Leora the Sane

So much stuff going on right now. The holidays. Winter. Snow (and shoveling). And some good stuff, too.

• I have finally switched over to Wordpress for my blogging platform, as opposed to Blogger. Mind you, I’m not anti-Blogger. I just really like what Wordpress is doing, and what it could do for me. Plus, the novelty of changing my site (and the ease with which I can change site designs now) may help me post a little more often. The change in my site has changed my RSS feed. Anyone who knows how to make that work for those of you that read my feed through your Livejournal, please help. ‘Cause I don’t have a clue.
• Eli and I made the paper on Sunday. A staff photographer at the Strib came over to photograph our snow labyrinth on Solstice morning. A lovely photo of Eli made the front page of the Twin Cities-West section, and more photos can be found in a slideshow on their website.
• Today is finally the end of the holidays. We’re seeing the ‘rents, my bro and his fiancee today to exchange gifts. I will be so happy when this whole season is over.

Here is a photo I took of our labyrinth last week, click for larger version. It’s a 3-circuit labyrinth, just like the one we used in our wedding. We used over 40 candles to light it. And I got a bunch of great photos, in addition to the ones the Strib photog took. We haven’t redone it since we got all that snow this week, and all of our candles are currently buried, but it’s pretty neat. we’ll have it fully stomped out again soon and people can come over to use it, just ask.

Anywho, gotta get ready to see the family. Have a happy Saturday!

December 29, 2007 at 1:57 pm | Category: Photos | Leave a comment

Yup. I’ve been home sick most of the week. And, as usual, they don’t know what is wrong with me. It’s probably something viral, could be just a cold. But because my asthma has been acting up a lot over the past months, it’s gotten worse. I’m on an inhaler, claritin, benedryl, and prednisone. All of which really only treat the symptoms, since you can’t really treat a virus.

And this couldn’t have come at a worse time for me at work. We just finished a big project and now we need to catch up a lot of other things. And I’m not there to do it. And I know that the amount of stress I’ve been putting myself through over the past month at work probably contributed to my lowered immune system. But I’m a stress-puppy. We knew that.

Anywho… Just slept away the morning, had some food and am clearing out my browser tabs for another link dump. What else am I going to do… sleep for a few more hours? Drink more of my sore throat relieving concoction (water, apple cider vinegar, and honey)? Watch more bad daytime TV? Or read another book (which I think I’ll work on after this, actually)?

At least doing this makes me feel a little less sick than I am…

• Great Interviews of the 20th Century I probably won’t get around to reading these unless I load them onto my Iliad, but they are some pretty good interviews, by the looks of it.
• JPG Magazine’s infrared photography theme, to submit one of my infrared photos to, if I can ever pick which one. You can see a couple of my infrared photos on my MNArtists site, specifically here and here.
• For any of you who may have heard about our recent gutter problems, all I have to say is, at least our gutters don’t look like this.
• This photo of the path of a boomerang is so purdy I had to share.
• A dress made of Uno cards. How cool is that?
• For my girl, who loves mint chocolate chip ice cream.
• Another one for my honey, a build your own Thereman kit.
• This is almost cool enough to make me want to learn to knit. But not quite. I could probably just as easily create a crochet pattern of my own. But who has time. So I will just admire from a distance.
• Because we all love corduroy.
• Because October is “Choose to Reuse” month, an only slightly tangential link about recycling.
• Scroll down this page for info about seminars on green careers (for my girl).
• It’s all about the cheese.
• WorldChanging is a site I’m always meaning to spend more time looking through. Maybe this will encourage me.
• Make your own sundial. Maybe another thing to add to our backyard next year. Or maybe the year after next…
• The night sky from Minneapolis. Not that we’ve been able to see much of it lately.
• I think she’s spinning clockwise. How ’bout you?

And no, I haven’t been spending all my sick time on the computer. Most of these links have been sitting on my browser for days. And that makes poor James run slow.

Enough of this. Time to cuddle up on the couch and read until my wife gets home. When you see us this weekend (which some of you will, I’m sure), give her a big hug for putting up with sick me this week.

October 11, 2007 at 3:34 pm | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Yes, that’s right. It’s time for another Link Dump, and some news.

• The Complee Wilhelm Baynes translation of the I Ching. I personally work more with Stephen Karcher’s Total I Ching, but this version is the classic translation that brought the I Ching to the west. Another good link: Stephen Karcher’s website The Great Vessel. On this site he has a lot of great articles about the I Ching, his philosophy, divination etc.
• Croquet. Stuck in our head since we went to Dykes do Drag for D’s bachelorette party on Saturday. “Back in the day…”
• a Chocolate Pumpkin Muffin recipe I’d like to try making for the Mother-out-law

And now, the news…

I spent a good portion of August and September working on my application for an arts fellowship, which I submitted on the 14th. As a gift to myself for finishing the application, I purchased an iLiad, a e-ink based ebook reader. I’ve had it just over a week now and I have to say it’s one of the coolest toys I’ve ever owned. For the techies out there, it’s Unix, and the company not only condones but helps users “break into” the system to develop their own new software for it. It is essentially an open machine. Neato. for the readers out there, what’s not to love about a machine the size of a thin hardcover that can hold hundred of books, essentially as many as you can fit onto almost whatever storage you prefer (SD, CF, or USB flash drive, plus the 90-some mb of internal storage available). I could go on and on. But I won’t. Suffice it to say that never again do I have to worry about finishing my book during the first few minutes of my lunch break and having nothing else to read for the rest of the day. Teehee.

In sadder news, I just got my rejection letter for the fellowship this afternoon. Phewie.

And to end on a high note, E’s college buddy C is coming to town tonight for the big wedding this weekend. He’ll be staying chez nous while he is here, as our first guest. Fortunately, our sofa bed was delivered this afternoon, so he has someplace to sleep. That and the new bedding and bath paraphernalia we just purchased at good ol’ Target should hopefully make him feel at home for the next 4 days. Now if only he’d let us cook for him instead of spending the weekend eating out with everyone he knows in the cities…. Oh well…

September 26, 2007 at 5:56 pm | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

So what do you do when you realize that you have thousands of bookmarks saved in Firefox and that you never really go back and look at them again?
You decide to dust off the old blog!
So now, every few days or so, I’m going to dump my links here, instead of in my floundering collection of bookmarks. This way I can also keep track of why in the world I found such links interesting.
I can’t promise I’ll keep this up. But if I do it might just get me back in the habit enough to write real posts every once in a while. Who knows?…

• Motorcycles made from watch parts. Everytime I see anything online related to watches, I can’t help thinking about M, our cool friend from the witchy community.
• Alien, made out of vegetables. For, among many others, our dear vegan friend C.
• Pincushion tutorial. Not much interested in pin cushions, really. But I like the structure and wanted to remember how to do it.
• Milorad Pavic. One of our favorite authors. Even in translation, the most poetic prose I have ever read. And not in a bad way.
• Make your own fraction addition machine
• Did you know that the moon wobbles?

Enough for now.
Until… whenever.

September 8, 2007 at 9:13 pm | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment