Vacation Photos, Days 1 - 3

This is just the beginning, of course, because it wasn't until day 4 that we hit the coast at all.  So, these are photos up the 5 to Portland and then to Seattle, then inland through Seattle towards the coast.

The overcast sky made things difficult, but there are some good ones here.  These are the five-star images.

You can see the whole gallery here; I linked to all of the pictures from the gallery itself, but it does provide for easier browsing, I think.  If I remember right, Apple requires Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 (if you're on Windows) to view the gallery.

(I linked to the files from the web gallery; Aperture resizes it as it sees fit, so if you want to see the images in a larger version, I recommend the gallery, if it works for you.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This one is during a drive to the east of Portland.  Eventually, you wind through the hills to a large waterfall.  I just liked the fence.  :-)

I'm fairly certain this one was at the same "view point" stop along the drive.

Also from the same lookout.  There was horrible haze in the sky...so I made it black and white. ;-)

I'm fairly certain I didn't upload this one before...but if I did, oh well.

(I must point out, however, that Patrick's shirt drives me absolutely insane, because, on the front, it says, "She thinks my tractors sexy."  Given that the intent here is "She thinks my tractor is sexy," there should be an apostrophe, so that it reads, "She thinks my tractor's sexy.")

Another Patrick one.  Yay for zoom lenses.  He had no idea I was taking his picture -- I was a good fifty feet away.  :-)

About this time, he figured out what I was doing.

At which point, he decided to get some revenge.

Now, some flower pictures.  Just 'cause they're pretty.

I really like the yellow flowers in this one, but I think I might fiddle with it in Photoshop -- maybe desaturate everything but the flower that's in focus.

After I caught this shot, I tried to zoom in and get the bug on top of the flower in this one, but I couldn't switch fast enough to macro mode, and couldn't focus on it tight enough (even manually).

This was the best I could do.

The road goes ever on and on, down to the door where it began....  (Actually, I just liked the shadows, but I spent the next fifteen shots or so trying to highlight the path.)

I'm not sure this one will stay 5-star, but for now it is.  I like the way the tree line leads your eye to the waterfall, but...something just doesn't feel right to me.

I realize it's blurred slightly, but I like the bridge and people showing the scale of the massive waterfall.

Darn sky...but I like the way the slight distortion caused by the wide angle lens actually gives it a bit of a surreal feel.

The leaning tower of...nah, never mind.  Actually, I just think it's weird and cool.

This one is kind of experimental...I was experimenting with different effects to mitigate the haze that made everything but the first five or ten feet away from me just...well, hazy.

A cool tree.  AND BLUE SKY!

Clouds on the water.  This was a very, very large lake in inland Washington.

Another angle.  I think I like the first better overall (which is why I say that some images might not stay 5-star as I continue refining them).

I realize geography class was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure the green hill is a volcano.

I deliberately underexposed this one a bit because I wanted the clouds to be just right, since the purpose of the picture is to show them rolling over the hills.

Ooooh, pretty.  :-)

I desaturated this one because there was no way to get the trees right and account for the haze as well...so I tried to make the haze work and create a semi-surreal picture where the haze permeated everything.

I think this is actually my favorite picture of all, so far.

And another pretty flower.

The next set should be the Washington coast.  That's a fairly small one, because it rained more or less non-stop from 11:00ish in the morning that we started from Port Angeles.  I got a few cloudy shots before it started, but after that, just kept driving.

Note to Self

Dear me,

Next time you are in Powell's and see volumes 3 and 4 of the series of books you've brought to bring along on your trip sitting on the shelf...remember what it was like to go from Borders to Borders on a futile hunt for number 3, okay?

No love,
Me

For the record, I have an interesting relationships with Stephen Baxter's books.  I was first introduced to him while reading a collaboration he did with the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, and quickly sought out more.  I read The Time Ships in...oh, within a day and a half or so (having not yet read The Time Machine, to which it is the only authorized sequel).

