You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2009.
The Dave Matthews Band has a super sweet, funky little contest going on right now. For their new album “Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King,” Dave himself created the artwork – line drawings inspired by Mardi Gras and LeRoi Moore. And the band is giving fans a shot at coloring the cover online, on a website set up with the cover and simple paint tools. As this is a contest, there is a deadline – August 31, 2009 – and prizes – 10 deluxe editions of the album signed by Dave – and you have to submit your name, email address and location.
I’ve taken the better part of the last hour to complete my entry, which you can see at this link: http://www.davematthewsband.com/bigwhiskey/painter/#/view/drawing/5596/.
As a kid, I hated coloring in coloring books. If I’d had this to play with instead, I would’ve been hooked on coloring.
I’ve been helping Daughter with parallel parking in anticipation of her driver’s test this week. “Helping,” however, is precisely the wrong word. You see, I never learned how to properly parallel park when I was learning to drive, even though I had a permit for years and drove something like 13 different vehicles before I took my test in Hubby’s ginormous yacht of a Cadillac. I was docked points during the parallel parking portion of my test because I made “too many maneuvers.” In my estimation, you maneuvered until you got into the space – especially with a Caddy Sedan DeVille.
So I wasn’t actually “helping” Daughter with her parallel parking. Instead, I was the adult driver she needed in the passenger seat while she practiced. Around and ’round the block she went, practicing her parallel parking in front of our house where we had our other car and an orange cone set up to delineate the space. I paid close attention to how she was lining up the car and turning the steering wheel through the process. She successfully parked the majority of the times she tried and she always had a sense of when she was too angled and not going to make it into the space without hitting the curb.
The other notable thing about Daughter when she parks is how calm she is. One maneuver at a time, very deliberate, cool as a cucumber. Completely unlike me when I attempt to parallel park. I always freak out because I don’t know what I’m doing and know that I’m not going to get into the space properly. Until tonight …
After watching Daughter practice, I told her I wanted to try. I made the attempt three times and two of those times were successful. The most successful parallel parking I’ve done in my life. Sweet! Having teenagers is wonderful.
Sort of an odd day off. For some reason I decided that I had to thoroughly clean the car. It might just have something to do with the fact that Eldest Son and Daughter are scheduled to take their driver’s tests later this week and I want the car ship-shape (or car-shape, as the case may be) for the event.
The first thing I did was vacuum the interior. I used an industrial-sized vacuum, what is commonly referred to as a Shop-Vac, even though Shop-Vac is a registered trademark brand. Whenever I use this vacuum, I wear earplugs because it’s way too loud for my delicate ears.
As I was vacuuming the mounds of sand off the floor, working the suction end underneath the seats and into the crevices, I thought about the people who do this sort of thing for a living. They have a great job title: Detailing. Isn’t that marvelous? They are being paid to pay attention to detail, to work around the nooks and crannies and curves, of which there seem to be hundreds in a single car. Auto detailers must have special tools for getting into the really tight spaces (between the seat and center console, for one). I was hankering for a skinnier wand on the end of the vacuum hose.
While I was vacuuming, Daughter came out to see what I was up to. I put her to work on cleaning the windows. Thank heavens she pitched in, or I might have been there all day. After vacuuming, I wiped down the seats, dash, and door interiors with a damp, soapy rag. Then it was time to hose down the exterior and scrub it with Armor-All Car Wash, which works up into lovely suds with a soft brush. Another rinsing and a wipe-down with a dry cloth and the car gleamed in the sunshine.
Ah! Remember the good old days when memes were a blog thing? I haven’t done a blog meme in ages, yet within the past week, I’ve participated in 3 or 4 of them on Facebook.
For those of you unfamiliar with a meme, the definition according to WordNet is …
“a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation)”.
Translated to the internet, whether on blogs or Facebook, a meme is typically a series of questions designed to illicit interesting answers about your personal life. A meme is an exercise in getting to know people more deeply.
