Flickr coolness

Had a good practice at Allison's last night, plus we got to see some of the new Urban Tapestry DVD that John has been putting together for the Interfilk auction at FKO (a few other copies will be made available for other Interfilk auctions). Wow, he's done a great job! Can't wait to get hold of a copy myself. :-)

I recently mentioned that I wasn't happy about Yahoo's recently announced acquisition of Flickr. Well, Flickr was smart and posted a a FAQ about the acquisition that addresses most of my concerns, so I'm not quite as panicky. I do have some personal experience with what happens with the acquisition of a small company by a much bigger company, however, so am going to take the FAQ with a grain of salt and Wait And See What Happens.

That said, however, I've been pretty happy with Flickr, which has been a much more interesting and vibrant community than Orkut, mainly because it has a very practical use for me. As long as Yahoo's acquisition doesn't have negative repercussions, I'll probably renew my Pro account in December.

In Flickr, some people add tags to their photos to make it easier for everyone to locate them. I need to start being more consistent about this; I haven't been adding tags to every photo.

To search the Flickr photo database, you can either use the Flickr interface to search for photos with certain tags, or try this very cool postcard browser that Jeff told me about. If you want to see an example of how this works, try typing in "dmo" (my message board id from university days, still used by some of my friends). You'll get a display of pictures, theoretically with me as one of the subjects. Click on any photo for a close-up and description, and then click "View Flickr Photo Page" to go directly to that page.

Very cool. And so now I'm even more inspired to start uploading and tagging some of my favourite people and other pics from years back, to make it easier for ME to access as well.

Selection of recent feedback to my Blatherings:

From Annie W., in response to Babybabble:

"On behalf of all parents, I would like to thank you and Jeff (and all those other amazing people) for being wonderful aunties and uncles. Personal decisions on family aside, all children benefit from having non-parental adults around. Filk-kids are *so* lucky to have the people that they do :-) You are a fabulous auntie :-)"

From Ally C. re: gardens:

"Debbie, you are so lucky you know what's in your garden-to-be and even have a garden map! We bought out house in December, and the owner had already moved out. We never met him, and have very little idea what's in this extensive garden that he and his wife obviously worked very hard on. I *think* I recognize peonies (yeah! I've always wanted them!) and a rose bush, and found what I think are daffodils trying to emerge. Everything else is just unknown! It's kinda exciting, yet frustrating at the same time. This morning, Ted and I were out in the defrosting garden and he looked around and said "I just hope none of these are lilacs!" since he's allergic."

From Andy B., re: Russian Dwarf hamsters:

"I always thought Basil the Siberian Hamster was a joke!"

And quite a few people said they actually LIKE my overly excited housebabbling, so go figure. :-)

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Russian Dwarf hamsters, new house, tranzac

The photo below is of one of my nieces holding Fuzz, a new addition to my sister's family. Fuzz is a Russian Dwarf Hamster and looks an awful lot like a mouse without a tail. VERY cute, and seems to enjoy being held. She peed on my hand.



I could Blather on for many pages here about how much I enjoyed our visit to the New House yesterday, but I know it would make some of you ill. The hardest part was leaving at the end of the four-hour visit; I WANTED TO STAY. Jeff and I also very much enjoyed chatting with the current owner. Not sure how common this is during the house buying process, but my appreciation of the house has been greatly enhanced by getting to know the owner a bit, finding out how much love and thought was put into the design and maintenance of the house. It's a small house but has been opened up inside, giving the feeling of more space and light, full of unusual angles. There is no wasted space.

I chatted about the garden some more with the owner and learned more about a mock orange outside the kitchen window, two quince trees, a tamarisk, a crabapple tree, and the fact that our yard will have one of the few remaining mature elm trees in the city that survived Dutch Elm Disease. SO looking forward to seeing the garden once the snow is gone.

After talking with two sets of potential contractors about renovations, it seems clear that Jeff and I won't actually be able to move into our new house until the end of June or possibly even July. Augh. MustMUST be patient, I know, but I wish I had been able to see into the future back when I packed up most of my office supplies and warm weather clothes in December for the storage locker. I feel as if I've been wearing the same sweater for months now. Oh wait, I have. :-) I have no idea what I'm going to do when warmer weather comes.

