Winding down

So I'm fast approaching the 3 month mark of being unemployed and things are winding down here. I've already begun the process of finding new work- have applied to a number of places already. Am targeting Nov. 9th for a start date. Fingers crossed that I can a company that both interests me and wants to hire me. Am never able to escape that Woody Allen joke "I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member" in terms of work though...

In terms of the things winding down: I'm excited that most my projects/goals/objectives of this hiatus have been met or are very near the finish line. Other than claiming I was going to do TWO quilts rather than just one (because I'm an idiot), I feel I've done an excellent job of scaling my ambitions to my expected available time. The quilt is essentially done, just needs some more superfluous stitching and a wash. The books are going to be finished come hell or high water. I've learned to cook chicken a number of ways (some of them even fast and easy!) and feel rather confident I could prepare a "meal" on the fly now after work without excessive stress or research. I've got 3 branch libraries to hit and then I'll have tackled 'em all. I had an excellent run of 5+ mile a' days there and don't feel guilty or bad that I've slipped back down to a steady 3 miles a day because I want to, you know, DO THINGS during the day and walking takes a hella' lot more time than initially anticipated.

(I dehydrated a hard boiled egg. I DO NOT ADVISE IT)

I guess the main let-down of this whole extended vacation was I failed to advance my drawing skills. I had hoped to tackle landscapes and I've made not a pinch of progress on that these 3 months (or past 10 even- it was one of my few resolutions this year). I also failed to attend any sort of fitness bootcamp nonsense thing, which I never really seriously considered but had always faintly hoped I'd do given sufficient free time. Maybe three months just wasn't "sufficient" enough, 6+ months off and I'm sure I'd get around to it...

In terms of other, just general awesome things:

Saw the whole blood moon eclipse thing. Happiness.

Went to the SF Super Hero Street Fair with company. Had a drink even! Danced with Santa. Was swept off my feet by random silver spandex man and made very happy. Good times.

Finally took another stab at hard crack sugar. It went better this time. I am emboldened.

Suko and I have not yet abandoned archery. This makes me proud of us.

I got a calligraphic letter from Katie in the mail, and it wasn't even a reply to something I'd sent. Just outa' the blue. So nice!

Enjoyed opening weekend at the Petaluma corn maze. Highly recommend it.

Winning and Gaming

Life goes on, like it does. Things continue to be reasonably well. I am sad that I failed to post something in March. We visited Hawaii, it was nice, hopefully photos will make their way online at some point.

I've had some minor successes here and there recently that please me. While camping at the start of the month I was Mistress of the Campfire and managed to start several fires (in the fire pit) with one match each. This makes me proud. In the last seven months I've managed to lose 10 pounds and am only about 3 away from my randomly-chosen target. In that same time frame I've gone off the pill, and despite initial fear/uncertainty stayed off of it. While I struggle with Feelings, less reliable biology, more Feelings, and whatnot I think being free of it has improved a lot of things in life. When I ask Adam if he's noticed any change his immediate response is "You want to draw all the time."

At work I've been more assertive and involved in more external facing stuff. On a recent call the folks on the other side of the line said something along the lines of my introduction being the best they've ever heard and they were happy/excited to work with me. I continue to "Make an Impression" on people. It helps that I finally feel like the non-engineers I'm working with respect me. While my hatred and loathing of Python blossoms by the day, I've been able to carve out work for myself in Java and it's a delight.

On the art side I've had several crafting successes that makes me extremely pleased with myself. The feeling of having an idea, executing on it, and having it not suck is incredibly delightful- and sadly still quite rare. My sketching is still sporadic- I've fallen off the "morning sketch" routine and ache to return to it- but at least I'm sketching sometimes. Tonight at Dr. Sketchy's I finally won again (2nd place) which always makes me happier than it should.

On the other hand, there's been some gaming. Definitely no winning there. Have been mostly having fun, but so not winning. Except for one game of Pandemic, which was won... but when I think back on it, I'm pretty sure we were cheating...

Extended 4th Terminus session was fun- there was a map and even some dice rolls! But sadly there was also NPC deaths and damage, despite all efforts. And the party is split. And who knows when we'll ever game together again. The end is nigh.

