Clutter

I am on a de-cluttering rampage, which might come as a shock for those who know me most intimately.

I like stuff. I have always liked stuff. Having stuff makes me feel safe and secure and this probably means I have lots of psychological issues (uh, duh, as the kids used to say).

However, due to the change in the seasons, the inspiration of a recently redone bathroom, or a recent viewing of ten minutes of the show Hoarders, I have decided to purge our place of some of that "stuff" I love so much.

So far, it has been moderately successful. The kitchen looks great, as does the living room (at the present moment. Just give it a day or two, I'm sure.). The teeny little bathroom we recently almost-totally remodeled looks fabulous and actually NEEDS a couple more things in it to complete it (more stuff? Yes please! New Stuff is in a different category than Old Stuff To Be Purged).

It has even extended to my photos, which are massively overwhelming me. The digital age has been glorious for photography, but lots of photos equals lots of data. And just lots of photos.

I want to get several pictures printed to hang, but choosing which ones seems like a massively overwhelming task. How overwhelming? Well, my dear brother gave me a wonderful Christmas gift involving me choosing a photo to print and I STILL haven't been able to do so. I've barely managed to sit down to attempt the feat three times, each time just feeling like it was an impossible task. Too many pictures, no easy way to sift the wheat from the chaff (since I don't have a good workflow for tagging favorites as they come in) and many of my favorites relatively inaccessible on another hard drive.

I think my next big project (that may or may not be completed, but would ease my heart SO much if I did finish it) will be to perform a COMPLETE backup of all my pictures onto gold DVDs or CDs so they last, complete with a binder (or binders) of index pictures, so I know which disc each picture is on. And copies of those DVDs in another location, like my parents' house. I think the hardest part will be getting the photos ready to burn to DVD. The thought of it makes me break out into a cold sweat.

I think I'll just retreat to the clutterless bathroom for now, thankyouverymuch!

Weekend in Pictures

We actually did do fun things this weekend, but I need to stretch them out for my NaBloPoMoing, because we do nothing during the week. Well, that's not entirely true. We have finally jumped on the Buffy bandwagon (what, a decade too late?) after an aborted attempt at starting at Season One (PS Not That Good). So yeah, an episode or two a night and we are DANGEROUSLY EXCITING.

This weekend. Right.

Here are some pictures, because, you know, a thousand words and stuff. And do you know how long it actually TAKES to type a thousand words? A lot longer than picking out pictures, I tell ya!

Here are three pictures of a beautiful sunset we had. I meant to only post two, but accidentally uploaded the third and figured, what the hell. Who doesn't like a pretty sunset? Pro tip: if your camera has a sunset mode, use it. The real sunset didn't look half as amazing.

Went to a super fun engagement party Saturday night wherein I drank some too-delicious vodka cider and remembered my fear of heights peeking over the edge of our friend's 14th floor balcony. Gulp.

Then we went for a walk on Sunday with Jasper and his little people friends (our adult friend and her daughters).

Near our place:

Jasper was watching something very intently. I'm pretty sure it was a leaf.

And finally, here is a video of Jasper frolicking in the snow when we had our storm. He can't wait for winter (but we sure can!).

I hope I still have stuff to blog about tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Kitchen Pictures

So I realized in looking over my recent posts that I have left a lot out in the kitchen update. Mostly it's because I feel like each step deserves a nice long post detailing what we did and how we did it (since it's all DIY), but frankly, that takes too long so the post goes unfinished. Since we are going to Michigan soon with the relatives and will have no internet for DAYS at a time (oh, the humanity!), I thought I would post some of the pictures I have taken of the various stages, with limited commenting interruption. If you desire any comments on any pictures, let me know and I will write about them.

Keep in mind that all of the pictures are "in progress" pictures. I will hopefully have pretty pretty post-renovation pictures after we get back.

Please see the before pictures before reading on to refresh your memory and help see the changes.

Safety is #1!



New microwave frees up counter space.


Not technically part of our kitchen, but this sweet pantry will free up a ton of cabinet space in the kitchen (which is great, since we didn't have enough in the last place, and we have even fewer here!)
So hopefully that gives a better indication of where we are now. In looking through these pictures, I realize we still don't have a very recent picture with the new fridge, sink and under cabinet lights on. Ah well, that will save some surprise for the final picture!

