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Tag Archives: I made this
2000! 2000! 2000!

This is a Karuk-style basket start that’s on the wall at basket class. I should probably put a photo of a finished basket up so you can see where this is going. Try this.
Hey! Great news. This is my 2000th post since I started blogger which was February 2001 if my archives are to be believed. This is going to be a rambling post filled with history and random tidbits that I have scrawled on little pieces of paper and post-its all over my desk. I was going to wait until I had time to write a really good 2000th post, but then we’ll never get to it because my entire life is on hold until I have time to do it better and who knows when that will be?
I started a website in April 1996 (check out the Wayback machine) and some of that stuff survives in the ancient archives and some of it is stashed in a folder on my harddrive.
I’ve always wanted to bring back the Delta Sucks post and the responses including the one from the crazy lady who told me: “Your stupid!”
If I ever have money to burn I’m going to hire an assistant and that person’s job is going to be to surf the Internet and visit comment threads and any time a person posts some version of “your stupid” or “your a moron” my assistant will reply with: I think you mean “you’re stupid.”
But I’m getting away from my planned rambling. I actually have a huge page of notes for a different post to be titled “The Internet is Ruined” which I thought would be perfect as a 2000th post but I’m not in the mood today. Someday.

Last weekend I went to California to hang out with the family. This is Minky.
Does anyone ever intentionally set out to get a cat or are cats something that people just end up with? It seems like every person I’ve ever known with a cat(s) ended up with them.
Minky’s original name was Wink and Wink lived at the house next door where they already had bigger cats and also dogs. Wink was small and timid and a little overwhelmed trying to get a good meal with these other critters around. So Wink wandered the neighborhood and found my parents house. I’m not sure if she was nibbling on Shy Boy’s food or what but Dad fed her and that was the beginning of the end.
The owner retrieved her cat from my parents’ house several times but she always snuck back in. One night my Mom got up in the middle of the night and there was Wink hanging out in the hallway. She found the cat door. When the owner moved, she left Wink to live with Mom and Dad.
Wink became Winky and because she has such soft fur: Minky. But it’s a great name. You can say: inky, stinky, rinky dinky, finky, pinky, drinky. I made up some limericks for her but she just gave me this same bug-eyed stare so I stopped.
In this photo she has made a nice nest in my big warm coat. She was able to spread her fur around to all of my clothes. She’s a very sweet kitty.

I have a follow up to the Verizon story. They sent me a response to my customer service email that starts off by saying that they’d call me to walk me through my problem except that they received my email too late and due to industry regulations they can’t call me.
Because it would be a shame if any of this wasn’t all my fault. Why not have your workers on the job during the time that industry regulations allow you to call?
But that doesn’t matter because I already fixed the problem myself by doing the simple steps of canceling my autopay and then restarting it with the new credit card number. They also mailed me a notice thanking me for enrolling in autopay and welcoming me.
Your welcome. (intentional mistake because I think its funny)(that was intentional to)(that too).
I had another milestone last week — it was 20 years since I started working as a paralegal in Indian Affairs. I don’t know what to say except its nice to feel competent at a job. I did not feel that way for a very long time. I remember reading legal cases and it would take all day and then I’d read them again and again. It’s like you have to train your brain how to think a certain way and I was not a natural. 20 more years and I can retire! (sigh, geez)

Watercress harvesting. I’m sure my family is thrilled that their butts are on my website. That was the angle I had.
I have one of those dinky iPods that’s as big as a postage stamp. I have a gadget so I can listen to it in the car but I’ve only used it a couple of times because normally the only places I drive are the park-n-ride or the grocery store and those trips aren’t worth plugging in the iPod.
If you’ve ever used one of those tiny ones, you know that you can’t work it while you drive. Well, you could but you’d probably crash into something. So I had it all set up with mega-long playlists and I would get it set up and then pause and then once I got going I could listen. I had a 100 favorite song playlist that I could shuffle and an audio course and a bunch of podcasts.
The ride down worked great. I’m not sure what I did on the way home but somehow I managed to make it so it would repeat the item. After I heard the same song 3 times I realized there was a problem. I had a pitstop and I fiddled with it and thought I fixed it but I did not so it was completely aggravating. Then I tried tapping on it a bunch of times so then I was skipping all around which made the audio course a bit confusing. I’ve got it sitting here so I can figure it out when I’m feeling frisky.
Another funny technology story is that I always forget some cable that I wish I had so this trip I put every single cable and charger that I have into a plastic bag and threw it in with my stuff.
Then I forgot my laptop.
I very carefully made sure it was charged and I use Dropbox and I made sure it was synced. Bob said I left it on the couch which is pretty random because why would I put it on the couch? I think it was all subconscious. But, I had my notebook with me and wrote longhand every day so the streak (which has been going since Oct 31 2011) lives!
Goodness, are you still reading? That’s enough of that. Signing off Post 2000!
Get excited because Monday starts Timbers pre-season!
Posted in doing it wrong
Tagged cats, eternal overachiever, I made this, revisiting old things
1 Comment
Wonderin’ If I’ll Sleep