Tranzac session last night was wonderful as usual. We learned Peeler's Jacket, The Butcher's March, and Sixpenny Money. And in the free-for-all, I was actually able to play on at least half a dozen tunes without my music! Including the Swallowtail Reel, which I had never heard played at the Tranzac before; it was the first tune I had ever learned on my own. When one of the fiddlers launched into it, it took me several measures before I recognized it and picked up my whistle. Only a few played along but everyone seemed to like the tune; it was put on the "learning list" for the future.

Which made me realize, of course, that I should have the confidence to be taking tunes I like into the session even if I'm not sure if others know them. Lesson learned.

I'm also starting to recognize many more tunes even if I can't play along yet, or even remember the tune name. Still very nervous about leading tunes in the circle; I'm much more comfortable playing along with tunes other people choose. And my ear is definitely improving; I was able to play along with "Ger the Rigger", for example, even though I've never tried to memorize the tune...I've just heard the tune so often through my iPod session recordings.

Going to Richmond Hill tonight to practice with Allison and Jodi. Only a week left until FilKONtario, yay!

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office plans and babybabble

Thanks so much for the feedback and suggestions re: my office, everyone!

In answer to my question about the magnets, Michael Pereckas wrote:

"Magnets do not normally cause problems for equipment unless the magnets are extremely strong and very nearby or the equipment is more along the lines of a sensitive magnetometer than a PC. MRI scanner? Be careful. Refrigerator magnet? Don't worry. I used to run a mass spectrometer in the same small room that housed a seven-Tesla liquid-helium-filled superconducting magnet for an NMR spectrometer without any problems. Can you erase a hard disk with a refrigerator magnet? No. With a fancy rare-earth magnet? Maybe, but unless that magnet rather exotic and too powerful to play with safely, you'd have to disassemble the drive (which contains fancy and strong rare earth magnets very near the disk platters--if you see flat, curved, and strong magnets for sale cheap, they were salvaged from hard disk service) to do it, which will break it anyway."

From Dave Alway:

"Oh, here's something handy called 'Grip-a-Strip' that I've used to advantage in the past. If you want to look at another distributor, just Google 'Grip-a-Strip'."


From Joe:

"Ooooh shelves.

Our office has giant sheets of metal painted white so they are also whiteboards. That's where we brainstorm new ideas and display drawings - magnets holding up five or six giant size architectural / engineering blueprints.

I wouldn't put the whiteboard/metal in that narrow corridor - the whole point of such a board is to display stuff and in that corridor you can only view from close up. What about having the metal whiteboard on runners in front of the shelves on the wall opposite the door? Just imagine! That entire back wall one great big metal whiteboard! (Well five panels, each from desk/counter hieght to the ceiling anyway).

Slide one panel sideways, behind another, to get at the shelves or the window behind."

From Steve:

"Our home office has a two-foot-wide shelf/counter/desk running all the way around, with shelves both above and below it. The wide shelf is 0,5 in oak plywood, supported on shelf brackets and diagonal braces. I recommend Elfa two-slot shelf brackets, which are made of steel bent into a U shape and can support amazing loads without bending.

The basic idea came from my parents' home office, which used ordinary kitchen cabinetry for the counter and base."

I also got some useful tips from my friend Walter, whom I chatted with last night at an outing to celebrate Vartan's 40th birthday. Walter had printed out my office layout that I had posted in Blatherings and Flickr yesterday afternoon, made some useful suggestions about how I might be able to get more space.

Last night I met John's and Mary's two-and-a-half month old daughter for the first time. I walked around the restaurant with her for a bit, holding her in my arms as she gazed around at the lights and colours with great interest.

Then at one point, her glance happened to wander to my face. She proceeded to stare up at me with seriousness, as if caught by surprise ("Hey, who's this STRANGER holding me?!?") and deciding whether or not to start screaming. I waited nervously, babbled at her about nothing in particular...and suddenly a big smile spread across her face.

Oh lordy, how that little smile made me melt.

Good thing she couldn't talk yet, because she could have asked me for anything at that moment and I would have said yes. I sang the Hockey Monkey song at her (very quietly, so I wouldn't be kicked out of the restaurant) and she stared at me, fascinated, her mouth making small motions as if she was trying to copy me.

I love babies. This confuses people who know about Jeff's and my decision not have children, of course, and I guess I can't blame them. But I do find babies' whole tabula rasa state immensely fascinating, and I go disgustingly cooey before the power of those tiny fingers, chubby cheeks, smiles and gurgles.

