Update

Did I remember to post that I had biscuit-joined my shelf boards? I think I did. Then it was too hot to paint for *ages*. Recently the weather has gotten more humane. I primed on Saturday, painted the first coat on Sunday (in two stages... the can said it took four hours to be dry to the touch, 72 hours to cure), did half of the second coat last night, and the other half tonight. Sunday I can bring them home and put them up. :) (I'm looking forward to getting that project checked off! Especially since it means I can unpack some boxes!!!) As I was putting on the first coat of primer, I discovered this cute little "owl" waving hi:

(Can you see him too?) I was tempted to leave him unpainted, but didn't.

Speaking of weather, we also got some rain recently... and that has brought the mosquitoes out. They were biting my ankles (other body parts too, but they seemed fond of my ankles) tonight as I painted. :(

I like these insects much better:

This fellow was hard to photograph... it was a breezy day, and the flower was blowing around. I was trying to get a photo with his wings open, but that didn't happen.

This guy was much easier, especially as there wasn't any wind:

Plus I didn't have to try catching a "wings open" shot. ;)

I'm trying to pick a paint colour for my bedroom:

The kitchen in the apartment was a lovely grey-green, but I didn't manage to pick up paint chips while I was still living there. Since the lighting in Home Depot is a little strange, I grabbed pretty much every green there. (R: I know you said to get a copy of the chip for every wall, but I figured I'd narrow it down a bit first!)

I think I'm leaning towards the colour on the bottom of the card in the middle clump, second row, right hand side, with the colour just above it for stripes. (Can you say glutton for punishment? It could be worse... for a bit I toyed with the idea of getting around four greens, and painting tree trunks fading out in the misty distance.) I'm thinking random stripes with the two greens, plus some gold pin-striping. That should tie it in nicely with my bedroom furniture, plus be a bit more fun than everything one solid colour, and not quite so dark. (I really liked the dark colour in the kitchen, but it had lots of white cabinets to break it up.) I'm also thinking of not using wallpaper, unless the currently-papered wall is in really bad shape under the current paper. If it is, I'll buy some of that paintable wallpaper, something like this one.

Frost

Do you ever have those days where the world is so beautiful, you wish you could call in "photograph"?

It's been like that here for the past three days.

However, I do not have one of those jobs... I've had to satisfy myself with photographing things on the way to or from work.

(Yes, the frost lasted that long!)

Raffi In Daylight

"Daylight" was pretty dim today (overcast), but I think this photo is a winner:

Now to figure out how to bend Photoshop to my will. (I miss GraphicConverter... but it seems silly to buy a new GraphicConverter licence when I have Photoshop. I may break down and purchase a new GraphicConverter licence one day anyway.)

Weird

After I came in from gardening, there was a message on my answering machine, entirely in French. I figured it wasn't for me, and deleted it. Out of curiosity, I checked my caller id just now, wondering where the phone call came from. The area code was 704, which google tells me is a NC phone number. From what I saw on the news, NC is getting walloped by hurricane Irene today.

I sure hope that wasn't someone calling family for help. Even if it was something like "I'm okay, mom", that's also a message that would be best to get through.

Whoever you are, I hope you're okay, and are able to reach whomever you were trying to call. (R: Did I use who/whom correctly there?)

Venus Fly Trap

I am happy to report that my venus fly trap is distinctly *not* dead yet.

(That dead looking bit is the flowers from a while ago... they're supposed to die back.) It's blooming again. It seems determined to bloom, so I'm letting it.

It survived a dry Winnipeg winter outside of any protective enclosure, and then another dry period where I ran two window air conditioners 24/7. (The weather has gotten much nicer now, and so the A/C is off, and the windows are open. It's a little warm today, but *so* much better than Wednesday.)

Even though I was still wilting in the heat myself, it was amusing to hear all the dire heat warnings on the news for what is relatively normal summer weather in NC. ;)

And That's The Kind Of Day It's Been

Today was oppressively hot and humid.