I can say this: doing all of this work ourselves has made me immeasurably proud (even if Peter has done pretty much all of the heavy lifting), and has allowed us to get a gorgeous kitchen for a fraction of the price of most renovations. I'll have to figure out the costs when all is said and done. Really, the only place we've gone much over what we had thought was in purchasing the various tools necessary to do the jobs, but those are reusable and MUCH cheaper than a contractor! I now actually WANT to cook and spend time in the kitchen, which Peter would probably say is worth the time and money (at least, as long as I can improve my cooking skills!).

With those pictures off my chest (and hard drive), I am off to bed so I can rise to unpack another day.

Oh dear!

It has been QUITE a while since I last posted!

Let's see... right now I am in between a very fun (and story-filled) road trip with my brother from Austin, TX to Reading, PA and starting school again on Monday (boo to that). I also just reformatted my external hard drive, which thankfully only had two months worth of pictures that were not backed up, but it was a very, very scary time when I thought I had destroyed everything.

I've greatly enjoyed my three weeks off, but as usual, it didn't feel like that much time at all. I realized on this break exactly WHY my breaks never feel like time off. It's because I *don't* have any time actually off! I always work through, and often I have to work extra because I need to make up for time I needed for finals, etc. So yeah, I may have a day or two here and there where I have nothing specific to do, but in real life you get those EVERY WEEK. They're called "weekends."

I will post later today (hopefully) about our crazy trip through the Eastern half of the country. It was definitely an adventure, I'm glad I could help my brother out (just imagine what it would have been like WITHOUT me, Peej!) and we got to do some very fun things along the way. Right now, I am uploading all of my pics to Flickr, having learned the lesson of the deleted hard drive.

Spring?

I can't wait for the weather to be warm again... but I remember how hot it can get in the summer, too!

Here's another picture taken after today's morning snow melted (notice the droplets):

My heart is singing

Click Click Click Click Camera

I am updating my iPhoto library and so am watching all 1,271 of my pictures from 2007 flash before my eyes. It's fun watching your whole year in review and has brought back a lot of great memories.

Also, I take a lot of pictures. My poor laptop and external hard drive are whirling like mad to try to stay cool under such pressure.

Edited to add: Apparently, those 1,271 pictures were just in one folder. I really took over 7,000 pictures last year. That seems more like it, sadly.

Still here

Sorry for the lack of posts, everyone. We had a very social weekend with a wedding shower of Friday (fun!) and house guests Friday through Sunday (also fun!). But the combo meant that free time was spent working on homework and assignments, so, it was not actually free time.

Exciting things:
We went to the football game on Saturday and roasted in the sun but CU won overwhelmingly, and winning is very fun, especially when last two games and last season were not-so-hot. The best part is that a lot of the good plays were made by freshman, so that really shows the rebuilding process is in full swing. Why I love our new coach: ""We've won four games in two years so we're just trying to win a football game against anybody," Hawkins said."

Picture from the game (in the student section with two of the girls in my program):

Weather was CRAZY today! Woke up to buckets of rain pouring down, complete with thunder and lightning. At 6:30 AM people! This simply does not happen here. Rain, especially accompanied by thunder, comes at 3 PM in August. That is it. Even crazier is that it rained all day. Not as heavy as the morning, but steady and more than a drizzle most of the time. They are saying we'll be above our average for the month already just after today. Crazy style, but good.

Craftiness

I love JoAnn's sales. I now have a huge stack of scrapbooking supplies for not too much money (though more than I had anticipated). I'm pretty sure I would be happy just looking at all the pretty papers and never scrapbooking a page. But I did do 3 so far tonight, so I really am using them. I love inspiration!

New Toys Part Deux

I wasn't expecting it, but we got a new MacBook today. Peter starts school next week and really needs something he can bring to school and back to work on lesson plans and other fun teacherly things, and since his old-ass laptop has forgotten it is a laptop and requires being plugged in constantly, he gets a new one. And oh what a new one it is! The clicky-ness of the keyboard, the teeny little camera practically smiling at you, and how can we forget the luscious,
glowy Apple logo on the back? Mmmm... I have been promised a new iMac when Leopard comes out (thank God for student loans and Peter's amazing scholarship this year). This way we won't have to fight over computers and we will both have what we need for school and hobbies (i.e., my photography obsession).