Until they need to be changed, of course, at which point I happily pass them back to their parents.

:-)

Speaking of happiness, by the way, WE GET TO SEE OUR NEW HOUSE TODAY!

(pause for a Snoopy joydance here)

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new office plans

I was excited to discover the Wandering Moleskine Project only to discover that it's been booked solid. :-( The founder told me there may be a new project starting up this fall, though, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. Or maybe I'll have to start up my own.

As you may have noticed, I've updated the header to this page. I was bored of the old one, and now that I've constructed the new one in Corel Painter layers, it means I can play around with different themes, depending on my whim.

Finally got paid for a couple articles I did last year for a particular publication I likely won't want to write for again, also got a go-ahead on one of my article queries, sent out a couple more. Even got in my daily 1000 words of novel-writing yesterday. May not seem like a lot to some of you, but it's a heckuva lot more than I've been able to do lately because of tendinitis woes. Things are getting better, all around.

AND WE GET TO SEE THE NEW HOUSE AGAIN TOMORROW! It's one of our two official visits, according to our purchase agreement. Several contractors will be coming by to give estimates on renovations, but we'll also be doing some more measuring and planning.

The image above is a rough layout of my future basement office, which is twice as big as my old one. The walls marked "*" are the ones I'm currently brainstorming about. Thanks to Bryan Fullerton for sending me this marker board wall post. My ideas so far:

- Giant corkboard on one or both walls. Good for pinning up pictures, photos, doodles, quotes, etc.

- Giant sheet of metal I could use for magnets of all sorts, including fridge poetry. Not sure about the effect of all kinds of magnets on anyone carrying sensitive electrical equipment through the hallway. Anyone out there a magnet expert?

- Giant whiteboard. Not as keen on this since they tend to get messy over time, and I'd have to limit myself to whiteboard markers.

I've mostly given up on the wall mural painting idea, mainly because of the cost but also because of my lack of practical knowledge about surface prep, etc. Plus it's more of a hassle to change when I get bored with a particular image.

Anyway, suggestions and comments welcome.

And last but not least, don't forget to check out the spankin' new Web site from Graham Leathers and Peter Rempel, Stingertoons. Content includes funny stuff from Gray, comics, performance info, a trivia quiz, and a lesson on constructing Celtic knotwork.

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winter cottage visit

Today's Blathering is a collab entry for Wordgoddess. Topic: "A Day In The Life Of...". The photos were taken on a recent cottage visit day this past weekend; we just got back this afternoon. You can click on any photo to see a bigger version as well as comments about that specific photo. You can see a full set of my winter cottage visit photos here. Jeff just told me that Yahoo bought Flickr recently. Ugh, not sure if I'm thrilled about this.

Anyway...Jeff and I tend to make at least one trip to the cottage every winter, usually with his parents and sometimes other relatives as well.

Upon arrival at the parking lot, we switch from city boots to our Sorels and ski boots, don snow pants and other warm gear. It's sunny out, but the wind has a bite to it.



Depending on ice and weather conditions, we cross the lake on foot, snowshoes, or cross-country skis. This time I opted for going on foot though I probably should have switched to snowshoes partway across the lake when the snow was somewhat deeper.

I usually go into a bit of a zone during the crossing, a sort of meditative state of mind where time seems to pass at a different pace as I fall into the rhythm of each step, my breathing, the crunch of snow and ice. Inevitably I end up stripping off layers during the thirty minute trek across the ice until I'm down to a sports bra and my snow pants; my in-laws are amused. :-)



We take our supplies on plastic toboggans that we pull behind us, and take all the trash out on the way back. You learn to be ruthless when packing, though I allow myself the luxury of a penny whistle (hey, they're small and light!).

The ice conditions are good for a crossing this time, and the toboggans slide easily across the lake. On bad days, slushy ice can accumulate on skis and toboggans, increasing friction and making each step an effort.

Sunglasses are a must. The glare from the snow and ice can be blinding sometimes, and even with sunglasses shading my eyes, I sometimes close my eyes during the walk to give them a break.



It's an incredible feeling, walking across that vast expanse of whiteness. So rare to have that feeling of empty space in the city, especially right downtown. I try to imagine what we must look like from up above: small black specks slowly trudging away across all that gleaming snow and ice.