I now own the majority of his books.

(Also, can I just say that I love the way that page is laid out?  Separated by series, with the books' covers shown in series order below?  Awesome, Mr. Baxter or webmaster.)

The funny thing is, I often have to start a book two or three times to be sucked in.  Once I am, I'm left devouring whole books in a matter of hours -- but that doesn't always happen on the first attempt.

That's what happened with book 1 of the series I referenced above.  I'd read part of Emperor but stopped -- which is funny, because I've currently been on the look-out for good alternate history fiction.

Note "good."  That's, apparently, more difficult than it seems.

Anyway, on the trip, I started reading Emperor one night when we stopped kind of early.  By the end of the trip, I was two third of the way through book 2, and began to look for book 3.

Yeah, every store I went to had book 4...but no book three.

It's now been ordered from Amazon, but still...

Small Continuum Spoilers

Back in my X-Files days, when 'shipper was a new term, 'shippers and "noromos" argued over whether Mulder and Scully were in love (and, if they were, if they should do anything about it), and whether romance of any sort fit within the XF genre.

For the record, my stance is: it's the X-Files.  No, they shouldn't get all goo-goo eyed and gushy...but I firmly believe that they were together by the season before Scully became pregnant.

Believe it or not, that's actually relevant to the Continuum spoilers.

Because in the X-Files days, scenes were analyzed bit by bit.  (Given the communities I was in, so were John/Delenn and Marcus/Susan scenes from Babylon 5, but that's another show.)

Anyhow.

Scene by scene.

Look by look.

I seem to recall, in the early days of free Geocities websites, people listing proof and screen captures to prove their point.

I mostly gave that up.  I've had a few 'ships since then -- John/Aeryn being the one that caught my attention the most -- but by the time I came into Farscape, the show was over and it was canon...so there was no looking for "proof."

But I felt that part of me stir during a scene I randomly clicked to while checking the file I totally didn't rip from the DVD to make sure the subtitles burned in correctly.

Just one look.

Just the look Cam shot a teary Carter.

Jack/Sam?  Blech.  I'm a Cam/Sam 'shipper -- in the original sense of the term -- all the way.

(Also?  What the heck is with the Cam/Vala people?  For one thing -- Vala likes Daniel.  For another...just because Ben Browder and Claudia Black played different characters who were in love doesn't mean their new characters have to be too.  It's called acting, remember?

I mean, seriously...do you think Bester would cuddle a tribble?

Or, more to the point, do you seriously think Chekov would, you know, mind-wipe people, plant spies, kill people...all with that quiet, sociopathic grin?)

Oh, and my inner canon freak (that is, the part of me that insists on internal continuity in my shows) was delighted at Cam actually referencing his injuries and the titanium holding him together.  Yay continuity.  :-)

Budding Photographer

You do what you need to in order to get the shot you want. :-)

We're Back

I miss Washington already.  It was chilly.  Actually chilly.  In late August.  Only problem was, it made it very hard to take pictures of the coast until we got down to Oregon, where the weather cooperated for a day and promptly turned chilly again.

I loved it.

Patrick and I each took about 2,000 pictures.  This will take a long time to go through.  The up side is that I'm digging the "stacks" feature in Aperture, as I often took several exposures of a different picture (especially when the fog rolled in and I was dealing with convincing my camera that the sky wasn't just a mass of white).

Here are a couple of pictures of Patrick, though.  Just for fun.  The one on the bottom is one of Patrick's famous self-portraits.

Patrick is wearing his new glasses, by the way, that were supposed to be transitions lenses, but clearly aren't.  His past attempts at glasses have never lasted long, but we'll see.

A Ha!

See, I knew Former Student A (of the very, very fast feet, if that helps, since I've had many As) could have a future as a paper shredder.  :-)

Of Course

Because what you expect just after having your car checked over from front to back in preparation for a road trip is to have a dead battery.

