So, I'm back from Maine yesterday, and at work today. I'm sore from sleeping on the "guest bed" at mom's house. I twisted my ankle tubing (and bounced on my tailbone), and have a huge bruise on my leg. Oh, and the face-bite. Frostbite on my face from tubing. Not too bad, but my cheeks are a bit red.

Mom can't drive. Well, she *can*, but not well. She's one of those 'the gas pedal is an on-off switch' drivers. She doesn't get rotaries (or roundabouts, I guess is another name for them). She came to pick us up at Portsmouth on the day we flew in (and took the shuttle bus). I assumed it was because she wasn't paying attention to the car, because she was chattering on to us (VROOOOMM-vroom-VROOOOOM-vroom), but no, that's her normal way of driving, I guess.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the shops at Kittery. It's like ... um... 8-10 little outlet malls along a road. Ben & I managed to finish out our shopping (fondue kits for Travis, a cabled sweater, a turtleneck, and a grey 1/4 zip shirt for Jeff), and we wrapped presents.

On Christmas Day, we opened presents. From Ben, I got a garage-door opener, a spinning wheel, and fiber. From mom, I got a Best Buy gift cert, and some fancy soap [philosophie?] (which had a warning that prolonged exposure could cause urinary tract irritation -- I'm assuming because it's peppermint). Oh, and a spa headband thingy. My brothers gave me a cookbook and a cute denim apron. Jeff got me Eddie Izzard's "Circle" DVD. Ben got Harvey Birdman (1st season), The Greatest American Hero (1st season), the 2 Alton Brown "cookbooks" that we didn't have, and Photoshop Elements from me, and shirts from Matt & Travis. I think Mom got him a $50 Best Buy gift cert.

We bought the boys new beds. They should be delivered in 8 giant boxes via UPS tomorrow. They generally slept on the creaky poky awful thing that Ben & I shared, and since mom had forgiven some of our debt to her, we spent that money on Christmas.

Then we went to LL Bean's Flagship Store. In Freeport. On Christmas Day. My brother Jeff was disgusted because they didn't have men's sizes smaller than a "Small" (he's rail-thin), I was disgusted because they didn't have women's sizes bigger than "XL". [Men's sizes ran to XXL, with some XXXL able to be found.] So, with my part of the giant gift cert granddad sent, I got a 1/4 zip orange sweater (men's XXL), and a purply-grey sweater (men's XXL).

We ate at Denny's that evening, because we were starving to death on the way back from Freeport. I think mom has something against lunch. Breakfast most mornings was from Dunkin' Donuts (which I cringe at now because we ate there so much).

Oh, and as badly as I eat, mom eats worse. I was craving veggies and water a couple days in. We did end up buying bottled water about 2/3 of the way through our trip. Mom drinks mostly diet sodas. In part because their tap water was grey and fizzed, but mostly because she likes them. We were offered some "Fruit 2 O", but they were still awful.

We went to the Christa McAuliffe planetarium on the 26th, which was another 1.5 hours away. All our trips seemed to be that distance. It was Me, Ben, Mom, Matt, & Travis. Mom bought tickets to 2 shows. Trav was good through the first one, but started acting out during the second, and had a freak-out once we were out of the building.

We went tubing on the 27th (Ben, Matt, Jeff, and myself), which was totally fun. You get dragged up the hill in the tube, and the course was like a twisting half-pipe, I guess is the closest I can get. On one run down, I climbed every wall, and caught air at the top of each. And lost my hat. Sometime during the day, I twisted my ankle but good, and limped to the car.

Yesterday, we got up at 2:45 AM so we could drive to Logan. Our flight took off at 5:30, arrived at CVG at some point, we went across the weird terminal C and waited for ~10 minutes for our plane to start boarding. We got to denver at 10AM, and were eating at one of our favorite places at 11:30 AM, and home by 1 PM.

Oh, and I played The Sims 2. That is an addictive game. I'm sure it's got to be more addictive than WoW, because it's not online, and there are infinately many outcomes. I want to get it for my iBook. :D

And my mom kept trying to get me to "accessorize". At least it wasn't her normal "you'd look better with a little makeup" speech. She kept trying to loan me some of her earrings. I took a pair of silver ones, but refused any of the ones with the 'french hooks' as my ears are pierced unevenly. Sigh. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I missed my dog. And my cats. And my bed. I'm glad to be home, but wish like hell I weren't at work. For the next 6 days. Because I had to swap with someone to get Christmas off.

