I want to buy some sort of small PC/iPhone/blackberry/some such. I'm going to say what I want it to do, and you guys are going to let me know if you are aware of such a product currently on the market.

1. I don't want to pay for a data plan. If it is also a phone and I can get basic service only, that's cool, but not necessary since I already have a phone. I want to get on the interweb using wi-fi.
2. I want a decent amount of storage, probably a real hard drive, since I want it to hold the master copy of my My Documents directory.
3. Appications required: web browser, PDF reader, Word (or equivalent), and Excel (or equivalent)
4. Plug and play drive capability, preferably without an actual cord (think like a flippy USB connection)
5. Relatively high resolution screen, and decent capability for human input.
6. Ability to play music would be nice.
7. Built in radio, GPS, and compass would also be nice.

Do they make such a thing yet?

Grammar and non-linear composition does not play well together.

So, I've had this awful cough for a week now. Medicine is of little help for it at this point. It's not too bad when I am sitting up or standing, but as soon as I am horizontal, it starts up again. This makes it hard to sleep. Which makes it hard to get better. I was up until around 2am this morning (tried to go to bed around 11pm), and managed to sleep until about 10am. So of course I am still tired, since 8 hours isn't nearly enough when I am sick. Walked to the hardware store for some stuff, and now am really tired. So I guess I should take a nap. Weekends are so precious though. Hate to spend them sleeping. So lame. I want to be doing stuff!

Everyone woman should have one of these. I'm trying to think of an appropriate product to compare it too, you know, "Best thing since _____," but I simply cannot think of anything awesome enough. (Men probably don't want to know...)

That was only because you hadn't seen "The Clone Wars".

It gives bad a whole new meaning.

I did enjoy the drag queen hutt though. Almost made that 10 minutes of the movie worth while.

I think this confirms my suspicion that the original three movies were only good by accident.

On getting the new sewing machine working. ( Blow by blow... )

I did some practice stitching on a rag. I set the Singer to 6 stitches/inch and it covered the rag in 11 seconds. I set the BabyLock to 4.5 mm (which should give it the advantage) and it covered the rag in 17 seconds. Yay 35% higher speed!

So aside from putting that knob on upside down and the labels therefore all being wrong, it seems to be in great working order, and will be a useful supplement to my other machine.

Also, it means I can loan a machine to Danielle at work without being without. Or better yet, I can invite her over to sew with me.

ETA: Silly me, the catch on the knob can be uncaught by pinching with pliers just so (think like certain kinds of child safety caps that you sometimes find on household chemicals--remembering those is how I figured it out). It's fixed now too. Perfect.

The woman I purchased the sewing machine for $5 from yesterday said that it worked. And, strictly speaking, it does. But it clearly desparately needs a tune up. It goes slow and groans like at the very least it is desparate for oil. The knob to which I think adjusts the pressure on the presser foot also seems to have some more serious threading problem that worries me a little... the threads no longer thread, they just push right by one another. Not sure what to do about that, but I'm thinking I might just need to see if I can purchase a replacement knob.

At any rate, it's still got the instruction manual (which I just ironed), so hopefully I can take the whole thing apart, clean it, and put it back together... as I'm told you are supposed to do periodically with these old Singers and see what that buys me.

But first, I'm going to make waffles. Because my husband asked for them. And he never asks for waffles. Normally he makes them for me.

Today was Verona's community wide garage sale weekend. We went out and purchased a lot of stuff we don't need for dirt cheap. It was fun though.

Vice clamp - $7.50
2 corner clamps - $5.00
4 shirts - $7.00
2 pairs cross country skis, poles, and 1 pair boots (fit me) - $2.75
2 pair nice chop sticks - $1.00
Halogen lamp - $10.00
Old Singer sewing machine - $5.00
Cassette walkman exactly like the one I have (had??) and couldn't find when I wanted it last month - $1.00
2 Wine cozy things - $2.00
Goose down onezie - $2.00 (No, we have nothing to announce... except that Josh officially has a hope chest now. Well, officially has a metaphorical hope chest, there is no actual chest involved.)
2 cookies - $0.50

