Not-Work at Work

Work, the location, should be somewhere you enjoy going. I find working at home to be too distracting (or rather, distraction to be too accessible) but a dull workspace makes me depressed. You can't control your coworkers (for good or bad) but as long as you don't work for crazy dictators *coughcoughAcuituscoughcough* you can make your space into what you need it. And I need it to be "interesting".

One of my coworkers was super awesome and ordered a box of 36 mixed succulents from Amazon. He then distributed one to each member of the team and then other random awesome devs around the office. This made me happy. My friend Suko was awesome and used her Google-fu to sleuth out that the plant I got was a gasteria disticha.

It took me some time, but I eventually pulled together a teacup monster to house my new little green companion. I've named it Gretel after a book character I'm currently enjoying. Turns out Dremeling through cups is a bitch. Had to break it up over the course of several nights, so horrible was the sound and so tedious the grind/cooldown cycle. The legs didn't really turn out the way I wanted-- initially had hoped for a more realistic clay/resin type of leg... but I had to settle since I'm actually quite bad at sculpture. I'm not that dissatisfied with how these turned out. Adam pointed out they were rather elephant like, which makes me smile. I still have 2 more teacups so I might take another stab at it...eventually. Once my ears stop bleeding- ugh.

Another thing I do at work some times that makes me happy is bake. I think I've mentioned we have a fantastic oven there. Nice little well-stocked kitchen as well. The Friday before my vacation (you know, the day when it's near impossible to focus on work) I baked some bread at work that I made from scratch. In the office. Working somewhere that allows for such sillyness makes me extremely happy. I didn't waste *too* much time doing it and those who sampled the results seemed very pleased. It was one of the best loafs I've made in a long time.

I chopped up some strawberries and mixed them in with a normal batch of bread... which resulted in ridiculously wet dough. It was quite difficult to work with, I had to keep adding flour, and took over half an hour to work into a reasonable state. After its first rise (which went perfectly) I spread it out, laid down more slices of strawberries, honey, and M&Ms, then rolled it up. Pushed it into a bread tin, waited for the second rise (also nice), and then into the oven. So good. SO GOOD.

Coding with the aroma of baked goods filling the office is a good way to spend an afternoon.

Yay

Time Flies

Wow. It's already mid-July. Crazy. A lot of stuff has happened in the last month (though none of it all that important)

There was a hack-a-thon at work early early June and I got *really* into my project. Picked up my first Arduino and made a Next & Start/Stop external button for Rdio using the Rdio JS API and Chrome's USB API for apps. I had an intense weekend of non-stop coding and yet didn't quite finish the project (input works, but I haven't gotten output yet). I mean to finish it yet! Soon...

Adam's mother visited and we went to see The Tales of Hoffmann (an opera) which was quite fantastic. The Doll Song has always been one of my favorite pieces. Then Andreas visited and then we went way for a much needed vacation. Obnoxious vacation post to follow soon once we get our photos in sorted out.

Tonight was another fantastic Dr. Sketchy's. The dedicated Mercy Beaucoup posed as Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill. I appreciated Mercy's great outfits and ambitions/creative poses. I've sketched her before (as Wonder Woman) but the pictures were lost on my way home! Luckily I managed to hold onto them this time. I'm thankful that I won tonight's context with the below image. The prize was this super awesome book The Art of Sketch Theatre Volume 1 which I look forward to reading after this post is done.

Speaking of reading, I've been doing a lot of that lately as well. Was horribly let down by Robin Hobb's Rain Wild Chronicles which I dropped mid-series. Am struggling not to be entirely consumed by the thrilling magic realism World War II series by Ian Tregillis. I accidentally staid up till 3am finishing the second book (on a work night no less! shame on me!) and I'm worried the third book will lead me to a similar fate. Bitter Seeds (Milkweed series) is the first book and I'd probably recommend it to most folks.

In less happy news I installed Minecraft for the first time this weekend and lost several hours of my life. I regret it and wont be doing so again. Sigh. Having re-read World War Z and watched the movie (and surprisingly not hated it) I've a strong hankering to play some Left For Dead again, which I will not regret. But there are better things to be doing with my time. Like sketching. Quilting. Finishing my hack day project. Writing letters. Cleaning.

Pacific Rim was great. Not perfect, but what it delivered it delivered well. You should go see it. Now.

Fun with work

I finally finished a new little monster. His mouth is a binder clip, one of those large ones, and he looks quite dashing on my desk. He holds several of my business cards for me for easy access. I have business cards now because I went to FluentConf! Network network network!

I enjoyed the conference and the people I met there. Not sure if it quite lines up with where I am right now, technical skill wise... But I worry that a more advanced conference might leave me in the dust. Makes me miss college a little.

Enjoyed hearing about things that are coming down the road (ECMAScript 6, Data Parallelism) and some things that are here right now (Content Security Policy, some programming concepts). Esprima is magic. Paul Irish is a stupidly good speaker. There were lots of women attending and presenting.

