Photo Hunters: Bright

Bright Light (along the DuPage River in Naperville, IL, taken in March 2008)


Bright Colors (in Dale Chihuly's famous Fiori di Como blown-glass ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio hotel, Las Vegas, taken in November 2005)


Bright Face (light reflects off a friend's face, taken in January 2008)

(About Photo Hunters and PhotoHunt 116: Bright)

Random ramblings ~ Just because I can

Happy Birthday, Big Sis! I hope you're not working too hard today.

Lots of birthdays happening in this two-week stretch. Brother-in-law, nephew Drake, Marriott, Kyle. We're hosting a 40th-birthday party for Kyle tomorrow night. Tying it in with The Guess Who performing at one of the local summer festivals.

Went to a Jack Johnson concert last weekend at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. Remember that place? It's where Stevie Ray Vaughan's helicopter crashed back in 1990.

Never going back to Alpine Valley for a concert. Two hour drive, and the most unholy system of getting people out of there. Took over an hour to exit, most of which was spent in total bash-your-head-repeatedly-against-the-dashboard gridlock. Didn't get home until 3 a.m.

The show itself was good, though. I'm not the big Jack Johnson fan in the family, but I enjoyed his performance.

Driving up to Milwaukee Summerfest this afternoon. We have tickets to see Rush tonight. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Rush over the years. Probably about 10 times since Power Windows came out back in the late '80s. Hmm. I think I have that Power Windows T-shirt still. I might wear it.

There's a comic book convention in town. I passed the Green Lantern on the way to work. Nice costume.

I've been really busy at work this week, wrapping up a test plan. Writing test plans is my least favorite part of my job. Thankfully, that's over now -- until next time.

Had some lumps checked out on both dogs. Since Loki had a mast-cell tumor removed last fall, we've been really careful about having the vet look at anything suspicious. He told us that everything looks benign. Whew.

Ted Nugent and Joan Jett are both playing Naperville Rib Fest next weekend. I think we're in for both of them.

Not doing so well reaching my writing goals. Sunday will be my first opening in the itinierary to sit down at the computer. Pencil me in.

Guitar Hero Aerosmith comes out Sunday. Picking up a copy for myself and as a gift for my nephew. It'll be good to have some new songs to work on. Maybe I'll master the hard difficulty level yet. Really want Rock Band for the Wii, but can't justify the expense right now.

I've been listening to an audio course on the History of the English Language. Really enjoying it. Did you know your body is your bonelocker? And your mind is your wordhoard? To unlock your wordhoard is to speak. There were some fun words in Old English.

So I conducted this poll on preferences in reading. The poll is closed. Not sure what I'm going to do with the results yet.

I've been looking at my site stats again. Surprised at the number of people looking for photos of Lindsay Wagner. People with a lot of celebrity news must get a lot of Google hits. I'm intrigued, through, at the person who was searching "demonstration speech on how to stack a dog". How do you stack a dog? Why would you stack a dog?

Finally got new sofa cushions installed on our sofa. A certain dog managed to vomit on one of the cushions three months ago. It soaked into the core and could not be cleaned. Fortunately, we had bought the upholstery protection, so the cushions were covered. Oh, the joys of dog ownership. :)

And now to totally bring things down...

Good friends (the Hillies) had a fire at their townhouse last night. Their grill started it. Everyone, even the cats, got out OK, but there's lots of damage. Like total loss between the smoke and the water damage. Husband's with them this morning helping where he can. That's all I know for now.

Wordless Wednesday: Highland Games

Since I missed Wednesday this week, enjoy the Thursday edition of Wordless Wednesday.

These are from our trip to the Highland Games over the weekend here in the Chicago area. If you want to see more, check out my set on Flickr.

What is it about the sporran that invites moments like these?

I took these at the Scottish Highland Games in the Chicago area this weekend. What is it about the sporran that invites moments like these? We were in the whisky tasting tent. Perhaps that explains it.