I think I need to get more exercise. During our trip, it seemed like we were walking around all day every day, and I really liked it. Yes, it made my feet hurt something awful, so maybe it was a little much, but mostly it was great. I was afraid that when we got back, I was going to feel like I needed a vacation after our vacation, because it had been so GO GO GO the whole time. On the contrary, I went back to work on Monday (after getting home late-ish Sunday night), and I was so happy to sit at my desk. I felt like I was thinking more clearly than I had in a year. And probably I was. After all that exercise and stimulation of the trip, sitting at my desk doing work really hit the spot. And I just felt so alive. Then I got that timely article from my father-in-law.

I think I should really make an effort to get more exercise into my everyday (or at least every weekend) life. I think I'd be a lot happier. Of course, I've known this for a long time. The thing is, it's just not that interesting to always walk around the same neighborhood. I'll keep up a faster pace if I'm interested in where I am. I'll walk further if I'm exploring an exciting new area. And it seems, in addition to my job, most of my other interests involve being at home and relatively sedentary. I feel like I need to change this. But how? I don't know. I'm going to work on it.

I'm going to work on it as soon as I'm well, anyway. Here's the thing, I feel like I'm mostly over my cold, but the last few times I've gone out and tried to do some more strenuous exercise (which could potentially help with the wanting to get more of it without dedicating too much time), I've gotten really light headed and had to stop. When I biked into work yesterday, I had Josh walk me up to my office when we got there because I was afraid I was going to fall over. WTF? It was only a 2 mile ride, even if I did take it a little fast. I'm going to get my iron levels checked one of these days soon, but they've been totally normal for years now, so I don't really think that's it. Hopefully it's just that I'm not totally over this cold, or at least will otherwise pass. But it's frustrating when my body just wont do what I tell it to, especially without much faith that this is going to go away with practice. Eh, I guess I should make it a point of testing whether or not it will.

Also, the bike thing is something I've experienced before. I think I'm totally fine while I'm on the bike, but then I stop, get off, and all of a sudden I can hardly stand up and my vision goes dark around the edges. It's really frightening. What if that not being able to stand up or see had come over me while I was breezing along at 15-20 miles per hour? Of course, it never has before, but it doesn't make me all that interested in getting back on the bike. Maybe it's just a "I stood up to fast" thing... it is like that, only much stronger... but at any rate it's really frightening.

I don't have time to post now, but here are the things I want to write about when I find time.

1. England trip
1.a. London
1.b. Photos
1.c. Driving on the wrong side
1.d. Lessons learned
1.e. Exercise
2. Exercise
3. D&D
4. I want a kitten

In other news that will be fast to write about, during D&D 2 nights ago, there was a huge thunderstorm. Then there was one of the most amazing rainbows I have ever seen. It was twilight and the rainbow was very bright. A nice complete arch, at least for as much of they sky as I could see. Doubled in some places. It was also very pink against the deep blue sky. And most incredible of all the aspect ratio. It was the tallest rainbow I have ever seen. It seemed much taller than it was wide, something I've never seen in a rainbow before. I suppose that has to do with the sun being so low. I wish I remembered better the lecture I went to at Rose-Hulman about rainbows. Sadly, at the time of the lecture, I hadn't had anything even remotely like a real physics or optics class (not even high school physics yet), and it was mostly over my head. And it was a long time ago. And I was really busy having the time of my life and didn't bother to do the "homework" that was assigned and might have helped it stick with me. The DM still wasn't ready, and I was done leveling my character. So I went outside and stood in the light rain to watch it until it faided away. It was absolutely fantastic. I wish I'd had my camera with me. Instead, I will have to do my best to remember it.

Entries about trip posted, first 7 days. I'll be coming back and adding photos later, which will probably make them rather more worth looking at. But I wanted to get what I have so far posted because my mom wants to know where I went and what I saw before her trip in just a few days.