Another facet of memes, a very important facet, is tagging. Once you’ve answered a meme’s questions, you are supposed to tag other people before publishing it, basically asking them to participate. Tagging on a blog simply means listing other bloggers within the meme blog post and asking them to answer the meme on their own blog.
On Facebook, in contrast, once a person is tagged, s/he gets an email and a Facebook notification about the tag. In order to take part in the meme, you have to copy the text of the meme from whomever sent it, then open a new Note (go to Facebook applications bar at bottom of screen, click on icon that looks like notebook paper, then click on “Write a New Note” button in upper right of the screen), paste the meme into the Note, delete the answers given and fill in your own answers. Before publishing, you can tag people on your Friends list by using the tag feature to the right of the Note.
And on and on it goes.
The Facebook memes I’ve participated in this week are “State Share” (wherein I had to identify which states in the U.S.A. I’ve visited), “The 3’s of Moi” (wherein I had to give 3 answers to each question), and my favorite – “Pop Trash Movie.” I have another meme cued up, one that Hubby tagged me for, and it’s called “Taggy Question Thingy.”
As I really enjoyed “Pop Trash Movie,” allow me to explain it. It doesn’t have a true title, except the one you give it. The point of the meme is to pick one musical artist or group and answer each of the questions using song titles exclusively from that artist or group. The very last question asks what you will be calling the meme and you have to pick a title from one of your artist’s songs. The musical group I chose was Duran Duran and “Pop Trash Movie” is from their album “Pop Trash,” which I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never heard. I lost track of the group after the “Notorious” album, while they were in the middle of forming new bands and such, and I haven’t caught up with them since.
If you want to take part in this musical meme, let me know and I’ll post my answers here and tag you and we can return a meme to the blogosphere.
I truly took a ton of pics at Como Park a week and a half ago. I wanted to post a few more of my favorites, the ones that don’t fit neatly into some category. Here they are – random Como Park pics:
Como Park Conservatory
Interior pool with statue at Como Park Conservatory
Tentative swimmer statue at Como Park Conservatory
Silk Floss Tree at Como Park Conservatory - Looks like a tree with very sharp chicken pox
Common Fig, Como Park Conservatory - I find the bulbous nature of this trunk attractive.
Waterfall at Japanese Garden, Como Park, St. Paul, MN
Politics annoy me no end. At least the part wherein everyone argues unproductively back and forth and nothing ever gets decided. (Oh, and the name-calling part, too.)
The subject of health care reform is of particular annoyance lately because it is being discussed ad nauseum in the news, but there seem to be no decent solutions being offered. So here’s my suggestion. Why don’t we just let the whole system fall apart? Let it crumble to the ground. Everyone stop paying premiums, stop going to the doctor, stop filling prescriptions, stop paying health care bills. Opt-out altogether.
What might happen if we did that? Well, some people – those who are being over medicated or suffering from iatrogenic illnesses – might start feeling better. And those who are incredibly sick will get sicker and/or die.
Sure, it’s drastic. But honestly, only drastic measures – like having to walk over dead bodies – appear to have any effect on getting us off the dime. If the whole system fell apart, what solutions might we implement right quick?
Of course I don’t really want to see people dying from lack of health care, but how ’bout we pretend that people’s lives are on the line in order to speed up the process of reform? After all, people’s lives ARE on the line.
We were visiting my in-laws two evenings ago, sitting outside with family members, enjoying the beautiful evening, when a couple of mourning doves started cooing. My mother-in-law said that we should expect rain. Her parents had taught her that mourning doves will coo before imminent rain or directly after it has rained. As we hadn’t had rain in a few days, it was obvious that they must be doing the pre-rain coo.
Yesterday, we were hit with a quick and massive storm. We were away from home when it hit in the evening and it practically snuck up on us. Sunny and beautiful most of the day and then WHAM! Happy storm time. The mourning doves were right.