Cookie Monster!

Cookie Monster was on the Colbert Report last week. Enjoy!



Thanks to my husband for sending me the link.

My favorite line from Cookie Monster: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. No problem. Elmo can wait in car. It very fuel efficient. It run on imagination."

A blast from the past playing four square

One of my happiest purchases as a kid was my big, red rubber ball. You know, like the kind you used to play kickball and four square during recess? Remember those games?

Kickball may have been my favorite of the two playground games, but I know I logged a lot of hours playing four square.

So, when a group of co-workers found one of those balls laying around the other day, and proposed a lunch-time round of four square, I was all over the idea.

The problem was, all I really remembered about the game was that four people each stand in a square and the each take turns bouncing the ball back and forth. Beyond that, I wasn't so sure of the objective. Not to worry, though, apparently most everyone else had forgotten the rules, too. Fortunately, we have this new-fangled thing called the Internet nowadays and the rules for four square were just a few clicks away.

So, at lunch time Thursday, eight of us went out to a remote part of the parking lot. We used four parking spaces and some chalk to outline our four squares, and had at it.

What amazed me was how much fun we had. The rounds went really fast and no one had to wait for long to rotate back in. I'm happy to say that the game came back to me quickly and I was a competitive player, spending several rounds in the "king" or No. 1 position. Although, I would have done better if I'd been in gym shoes instead of flip-flops. You know, the whole twist an ankle thing.

Before we knew it, our hour of designated play time was up and we had to return to work. I'm thinking that there will be future sessions of four square. Problem is, we had perfect mid-70 degree weather on Thursday. Future days in the summer are likely to be much hotter, and who wants to return to work as a big ball of sweat?

A garage sale tale

Almost every year my mother, my sister and I get together for a garage sale. We've been doing this for many years.

This time, there were four families contributing toward the sale, with my Mom's cousins joining in. All told, we made about $450 for two days of work last weekend. My take was about $90, which is actually a bigger percentage of the earnings than usual.

Usually, when I bring home my meager earnings, my husband will wonder why we even bother, because it's surely not worth the money for the time we put into it. But lately, he's caught on that there are many reasons why we hold our annual garage sale, and money is only a small one.

Recycling

To me, it's recycling at its most satisfying. Not only do I have a reason and a deadline for sorting through my closets and such, but I also get the satisfaction of seeing my treasured junk find its way into the hands of someone who wants and/or needs it.

This year there was the family buying up kids clothes for their grandson who was coming for a long visit, but his mother never sends along enough clothes.

There was the single father setting up a new home who needed a kitchen table.

There was the young couple with the cute little girl who snatched up the window air-conditioning unit. They had me stretching my memory for the right words to assure them in Spanish that yes, indeed, it did work. I managed to come up with trabajar. I couldn't conjugate it, but it got the message across.

And there was the lady who liked the three wavy-shaped glass jars as much as I did and was willing to pay 75 cents for them. Hopefully, she'll find a better use for them than I did (see Wordless Wednesday: Trapped, but without the Beanie Babies).

Truthfully, we practically gave our stuff away. I wrote out a lot of price tags at 50 cents, $1 and $2, and was happy to be haggled down. Even though there were a couple large-ticket items that sold, there were hundreds of small things that found new homes during those two days. In the end, what didn't sell was boxed up and donated to charity.

Socializing

But then there's also the social aspect of the garage sale. It's an excuse to sit around with my mother and sister all day. We talked a lot, but we also kept busy with the business-related tasks.

We also got to see many of my Mom's neighbors. My Mom has lived in the house for 30 years, so I remember many from my own childhood in the house, or I've heard my Mom talk about them.

The people watching was pretty fascinating, too. People of all different ages, ethnicities and financial situations came through. They didn't necessarily need what we were offering, but they were curious to see what we had.

