polaroid 450 Land Camera and the Cheki mini 25. The old 450 was kinda hard to use in the cold. We were trying to use the warming plate, but failed to pre-warm it. The 3D camera also proved hard to wind, especially since our fingers were freezing after a couple minutes of exposure. The Cheki won cutest camera and cutest prints of the day. It may have suffered a little bit from the cold as well, but we cheated towards the end of our time there and took some out the window of the car and let the car’s heat help develop them.
HP finally put the Leopard drivers on their website for our printer/scanner/fax, so we can now scan directly from the mac, again. We’d been scanning to my laptop and then writing the files to the network shares on the mac. It was a little tedious, but we don’t have to do that anymore. Yay!
The sun is still only coming out on days where we sleep in or need to go to work. We got an old Polaroid 450 land camera working with a new set of batteries and a pack of 690 from the local Wolf Camera… Sarah tried to buy it at the camera store she works at, but they told her she couldn’t… something about needing it for passport photos. Pretty strange that she had to take her business elsewhere. Anyway, that’s a lot of film to use up in all these new/old cameras. So we need a sunny day… preferably one with temperatures at least in the double digits.
The adapter that came the other day turned out to be the opposite of what I needed, but I took a trip down to Micro Center while Sarah was at work. It took a really long time to get there, due to traffic/weather issues, so I didn’t get to wander around the store and bask in it’s full glory, but it was pretty impressive. Very big store, seemed to have a good selection and someone was there to help me within a minute or two of me walking in. They had the right one, so I’m closer to fixing the fish tank computer, though I still don’t know where or when I’ll tackle that.
In other news, I took some of the money in my ING account and invested it in some stocks, prompted by their eMail about acquiring Sharebuilder. I’ll never use the crazy stock strategies that I learned with Dad at those nutty seminars, but I did include some Food industry stocks in my little portfolio, in honor of his idea that “people will always need food.” I’m about 60/40 Technology & Food industry stocks, so I guess I could do another food stock or some other industry, but I invested about half of what was in the ING account, and I was kinda hoping to see the results of that savings account interest versus the stock gains over time. So I’ll probably just leave it how it is.
Now that Sarah has picked up a couple new, fun cameras and we set up both her Holga and the Diana+ with 35mm film mods, we’re ready to go out and shoot like crazy. She even brought home a roll of film that fits the Brownie Starflex from some deep, dark back corner of the attic, at work. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a day with decent weather or half-decent light forever. We want to go to the car-kabob in Berwyn, and we’ve been talkin’ about it for a while now, but gray skies make for lots of boring photos.
I prepped my Robert Rodriguez Puerco Pibil tonight and put it in the fridge to marinate. We used a couple slightly different ingredients, but it still smelled strong and spicy. It was really tasty last time. I hope it turn out just as good. Maybe I’ll try to make the recipe on the Sin City DVD… I should really watch that movie again, first, though. I got Planet Terror this Christmas, too, I really need to put aside some quality time in front of the TV downstairs.
I also got a 24-20 pin adapter so that I can use Frank’s old power supply in the fish tank. That’s gonna be a messy project, I’m sure, so I’ll have to save it for a fully free day. I finally got the laptop Sarah’s uncle left here back to working order, I’m not gonna open it up and resolder the power jack, though. I’ve never been good with soldering and taking apart my Dell was a tedious project that I probably would avoid doing again, given the choice.
Still enjoying my break… but would enjoy it more with a little sunshine.
I didn’t do too bad doing everything I wanted to do this visit. I’m glad I made that list, it certainly helped me remember stuff… I totally would’ve forgotten to get those hard drives in the mail if I hadn’t looked at the list today. Once I finish this entry and get the laptop in the suitcase, I’ll be totally packed, except for whatever clothes I take off tomorrow morning.I chose the biggest suitcase I could find in the barn. I think it’s just big enough, and that’s with one small carry-on.
Got my alarm clock on my cell phone all set up. My phone hasn’t been in need of constant charging, like it has in past visits to Dudley. Apparently, there’s a new tower in the area or something, because I have a great signal, even in Mom’s basement. Keeping that digital signal takes less battery power than struggling with an older not-so-digital signal.I guess the next time Mom upgrades her phone, she doesn’t have to go with a tri-mode phone.