Played my first LARP character this weekend. Burying oneself in costuming does in fact help with nerves! Does not magically help you win however. Upon hearing my character's description, Adam asked if I was worried about being typecast, to which my response was simply :P

Game of Thrones is a horrible game. It may not displace Caylus as Worst Game (since Caylus has fundamentally broken gameplay in my opinion) but it displaces Power Grid for certain as Most Unpleasant To Play. Will I ever get to play Puerto Rico again? At least Adam and I played a couple hands of Race for the Galaxy and while he (as always) won the 2 of 3 set, I put up a solid fight each round.

Life goes on, like it does.

Bay Area Public Transportation Hike

I've never owned a car. Adam got rid of his car shortly after we moved to our current home. Luckily SF is an excellent city to be carless these days.

Just about the one and only major draw back to lacking a car is hiking. The Bay Area is wonderful for so may reasons, and one of the top o' the list reasons is the fabulous nature surrounding the cities here. Sure, there's Zipcar- and we've definitely used it for hiking- but driving 2 hours round trip for a 4 hour hike just seems... not great. Especially given that I almost always fall asleep right after a hike and leave poor Adam alone and bored behind the wheel. That's why it's always such a treat to find quality hikes entirely reachable via public transportation.

This week's find was a lovely hike up in the Oakland hills. Took the BART to Rockridge and then the 49B bus to Derby St & Claremont Blvd. There's an excellent collection of trails there.

The area is Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve is where we started and Strawberry Creek Canyon is where we ended. In particular we hiked the Stonewall Panoramic Trail & several fire trails.

As we were approaching the peak, we kept hearing these train noises. "Can we actually hear Amtrak from here?" we wondered. No, you can't. What you CAN hear is the super awesome Redwood Valley Railway which just so happened to be open for us on this weekday. For $3 a piece we hopped the train for a delightful ~12 min ride in the FREEZING COLD. We also forgot to stop Strava so when you check out the Strava results the flat ~2m portion in the middle is us hiking off the path, going around the train, and coming back.

Taking out the 2 miles and 30 minutes for the train trip, the hike was ~7.6 miles ~2hr 20min. Felt like a lot longer... because it was FREEZING COLD for most the hike. Be sure to check the weather and BELIEVE the reports before you head out on a hike, folks! End of the hike dropped us at the Berkeley BART.

Barcelona & Berlin's Natural History Museums

Visiting a new Natural History Museum is the best! Visiting one in a foreign country, even better! I am very thankful that I was able to hit both Barcelona & Berlin this summer.

Barcelona NHM

To quote straight from my Flickr album:

Barcelona's Natural History Museum was one of the most striking ones I've seen.

It didn't have the best taxidermy (though it was good), it didn't have the best displays (though they were nice), it wasn't very kid friendly, and it wasn't very populated. What it did have going for it was that it had AMAZING pro-science text. I've included 2 plaque shots in this album and I should have taken more. The wording was firm and in no way dumbed down. I even learned things!

It had the briefest early-earth section I've seen (fine with that!) and followed the double sided glass display style which appears to be so popular now. Good for viewing, horrible for photos.

I would HIGHLY recommend this museum if you're in Barcelona. It's north of the beach, along the shore. Great stop to maybe evade the midday sun (as we did).

Just thinking back to this museum fills me with joy and a pinch of wonder. There was a whole mini-room on evolution that is one of the boldest I've seen and actually did a great job trying to address confusions people might have with the theory. Another room was all about scientific naming, and it really impressed both Adam and I. A subject that I hadn't thought about (perhaps Adam had- he has a Philosophy of the History of Science degree) that was laid out in a clear and interesting fashion.

There was also a great section on molds and fungus with giant models and interesting video displays that I didn't a single shot of- by that point Adam and I were running around trying to read everything. Good times.