Last night Josh and I made Chili Spaghetti (Cincinnati Chili over spaghetti with cheese on top), only we substituted spaghetti squash for the spaghetti. We first saw this substitution of squash for pasta at Chris and Newt's house a few years ago, and I must say neither of us were too keen on the idea at the time. However, Josh and I both really like Chili Spaghetti, but it bothers me that we've never been able to come up with a vegetable that seems to complement it properly.

Well, now we have. Chili over spaghetti squash is certainly different, but quite yummy (possibly yummier, but that's a matter of opinion) and probably a pretty big improvement on the health of the meal.

Yay squash! And on that note, I've signed up for a community garden plot at Epic (though I wont necessarily get one, they are concerned they may have too many applicants and assign by lottery... though I'm trying to figure out how with the bagillion acers Epic owns they can't just make more plots, hopefully they will figure that out). I'm rather excited about the prospect of a garden plot at work. I will be able to go visit it over lunch. I've also been looking at seeds and picked out a dozen or so squash I want to plant (not even counting spaghetti squash). I don't think I'm actually going to plant that many, but it's really tempting because squash is so yummy! And seed savers has seeds available for kinds of squash I've never seen, let alone tasted yet. Mmmm squash...

I had a nightmire last night in which I was having trouble getting Epic letters to print out onto the shirts I have packed for our trip to England.  I was awake at 3:30am... not so much worrying about it as trying to figure out why I had been worried about it.  That's almost like a combination of all the things stressing me out right now, it would be a perfect combination if I was then planning to feed those shirts to everybody as the vegetarian entree at Laura's wedding tomorrow.  Fortunately I woke up before anything like that could happen.

So, evidently postage rates have gone up since we last purchased stamps.  Our tax returns are back, shy 1 cent... so I guess we wont need to file amended returns, only corrected returns, which will be a little easier.

I wonder when that happened though.  Last I checked, rent checks were still getting cashed every month...

Due to interest rates having fallen, and incomes having risen such that we may not be able to write off the interest anymore, we decided a few days ago to pay off my student loans in full.  I went online, signed in, and checked the amount required to pay them off and got ready to make a payment, including transfering the needed amount to checking.  Said "amount to pay off", good through April 6th was $14,011.90.  I was already to do on Saturday it when I realized that my automagic payment was due and scheduled to go through today (Monday), and I didn't want to screw anything up since it takes 3 business days for requests to be processed so I decided to come back and deal with it after the payment went though.  This morning, the $133 payment posted to my accounts.  And the "amount to pay off" is now $13,396.24, pay off good through April 9th. 

How the heck did my amount owed go down by over $600 in 2 days and one $133 payment???? 

And can I do that again please?  About 22-23 times, as soon as possible would be great...

Yesterday, Josh and I bought an amazing old RCA Victrola cabinet for $195 off craigslist. It came with it's original receipt from 1945 when it sold for $495 (which would have been almost $6K in today's dollars, so we're talking about a nice piece). The woodwork is amazing, though it needs some cosmetic work where it's been scratched up over the years, which we know how to do.

Our intention in buying it was to build a subwoofer into the bottom (where the original speaker is currently built in), and store our stereo equipment inside and on top. Here's the thing, it still has it's original combination record player and radio (short wave, AM, and FM), the built in speaker (12 inch driver and tube amp), and it all still works. Of course, "still works" is a relative term: it sounds like a radio from the 1940s, and the sound is mono.

On the one hand, it seems kind of cool to modernize this outdated piece of furniture, give it new life as it were. And it would be prominently placed in our living room, and we love it. On the other hand, since it all still works, it feels like we are going to be cutting up a really cool piece of history if we proceed with our plans. (Of course, we have little to no interest in owning the thing if we can't make it into something "modern" and useful... because we really don't have the space for an antique gallery in our home.)

Opinions as to whether or not our plans are bordering on criminal would be appreciated.



The rest of the photos, including insides and 1945 receipt: http://pics.livejournal.com/sillygoosegirl/gallery/0004dzs8.