One of the best things this year, though, was seeing my nephews get into the experience. My 8-year-old nephew, Louis, ran a lemonade stand. He didn't do great business, but he was diligent about trying to sell. My almost-12-year-old nephew, Drake, manned the our bank and worked as our cashier. He was a dedicated worker both days, and a lot of the customers got a kick out of watching him take the job so seriously.

One of the my favorite memories of the weekend was watching Drake and my sister count and recount the money and tally the books at the end of the sale. There was a lot of high finance going on there as we tried to figure out how much each of us made. Which, of course, left me free to take photos. :)

Trash talkin' Romance novelists

Pure silliness, but I love it.

The Rita award is the most prominent award given in the Romance genre. It is awarded annually at the Romance Writers of America conference, which happens in late July/early August this year in San Francisco. (It's kind of like the Hugo award, for you science fiction/fantasy fans.)

The finalists in the Contemporary Single Title category decided to put together a trash-talking video. Kind of funny to see Romance writers trying to talk tough.

Fun with polls: What do you read?

Just for fun, I posted a poll in the sidebar at right posing the question: If you could only read one type/genre of book, what would you read?

Take a moment and give me a quick answer. I'm curious to see how the numbers work out at the end of the week.

Update 6-23-08: Apologies for forgetting historical fiction and horror as possible answers.

A line in life that I will not cross

My friend Jules thinks I should have a pet wedding for Loki and Thor like the weddings described in this article: More dogs are saying 'Fi-Do' to pet weddings.

Scott's clients include pet owners who want to mate their pets and don't want "illegitimate relations" in their home. Others want companionship for their pets, and some pet owners just want a public ceremony to emphasize how esteemed their pets are.

As crazy as I am about my dogs (we do celebrate their birthdays), I am not about to hold a doggie wedding.

Loki and Thor are adopted brother and sister, after all, and letting them marry would be yucky. :P

(Seriously, I would NEVER go there. Their relationship is 100 percent sibling and 0 percent romantic. They just don't have that kind of chemistry. Plus they're both fixed. And mostly, Loki thinks Thor is an extremely annoying little brother.)

Wordless Wednesday: Storm Damage

I know this is supposed to be wordless, but I can't help myself.

With all this wild weather we've been having in the Midwest, a tree falling in our backyard seems very trivial.

Amazingly, both my husband and I watched this tree come down. We were looking out the back window watching the trees sway furiously in the wind during a storm, then heard a giant "crack" and watched the top of the tree fall off. Fortunately, it landed in the center of the yard and didn't damage anything, although it was inches from one of my new rose bushes.

When the weather cleared about 30 minutes later, we borrowed a chain saw and quickly had the tree to the curb for collection by the village.

If you look at the bottom photo, you can see where the tree cracked. It's way at the top of the photo, about 20 feet up the tree trunk.

Spore-lings at large

So, there's this game called Spore that has been in the works for AGES. I mean, I blogged about it being in development two years ago.

It's a hugely complex game from the creator of TheSims and SimCity that involves creating a creature, nurturing it and its offspring, developing a civilization and eventually going into space. They're marketing it a "massively single-player game".

Anyway, they finally released the first part of the game today called the Spore Creature Creator, which you use to create your customized creature. The full game isn't released until September, but creatures created by the Spore Creature Creator now will be used to populate the game once it is released. (Read more about it here.)

My husband has been excited about Spore for years, and was on the Spore website today and playing with the Spore Creature Creator. He even went so far as to post a video of it to YouTube.



I'm sure he'll have me creating my own creature soon enough. If I make something interesting, perhaps I'll post it.

Update 6/18/08: Last night I took my turn at the Spore Creature Creator and designed my own creature named Whiplash.

The program has built-in capabilities to record video, plus makes it easy to upload to YouTube, which is probably why YouTube might appear flooded with videos of Spore creations. Here's my effort. I love the way he emotes, especially when the background changes or his youngling appears/disappears.