Berlin NHM

I visited Berlin's NHM back in 2006, it was one of the first I'd seen. Since then it'd been lodged in my brain as one of my favorites for their innovated design and large taxidermy on display within touching distance. (I did not touch it!) I also have great sketches from my visit and fond memories of a Swedish boy who flirted with me and a young child who "helped" me with my sketch (she didn't scribble *that* bad on it)

It had been under construction then so I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was that none of it was as I remembered. Missing was my favorite-est display of animal kingdoms across biomes and everywhere were the now tedious to me large clear glass displays. There was the token "bio diversity" display I see everywhere and dinosaur bones (well displayed!)

After a little bit of time though, I realized I was being unfair. I was sad that exhibits I loved were gone, but in their place I had to acknowledge that there was some really great and inovated displays. The taxidermy was still top notch (and new!) and as I wound my way through I found at the end of the path some of the old displays I enjoyed.

Their collection can also be jaw-droppingly impressive when you take in the scope of it. I know many museums have large collections, but this one really highlights it. The massive wet room was breathtaking and the storage you can peek at upstairs heartbreaking (that it's not ALL available for display)

So, despite my initial temper tantrum, I would still rank the Berlin NHM as one of the best, if perhaps still the best.

I look forward to going back again in another 7 or so years.

Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive

My Oculus Rift arrived yesterday and I have no Windows machine to run it with (and they've still not released the Mac SDK). So rather than fall into a pit of despair, let's focus on some recent positives.

Visited my parents in Vancouver two weekends ago. Lounged in my verdant childhood backyard and gobbled a number of fruits and veggies right off the vine. Saw The Book of Mormon. Did a lot of reading.

Our head of Engineering keeps bringing in veggies from his garden, a most kind and appreciated gesture. On a Friday my posse & I made squash/everything/anything cookies. Too much egg resulted in them being more like mini muffins than cookies... but still good! The whole squash that was grated and tossed in did no harm!

Visited Seattle last weekend for a wedding. The planets aligned and my sisters were both in town as well (for their own Washington based weddings to attend). Always disturbing to see which parts of you come from your family, visible in the looks and behaviors of siblings. Weddings that prominently feature Jesus and preach about marriage belonging only to men and women are aaaaaawkward.

I've been carefully grooming a playlist themed on my character Jaya from the 4th Terminus game. Good times, been listening to it a lot. A lot. Have found myself doodling while sitting on airplanes (a disturbingly common occurrence lately) and I've been running through my list of tabletop characters but frequently finding myself back to drawing Jaya.

I've been pushing numbers around at work lately. Wringing my hands frantically wishing load times to be faster. Pulling at my hair trying to extract meaningful information from a pile of logged data. I appreciate the diversity of work for my current team- writing SQL statements, poking at iOS code, still battling JavaScript, and possibly getting better at python (I still hate python)

I saw Snowpiercer in theaters. Twice. Damn fine film. Most excellent. Best thing I've seen in a long while. I felt good while watching it, like someone hitting a hard to reach itch. Have finally escaped my horror shlump of reading material and am back on a good kick of distopian material. Am on book 3 of the Silo series (which starts with Wool). The author, Hugh Howey seems like a cool guy. Finally read Starship Troopers. Am looking forward to the new Mad Max movie coming out in 2015.

My old art blog just passed 10k views.

March marched by...

Sheesh, March 26th already? And only 55 minutes of it left... Been a busy month. First I went to Iceland. But only for three and a half days. Then I came back. My summary: "Imagine Hawaii. Then take a butter knife and scrape off all the dirt and plants and stuff. Then cover it with snow. That's what I felt Iceland looked like."

I switched teams at work. I am now officially on the API team at Rdio. My brain already feels happier. Am still learning what this new position means for me overall, but at least I'm getting the chance to learn iOS and Android. And writing in so many different languages that are NOT JavaScript. My brain! My brain, it rejoices!

Then I went to Lumi Island for a weekend with Adam (and Adam's friend & his girlfriend). It's always sad visiting Seattle when there's good weather because I get all sad about having left... No Internet access while out there so I brought some yarn.

