Visit the kelpforest....

Happy New Year 2013 by *senoritafish on deviantART

I'm sorry, I am late with everything for this year. Seems like I spend most of my time on my Nook, which will not let me copy/pasta anything, and it's kind of pain to type longer entries on. But in any case I think I'm allowed to say Happy New Year all of January, right?

I did the shark a while ago - you've probably seen it before, but finally kicked the kid's off the family laptop long enough to make the background New Year's Day. Gimp comes with kinda crappy fonts for text.

I wish everyone a far better and happier 2013 than 2012 was (and a good riddance to it). It's been rough for a lot of us, and I have to believe it can only get better.

So, once upon a time, the Corpse Bride, a plague doctor*, and Rainbow Dash the My Little Pony went Trick or Treating...



This was after the candy collection and Avalon's posture is "I'm soooooo tiiiirrred..." She was wearing some fancy silver flip-flops, but they were hurting her feet. Angus was pronounced scary, and a couple people thought Gareth wasn't wearing a costume (C'mon, you gotta do better than that!) until he turned around. He's trying to do the V behind Angus's head (because that's something Rainbow Dash would do), but didn't realize his hat was hiding it. ;p

( behind cut, as I know pictures of other peoples kids are mostly of interest to other people... )

Hope everyone had a Happy 4th (here in the States, that is). Pretty par for the course here. Parade, fireworks. We thought about going to Anime Expo on Sunday, but at least one fry decided they didn't want to go, runsamuck pouted about possibly staying home from his friend Jerry's (they have a standing Sunday video game playdate), and most importantly, I neglected to buy tickets ahead of time, not to mention Angus is no longer in the child ticket range, and definitely won't pass for twelve anymore (I think he's as tall as me now, and starting to get acne and a peach fuzz mustache. Pretty sure he's outgrown the Sesshomaru costume I made for him few years ago). It would have been $170 at the door just to get in for one day, which I really can't justify right now. Maybe a smaller convention later, if we can find one nearby. Angus likes to remind me, "I kept telling you!" Yes, dear...

Also, on Saturday up there, there was a bomb scare, but people seem to be less freaked out by hordes of costumed fans descending on downtown Los Angeles. Although I find it a little odd that these articles were all in the OC Register, and I didn't come across any from the LA Times. Oh well.

( Aquarium... )



( 7/4/2011 )

I have a number of things I want to post about, but I have a couple of work deadlines I have procrastinated on for way too long and now I feel like Garrison Kiellor's Winged Motivational Products™ are glaring down at me from my cube walls. Gonna have to wait until at least the first one is finished with, but at least need to get something off my mind. To do:

• Concert.


• Spokane.


• Brothers, sheesh.


• ?

Meanwhile, today is my dad's birthday. I was aware, but runsamuck mentioned it to me after dropping the kids off at school as well. Every time I do something for the first time since he died, I remember he was here the last time I did this. Almost every time I take a can out of the cupboard, I remember going with him to Smart & Final and arguing about the checkbook. The frozen burrito I brought for lunch today he was charging around the store pushing the grocery cart for, disdaining his walker. It's Flag Day and I never remember to put the flag out - that was always a good reminder of what day it was.

(banner by spraypaint - who also did this nifty FlashFreeze Geocache Event we went to a couple of years ago - small world!)

Really could use one lately... I've been reminded that today is Towel Day, on the day at least and not the day after (when I usually hear about/remember these things). Most of my towels seem to be either in the laundry or otherwise damp, so I quickly grabbed this one at the 99¢ Only store.



It's really more of a cloth than a towel, but hey, it's super-absorbent! It's already come in handy for dusting off my monitor. And I'll have to pull some Douglas Adams off the bookshelf...and remember not to panic.

Had to go back and get a six-month mammogram this morning; there were some elderly men in the waiting room, too. Although I know men are not immune from breast cancer, it turns out they came for bone density scans. Maybe that's why the place is less pink now. All the better.

The tech asked if I'd had any problems since the last one. So I told her that particular side has been feeling kind of tingly and weird lately. However, this started almost immediately after I was told I had to come back for a closer look after the last mammogram. So I was inclined to think it's all in my head, but thought I'd relay it anyway. She raised an eyebrow and asked if I kept my cellphone in my bra - and while there's probably room, I've never really used my bra as a purse. She said her mother used to carry her phone there and complained of the same thing. When she stopped, the feeling went away. Go figure.

But apparently all is well - whatever they noticed last time is completely gone. I still have go back again in October - a follow-up follow-up? - but I guess that can be crossed off the worry list. Although it was pretty far down there to begin with.