Linky love

I've been a bad blogger this week. Neglecting my site, neglecting my EntreCard drops, and neglecting to extend linky love to the Internet.

Rest assured, there are posts in the works, and I hope to get back on the bandwagon with drops.

So, one day after the 15th of the month, here is my list of top Entrecard droppers for the month. I'd hoped to present it in some sort of interesting format (a story, perhaps?) but I'll settle for the tried-and-true at this point. There are a few new names in the list this month. I've added them to my "Blogs I'm Following" sidebar.

1. Aerten Art
2. On The Bricks
3. MamaFlo's Place
4. Cromely's World
5. Sharp Words
6. Turnip of Power
7. Work at Home Mom Revolution
8. Driving to Oahu
9. Life's Context
10. Zental Floss

I also wanted to take a moment to say thanks to the top commenters on this site this month. Here are the people who left at least two comments since my last linky love post back in May. (It's only a coincidence that the list is 10 deep.) Remember, I hand compile this list, so if there are any omissions, I apologize.

1. Claire @ A Little Piece of Me
2. Jody @ The Hunter's Wife
3. Kelly @ Aerten Art
4. Daisy @ Daisy the Curly Cat
5. Lisa @ Everyday New: My project 365
6. Brady Frost @ Hunting the Muse
7. Debra @MamaFlo's Place
8. Mark @ neOnbubble
9. Princess Vien
10. Cindi @ Moomettesgram's Musings

Thanks everyone. You make blogging fun.

Wordless Wednesday: Fathers Day 1980

World of "Wifecraft"

LOL. Thanks Eric for sending me a link to this.

It's all about teaching your power-gaming husband how to put as much effort into your marriage as he does into playing World of Warcraft. (Of course, I play as much WoW as my husband, but it's still funny.) Someone even pulls a Leeroy Jenkins at the end. :)

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble embedding this video, so, instead, I'll send you to the link on Kontraband.

Or wait! I found it on YouTube. It's a little bit raw, but those raw bits are bleeped.

Writing: Flashbacks driven by emotion

I found this nugget of storytelling wisdom filed away and thought I'd pull it out to share it.

Last year I read this interview -- He's traded safety of sitcoms for the danger of 'Dexter' -- with Clyde Phillips, a producer for the show Dexter, and was stuck by what he had to say about emotion, character, plot and flashbacks.

Q. Does the show have any internal rules?

A. We try to tell the stories though Dexter's point of view. We only use slow motion if we're either in Dexter's head or looking at him. The flashbacks always have to be emotionally motivated. Almost all of the flashbacks are back to Harry, his father. They need to be emotionally driven, rather than plot driven. I think all of that contributes to the success of the show. It's emotion, character, and plot, in that order. And I think that's why people embrace the show.

I've since watched the first season of Dexter on DVD and I was surprised with how much I liked the show. Dexter is an extremely compelling and sympathetic character, even though he is a serial killer. And the flashbacks, which can be a clunky storytelling device when used poorly, are vitally important to understanding Dexter as a person.

Sometimes when a storyteller uses flashbacks, the writer is just being lazy. Dexter is an example of flashbacks used with purpose and effect.

Wordless Wednesday: Trapped

Twitter and the state of the economy

Wow. Is that a boring title: "The state of the economy". Bear with me, though. This is not an economic dissertation, but rather two lessons from one social event.

The setting: Marwen's Paintbrush Ball 2008, a charity dinner and live auction for a prominent Chicago visual arts program for "under-served young people".

How: Through the generosity of a friend's employer, who purchased a bundle of seats at the dinner. (Thank you.)

The players: JC, Marriott and myself,
plus hundreds of other people.


Lesson 1: Twittering live!

I've been playing around on Twitter for a few months in a very limited capacity. Twitter has been described by many people as "micro-blogging", but I like to describe it as blogging meets instant messaging.

Basically, you create an account and publish posts (aka Tweets) that are limited in size to 140 characters max (this figure has to do with the maximum number of characters allowed by instant messaging programs, or something like that).