I started off the day with a dentist appointment. (Just a bi-yearly cleaning.)

Approaching the dentist's office, I realized that it was going to be a hot ride to the university, made more uncomfortable by the fact that I wouldn't be allowed to drink anything until a half hour after my fluoride treatment. (My dentist is the type that still gives them to adults. Some friends say their dentists say it's unnecessary and/or pointless, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.)

The cleaning went smoothly... well, as smoothly as it ever does. There's an occasional accidental poke with something sharp, and the x-ray thing hurt my gums as always, but my teeth are all holding up to the level of care I've been giving them.

Normally I just get a toothbrush to take home. At the end of this visit, I got a whole goody bag:

Toothbrush (a different brand than usual), plane-friendly-sized toothpaste (the kind I'm using!), and a tiny spool of floss. I flashed back to being a six-year-old coming home from a birthday party.

The party stopped when I got back to the front desk. When the receptionist tried to run my insurance, it said it had been cancelled. WTF!?!??!!!!! I *know* I'm not the only person who gets re-hired every four months... *why* can't the university remember to renew my insurance each time!?!??? Last summer it took something like two *months* after I discovered the problem to get my supplemental health reinstated (I don't *care* if everyone is going on vacations, make sure *someone* is doing the effing job!), and I had this same nonsense the last time I was at the dentist! I was just looking at my pay stubs yesterday, and I was being deducted for the health premiums. I was *peeved*.

I asked the receptionist if there was a phone I could use, so that I could talk to my benefits person, and have her talk to the receptionist so that she knew what to do. My phone call rang then went to voicemail. (Grrr.) It said to press zero if you wanted to be helped right away (gee, that's why I'm *calling*), and so I did. I got put on hold. (Grrr.) Finally she said that my benefits person would talk to me. (She's *there*?!?? Why didn't she pick up the phone?!?!?!!!) Apparently, even though my supplemental health was hooked up properly, the dental coverage was separate, and *wasn't* set up! (The term started at the beginning of May. They had *two* months to get me set up!)

I had the benefits lady talk to the receptionist, the receptionist is going to submit a paper form next week, and she'll contact me if there's still something I owe after that. (I'm only covered 50%, but then there's the supplemental, and it's all just confusing.) *sigh*

On the way from the dentist's office to the bus stop, I found a forgotten Blackberry. I stood there for a minute, wondering how best to get it back to it's owner. (The device was password protected, so my usual technique of looking for an entry labelled "home" or "mom" wasn't going to work.) Luckily, the owner realized she had left it behind, and came rushing back. (She didn't seem that interested in my suggestion that she put contact information on the back of the device. Whatever.)

The first bus to work was air conditioned. Ahhh! There was a longish wait downtown, where I tried to stand in the shade of the lamp post. (I could also have pulled out my umbrella for shade, but it was rather gusty.) The second bus wasn't air conditioned. Luckily by then I was allowed to drink my water. Unfortunately, I realized I had already drunk over half on the way to the dentist, and had very little left. (Plus it was warm by then... much less satisfying.)

I made it to the university by half way through what should have been knitting lunch... but there were no knitters. I guess something came up. (We're a pretty small group.)

Work was slow this afternoon. I remembered some other questions I had for the benefits lady, and so e-mailed her around 4:00. Looks like she stared her weekend early, because she didn't reply. (Did I mention I dislike my benefits lady?)

The first bus home was also air conditioned. Yay! (In fact, I decided to catch a different one than I intended simply because it was air conditioned.)

They hadn't yet closed Osborne for the Canada day preparations by the time we got there, so traffic was better than it might have been.

Reaching the Village, I saw that the farmer's market had started up again for the season. I hopped off the bus and bought some local honey (I've been hoping to run into that guy before my supply ran out again) and some garlic scapes. Mmmm!