Sigh. Next Thursday can't come too soon.

So, we fly out tomorrow morning to Maine. Mom's there, 3 of the 4 brothers will be there. It'll be danged cold.

Packing presents is probably the most difficult part of this whole thing. Trav's present alone takes up about half of my suitcase.

I have to get cat food and another set of pj's for ben on my way home, and I still have another load of laundry to do before we can finish packing.

It still doesn't feel christmas-y to me, either, bethanie. That will probably change when we get to my mom's house, though.

So I woke up this morning (several times) before my alarm clock. I went back to sleep three times, and got out of bed at 5:30 AM. What to do with that time? Post to deviantart, of course. So I posted a series of shots from our visit to White Sands.

• White Sands I
• White Sands II
• White Sands III
• White Sands IV
• White Sands V
• White Sands VI

These were all taken with the Fuji Finepix S5000 that has now been relegated to product shots only. Now, I'm using the S5200 (5 megapixel, more flexibility), which if you look at the shots from Florissant... that's what those were taken with. The shot with pike's peak was taken with a polarizer on the front of the camera, and the best sky representation that I got that day.

It's had ALL three days of my weekend to snow. It is NOT f-ing snowing on the night before I have to go back into work. IT IS NOT.

NOT
NOT
NOT
NOT
NOT
NOT
NOT

*sigh*

At least it's big crystally snow and somewhat pretty.

nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah I'm sure someone would notice if I seemed... nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah Out of touch or hard to find. But not today. Not Today Jump, Little Children Magazine

I need to take a day or more off so that I can relax and recuperate. I'm sick. I need to spend a day in bed, just sleeping. But I can't. I have too much to do, and not enough time to do it in. Even this weekend was hectic.

I'll probably do the Music>Artists>Jump, Little Children>All thing again today. I enjoy them. I have a sense of nostalgia for the days when I used to see them "on tour". I put it in quotes, because I saw them in Augusta, and they're from Savannah.

My boss is a jerk. His boss isn't.

I was only going to knit one thing for a present. I was done with it. Now I'm knitting another thing for a friend who's had a crappy month. It needs to be done by Saturday.

There are things that I miss about the South. The accent isn't one of them.

I'm looking forward to seeing my mom and brothers in 10 days. I'm not looking forward to sleeping on an air mattress, or the sofabed. But it'll all work out ok. And after I work for 6 days when I get back, I will have a massage.

My camera's not on its way yet, but Ben's is. With all of the lenses (polarizer, wide-angle, telephoto). The cases? I don't know if they've been shipped. Pelican cases rock, though. Unbreakable, watertight, dustproof, chemical resistant and corrosion proof. Automatic purge valve for quick equalization after changes in atmospheric pressure. :D

You break it, they replace it. Forever. Pelican cases rock. Especially in yellow. ;)

We leave for Maine (really, [announcer voice] Boston's Logan International Airport[/announcer voice], then to the NH buses) on the 22th. I got one of the few sane flights for us, a flight with a 1h layover in CVG (located 13 miles south of Cincinnati in Northern Kentucky.) Most of the other flights wanted us to fly west to go east, or fly south to go north. Why would I want a stopover in Vegas or Atlanta or Phoenix to go to Boston? That's just... fucked.

We're hanging with my mom for Christmas this year (I keep wanting to type Christymas), and going 'tubing' with my brothers (whatever that means). Thankfully, Ben likes my mom, and my mom, although she said "he's not what I expected" (whatever THAT means), thinks Ben's cute and funny.

There's snow here -- I'm not sure if Sam mentioned it. We got about 4-6" OF SNOW (added to emphasize it's about snow for those of you with dirty minds) at home, and Denver looks like it got 2-3". The forecast for my location says another 5-9" is expected on Tuesday night. If only it would wait until Wednesday night, so I don't have to try to drive through it... *sigh*

This is the first snow I've seen in Colorado that's stuck around more than just a couple of days. I mean, other than in the shade. There's always a drift that sticks around down the street. But this has stayed around since Saturday. And it's supposed to snow on top of it. CoOOoooOOL.

As long as I don't have to maneuver the bug through the snow too much.

My "Yesterday's articles" section is borked.