Now I'm hanging out at home while Adam is in Seattle for a bit. Realized that I, an oh-shit-how-is-this-possible 30 year old, am still scared of the dark and monsters in the dark at times... There was a possum outside last night upsetting the cat who upset me and everything was horrible. And I was scared of the dark. Luckily I have a machete so I could take some comfort in that... Duck does not have a machete and expressed his upset by vomiting. A lot. A little bit on my craft supplies in the TV room that are strewn about. There are few joys when the boyfriend is absent, but craft supplies EVERYWHERE is definitely one of them. (until cat vomit) On a whim, I bought an Oculus Rift dev kit what will ship "some time around July". Am excited.

Another Academie of Magic session took place- in particular my character Olivia's finale. Tears, destruction, guilt, regret, wrath. Just how I like my character arcs to end. Really wish I had a sketch ready to post from that session... Spent this evening cleaning up my basement craft-room & finishing up new green monster instead... So many interest, so little time!

Soon I will fly to Illinois for a long weekend to represent Rdio at HackIllinois.

Clearly I need to post more frequently to avoid these types of long list-y posts.... I apologize.

Kaua'i 2013

Adam and I went to Kaua'i at the end of June/beginning of July this year. It was good. We've been to Maui together before and look forward to visiting other islands in the future.

Where as our time in Maui was spent mostly in the water, we spent a lot of time hiking on this trip. I was delighted to see these huge bamboo groves at one of our trails. The cliffs were amazing, be they overlooking other cliffs or the ocean. Our room (acquired here through VRBO) was lovely and spacious with a view looking directly out onto the ocean. It was a little stuffy at night, having no A/C unit, but I didn't mind. The unit was super cheap- yet not gheto- and centrally located. I highly recommend staying there if you visit the island.

Normally I say "if you want to know more, ask us in person!" but for some reason I seem to continuously fail to talk about it in depth, even when folks ask. It was a nice get away, it was green, I recommend it. I think I liked Maui a bit more but I enjoy snorkling & safe swimming over any degree of surf. Adam however loves boogie boarding (or whatever it's called) and was much happier with Kaua'i's water offerings. There were some low points- seeing a young girl's knee get fucked up by the surf, the death march of death, and getting beat up once pretty bad by some surf- but overall it was great and I maintain I prefer my Hawaii vacations over any international ones we've done so far.

There was a Natural History Museum. I loves me some Natural History Museums! It was super old and crusty, but I liked it and found it informative. It's also in a super great location, in Kokee National Park.

In closing, we took well over 300 photos on the trip. Of those, we uploaded over 80 into a general Flickr gallery. Not many people want to actually dig through that so we then whittled it down to our top 18 picks. Also, the NHM has warranted it's only tiny gallery/view on Flickr.

Snow? In April!?!

I swear, Colorado needs to be severely reprimanded. It snowed. A lot. In April. That is simply not acceptable in my book. During my vacation. I wish there was someone I could formally complain to. I was in Colorado this last weekend because my cousin was getting married. Good on him- my grandmother was due for a wedding and my branch of the family certainly wasn't tracking to do so any time soon. The bride was a lovely lady who ran around barefoot for most of the reception and reportedly wears miss-matched socks. I welcome her into the fold. The wedding was lovely, the ceremony short and to the point, the DJ fantastic, and my branch of the family quickly liquored up into a frenzy. There were many things done, few of them caught on film (thankfully?). The evening ended in log rolling. You should ask me about it in person some time. Or Adam. It was quite a scene. Seeing family was fantastic and Colorado proved to be quite lovely. It was only on the last day, Monday, that Adam and I spent alone in Denver that was ridiculous. I can't count the number of times Adam just looked out the window and said "It's snowing" this this awed yet slightly horrified voice. Of course, he was drunk from the brewery visiting pretty early so that's probably not saying much. In-between visiting a crazy-good Cuban sandwhich place and The Great Divide brewing company, Adam and I visited the Denver Natural History museum which is WAY cooler then either of us expected it to be. Great taxidermy! Very dynamic displays! Amazing rigging of dinosaur bones! I would recommend it! It lacks the gloss & openness of the Japanese or Paris NHMs but what it does, it does well. Reminded me the Chicago NHM in terms of quality dioramas. More pictures from the trip can be found in this Flickr set.