ETA: We've now taken out all the electronics.  I tend to forget this, but it turned out that like so many nice old things, this one was clearly designed for easy disassembly, probably so you could get in and repair any part of the electronics that might break.  Other than pulling a few staples holding wires securely out of the way, everything was easily unplugged or unscrewed.  We could put it back together in an afternoon, if we wanted to.  I feel pretty good about that.  So now we can pretty easily store the electronics until we decide what else we might want to do with them.  Furthermore, I came up with the brilliant idea of instead of building the subwoofer into the cabinet (Josh was making me nervous with talk of adding reinforcing because he's not sure all the walls are strong enough, plus putting in goo-stuff to seal it), slapping together a really basic/ugly subwoofer out of MDF just the right size to slip into the bottom cavity.  We think this will be easier than building the subwoofer actually into the cabinet, plus it will mean not actually making any permanent alterations to the cabinet.  Plus it will mean that the subwoofer can come out for moving the piece, which is already extremely heavy. 

Watched King Corn tonight. Not surprisingly, mostly just repeats of stuff in the first section of Omnivore's Dilemma, but I don't think Josh is going to read Omnivore's Dilemma, so now he knows more about what I am talking about.

It also occurs to me that at "South Dorm Vegetarian Night" they didn't really eat what they thought they were eating. The deal with "Vegetarian Night" was to go to Black Angus and "eat things that eat vegetables." Except most beef in the US doesn't eat grass anymore, they eat corn.

I think the first I was really aware of the excess of corn in the US food system was two years ago when we were planning a backpacking trip during Passover with Rachel and Benj, and had difficulty finding food to bring that didn't contain corn (since normally when backpacking we eat mostly prepared foods). And I thought that was bad, before I realized that the principle ingredient of the beef and eggs we ate that weekend to avoid corn and other grains was, in fact, corn. As far as I know, Passover rules don't disallow eating things that ate grain, but it would be an interesting experiment...

As for me, I had corn at 3 meals today. At breakfast because I mistakenly put white corn meal into my muffins thinking it was whole wheat flour (switched their canisters recently) and didn't get it all out. At lunch when I ate more of those muffins, plus the nachos Josh made. And also at dinner, in the bacon I cooked our potatoes, in and the cheese we put on our broccoli, and in the butter we put on our asparagus. And this was in a meal that was practically all vegetables (potato with some bacon, that cabbage and apple dish, broccoli with cheddar cheese, and asparagus). And for all I know, there was also corn involved in the making of the vinegar that was in the cabbage dish. And this is making everything (except those corn chips) from scratch. (Though I'm sure if I was having this conversation with my dad, he'd point out that "scratch" is what we feed the chickens... hmmm, I think there might be something deep to that.)

I also hate bonuses.

1. In January of last year, I quit my job and got my final paycheck in Illinois, which also included a contribution to my 401k.
2. In March of last year, I became eligable for the 401k at my current job in Wisconsin and set my contributions such that I would end the year with a total 401k contribution just below the federal limit.
3. On December 22nd, I got a bonus, and they made a contribution to my 401k putting me above the limit.

Crap.

So I do the run around with Fidelity. They tell me that payroll at my company will magically know what happened and take care of it. I don't really believe them because payroll at my current job doesn't normally talk to payroll at my old job. So I get the run around from payroll where they tell me to talk to Fidelity, then eventually send me a form to fill out and send to Fidelity. Said form has all kinds of questions on it which I cannot answer, like does my company use Fidelities "discrimination testing" (whatever that is). I send the form back to payroll with my pertinent info.

Eventually, I contact payroll again because tax day is coming and I want to get my taxes in on time. They tell me that I should be hearing from Fidelity any time, and no, I wont be getting a corrected W2. This seems odd, but I figure they probably know what they are doing, and if not, if they aren't going to give me a corrected W2, then that's their problem.

So Tuesday and Thursday nights Josh and I do our taxes... which involves all kinds of unsavory activities, like filling out the AMT form--which was, I do believe, created by Satan--to prove that we do not actually owe AMT. On Thursday, I get the promised check from Fidelity (for some punny amount, made even more punny by having lost well over 25% of it's value), along with a letter saying to keep the paperwork and that I will get a form in January of next year so I can deal with it on my taxes for 2009. I still think this is kind of a strange way to handle it, but then again, I didn't expect it to make sense. So I believe them.