Peter also got iWork, which always looked appealing to me, but didn't since worth it before since it didn't have an Excel replacement (just PowerPoint and Word-like programs). Apple has now introduced Numbers, so it now replaces everything we ever used Office for. I think Peter was sold on it when he opened up the spreadsheet app and saw not only a grade sheet template, but also a science lab template, complete with incredibly easy charts and graphs. Like, wow. You mean, you can just highlight a chart, click a button and you get exactly the kind of chart you wanted all along? And don't even have to go through a 15-step "wizard" that never seems to get it right anyway? And on top of that, it looks like some high-end design team drew it, rather than a cubicle-dwelling number cruncher? Sweet.

I've played a little bit with the new iLife '08 (which the Apple store said we'd probably have to pay $10 to get the DVD mailed to us, but was already in the box as a "drop-in"). So far, so goo, though it's hard to get a real idea of it, since I don't want to crap up Peter's computer with my gajillions of gigs of media. I'll wait for my iMac to do that. Plus, I really don't have time to do much more than a little playing with my classes now. In the next week and a half, I have 5 projects due for two classes. So fun!

Second Day of Alaska

The picture of our second day in Alaska are up. We were still in Ketchikan, but it had begun to mizzle. We walked around town a bit as we had the day before, but the main event was a hike up to Deer Mountain. It started through old growth temperate rainforest, then ascended above treeline to where nice views would have been if it weren't raining. Apparently, the top was covered in snow, so we didn't make it quite that far. The hike itself was incredible and the misty rain just made it feel more magical.

After our slow soaking, we came back and wandered the small boat harbor while Peter caught small, bizarre sea fish. We then returned to our room on Creek Street, which is the old red light district. I think that pretty much explains most of the pictures, so enjoy!

Living a James Bond Movie

As promised, a blog about Whittier, Alaska. Motto: "Unique, even in Alaska!" And that's saying a lot.

The Lonely Planet book promised us that no matter where we went in the world, we'd never find another place like Whittier. I thought, yeah right. But now I'm a believer.

Whittier was built by the military in WWII as an alternate ice-free port to Seward, which was the northernmost at the time and not as defensible as the military would like. So they carved out a spot in between these huge mountains where it was cloudy most of the time so the place couldn't be spotted. PS Did you know that the Japanese actually occupied several of the Aleutian Islands during WWII and that there were huge battles there? Yeah, me neither. So this base was not some silly military paranoia.

Anyway, the flat area was practically nil, plus it was freezing-ass cold in the winter (duh) so the military built one huge building with everything in it: barracks, hospital, even a shooting gallery. For a while, it was the biggest building in Alaska. Eventually, they built another huge building as housing for spouses and families. The military peaced out in the late '60s, I think, which left the town in its current state. And what is that you ask?

Let's take a little tour of Whittier as it is now. To get to the town from the ferry building, you follow this pleasant sign:
Ah! A pedestrian tunnel! How thoughtful! How very urbane and sophisticated!

And then you enter the tunnel:

The camera makes the light seem much warmer and friendlier than it actually was. It was a cold gray tube that was impossible to see the end of, as it had a turn at the end, and that made me feel more claustrophobic and trapped than much else I've done. The first time in, it felt endless and maze-like, exactly like we were Cold War spies or refugees. But at last, the tunnel did end and we emerged into the sunlight (AKA not raining. Not raining= a beautiful day in much of Alaska).

Remember the first building the government built? So now it's abandoned and as creepy looking as you can imagine. There are stalactites on the calcium leached out of the concrete hanging visible through the empty windows and the concrete has molded and mildewed until it has turned some interesting shades. Why not get rid of this eyesore? Well, for one thing it's full of asbestos and for another, the guy who owns it lives in Anchorage and basically doesn't give a shit. So this hunk of poisonous concrete just sits there, visible from anywhere in town, and serves no purpose, except maybe as an excellent place for the poor children of Whittier to get some truly life-threatening thrills at midnight.




Because really, who wouldn't want to just hop on into a building like this:

Let's continue on our tour.