What was going on last night? I woke up at 1am, completely wide awake. I flopped around a little bit. Bob was too asleep to be entertaining. I was so hopelessly awake I finally got up and fiddled on the computer and then read a book. At 3:30am I reasoned I must be tired by now and went back to bed and flopped around for another hour. I woke up at 7am. I don’t understand how I can be so wide awake in the middle of the night.
This morning I finally got around to pinning some pants I need to hem. I always hem my pants a little too short. I don’t do it on purpose and each time I remind myself: don’t hem them too short. Then I hem them and wear a few times and launder and notice, huh, these are kinda short. I’m sure I’ve been the subject of scorn and ridicule numerous times from the Properly Hemmed Pants Patrol.
The other thing is I have super short legs so if I end up with regulars there is tons of fabric in the length and I never cut it. I just fold it all up. I have giant hems in some of my pants.
The pants I worked on this morning must have been made for circus people who wear stilts (and wear dry clean only work slacks for their performances). If I don’t trim it the hem will be close to 7 inches. I’m tempted to leave it but I think I’ll trim this pair. But first I have to make sure they aren’t too short.
Posted in doing it wrong, sleepless in Vancouver
Tagged fukoladola, I made this, killing time
1 Comment
Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

This is one of those “make it look like a miniature” tutorials. But it’s kind-of a cheat because the photo looked like a miniature before I did my magic.
Turns Out This Tutorial Has A Page 2

I’ve been repeating the tutorials a bunch of times to help me learn better. Most of the time I understand how to do the steps but I’m not always sure what each step accomplishes.
I did this tutorial three times before I realized there’s a page 2. I still haven’t done page 2.

This one gets me practice with the pen tool. Luckily I remembered pretty quick because pen tool is a pain to learn. The hard part, which I’ve written about before, is that I mouse right-handed. I would love to go back in time and figure out why I did that. But after 20 years, I can’t mouse with my left hand.
I got the tablet out and tried to just use my left hand but it was hopeless. So I’m currently doing this crazy two-handed thing where I draw left-handed on the tablet but do all other clicking with my right hand.
If I get good at it there might be a documentary about me some day.
Bottles of Pills

I’ve never been a diehard vitamin taker but I’ve been a fairly regular vitamin taker. Several days a week I’d knock back a multivitamin and mineral and a vitamin C the size of school bus plus a few other nutrients in a pill. Some article would tell me how one vitamin would make me age backwards and another would reduce moodiness and combination of a bunch would help me remember things that happened before 1975.
Then I read an article that said that after tons of studies, scientists determined that vitamins don’t do anything.
So I stopped taking vitamins. Instantly. Just like that.
I also quit making a point to eat breakfast when I read an article that said breakfast is not the most important meal of the day.
When I had the idea for this post I’m not sure where I wanted to go with it. Mostly I think it’s funny that I will alter my behavior after simply reading an article.
But then I’ve read lots of health-related articles that I completely ignored. I guess I listened to these two because I never noticed a measurable benefit from vitamin taking or eating breakfast. In fact, a lot of classic breakfast foods make me sleepy.
I have no concluding sentence.
See A Little Light

Here’s today’s Photoshop tutorial, before and after. It’s supposed to be a cool retro effect. I’d link to the original tutorial except the guy who wrote it might find his way here and then brain himself thinking that he wrote a poor tutorial or else lock up his site so that color-blind doofs like me don’t sully the world with their attempts at a cool retro effect. But I think if I practice it another 100 times I might get better.
For the past week I’ve been looking forward to reporting that I slept through the night except that it still hasn’t happened. The only night this month I slept through the night was the night I returned from San Diego and that barely counts because I was so sleep deprived I could hardly stand upright.
At least the coughing isn’t waking me up 3-4 times per night.
I’m at about 98% now. I still cough now and then and there’s a slug of extra phlegm in the system but I’m off the cough drops. I’m exercising. I’m not going through 57 tissues an hour. No one is afraid to sit next to me on the bus.