            Tuesday November 29
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                    o (588)
                    o (574)
                    o (190)
                    o (342)
                    o (254)
                    o (313)

Fascinating, no? And I, for one, welcome our 500-error overlords.

So, even with our satellite-dish cat at home, Ben & I went on a short vacation. (Our favorite neighbor came over and made sure the cat's head hadn't fallen off, and everyone had food and water.)

We drove through NM, down through Taos, over across the state to Riudoso (where Ben's younger brother was born), around in a circle to Las Cruces, and back up the 'fast way', taking I-25.

We stopped off in Riudoso, and bought new salad bowls from a guy whose front room of his shop contained his wheel. The parking was awful. The shops, for the most part, were tourist junk. I saw a clay-slab nativity that made me want to cry it was so awful (in a shop 3 doors down from this guy's).

We took our time at White Sands National Monument -- I have some really cool pictures that I need to take off the camera -- and the next day, we hit the Petroglyph National Monument. Of course, at the latter, we saw several unruly children throwing rocks, climbing on the 'glyphs, and generally being destructive and annoying. Grr.

I took Sunday and Monday off work because (a) I have the time, and (b) I'm not especially excited to be here now that I'm here.

I learned some cool stuff about the camera I have. It can save in RAW format, and oddly enough, Photoshop Elements (you know, the stripped PS) has Adobe's Camera RAW importer. Out of the box (as I only opened the box after we got home). I forsee some experiments... :D

So Stefano came home with an "Elizabethan Collar" and antibiotics, and an ear propped up with a piece of plastic. His ear is sewn to it so it will keep its structure as it heals.

The hit to the money-holder was ~200 bucks. Anasthaesia, a painkiller, the antibiotics, the e-collar, and an O2 sat during surgery were all included.

My boy's feeling his oats, obviously, as he was trying to stalk his sister (Murrie, the 3-year-old calico) this morning. He has, of course, smacked the dog in the head a couple of times, as well, but that's his general old-man-ness coming out, as well as his "I'm king of the house".

I don't know if I mentioned that we got a 'dead sheep' for the couch last week, but we did. It's dyed green-grey, and damn if it doesn't feel awesome to lay on, or sit on when my bones feel tired (which they do less since I started a massage therapy regimen). Our crazy australi-talian friend brought some back from his last visit to .au, and Ben & I stayed with them a couple of nights, and slept on the sheep on the sofabed. After driving 12+ hours in the car, it was heaven.

Last week, we also did an overhaul on my wardrobe. In part because we're going to Maine for Xmas to hang out with my mom, and don't have proper winter gear. Yes, I *know* we live in Colorado. This isn't 'winter', it's 'extended fall with a chance of snow'.

So we went out and bought several pairs of pants. We tried 4 stores before finding pants that fit. [Obviously fat chicks can't wear pants, was my comment.] Ben now understands the frustration of random sizing, and how different cuts of the same pants can be sized differently. [Although he kinda knows that from buying jeans -- both of us fit well in Levis 550's, and not so much in other styles.]

Then we went looking for coats. [Obviously, fat chicks aren't allowed to go outside in the cold, or we have so much padding it's not worth adding any more, I remarked as we looked at coats for men that went up to 3xl, but coats for women that were s-m or m-l.] So we ordered online. I got the Stadium Squall coat from Lands' End. Along with the coat and matching gloves, I got a pair of these in dark olive, because I needed new shoes.

I went by myself back to one of the stores to pick up some thermal henleys, and to buy myself some *UNDERWEAR*. It's so nice to be able to walk into a store and pick out underwear that is (a) cute, and (b) comfortable. I looked totally out of place at Victoria's Secret [Alone, built like a linebacker, jeans & a t-shirt & medium-length straight hair -- not with a female friend/father/mother/husband, petite and skinny, with my hair perfectly permed and sprayed into place], but they have quality stuff. And I know which of their bras fit me well. And I can get them without padding [because I don't need any more of that, thanks].

And I went home and threw out all my ratty pants and underwear. I threw away all my socks, and bought 3 6-packs of new ones that match each other. I can't tell you how liberating it is to not think 'which one of these isn't going to embarrass me to go out in'. :D

I got too much and not enough sleep last night. And that last 30 minutes before my alarm went off (rather, was scheduled to go off) seemed to last forever. I got out of bed 2 minutes early.