Our flight getting back was delayed several hours by snow, didn't get to bed till at least 2:30 in the morning. Woke up the next day and managed to make it to the Sigur Ros show that night. Worst crowd I've endured in a long time. Horrible, horrible crowd. So much talking! And stupidity! But the music was great and the set design lovely. There were these beautiful incandescent lights scattered about the stage at varying heights which not only looked cool but also illuminated the stage without the need of spotlights. This video gives a good idea of what it was like.

Have been reading the Kabuki comic series. A++, would recommend. Now if only I had more time to read the second half of it...

Natural History Museums

There are a couple facts that I don't mind restating over and over again. Have I mentioned I love my Kindle? Well, today's fact is that I love Natural History Museums. They're like zoos, only better! So much less guilt and the animals hold still so you can sketch them!

This year I managed to visit six Natural History Museums : Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (Paris, France), American Museum of Natural History (New York, USA) (been there before), Smithsonian (Washington D.C, USA), Muséum d'histoire naturelle (Geneva, Switzerland), Natur-Museum Luzern (Lucerne, Switzerland), Museum Mensch und Natur (Munich, Germany)

When I travel, I always look up two things at every location : yarn stores and Natural History Museums. Doesn't matter how many of them I've been to, I adore going to the next (or the same one again!) At NHMs I'm happy to wander and look, even if I can't read the signage... but I love even more the chance to sit down for several hours and sketch. A snippet from some travel ranting I wrote explains part of the not-sketching appeal :

... but in a nature or science museum, you are displaying information. Part of that display is equipment or dead animals, but how you show it and what you chose to say about it are in themselves a vital part of the exhibit. What you chose to show and neglect to mention- this is interesting. What is highlighted across a wide selection- interesting. It frames subjects in unique ways at each location, and it says something about the place you are visiting.

Why rant about that now? Well, Adam just recently made a quasi-spur-of-the-moment purchase (as much as someone like him can) and we now have a lovely, sleek, new Canon MG8220 Printer/Scanner. This means I can scan my lovely little backlog of sketches done at some of these museums!

Smithsonian     May 2012

I've dreamed of going to the Smithsonian for many years and finally got my chance to this summer. Would have loved to spend more time there, but I also really enjoyed the other museums and monuments we visited while there. I gotta' say I was pleased with the layout of the NHM, the way there was lots of glass and open space around the specimens. It was far too crowded for sketching though, and I remember finding a nook with a good view to be hard. I especially loved my loose giraffe sketch, for which you can see the subject of in this photo.

American Museum of Natural History     September 2012

Have been here before, not one of my higher rated museums... This time some of the mammal halls were closed so I spent most my time with the birds. The taxidermy isn't that bad and I was able to sit out of most foot traffic while sketching.

There is a special place in my heart for friendly encounters I've had in museums while sketching. The first time in New York, someone handed me his card and we chatted about my sketching which he was very complimentary of. This time a young boy and his family came over. All but the father spoke some European language I was not clear on, but the kid didn't let that stop him. I handed over paper and pencils as I always do and he sat with me in front of the Prairie Grouses and sketched. (His choice bird was actually part of the illustrated backdrop, rather then one of the stuffed specimens which was... odd). He actually sat and finished his sketch, despite his siblings antsy-ness. The father was very supportive, which was great.

Museum of Man and Nature     November 2012

The best part about this museum is that it's right next to the Nymphenburg Palace which is worth a visit on it's own. Tiny, but delightful. Very open, lots of seating, almost no English. Meh. Win some, lose some. I spent all my time in one set of rooms and had burned myself out sketching before I realized there was another set of rooms with even *more* animals! There was a gannet and I failed to draw it! So sad! On the up side, I feel my sketches from here came out really well... freakishly well, given how rusty I was at that point...

I should note that while I sketched the Schuhschnabel (Shoebill) bird there was a video looping on the screen I used as a table. This meant I saw a cycle of cute little birds and then suddenly there'd be a monsterous closeup of the Schuhschnabel, face filling the screen and looking right at me around the edge of my paper, snapping it's bill. Turns out that those fellows are scary as fuck on the other side of a zoom lens when you're not expecting it.

Good times.