So yesterday we put our tax returns in the mail.

And then today I get another letter from Fidelity explaining that the form coming to me in January of next year will be a 1099 allowing us to claim the loss on our 2009 taxes, but don't forget to claim the extra income on your 2008 taxes.

So now we have to go through all the paperwork again, so that we can send an extra 25% of the amount to the IRS, about 99% of an extra 6.5% to Wisconsin, and about 1% of an extra 3% to Illinois. Too bad I can't just cut the checks just like that and put them in the mail...

Home made laundry soap is even easier with a food processor. This, a great idea from Josh.

Before, I grated the soap (which is pretty easy, it's really soft). Today I sliced the bar of soap twice long ways and 4 times short ways then dropped it in the food processor with the borax (1/2 cup) and washing soda (1 cup). Let it run for a few minutes to get a nice fine powder. Could hardly be easier...

However, I did have to cut the project slightly short (3 bars of soap worth instead of 4) when I ran out of washing soda. It's still like a 6 month supply or something.

All my work last weekend really paid off. It's noon on Saturday and the house is already nice and tidy. The laundry is already done (including some hand wash stuff that's been waiting for months). The kitchen is clean. Josh vacuumed. I even put in an hour and a half of work work this morning. So I have this whole weekend laid out ahead of me, and no idea what to do with it. Plus, I don't feel like I want to crawl under a rock and hide until I feel happier. This hasn't happened in, like, ages.

I think maybe I'll sit outside and do some reading. Plus, play with the new firmware on my camera. Anyone (Jen???) have suggestions of software to use on my new RAW format photos? I'm excited to now be shooting in RAW mode... but I no longer have access to all the code I wrote at work at NG to process 12-bit color images. Plus, I don't own Matlab or have it at work anymore... (I still can't quite believe how sad about that I am). I miss that job and I miss Lisa.

Lookie what Josh found for me!

Firmware hack for my point and shoot camera, supposedly allowing it to do stuff like saving in 12-bit RAW mode and time-lapse. Should be sure to make time to learn how to use it before we go to Britain. Should probably also buy some more memory cards.

Also, even though it's the first day of Spring, it's been the least Spring-like day we've had so far this week. But Happy Equinox anyway!

I love my CSA so much! Today, we opened the last bag of potatoes from the Winter box. They looked very dark purple on the outside. And on the inside they are purple too! A beautiful bright purple! I can hardly believe it! Purple potatoes!! Who needs genetic engineering? We already have purple potatoes! Why did nobody tell me that purple potatoes existed before? They are so cool!

(Wont actually eat these for a few more days probably, but I think they are going to be good. Actually, if it's anywhere near as good as I think it will be, I'm going to pitch it to Laura for her vegetarian entree for her wedding... which I have promised to make.)

Filling:
1 medium butternut squash, halved, seeded, baked until soft
1 cup or so ricotta (the amount that I made when I failed to make mozzarella yesterday)
1 cup or so asaigo
2 tsp salt (less next time, I think)
several shakes cinnamon
several shakes nutmeg
2 eggs

Also,
1 12 oz box of jumbo shells
Around 6 cups whatever red sauce is on hand

Went to a restaurant called Hu Hot tonight. It was supposed to be Mongolian, but it was not like Mongolian in college, pretty much just like Flat Top, only without the yummy bread. Oh well. I think I need to do some Google searches for "Mongolian Sauce B", see if I can't recreate it at home or something. Because, you know, I'm not really into the "make your own stir fry" thing. Well, actually I am, but I can make my own stir fry without going to a restaurant. And I do. But when I go to a restaurant, I don't want to make my own stir fry. I especially don't want to make my own Pad Thai or Sweet and Sour stir fry (I'd go out to Thai or Chinese if that's what I wanted), I want to make Mongolian BBQ stir fry with the distinctive Mongolian BBQ flavor (well, that distinct Sauce B flavor) that I don't know how to make on my own. Perhaps I will have to fly out to Claremont one of these days to get my fix...