When I was done shopping, a bus arrived quickly. However, it was most definitely *not* air conditioned. Although it would have taken me home, I decided to hop off and visit Wolseley Wool, which was having a customer appreciation night. (I had initially intended to go, but had been wavering due to the oppressive heat and humidity, which was worse than earlier. WW isn't very close to bus routes... it's not too far, but not as close as you'd like when Winnipeg gets to either end of its temperature extremes.)

WW had punch with ice! I drank some punch, ate a few nibblies, petted the yarn, and bought some yarn to make gifts. Then I went back out into the horrible heat.

In addition to not being air conditioned, the next (and final) bus was packed like sardines. By the time I was home, I was *drenched*. The cool blast of air that greeted me when I opened my apartment door was heavenly, as was the cool shower.

I love my AC! Looking at the weather website, today's temperature peaked at 34 C (humidex 43 C)... I could tell that it wasn't quite as bad as the worst days in NC, but it was still bleeping hot.

And that is the kind of day it's been.

Blip Cause

It turns out the reason the power went out for an hour or so last night is that a tree tried to eat a neigbour's house, and took the power line with it. Either that, or the two events were a coincidence. (It's odd that a house line would take out such a large area... perhaps it tripped something?)

Blip

In my opinion, when the power goes out, it's time to go to bed. (Especially since the internet is out.)

Mr Party-Of-One thinks it's time to listen to music in his car. (Thankfully he isn't as loud as he used to be.)

Other observations:
• The emergency lights in the hall work.
• Clutter is more annoying in the dark.
• The tea light holder that I used to keep in the sock drawer (with the emergency tea lights and matches) seems to have wandered off.
• My apartment is *warm* with no fan or A/C. (Thankfully it wasn't any warmer.)

Fan Update

My uncle indicated interest in fiddling with the fan with me. He took it over to the house last Sunday (after helping me with the air conditioners), and I followed a bit later.

We tried pushing buttons (just in case), with no luck. So we started disassembly.

After the removal of many screws, we had the fan cylinder removed (it would have been *much* easier to clean that way), and exposed the circuit board at the top. (Uncle D expressed some doubts about fixing it when he saw that... things with circuit boards generally aren't fixable.)

We first decided to determine whether power was getting to the board. I'm not sure how we *intended* to do that, but we knew that it was getting it when I picked up the board when the fan was plugged in. (Boy, was that a *bizarre* sensation! Like a whole bunch of ants crawling on my fingers. At that point, I was glad there was a second person, just in case we needed to call 911 at some point!)

I noticed something labelled "fuse" (probably a fuse... I'm clever like that), and asked if I should be able to see a filament spanning it (which I couldn't). Uncle D said yes, but commented that the light was poor in the garage. So I took the collected semi-attached fan bits outside. There was indeed a filament spanning the fuse.

Then I tried pushing what the buttons connected to, in case it was a problem transmitting the button pushes.

This is when I discovered the button labelled "on/of" (using the 0/1 notation) was actually just an "off" button. To get the fan to turn *on*, you had to push the fan speed button. (I have vague recollections of having the same problem in a previous year. I'm daft.)

Now that the problem was diagnosed as a probable "ain't broke, don't fix it", the task was to reassemble without causing new problems!

Getting the circuit board reattached with the button connectors in position was tricky, but possible. Everything else was reasonably easy. At every stage, we tested that the motor still turned on.

Once fully reassembled, the fan worked! Well, sort of. If we chose the "rotate" option, the fan would occasionally cut out and restart, or just cut out.

I brought the fan in the house to demonstrate to the rest of the family, but it didn't cut out at all (well, in the time period they were willing to put up with a fan blowing on a cold day).

My theory now is that the fan missed my parents. (It's a hand-me-down fan.) Their garage was better than my house, but their house was better than the garage, since it was then fully "home" again. I haven't tested my theory by plugging it in at my apartment yet. ;) (After all, the natural A/C is working!)

I control the weather...

...but not in a good way.

Last weekend, I installed my air conditioning. Suddenly "nature's air conditioning" started working just fine. (Yay for lower power bills!)