Didn’t take a ton of pictures, but I’m glad I had the camera. I got a cute shot of Pam’s dog Mel and a couple random shots of Worcester. Oh, and on Saturday, me and my Mom’s best friend from high school, Joyce, went to 111 Chophouse. We had some amazing food. I had heard good things about the place, but, for some reason, neither Mom or I had ever been there. She got a gift card from one of her clients at work, so we took advantage of it. I took a couple pics while we were there of their monogrammed (logoed?) knives and our amazingly delicious 
dessert. White chocolate mousse in a chocolate tulip cup with whipped cream and a raspberry puree: yum. We really weren’t hungry, the servings were more than ample, but it sounded way too good, so we got one and shared it. When the mousse was almost gone, Mom imploded the cup and we each grabbed a couple bits. A piece of mine fell into my latte when I bit into it… and that just made my tasty latte into something amazing.
All in all, a good visit. I wish I had managed to see everyone that wanted to see me, but I did come close and in a very limited amount of time. I spent a good amount of time in Worcester and a little time in Woonsocket. Most of my time was out in the Dudley and other ‘burbs. Actually, after seeing the way Chicago suburbs really fit the description of a suburb, I’d say that Dudley and these other New England towns are somewhere in between suburban and rural. Dudley is certainly practically rural in terms of the kind of land and features you see, but the people and the community act fairly suburban. I dunno, maybe I need to go look at the actual definitions of those terms… but some other time, right now I need to sleep, so I can get up early and shower and get to my plane on time.
Except for administering the post program surveys and evaluations… and entering all that data in the computers … Adventure Ed. is done for the season. I’m uploading the last of the pictures, now. I’ll probably have to put together a CD of them all organized into folders again for the kids, my coworker Antoinette or both. I should probably do that this weekend, so I can give CDs to the facilitators and teachers this week… just in case eMailing the students doesn’t go as planned.
Got a big dinner in the works for tomorrow… helped prepare some desserts for baking this afternoon/morning. I always feel really full after the Adventure Ed. overnights, so the idea of a big meal isn’t all that appealing right now, but I’m sure I’ll be hungry by tomorrow. A couple years ago, I went a little moblog crazy on Thanksgiving. Life was pretty different back then. I won’t deny that it’s fun for me to go back and read old posts. Especially the ones where I’m not doing as well as I am now. I was whiny and depressed a lot, probably terribly uninteresting reading for all of you… but fun for me, ’cause things are so much better now. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel ridiculously tired and on the verge of non-functioning after work some days, but now it seems like it’s a justified exhaustion instead of just not being able to focus or just having a broken head.
hacked… something about world writable folders, lots of accounts, not just mine. I didn’t even know I had any world writable ones. I had to go through and change them all and then test things to make sure everything still worked. I’m still doing it now, actually. After I post this, I gotta see if it worked and see if all the logs worked and then experiment with posting from the phone again. It took a lot of time and effort because my backup wouldn’t quite restore correctly. Had to kinda build a place for the site from scratch and then import it in piece by piece. Anyway, I think it’s all back now.
Thankfully this happened early Saturday morning, so I was completely distracted by the fact that I was going to see They Might Be Giants. It was a great show and brought back a lot of memories of some good times. Unfortunately, driving to a show in Chicago is worse than driving to a show in Boston. We learned our lesson though (took an hour to find parking). Next time, we’ll take the train in from O’Hare or go out early and make a day-long event out of it. They almost wouldn’t let Sarah in because she had her Diana camera with her. But she convinced them that it wasn’t going to take any high quality videos of the band, that it was basically a toy, and they let her in. The venue was cool, nice balcony seats and a few benches throughout the floor area. We were there a little too late to snag a seat for ourselves… again, lesson learned. It was a real treat to see them with the horn section. I do kinda miss the Eric and Graham/Hal days, but the Dans are good, there’s no denying it. The banter was as witty as ever.
Enjoying my day off, so far. The tentative plan was to catch up on all the TV shows we’re behind on. We’ll see what really happens once Sarah gets up and we get motivated (or don’t 
). Got another Adventure Ed overnight this week (and next week). There’s pictures from last week’s trip on the gallery (mostly taken by the kids). There’s more staff lined up for this week, so I should be able to take more myself.
What a beautiful day to go…swimming with a monkey? Photo by welovetaipei.
(by Joe Curtin)
Weekend beach trip? We think so.
Photo by David Boyson Cooper via Art Sponge
Wintery walk on Flickr.
my-hearts-always-with-you-n0w:
my-hearts-always-with-you-n0w.tumblr.com/
hayyy there,
Pina & I <3
woot