(and new icon - borrowed and modified from outside a bar downtown...)

Happy Groundhog Day! If we had groundhogs here, they'd fershure be seeing their shadows, as it's sunny but blowing gusty Santa Ana winds (do gophers work instead?). And by the way, Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies.

( Dad update... )

He's also finally expressed a bit more interest in reading - so far, he hasn't wanted to, but did like it when Doug and I read short stories to him. My brothers and I had talked about going in together on a Kindle for him since he's been complaining that books, especially hardbacks, just start getting too heavy to hold up and start hurting his hands. I decided to go with a Kindle rather than a Nook because of its text-to-speech feature. If he gets tired of holding it, it can read to him. We got our tax refund recently, so I went to Staples at lunch yesterday and grabbed one for him. This is actually a really nifty gadget! Does all kinds of things besides e books! If he decides he doesn't like it, I'll keep it myself. Man, the accessories are where they get ya, though. It doesn't have a backlight, so if you want to read where it's dim, you need a light for it and also a cover to keep it from getting wrecked. It was about the same price for all of them separately or a nice leather cover with an integrated light that actually runs off the Kindle battery ($60). And I suckered for the extended warranty, too. John always tells me they're not worth it, but we're hard on batteries and we're hard on gadgets.

I played around last night, looking for some free James Fenimore Cooper to put on it for him, and also found I could forward Word and PDF documents to it, so I tested that out with the thresher sampling plan proposal I need to make comments on. Pretty cool!

Apropos maybe: Seven Ways Electronic Books Can Make Us Better Readers. by the CEO of Levenger (I like to drool over their pens). I seem to be what he calls a preservationist - but I don't write in my books so much because I can't bear them being marked up, but more because when I'm reading, I'm in an absorbent mode. I might think of questions or notes later, but not usually during.

Rainbow Harbor - Squid boat and "trees." Hey, I've sampled this one!

When we got a little closer there were black-crowned night herons perched on top of the "trees."

Hmm, may have brightened this too much...the original was pretty dark.

On the last of school before Winter Break, Angus's core special ed class will be sharing family traditions and having a "Cultural Feast," for which each child is encouraged to bring some type of food, whether from a family tradition or cultural background. Huh. About the only traditional thing I make every year is clam chowder on Xmas Eve - which I actually changed from my mom making oyster stew (I like the flavor of oysters but not necessarily the texture). Last year when we went up to my brother's in his new place in LA, it morphed again into clam dip; he'd made something else, and had us make something my grandparents used to traditionally put out at family gatherings (that and celery sticks with Lawry's Seasoned Salt). I'm not sure how a bunch of seventh graders, some with allergies, and probably others with texture/sensory issues, are going to feel about clams, much less soup that might get kind of messy. Angus suggested calimari - ha! Even better! I can just see some kid's reaction to tentacles.

As far cultural background...um, haggis? Irish whiskey (runsamuck's suggestion)? Can't see those going over real well either. ;p

He did also bring up Hoppin' John, more of a New Year's thing. We've made it a few times, but I wouldn't quite say it's a tradition (and no one in either of our families is even Southern) - we could always make it one though.

Wow. From oppressive heat to pouring down rain; weather is bouncing like a rubber band...*

Well, I had been putting up mylife_onceaday photos that I'd posted to the community here, but then I got sidetracked by the scavenger hunts they started doing, and Sackboy Travels and other things. I still carry my camera around everywhere, but I guess I haven't been inspired to use it all that often, unless something really special or different happens. I feel like I seldom go anywhere new, and I'm constantly taking pictures of the same things, maybe just a different sky or another angle.

Anyway, the last non-themed thing I posted (here and in the community) was this, so I thought maybe I'd start catching up from there. And in a timely enough fashion, the next chronological photos are apropos for the month (and show I'm almost exactly a year behind - typical)...

http://www.ladayofthedead.com/



( LA Dia de Los Muertos.. warning - photo heavy )

Fantastic show. Great fun, the music was great and all the creations wonderful. I'm agnostic leaning toward atheistic, but if there is an afterlife, this is the way to celebrate it.

By the way, today is my mom's birthday. I think she might have liked this.


Link to all photos in this set. This year's Dia de Los Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is on October 30. You might see another post like this after that date.

___________________________
*this damn post started on 10/5 when the weather was being really record-breakingly weird. Need to get 'puters fixed...

Watching the July 4th parade, which goes down the street a block from my house. The city has a contest for people who live along the parade route to decorate their houses; I've no doubt this was an entry.

Independence Day Parade
Huntington Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
4 July 2010

( Sackboy's parade experience )

04. Stars &/or Stripes [Independence Day - USA]