You can choose to follow the Tweets of other Twitterers, and talk directly to those Twitterers by throwing an @ before their Twitter name.

Twitter in its simplicity plays nicely with other applications, so there are a lot of tools out there to make your Twitter experience more versatile. Like TwitterFox for my FireFox browser, which keeps me updated on new Tweets with little popup notices in the lower corner of my browser window, and TwitterSync, which updates my Tweets to my status window in Facebook.

So, for instance, I Tweeted this on Saturday afternoon:

Up until Saturday, I'd only ever published my Tweets from my computer. But Twitter is supposed to be more mobile than that. So before I left, I set up my Twitter account to work with instant messages from my cellphone. This was actually a challenge for me, because I don't *do* instant messaging.

Here we were, in the middle of a fancy dinner, with a live auction going on in the background, and I was plugging away at my cellphone trying to perfectly compose a Tweet. As you can see, I was reaching for subject matter, and even gave up toward the end when I couldn't find the "$". That figure is supposed to be $8,000.

Next step was sending a photo Tweet. I'd signed up for TwitPic right before I left the house, but I was inexperienced at emailing photos from my phone, so this was yet another technological hurdle that I had to overcome. Which I did.

When the opportunity came to raise my auction paddle and bid on an item I could afford, I grabbed it. (Nevermind that it was a "raise your paddle if you want to give a straight-up charitable contribution to Marwen" fake auction. I got to use my paddle! As did about a hundred other people.) So I snapped a photo with my phone, gave it a subject line, and emailed it off to TwitPic.


This is what the photo looked like, by the way.

And those three Tweets are my sum experience with Twittering live. (Except for those observations Twittered live from my desk chair, which often say something to the effect of "Is it lunchtime yet?" I never claimed to be the most fascinating person on Twitter. :P )

Lesson 2: The economy affects everyone

If you look up at that second Tweet, you'll see that the "Fighter Pilot for a Day" experience was auctioned off for $8,000. That seems like a lot of money to me. It's well out of my discretionary spending budget. But, the thing is, that same exact experience went for a lot more last year. All the live auction items did.

If my figures are right from last year, that same fighter pilot experience went for more than $20,000.

Quick! Someone do the math. What percentage change is that?

Another great for-instance? A local fashion designer auctioned off a wine-tasting party in his loft for 30-40 people. He supplies the wines, which are premiere.

Last year, there was a bidding war for the party. When the bidding hit $21,000, the designer decided he would happily host two parties and gave the prize to both bidders, raising $42,000 for Marwen.

This year, the party -- one party -- went for $10,000. Nothing to sneer at, certainly, but nothing like last year. What's the percentage change?

My interpretation of the change in bidding patterns? Everyone is tightening their purse strings. If they're not directly feeling the pinch, they're feeling more conservative as they watch those around them who are.

And just in case I was doubting my interpretation, I saw this article on the New York Times website yesterday: It’s Not So Easy Being Less Rich.

This snippet summarizes the theme of the article:

The wealthy don’t generally speak publicly about their finances, in good times or bad. ... But people who provide services to the wealthy — lawyers, art advisers, personal trainers and hairstylists — say they are getting an earful about their clients’ financial anxieties.

Interviews with the people who actually see the bank statements, like divorce lawyers and lenders, say their clients are definitely living on less than they did a year ago, regardless of how expansive the definition of “less” may be.

I think that's exactly what I was seeing live on Saturday night. Generous spending, certainly. But not nearly as generous as last year.

At large: Rikatakufu

I saw this "Japanese name meme" on both Mama Flo's site and On the Bricks. Because it looks fun and silly (and doesn't require much creative effort), I'm self-tagging myself.

Based on the chart below, this blog and my name "translate" to:

The Beacon = Chiriku Tukukamimoto

Haley = Rikatakufu


Feel free to self-tag yourself on this one. How does your name "translate"?