So people keep talking about how the credit markets are still frozen and people (as in individual consumers) are having difficulty taking out loans, mortgages, etc. Yet, I keep hearing about people continuing to buy homes and get approved for mortgages with as little as 3%-5% down. I don't mean to be crass, but what's the deal? Which is it?

Sure, a lot of those 0% down options are gone (all of them?), but isn't that supposed to be a good thing? If you can still get a mortgage with 3% down, it seems like maybe the banks (not to mention the consumers) haven't learned their lesson yet, and it seems like maybe instead of trying to get the markets loosened up and banks to lend more, maybe we should still be tightening lending standards. Doesn't tightening credit standards->fewer loans? Isn't that kind of the point? Somebody want to try to convince me that this all adds up?

I don't know where my wedding ring is. I just noticed I didn't have it on after pulling a rather sticky ball of English muffin dough out of the food processor. I'm not sure if I had it on before that. Surely I would have noticed if it came off in the dough, right? Probably should go check for it anyway. And make sure it's not in the shower while I am at it.

I am, however, halfway tempted to just cook the English muffins and take care while eating them. Why? Because it just so happens that it is Mardi Gras. And on Mardi Gras it is traditional to bake a cake (King Cake) with a baby figurine (Baby Jesus) cooked in somewhere. Whoever gets the figurine is supposed to host the party next year. Or something like that. My sister lived in Baton Rouge for a couple years when I was a kid, and she sent us a King Cake for Mardi Gras one year...

I want to try to see the Northern Lights this Spring.  I was excited to learn recently that, it just so happens that for it's latitude, Madison has about the best Aurora viewing in the world.  I believe this is due to being very close to magnetic north longitudinally.  It seems that one can get a forecast.  Activity ranges from 0-9.  On a 9, you can see the Northern Lights in Florida.  I don't know if this has ever happened since people have been keeping records.  They also have long term forecasts, which looks useful for making some weekend plans to drive north and look at it.  Activity may get up to a 4 on February 22-28, March 3-4, and March 21-31.  I will of course want to keep track of the updated forecast as it gets closer, but I'm excited.  On a 4 you can theoretically see it from as far south as Madison (just on the horizon, of course), provided you have little enough light pollution and other obstacles.  But we'd like to drive up to Canada and try for better viewing. 

I added a shelf to our bookcase tonight.  I got the idea a while back when I was thinking to myself how unfortunate it was that we were out of space on this bookcase (this is the one from Target that is downstairs and has media and games on it, not the one we made ourselves), since we don't have another bookcase available to put down here and no where to put another bookcase anyway.  Well, this bookcase has movable shelves and holds a lot of short things like CDs, so installing another shelf is pretty easy.  We went to Home Depot and purchased one of those fake-wood pre-made shelves in the right depth and about the right color and longer than necessary.  I made use of the fact that the car is gone (bringing Josh to Volleyball) and cut down the shelf to the right size tonight with the chop saw my parents gave me for Christmas.  I had to go in once from each side because the chop saw only handles things up to 6 inches and the shelf was 12 inches.  However, it seems that 6 inches + 6 inches is about a half inch short of 12 inches, so I had to use a hand saw for the last little bit.  I guess they get away with this because a 6-by is not actually 6 inches or something like that.

Anyway, I got it installed only to discover that given that shelf #2 from the bottom is not movable, and given the locations of the holes, I could give myself 3 shelves tall enough (indeed much taller than necessary) for CDs, but only one shelf tall enough for DVDs/VHSs.  One shelf is not enough for all our movies.  So I had to add more holes strategically placed so that now I can have two shelves of CDs and two shelves of movies.  Also, since my new shelf was a little dark, I decided to put it in the lowest position and put the shelf from there higher put, so it was truly only the immovable shelf which didn't end up moving (and getting emptied) as part of this project. 

All this finally done, I re-loaded everything onto the bookshelf and to my dismay, I was so much more efficient at putting everything else away than we were when we first loaded it that I have an entire empty shelf!!!  Oops.  Oh well, I'm sure we will fill it up sooner or later.  It seems one always does. 

I think I might just want to buy this house. Looks nice, well priced, and is 1/3 of a mile from down town Verona.