Now that the big building is out of commission, everyone lives in the OTHER building the government built, called Begich Towers. Yes, pretty much everyone in town (all 88) lives in the 14 story high rise. Oh, a high rise? Sounds very urbane and sophisticated! Well, remember that this was built by the military. In the 1960s. The outside doesn't look bad at all (lots of windows, you can see it in the background of the tunnel sign picture), but the hallways inside are exactly like living in a dorm built in the 1960s (which Peter and I did for two years each. We know.).
This could be home! On the first floor is a post office (with a very friendly post mistress), city offices, a laundry, a church. a general store, a clothing store and probably several other things. And the hallway looks exactly like this. Only the doors lead to stores and offices, not apartments. Odd, but handy for the 251 inches of snow they get, on average.

OK, all of this is slightly odd, probably quite unique, but not enough to qualify as a James Bond town. No, for that we need to head back toward the giant abandoned building. Imagine you are walking along a street (in the middle, actually; it's not that busy), with warehouse-y buildings on either side, when all of a sudden, you see this:

Men in head to toe white plastic suits, with only a hole for their face. They look a little like giant oompa-loompas (but not orange). Nuclear testing facility for an evil laser? Or fish packing plant? You decide. Ultimately, the henchmen sealed the deal for Whittier. Oh, and plus the only way to get in or out of Whittier (aside from the ferry or stowing away on a boat) is through this hole in a giant mountain:

It's only as big as a train will fit through, though they've now opened it up to car traffic. It was the longest tunnel in America until the Big Dig (finally) finished, but it still gets to be the longest highway-rail tunnel (cuz who's the competition?). When we were on the ferry, one of the guys was under the impression that since it was a "shared" tunnel, the cars drove alongside the train. Ha! Nope, cars get to wait 20 minutes or more for the train to go through one way, then for traffic to come through the other way, and THEN you can go through your way (does it look big enough to fit two lanes? Hells no.). When we were first walking toward it (our best hike began right next to the tunnel) I totally thought this was the little hut where you had to pay your toll or whatever. Check out this picture from Wikipedia and tell me it does not look like a toll hut:

Yeah, but no. That IS the tunnel. It was very exciting to go through on the train. Very dark. We talked to a guy about his new iPhone the whole time. Astonishingly, it didn't work in the tunnel under the mountain. Truly astonishingly, it DID work in Whittier. But poor Alaskans can't get iPhones because AT&T doesn't have a network up there, just partner carriers. They get mad if you use the partners every single day of the year and cancel your contract. So no iPhones for poor Alaskans, and they already suffer so much.

OK, I've blabbered on for WAY too long (kudos if you are still with us!), but I have to say they very best thing about Whittier is its stunning scenery. The hike from the tunnel led us to our own personal overlook of Portage Glacier, there were more waterfalls than I could count (literally), and the mountains rose out of the water in such a stunning way. Here is the view of Whittier from the top of our hike:



Thanks for reading!

Mmm... red meat

Home!

We got in to Denver at about 8 this morning after a restful red-eye (ha!). My body is so whacked out it doesn't know what to do. We slept for a few ours when we got home, ate whatever we could scrounge, did some unpacking, then I went back to sleep for another hour and a half. By 8:30 PM when we got home from Costco to restock the basics, I was so hungry I seriously was not able to function. A quick dinner and I'm ready for bed again. Peter went out to hang up some laundry and said "It's dark!" Weird. Darkness. Plus, um, have you noticed it's freaking hot? and humid? And supposedly it was cooler today. Woah.

In good news, we managed to get all the fish in our freezer:

We only had to take out almost all our veggies, nuts and fruit, but who needs those things when you have fish? Isn't protein all a human needs?

Oh wait, you want to hear more about Alaska? Who gives a flying crap about our freezer, you say? Fair enough. Since I'm tired and have a bowl of half-frozen strawberries to finish, I'll just give you a little update on how our trip ended.

We weren't sure what we were going to do with our last day in Anchorage; it was a much bigger city than anything we had seen before, but we were still trying to find things that interested us (we weren't feeling the museum vibe). We happened to see something about the World Eskimo Indian Olympics in the newspaper that morning (thanks Hilton!), but there wasn't much info about the when, where, etc. I guess they just figured you'd know all that if you were a local. So after some investigation, we found the spot and headed over (but not before stopping at the coolest bookstore after Powell's in Portland, Title Wave Books).

The newspaper had mentioned the crazy events in the Eskimo Indian Olympics, things that had to be seen to be believed. Read this for descriptions of the games. And if you want, go to YouTube and type in "World Eskimo Indian Olympics" or "WEIO" for some video (not too much there and none of it mine... yet).