We had the same kind of storm this afternoon, although I wasn’t outside long enough to listen for the mourning doves.
The other rain predictor, which I learned from a previous co-worker, is when the deciduous trees flash the silvery backsides of their leaves at you.
Are there any sure-fire storm predictors that you follow?
Dear American Airlines: A Novel by Jonathan Miles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A very fine book, written in the format of a complaint letter to American Airlines by a frustrated, former drunk, poet/Polish translator who is trying to make it to his estranged daughter’s wedding. Jonathan Miles brings sympathy to a character who has so mucked up his life that many of us wouldn’t have sympathy for him normally.
Yes, I said “aminals.” For some reason, when little kids mispronounce “animals” this way, I find it endearing.
While Hubby and I prefer the Conservatory at Como Park, we had lots of time to kill while there this past Wednesday, so we did eventually get around to the zoo portion of the park. The zoo area was more popular than the Conservatory that day (and probably every day). It was swarming with children and the adults who were supervising them.
Part of what we find frustrating about the zoo is the behavior of some people toward the animals. At the tiger exhibit, we saw a grandmotherly type encouraging her young brood to yell, “Wake up, tiger!” as loud as they could. I’d love to send a tiger into her bedroom some morning to roar the equivelant of “Wake up, Granny!” just to see how she would react.
At the lion exhibit, we witnessed a man squirt his beverage bottle so that the liquid would fall on the lion below. As he and his wife turned away from the exhibit, I saw the wife swat him upside the head. An appropriate reaction, I think. He’s lucky it wasn’t the lion swatting him upside the head.
We wandered half-heartedly around the zoo, with me snapping a few pictures here and there.
The sloth being slothful in the tropical rain forest area.
Papa lion
Mama lion - the target of the water bottle squirter (thankfully, the guy missed)
Little giraffe, big giraffe, and the back side of a zebra
Cute, cuddly tortoise
The tortoise exhibit has long been a favorite of mine. When I was a kid, the tortoises at Como Zoo were allowed to roam free, no fence separating them from the visitors. I remember walking right up to one and being able to touch it. While I can’t stand seeing animals caged, after watching the idiotic behavior of some people toward the animals, I feel better knowing that the tortoises are allowed their protected space.
More pics from the Como Park Conservatory – these of flowers.
Spiky
More spiky
Light purple cascade
I like how these are tightly bunched and peeking out from under the leaves. Would make a good nosegay.
Thin purple bells
An orchid variety?
This final picture is a good example of how easy it is to miss things when walking upright. These flowers are hanging off the bottom side of the planter, close to a seating area. I missed them upon walking by, and didn’t see them upon sitting down, either. It wasn’t until I laid on my back on the bench that I saw them. Then I had to have a picture. A change in perspective leads to new observations.
Hubby and I were out of town all day yesterday. We left bright and way too early – 8 a.m. I had a chiropractic appointment at 9:15, then we headed to the Twin Cities area. We ate lunch, then Hubby had a meeting at 1:00. After that, we had time to bum around, to kill time before my 7:00 meeting. So we went to Como Park, which has both a conservatory and a zoo.
While the zoo portion is all that and a bag of chips for some people, we prefer the conservatory, particularly the older part of the building. It’s basically a museum filled with living plants (whereas the zoo is a museum filled with living animals). We love the peace of the conservatory and noticed that it even remains fairly quiet even when there are several groups wandering through. The foliage must deaden the sound.
Because I knew ahead of time that we were going to go to Como Park, I brought the camera along. I can’t believe all the pictures I took – close to 100 – so many that I can group them by subject. I’ll present a number of the pics over the next few blog posts, but shall start with shots of leaves here.
Don't know what these are, but love the pattern. They almost look like the backs of insects.
Love the color and shape of these.
Hubby said this reminds him of a tractor seat. By golly! He's right.
This gives the illusion of motion, like a fan blade. Love how this fills the frame.
The cocooning mass of leaves.