But holy cow, is the previous owner into cutzy, or what though?  

( Screen shot of listing under cut )

I road my bike to work today for the first time this year.  I don't know what the temperature was at the time (except that I got too hot in my down jacket and neoprene mask), but it's like 35 degrees now, and supposed to get up to 41 later today.  Highs in the 40s tomorrow too.  We could go camping!  Except that we have plans for tomorrow night. 

Last Monday was Groundhogs Day/Candlemas/Imbolc.  It seemed like everyone was talking about it.  Probably many of them were talking about it since it was discussed on The Writers' Almanac.  I gave the radio a rasberry when they announced that it was sunny and therefore we'd have another 6 weeks of Winter.  Then I thought better of it and decided that only another 6 weeks of Winter sounded like fantastic news.  Later, my mom forwarded an email to me from my aunt in which she talked about their beautiful sunny Groundhogs Day in Bandon OR and how it felt like it was getting to be Spring, but it's actually just the cross quarter.  She observed that if the Groundhog see his shadow on February 2nd, then there will indeed be another 6 weeks of Winter, but this doesn't really have anything to do with the weather... there will be 6 more weeks of Winter because Winter is only half over and it will be another 6 weeks to the Spring Equinox.  She speculates that perhaps this is meant to keep us from getting our hopes up on beautiful sunny Winter's day.  Fair enough.  Though I'd put it this way: there are only 6 more weeks of Winter ahead.  I think I need to get my hopes up.  How else is one supposed to make it through the Winter? 

I just got a paycheck for $0.00. It took me a while to figure it out, even after I got around to reading the note. It's a small bonus meant to "shift [my] actual increases to the appropriate cycle." Fair enough way to handle that. It is for $0.00 because the actual amount is less than the extra "per paycheck" withholdings I have on my federal taxes so that we don't owe a lot at the end of the year. It's still money even though it doesn't look like it, and I guess we'll be actually seeing it in like 14 months.

But what do I do with an actual paper payroll check for $0.00? Deposit it so they don't have to reissue it to me? Frame it? Throw it away? Sell it on ebay?

I was going to write about the Prime Directive. But instead of doing so (well, first anyway) I am going to ask you guys what you think the value of the Prime Directive is. And in the spirit of the Prime Directive, I'd ask that you formulate your answer before reading any other responses.

ETA: This would be the Star Trek Prime Directive.

( Volleyball stuff )

In conclusion, life is good.

It's snowing and getting dark out. It's not so bad in the apartment this time of day during the day when it is bright and sunny out, but at night it's not so nice in the winter. A fire goes a long way toward keeping it cozy-feeling in here (though I probably wont have any this week because we are almost out of wood and I think I should take my dad's suggestion of turning all the rest of our wood into kindling just in case the new wood we get isn't as dry), and I'm trying to keep the place clean and that helps too. And we have 4 very bright lamps in the living room (which I am about to turn on). But it seems like surely there are other things I could do to make the place feel "happy" and appealing in the winter time. Any suggestions?

Amazing the stuff you find on the internet...
Adjudin
'Dry orgasm' pill

So, um, yeah. The IRS doesn't believe in negative numbers, right? So like if I subtract line 4 from line 3 and get a negative number, I should enter 0. Even though, for once, they neglected to say so. Because otherwise "Deduction for Exemptions Worksheet -- Line 26" suggests that we are entitled to a higher exemption that we would have been if we'd earned less... and generally it doesn't work that way.

(...with the possible exception of the cabbage at the German restaurant in Cincinnati which I was attempting to reproduce.)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head of cabbage sliced thin 1/4 inch or so (at changing angles to keep the pieces small)
• 2 apples, cored and sliced thin (I used Wisconsin Cortlands because they are local around here)
• Some olive oil (enough to saute it in)
• Some apple cider and red wine vinegars (a couple large splashes each)

Directions:

1. Sauteed the cabbage in my 12 inch cast iron skillet with oil for the time it took me to slice up the apples (baring in mind that I am slow at slicing fruits and vegetables).
2. Added apples as I got them sliced and sauteed for a while longer.
3. When it started to look done (all the apples looked in danger of falling apart, some already had), I added the vinegars.
4. Turned the heat to low and waited for the rest of dinner to be ready.