The best part (for me) was the processional with all the different dance group from all over the state, with a few from Arizona and New Mexico thrown in for some variety. The songs, the drums, the traditional dress and the dancing were so incredible they brought tears to my eyes. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the processional. The lighting and the distance weren't great for my camera, so most of the pictures are mostly for memories, not so much to showcase the incredible beauty and diversity. Peter was taking video as well, so hopefully I can get that imported and digested somewhat soon.

Southeastern group:

My favorite picture of them all. Isn't she amazing?

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Yesterday:

Today:

Taste of Spring

Today was absolutely gorgeous. May I order another, please? I was more inspired to take pictures today than I have been in quite a while. Maybe it was the light, or the spring fever palpable across campus, but I just wanted to pull out my camera and capture everything. I took the photo to the right while I was talking on the phone with my mom (As a side note, she does not have thyroid cancer! Yipeee!!!!). I balanced the camera on my knee, tried to aim a little bit, and shot. This was by far the most non-crazily-lopsided take of the bunch.

Also inspiring me photographically is Threadless. I've blogged about this great site before, but they are having another sale, so last night I went on a shopping spree (well, a spree for us, anyway). They have a thing where you get credit for taking pictures of yourself wearing their shirts, and you get more credit if they love your picture, so I've been trying to think of some really creative, pretty ideas for compositions. My biggest obstacles are: free time while there's still daylight, free time in general, and a photographer. Since I have to be in the picture (wearing the shirt), it may be hard to get the results I want with someone else shooting. It's not like I have anything too fancy-shmance in mind, but I do have something in mind, you know?

Anyway, that brings me to what I've been thinking about more lately. I need to do more posed photographing of people. I'm a crappy people photographer right now and I'd like to change that. All I need are some willing subjects. Any takers?

Here are some portraits or a more (or less) willing subject:

Fun with Photoshop

I've had a wee bit of downtime, time when I was too tired to work, but too awake to sleep, and I've been playing with some effects in Photoshop. I can't decide if I love these effects, or if they look too silly, so please let me know your opinions. (Sample pics are our wedding photos by the wonderful Monique Sady)

Original:

Photoshopped:

Comments? Suggestions? Which do you like better?

Joyeux Noel

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday. I'm in Reno now, with my family, but away from the Hubband. I'll see him tomorrow, which is good because I miss him! Lots has happened in the past week, but I haven't had much time or desire to blog about much of it.

My cousin passed away earlier this month, but her memorial was planned for a little later, so I was able to fly out for it. It was truly lovely, but very sad because she was honestly an angel on earth. Because of that unexpected trip out to CA, our Christmas plans were changed. As it turns out, it really worked out for the best. Had we gone with our original plan, we would have been driving (or not) on the day the blizzard hit Denver. As it is, both of us were able to make it out of Colorado days before we would have otherwise, and with relatively little difficulty.

I've been busier than I expected, but I've been able to sneak in some "vacation" time. I had a bunch of papers I had to finish while we were in CA for the memorial, so I basically worked, cried, visited or was otherwise occupied for the first four days of my "break." It's gotten a little better now, but I still have a huge paper hanging over my head that I must finish before the end of winter break. That's the "mixed" part of the mixed blessing that is taking an incomplete. You don't have to finish it in time for the end of the semester, but you do have to finish it!

And the picture at the beginning of the post is from the night my brother PJ when expressed his need to give me the college experience I never had (because I was lame and never went to a party, but instead read the dictionary for fun. Seriously.). Beer pong at Sig Ep with a bunch of his old friends (many of whom are mine too), then we headed over to the Wal to close the bad boy down (where this pic was taken of one of PJ's brothers, I think), then a cold walk back to the Sig Ep house, which was enough to complete my sobering up. It was a lovely night and very fun. We managed to get over 20 people in PJ's room, which is so big that we still definitely could have fit at least 5-10 more if the stood in the closet and the bathroom. Fun times!

Why I don't know why I don't own ten of these at this very moment

These are Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppies and I *will* have one one day! Here are two images from cuteoverload.com. If you've never been there before, you must go immediately for vast quantities of the cutest animals ever to walk the face of the planet (animals of all kinds, they don't 'scriminate!). Without further ado:





And the killer:





Aackk!!!! How can you resist??? (AOUS????)