Stefano's in for surgery today for his ear hematoma. He's 9 years old, so it's more expensive than if he were younger (because they have to do lab work on him). Poor kitty. :(

I also have the coughing-sneezing disease. More specifically, the coughing-sneezing-headache-achy disease.

Is it Wednesday at 6pm yet? No? Why the hell not!?

So I've finished another 'double happiness' scarf. 2 skeins of Noro's Kureyon yarn, alternating stripes every 2 rows, mostly stockinette with seed stitch edges. This one was for Ben, which wasn't done by his birthday, but still rocks. It's blocking, so no pics yet.

I'm currently using Cotton Angora (80% cotton, 20% bunnies) to knit this "whimple" pattern. Navy on the edge I'm currently working on, the 'olive' color for the main body, and 'wine' for the other edge. I may use some of the navy and wine in the middle of the whimple, but I'm not *to* that part yet. No, I didn't pay 8 bucks a ball for this yarn. I paid 5. Part of our (my knitting group's) 'yarn crawl' through denver took us to a store that had these for a decent price. [I refuse to pay $17-19 a skein for handpainted yarn, especially since I can dye it myself for MUCH LESS.]

Next up: The Irish Hiking Scarf in Cascade 220's Quatro (color 9435). Again, a yarn crawl find.

My knitting's coming along. I'm happy with it. :)

Yeah, I've been quiet as of late. I wish it could be all about the partying and the knitting I'm doing, but, alas, no.

I work 4 10-hour days. Add in 2-2.5 hours of commute (3-4 on icy days) and you've got 12-14 hour days. Even with 3 days off, it's getting to me. The commute wouldn't be as bad if it were 8-hour days.

The other position was yanked out from under me [out from under my boss's boss, actually], so, that's part of the reason I'm grumpy as of late. But it's not all of it.

I miss unix. I've not had a good unix admin position for a while. It's what I like to do, but I'm not doing it. Instead, I'm writing processes and reacting to alarms. It's boring work, and (to me) takes little brain power. Others take forever to do the things that take me 5-10 minutes.

It's frustrating and exhausting.

So Ben & I are going to take some time at Thanksgiving to go driving in New Mexico. I'm taking 2 days off (which gives me a total of 5) and he gets Thanksgiving weekend off. I'm hoping doing some wandering will help energize us both.

I need to be able to get some energy back. While I don't have as limited spoons as Sol, I end up running out of spoons earlier than I want to.

I'm pretty sure this is the interview I listened to on Sunday. It's about this book: The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature. It's on my wishlist now.

It started with him looking at the deer problem in Boulder. Boulder started providing protected green spaces, and as people started moving out to the suburbs, and houses started appearing around the green spaces. As houses came into the space where the deer usually grazed, they continued to graze. The population became an overpopulation. Boulder residents protested against allowing hunters to hunt the deer, to thin the herd.

Where there are deer, there will be mountain lions. Oddly enough, the "Fish & Game" type people are reluctant to help.

I really want to read more about it, because it underlines some of the issues I believe in, and some of the issues I thoroughly think are crap.

Today sucked. I may talk about that later, but let's just say today sucked, and leave it at that.

Well, I'm still waking up too damn early, and sometimes a couple of times a night. The decision will be made this week as to the position.

I bought something cool (to me) this weekend -- a Boye Needlemaster. http://www.wrights.com/products/catalog/boyeline/7312_lg.htm

It's an interchangeable knitting needle set, and my previous needles have found a home with Warm the World, a charity that sends blankets to needy people. My friend Kathy is collecting needles for the charity, and so it was the perfect time to get rid of the things that I hated, and trade them for something I'd use.

So I'm swatching for Eris.

Some good news, though? Let me tell you some good news. My oldest brothers took their LSATs at the beginning of the month. One made a 160 (top 15th percentile) [he's going to take it again] and the other made a 170 (top 2.5 %).

I'm going back to work now. Monitoring the network. Yah yah yah.

This has little to do with tech, but as I've taken up knitting, it has some to do with me.

May I not be the first one to go to hell for ridiculing knitted breast prosthesises. Possibly NSFW as there are multiple references to breasts (including the word I think is only for 10-year olds, "titty").

Damnit, people, EVERYTHING does not have to be hand-knitted. And this site has previously had a "boobie" scarf, and a knitted womb, so I guess it's expected, but... sigh.

Back to my working and knitting (a SCARF, something normal).