A word to of caution: This much filled my 12 inch skillet to the point where it was difficult to stir. Half as much might be a better plan, especially for more normal sized pans.

Ally is Josh's 4-year-old 1st cousin once removed (??). I met her for the first time (that I remember) at grandma's funeral last summer. We played Apples to Apples together last night. And then as I was getting ready to go, she asked me a series of questions. First she wanted to know where I was going. Then she wanted to know where my parents lived. Then she was confused when that was not where I'd said I was going. Then she wanted to know where I lived, and again was confused when that wasn't where I was going and wasn't where my parents lived.

Ally: [In a tone that makes it sound truly scandalous] Do you live by yourself???
Me: Actually, I live with my husband.
Ally: [Sounding even more scandalized] You got married???
Me: Yep.
Ally: Why???
Me: [thinks to myself, well that's kind of a big question that took me only like 2 years to answer for myself... but I don't get into that and try to manage a neutral answer at a 4-year-old level] Because we loved each other and wanted to be our own family.
Ally: Do you have any babies?
Me: [briefly consider giving her the lecture I have prepared for rude adults about how we aren't any less of a family for not having any babies yet, but again, she's 4] No, not yet.
Ally: When are you going to have babies?
Me: [Exasperatedly to the other adults nearby] Everyone keeps asking me this! And especially the kids!!
Me: [Back to Ally] Not for a few more years.
Ally: Why don't you ask Jesus to give you a baby tomorrow???

Ah, let me count the reasons...

She's lucky she's cute and too young to know any better... that's all I can say.

We found fabric we liked reasonably well at Joann's a few days ago, but weren't ready to make the plunge yet. We decided to go ahead and get it tonight since my parents will be here in a little more than a week and want to work on it with us. And it's 50% off through tomorrow... which is a lot when you are talking about $30/yard x 10+ yards. We were just a little concerned they might not have enough in the store. Well, fortunately, they had enough fabric. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough in one piece. Fortunately, the biggest piece seemed to be big enough to cut our big pieces out of and we figured we'd manage to get the small ones out of the rest. Unfortunately, the two pieces didn't match... at all... upon closer inspection! Fortunately, we could just order a single 12 foot bolt online. Unfortunately, one of the pieces was considerably more attractive than the other and there was no way to know which we'd get... but it looked like it would probably be the less attractive one. Also, it's back ordered online and more and half again as much more expensive. Ugh. So back to the drawing board.

At least we wont be kicking ourselves for not taking the trip up to the store.

A representative from TDS (our phone/internet provider) just called. She wanted to tell me about a great new deal they are offering for bundled phone, internet, and dish TV.

Her: "Now first of all, and you still a TDS customer for phone and internet."
Me: "Yes."
Her: "And then for TV you probably have cable or something right?"
Me: "I don't have a TV."
Her: (pause... this obviously does not compute) "You don't have a TV at all?"
Me: (starting to get cheerful) "I don't have a TV at all."
Her: (longer pause this time, the script is clearly failing her) "Well... thank you for being a TDS customer and have a nice night... ?"
Me: (very cheerful by now) "Have a nice night."

Okay, so I suppose I could plug cable or dish TV into the projector, but I don't want to. Even if it was free, it would take a new episode of Doctor Who to get me to plug it in. I think that's why I love best about the projector... not the big screen or the fact that it doesn't take up any space... but just the right to honestly say, "I don't have a TV." I love being such a weirdo, I really really do.

I will hopefully eventually add a summary of the whole project to this entry, but for now I'll just post the photos. Because I've already been on my computer way too long today, accomplishing way too little. I need a vacation so bad.

( Earlier pictures )

Fun fact: If you abbreviate down as "dn" and write it in a sufficiently plain font, it becomes "up" turned upside down.  I think that is kind of awesome. 

This post brought to you by the letters d, n, u, p, and whoever wrote the server management program that marks each server as up or dn.