When I got home tonight I made a pie. For tonight. Because I can.
I only need one crust for my pumpkin pie tomorrow and my recipe makes enough for two crusts. Since my current pie crust recipe is working for me and I’m afraid to mess with it, I decided, what the hell, I’ll make an extra pie. And I randomly decided on cherry while I was at the market. I bought a can of dark cherries and a can of tart cherries. I put bunch of orange zest in. I just took it out of the oven and it looks great.
No Fiber Diet

Without giving all the gory details, I will mention that my sweetheart has to do a little medical procedure and has been on a restricted diet. For two days he couldn’t have anything with fiber and since he loves meat, sauce, white rice and noodles, this was only a minimal hardship. I baked a loaf of regular old sandwich bread from Cooks Illustrated. Look how pretty it turned out. Tasted good, too.
Today he has to fast. I’ve known this man for 12 years and I’ve NEVER seen him go 24 hours without solid food. Pray for us. He was already grouchy this morning. He went to a movie about Joe Strummer and hopefully he has a movie to watch when he comes home. Or I think he was going to stop by his office and clear a few things off his desk. Keep him occupied until bed time.
Today was supposed to be my lazy day and I seem to be chasing my tail. I’m going to have to re-read that thing about big rocks first and then figure out what my big rocks are.
If it’s not raining I’m going to go do a bit of raking. You rarely want to wish for rain in this part of the world but since I have a hard time sitting around in the house when it’s nice outside, I’ve been kind of hoping it would get started.
I’m going to put on my work clothes and see if I can get it to start.
The Roaming Pear Pie of Vancovuer

Here’s the pear pie I made last weekend visiting Vermont. Pears aren’t like apples. They like to roam.
CREEM LETTER TO THE EDITOR #1
CREEM is the only magazine to ever print letters to the editor worth reading. They were hilarious and came in two categories. Irate letters from people who didn’t get the magazine (more on this in a future post) and loopy letters from crazy people. I had two published.
The first one was published in the February ’87 issue with David Byrne on the cover.
Mantle of Shame Descendeth Again!
What's the problem? One issue he is worthy of your most generous accolades, the next month, Alpo. I'm talking about a veritable icon of metal music and rock hero of our time, David Lee Roth. OK, so Christgau gave him a B+. Altman's impertinent commentary on the "Yankee Rose" video--wardrobe stolen from Stryper? Please! Gene Simmons might note the influence, but I say it's just coincidence. C'mon Billy, the guy has 400 pairs of tights. Quit nit-picking.
And what is Rick Johnson's problem? I'm all for employing the brain-damaged, but let them do something harmless--like host Wheel of Fortune. And the lousiest album he's heard in years? And he backs up this grandiose allegation by grumbling about lawn chairs and commemorative spoons. Just who pays this guy anyway? The album is great and the musicians are the best and Rick-John sucks! And not to change the subject, but what happened to Def Leppard? I don't want to be unsympathetic, but I think they've gotten enough mileage out of the ol' Rick Allen's arm excuse. They should call their next album Who? or, better yet, Who Cares? I'm sick of waiting for this mythical album. Entire civilizations have been known to rise, fall and disintegrate into dozens of solo projects in the time it's taken those bozos with their crummy record.
---
I wrote “veritable rock icon” — can you believe it? I loathe the word “vertiable” – it stinks of “too lazy to find a good word.”
They supplied the title. The letter is in response to Roth’s Eat ‘Em and Smile that I did buy but never listened to a whole lot. It wasn’t such a great album. I was going to include a link to his official website but it’s lame so don’t bother. You can see I’m not so loyal to Dave anymore. But I was fanatical on everything Van Halen and DLR back in the day.
A lot of this letter is in-jokes that only a person who read and re-read the magazine (or edited it) would get. I’d explain them to you but I can’t remember.
The Def Leppard thing has to do with the endless wait after Pyromania, which came out in 1983 and I kid you not, I probably heard that record 2000 times. I listened to it once a day for over a year. Hysteria came out in August of 1987 and promted another letter to CREEM which I will find and post later but now I’m hideously late and must get my overfed Thanksgiving ass on the move.