Dr. Sketchy's this week was fun but I was totally not in the right mental space for it. Not a single scan-worthy sketch. I was rocken' my doodles of the speakers at the conference though. I only failed to sketch two of the sessions I attended. You can see the full set here

Tomorrow is my second Hack Day at work and I'm excited. Am not certain which little project I'm going to do, perhaps several. There's a nice oven at work with which I've baked bread and cookies so far. Someone else used the stovetop to make delicious... somethings. The sense of community cooking fosters is extremely pleasant. I'm hoping to bring more dough in tomorrow.

Tomorrow is also Friday Tie-Day.

Dream night of May 23rd

A very vivid dream last night. There were multiple stages.

I was flying a plane. A little biplane. I believe other people were with me, flying their own planes. I kept going up too quickly and stalled out my plane a number of times.

A some point my father went missing.

It was nighttime. While I was in my plane, or perhaps atop the roof of my parents house, I looked out and in the distance I saw destruction. There was a large... tripod like monster/robot. Very tall. Much taller then in my sketch. Very War of the Worlds. It was sweeping the land in the distance, burning everything.

I was with my youngest sister. We were going through a city, gathering supplies. The tripods were coming and we needed to hide. We came across a coworker of mine who has a leg brace and I was concerned he wouldn't be able to escape in time. As we were parting ways Lindsey fell down an embankment and hurt her leg and I knew we weren't going to be able to get back home in time.

I went and ran around, looking for somewhere safe to go. Somewhere below ground. Where I was searching was this open boardwalk space with lots of outdoor restaurants and hedges. I went down a narrow brick staircase and found a tiny room and... an astronomer? living there. He said we could stay the night (which is when I knew the tripods would reach us). We piled down into the tiny space.

Before night fell I realized the world would be burned to ashes when the tripods passed-- or at least our immediate area. We would need supplies if we were to last more then another day. I ran up above ground and began to gather greens. There were lots of pea pods and vines which I started tearing down can piling in my arms. In the back of my mind, I knew that this would not be enough to survive. I uprooted some plans with the thought of replanting them the next day in the ashes but... I knew that they would be unlikely to live.

I returned, arms full of greens. Eventually the tripods came, which we could tell by the immense heat and great shaking and sounds. They had passed and things quieted. A worry rose within me- how deep did the burn go? Had our stairwell been filled in? Were we trapped by ash? If so, we could probably dig ourselves out and would eventually die if we didn't.

The dream ended with me convincing everyone in the bunker to go back to sleep, that we would investigate in the morning. I didn't say it, but I thought that if we were blocked in by ash we probably would be better off dead, dying peacefully in our sleep, then struggling to survive in the remaining baren world.

Thoughts:

• Again I start a dream flying, but doing so poorly
• Again my father goes missing
• Again witnessing a destructive & horrible thing behind my parent's home
• Again in the company of my family
• The bleakness towards the end is... uncharacteristic of me. I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic stories, but mostly to embrase the spirit of survival and hope from starting anew. This had a feeling of The Road, which I found horribly depressing.
• I do not wish for more dreams like this. Would much rather get back to my classic dream themes- rescuing children, hiding, searching, etc. Stressful, but not nearly so... devastating.

Spring Delights

The weather has been lovely lately. A lot of tasty food as been consumed. Suko let me steal some of her home made lemon curd and so I had to make a batch of scones to make use of it. (picked up some Rhubarb Grapefruit jam at the ferry building for Adam. Turned out to be far more tasty then it had any right being)

Finished the quilt remains pillow from last post. In further efforts to clean the basement up, I've put more things on the wall. A hoop with some colored threads was easy enough and a sunny afternoon with a dremel enabled me to mount the random collection of pencils (mostly colored) that I've collected so far. Both projects use hatpins as the key component.

The pencils have a thin hole drilled through them and they hang on a hatpin. There's a loop of thread that is tied to the pin on one end and a button on the other. The pin goes through the button and the weight of the pencils (and the tilt of the hanging) keeps the button in place.

Have I mentioned how awesome our back deck is with the hammock up?

I continue to have low level anxiety in my life. Perhaps work related? Perhaps turning-30 related? Its source remains unclear but its effect is becoming a bit more noticeable. I feel... "frayed"? when my mood manges to swing up. This just means I'm bit wackier then usual I'd say-- as would others. This week's evenings so far have been very delightful, which made me very happy, which resulted on my actions being commented on by others. Oh well. There are worse things to be then a happy spaz.

Mary Robinette Kowal was at Borderlands and was about as awesome as expected. In fact, I'd give her an "Exceeds expectations" review. (This being the lady that wrote Shades of Milk and Honey (Glamourist Histories) [and I will punch the next person who makes a 50 shades of gray reference. That horse is dead, ok?]) She kindly signed my copy of the 3rd book as well as the new copy of her 1st book I picked up. I love my Kindle, but it does sort of happer the lending of good things... So now I have a copy of the first book! And would love to lend it to anyone who'ld read it.