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day, and the forecast for today was for rain to start this evening. Last night I (foolishly? cleverly?) stated my intention to dig up a tree stump this morning if it wasn't raining. The first time I woke up this morning, I heard the distinct sounds that indicate it's too wet for digging tree stumps out of gumbo. (Traffic has a different sound when the roads are wet.) So I went back to sleep for a few more hours.

It's been a lovely, lazy day so far. :) I should probably get moving and wash some dishes, though.

To those of you intending to garden this weekend, I'm sorry. To those of you who don't need to water their plants now, you're welcome.

Air Conditioning

I got my AC installed this weekend, with help from my uncles. Of course, this means it cooled off drastically outside, and so now my apartment is delightfully cool without them. :)

On the bright side, the cool weather means I spotted this awesome sweater on the bus this morning:


Looks like a handknit out of white buffalo, or maybe Lopi. (Given the design, it's probably Lopi.) Although I'm spinning my yarn finer, I want to adapt this pattern for my yarn from Princess. (That reminds me... I need to writ the retreat post!)

The benefit of being able to identify yarns... this Lopi pattern, #156 (Ravelry link) looks to be *almost* the pattern. The one I saw was actually a cardigan, has a fancier collar, and a few minor differences in the pattern. I wonder if the knitter made the modifications, or if Lopi has another pattern?

Yeppers, Lopi #156! (Note: PDF link.)

Update

Manitoba is soggy. Send ark.

I'm still sick. I was supposed to go sandbagging today.

Dad called this morning, four minutes before my alarm was set to wake me up. He needed e-mail tech support. Bonus to doing Saturday morning tech support: my croaking convinced him that he didn't really need me for sandbagging. Downside: croaking is hard on the throat. (I sure hope I'm better before students start descending in hoards.)

Not being needed for sandbagging is good, because, besides the fact that my lungs are crap, my back has been acting up today. (For some reason, the ribs around and below my right shoulder blade hurt.)

A second CFL died tonight. (The first one died a week or so ago.) However, unlike the first one, this one is a more-expensive, tri-light bulb. It did prompt me to finally remove both bulbs, rinse the dust and dead bugs from the shades (the shades on both cup under the bulbs), and put a fresh bulb in the office. (I had been getting by on one.) However, I don't keep backup tri-light bulbs (expensive, and sold as singles), so that one will have to wait. Luckily I have an alternate light in the living room, although on the opposite side of the room from where I sit to knit and watch TV.

Dad called again for follow-up e-mail tech support. He was having dinner. Unlike when my brother does tech support for my mom & step-dad, who always gets a meal provided when he does tech support, apparently dinner isn't on offer to me. When I tried to weasel in on dinner, dad revealed he was calling from a restaurant, and wouldn't be home for an hour or so. *sigh* Since I want to do the follow-up support from his place, I told him to call again when he got home.

I forgot to ask if he got the dike high enough.

The apartment hallway smells foul. It's like a mixture of spilled alcohol, scented cleaning products, and smoke... but whether from cigarette or cigar (or something else), I can't tell. Between the smell and my back, this hasn't been my favourite day to be tromping to and from the laundry room.

Oh, and a follow-up on the taxes: apparently I shouldn't do computer taxes while sleep deprived (no one else had the software switch them to French), the government will send me a new Notice of Assessment in a language I *can* read, and the nice lady on the phone says my cereal box French is not that bad. (I tried reading out certain lines I had questions about.)

I am slowly going crazy...

It is very definitely day. Snow is travelling horizontally, from west to east. Although it is day, I'm not sure it is May. It looks more like December. (There aren't the huge snowbanks that we'd have if it were January.) However, I can't tell if it's last December, or next December.

I finished the design, printed it, and assembled it. I was about to start tracing, when I realized I was famished. I decided to stop for... is cereal eaten at 7 am breakfast even if you haven't slept in 21 hours?

I decided to leave pills for second breakfast, which I assume will happen after some sleep. (Please let there be sleep!)

Okay, off to trace, then to apply resist.

Beds Are For Sleeping? Really?

So tired!