Upon arriving at the cottage, first tasks include: making sure there's electric power (not a guaranteed thing during the winter), starting a fire in the woodstove, heating up the sleeping cabins, shovel walking paths, chopping a hole in the lake ice for water.

Since my tendinitis hasn't improved enough to enable me to shovel snow yet, I work on clearing a path up to the outhouse by just trudging up and down it, over and over again. It's tough, especially since the snow is thigh-deep in places.



At one point I decided to take a break, had nowhere to sit down, so just fell over and made a snow angel instead. Very relaxing, lying there in the soft snow, looking up at the trees and blue sky above. Until the cold started penetrating through my snow pants, that is. :-)

Dinner that first day was made by Ginny, transported across the lake in thick Ziploc bags: a chicken stew which we heated up in a pot, and pre-cooked rice which we heated up in a microwave oven. Dessert: homemade butter tarts! Yummm.

Cleaning up after meals is somewhat more of a hassle than during warmer weather since there's no running water. Water is carried from a hole in the ice (chopped by Jeff) and kept in a plastic pail in the kitchen area, heated up in a pot for washing. Lake water can be used for drinking water after being boiled, but this time we brought over two large plastic jugs of drinking water instead.



Activities included reading, snoozing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, knitting, and talking about plans for our new house. Ginny (my mom-in-law) is an experienced interior designer, so Jeff and I were interested in hearing her ideas. She also gave me a GREAT idea for my basement office, turning what was previously an open closet into a craft/layout table and storage area.

By the way, during the weekend I also decided that I'm going to try turning part of one wall in my basement office (probably the short hallway leading into my office) into a giant canvas. I've always wanted to paint a wall. Not paint as in one colour, but paint ANYTHING I WANTED. Cartoons, landscapes, doodles, musical scribbles. And when I get tired of the picture, I'll just paint over it. First, though, I need to figure out how practical this is. What kind of paint I need, how expensive it is, how easily I can paint over it. Plus I'd rather not use any wallspace that could be supporting BOOKSHELVES instead, which is why I'm thinking of hallway wallspace.

I'd also love to turn part of the wall into a giant corkboard where I can stick up photos, doodles, whatever else I feel like looking at. Jeff suggested I investigate the possibility of turning some of my Corel Painter paintings into giant posters.



But I digress. I was talking about the cottage...

One of my cottage visit highlights: Yesterday morning, I decided to go for a solo walk around a large island near the cottage, so I strapped on a pair of snowshoes and set off while Jeff was still sleeping.

The sky was a brilliant blue and sun was warm on my face and shoulders; I soon took off my jacket and fleece vest, tied them around my waist instead. The walk was a bit tougher than our earlier trek because the top layer of snow had hardened into a crust; as a result, I had to lift my snowshoes higher with each step to prevent the tip from catching on the crust and sending me sprawling. But it was still a great walk (and an excellent cardio workout :-)), and the combination of sunshine and fresh air was exhilarating.

I came across animal tracks: a moose (I think it was a moose) crossing the lake, rabbits, other smaller creatures. And from time to time, the ice talked to me.

The first time this happened, I was a bit freaked out. I was just snowshoein' along when suddenly...WHOOSH.

Hard to describe the sound except that it was very loud and all around me; at first, I couldn't help but think that it sounded an awful lot like ice starting to crack. I froze the first time it happened, frantically looking around, prepared to leap into action. What kind of action, I have no idea.



When nothing happened, I shrugged and kept walking. Then the WHOOSH happened again, this time sounding as if it was coming from a large area on my right. After a few more WHOOSHES and no huge crack appearing to swallow me into an icy death, I started to welcome the sound as well as trying to figure out what exactly was causing it. My best theory: my walking across the crust of snow and ice caused things to shift a tiny bit, but even this small shift had repercussions that resulted in a much larger shift. Hence the WHOOSH.

Another big highlight: SEEING THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION! Jeff told us where to look and when, and on both nights the four of us bundled up and waited out on the frozen lake in the darkness. VERY cool to see that small dot of light moving rapidly across the sky, and know that there were people up there.

But the highlight of my cottage visit? Playing whistle out on the ice. No one to complain about the noise, and I couldn't have asked for better scenery. Fingers did get a bit chilly after a while, but the occasional swig of Scotch from Jeff's glass helped.

And that was my day.

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