Tuesday was once again Dr. Sketchy's, with a theme of Morocco. I think the return to twice a month is good for me. This month's model was Aja, who we've had before and is a talented lady. She struck a number of poses with lifted arms or turned heads and did not budge an inch. A real pro!

Sadly I don't think I really made the most of the session-- my drawing mojo wasn't with me that night. As I commented to a fantastic fellow artist [Elle?]-- I've no problem with voluminous folds of fabric if they're done up in Wester fashion, I've figured out how to draw that. It's that I don't understand what's going on with the outfit and that's what's making it hard to draw. (Which I guess just means I need to perhaps practice a bit with the classic pile of fabric draped over a chair? Or perhaps a greater study of fashion) Anyway, something for me to think....

Scattered Focus

I keep starting things and then not quite finishing them. Or not doing that great of job if I get close enough to pretend to be done. I can't tell if it's the result of this general anxiety I've been feeling recently or the cause of it. Let's start with the positive and work my way down. Made some not-horrible bread recently and shared it at work. I let it raise too long and it sort of deflated a bit. I also didn't make as much as I had wished. Alas. Anyway- I called it Vdio Bread because it shares the color scheme of our recent product at work. The black is from the ever wonderful squid ink and the yellow from turmeric which was an interesting and new (to me) flavor. I also threw in a handful of other things but in the end the overall flavor was very mild. I wished both the color and the zing of the flavors was a bit stronger.

My sister gifted me this rad raptor particle board "skeleton" thing. I've never assembled one of them before (Adam comments he did a number of them in his youth) and it was a lot of fun. Hard not to be somewhat downed by following a pre-fab thing though... if only I had my scroll saw here! I'm hoping to put it in the back yard and entice my pea sproutlings to grow up/around it. Sadly my sproutlings have sprouted and passed their peek. Am really not in my gardening grove this year, despite my wishes.

The dino bones reminded me of my sister and spurred me on to finally make use of the scraps from her Christmas quilt. I came up one square short and made the most of it. I'm saddened that it took me all of an afternoon to do this piece work and that several days later it still sits in my basement, with no backing. We have company coming in two weekends so hopefully it'll be done by then to spruce up the basement, where they are staying. My first basement guests! (sister Lindsey doesn't count)

One of the reasons I'm having difficulty focusing is probably in part due the fantastic weather. It has been super nice lately (though today, Tuesday, the streak has been broken). This weekend I finally figured out how to mesh my desire to craft and my desire to enjoy the outdoors. Here you can see my diversions in the sun- the hammock, my camera tripod, and my sewing machine. All happily inhabiting our fantastic private back porch.

The tripod is because I've got a nagging urge to do some animation. Why? I don't know. I'm doing sewing projects, gardening projects, cooking projects... clearly what I need now is something else shinny to distract me. I'm not even good/trained at animating so why I think I should even try is beyond me.

Aaaaaanyway, I picked up some velum paper from Office Max and found that my hole punch made perfectly sized holes for some bullet casings I possess. (finding that out was an odd adventure through the basement). With the paper cut down and the casings in place it makes for a perfect flip book that can be reshuffled as needed. My Eadweard Muybridge: The Human and Animal Locomotion Photographs book also proved key to the process. And by key, I mean I basically copied one of the sets directly.

Dr Sketchy's : Girls on Bikes

Dr. Sketchy's this week was awesome. There were bikes. There were girls. There were girls on bikes. Not only was there some fantastic sketching to be had, but it was also a fundraiser for the AIDs Lifecycle ride one of our branch's founders is partaking in. A good cause and finally a chance to combine the joy of eating and sketching at the same time. Fresh grilled cheese! Yes!

I was rocken the short poses but my mojo ran out for the 10 minute ones.

Didn't win the contest but felt good about my entry. I never have a enough time to finish my coloring though, damn! Upcoming themes are apparently "Circus" and "Desert Princesses"?



I'm not sketching as much as I'd like (when am I ever?) but I do a little here and there. It helps to have material and/or motivation. Haven't had vivid dreams for a while, but this week they've popped up again. Vivid, and frequently unpleasant. I think it has something to do with high temperatures... anyway- dream from the start of this week.

I was a jetpack rental place. I had visited it at some point earlier and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was renting a pack for a brief period of time before the start of work one day, taking it up above a hill and looking over a forest. It was so lovely... There was a sunset/sunrise with purple clouds. I wanted to take a panorama photo of what I saw with my cellphone, so I fumbled with my phone. Every time I took my hand off the left controller to take a photo I started to fall from the sky. I'd switch back to the controller and rise back up, and then fall back down to the ground again when I again went for a photo. Eventually I ran out of fuel and slowly sank back to the ground... ...it was sad