(Yes, the clock does say 5:07, and that's AM, not PM.)

Sometimes I question my sanity. Like when I'm up at 5:07 AM, preparing for a demo. Or when it's May 1, and it's snowing outside, and a few days ago I was wishing my window ACs were installed. (Yes, snow is falling. West of here, highways are closed. It's ridiculous!)

Tomorrow (today?) is a *long* day. Pick up at 12:20, demo at 1:00, running credit cards for purchases 2:00 - 4:00, take-down 4:00 until complete... then figuring out what I can cook for dinner (pots and pans are all dirty again) and doing laundry... minimum two loads (bedding), but it's looking like more than four to get it all done. (How does an art show produce *laundry*?!?!) Monday I start back to work, and it would probably be a good idea to have clean laundry.

I suspect I'll be buying lunches next week. (Of course, that requires that I obtain cash.)

*sigh*... back to work. I can't rest yet. There's a bit more of the design to complete, then printing, assembling, tracing, and applying resist. *whimper*

I hope I get to have *some* sleep, to punctuate "today" before "tomorrow".

Wonky

It's 20 C out, 25 C in my apartment (I *soooo* want to put the AC in), and there's a winter weather watch, with snow forecast for tomorrow. Who set the weather settings to "random"?

Change of seasons

You know winter is over when construction hits. There was a plague of it downtown yesterday.

Sorry I caused the weather to turn cold overnight... I left my windows open all night. (It was *brisk* today, inside *and* out!)

More Miscellany

Winter is back. The brief respite we had earlier this week gives me hope that I will soon be back on my bike. :) (Although I was definitely under-dressed taking the trash out wearing shorts & a t-shirt.)

Speaking of exercise, it's too bad that running in your dreams doesn't count... the other night I think I ran for 100 years. (I can't remember the details any more, of course.)

I beat the others to the laundry room today. I won't be up until 2 am waiting for my last load tonight! :) (I heard some doors just now that makes me think someone else went to check on the status of the washer/dryer.)

From the sounds of things, all of my friends' friends and family in Japan are okay... but a lot of other people aren't. My thoughts are with them. I sure hope that nuclear reactor doesn't blow... (and that the explosion that already happened was indeed not serious.)

Miscellany

March 1 the overnight parking ban on snow routes was lifted. It seemed crazy... after all, to all appearances, we were in the depths of winter. That week, the words "bitterly cold" were used to describe the forecast. Today, I was confused by my thermometer, because it wasn't using a minus sign. (+6? How can it be +6? Must be heat leaking through my cheap apartment windows.) Although the weather web page isn't saying it is as warm as my thermometer, it also isn't using a minus sign.

There is, however, a blizzard warning for today. The pain in my sinuses appears to confirm that.

Oh joy... sounds like the engineering "band" is playing in the atrium. (Drums, cowbells, some sort of brass wind instruments. Only approximations of "music", in the loosest sense.)

It appears that I'm *not* scheduled to meet with the student I tutor this morning. He wasn't where we usually meet, and none of his e-mails mention today... but I don't remember hearing the words "we aren't meeting tomorrow". However, I think he has a midterm today, so the fact that we aren't meeting isn't that surprising. I guess I should do a better job at confirming these things.

Too bad my marking is at home. However, I have a program I'm working on, and can use the time for that.

I think my angora "ice queen" thing sheds fur in my eyes. I seem to have problems on days I'm wearing it. I washed my eye when I got in, and put some drops in. (Those drops are *expensive* for such tiny little bottles!)

A friend of mine has family stationed in Japan... does anyone know the condition of the US military bases there? I haven't heard much about the levels of damage yet, just that an emergency number has been set up, and that phone lines are tied up. My sympathies to all who are affected by the earthquake and after-effects.

Yesterday's Snow

THANK YOU to those who shovelled! (That thar walk was *hand* shovelled!)

Walking through yesterday's snowfall was hard on the knees.

How's the weather where you are?

Hoar Frost

The hoar frost was lovely today.