Grr.

More on Evan

MOM-NOS has a lovely tribute here.

Having been involved in online stuff for a while, you can feel very connected with people.  Blogs have made that easier in some ways, and harder in others.

For instance, I rarely leave comments, even though I often want to, because I think, "why would this person care what I have to say?"

(And, often, because people seem so much more clever in their comments than I could ever be.)

(And, often, because I'm a sibling and not a parent, I don't feel quite qualified to say something.  On the rare occasions that I do, I generally preface the comment with that fact.)

So a reciprocal relationship is something you have to work at in blogging.

But at the same time, perhaps because I'm just the type to remember what I read, if I hear the name of a certain country star, I think of MOM-NOS's son.  Because she lives nearby, I always harbored the secret thought that maybe I'd run into Vicki and Evan when they were out and about.  The last time I rode the subway, such as it is here, I thought of Charlie.  I've given some serious thought to attempting to learn at least a little Japanese, in the hope that someday I can take Patrick to DisneySea, so I thought of Brandon and his mom learning Japanese for their trip last year.

Blogs like Vicki's, and Kristina's, and Lisa's, and MOM-NOS's, and Niksmom's, and Casdok's, and Maddy's, and Daisy's...the stories about their lives, their kids...they leave a mark.

And so, even though I'll not run into Evan on his adventures, I'll remember him, too.  Particularly when I see a child swinging.

Woah!

At Disney World last year, I spent some time hunting down elusive plus-sized clothing at the World of Disney store.  I didn't have much luck, though I did get one dubiously-sized shirt that seems bigger than it said it was, which kinda-sorta fits.

Guess what I found?

No, it's not quite the same...it's not, say, a Mickey's PhilHarmagic t-shirt...but it means I can now have a Dory shirt...my only dilemma is...should it say "Just keep swimming?" or "It's a blue and yellow whale!"

The first is a movie reference, and the second is from the new subs.

On second thought, the second makes it feel more like a theme park shirt.

Nifty.

This comes on the heels of finding a shirt at the Star Trek Experience that just called to me.  I've more or less made peace with the fact that size 2 shirts are not in my future, but that one...that one was enough to make me stop and have my "what if" moment.

It was a cartoonized, stylized Orion Slave Girl (shut up), and the caption was "It's not easy being green."

Heh heh.

ETA:  Officially licensed Yoda shirts!  That come in my size!  Oh, I think I'm in love....

I Am Beginning to Love Comics

It seems strange to be squeeing over fandom stuff when an online acquaintance is going through such a sad time, however...

I have to say that this makes me very happy.  (That drawing of Scorpius is just beyond awesome.)

I came to Farscape late (as in, the show had just been, or was just about to be, cancelled), for the most absurd of reasons.

See, my first real foray into online fandom was Babylon 5, in a quiet, more or less easygoing corner of the web called the John and Delenn mailing list.  As B5 drew to a close, many people on that list began to get into Farscape.  In fact, the person who ran the mailing list added a John-Aeryn section to his original website.

Why Babylon 5?

Well, for one thing, it was more or less my favorite show at the time, though Deep Space Nine was getting really good right at that point, as all the Dominion stuff began to happen.

Also?  My first few tentative searches into Star Trek fandom were...well...scary.  Flame wars upon flame wars upon flame wars upon arguing about tabling a discussion that caused flame wars erupting into more flame wars.

Did I mention the flame wars?

Yeah.

Anyway, I tend to be kind of contrary when it comes to my TV.  I like to discover things on my own.  The more people gushed about Farscape, the less interested in it I became. I made an aborted attempt to watch one episode (which, admittedly, did stick with me until several years later when I caught a re-run on Sci-Fi).

Anyway, the same has happened with several shows over the years -- when a friend mentioned Buffy, I watched an episode (which, sadly, must have been one of the sillier first season ones...because it made no impression whatsoever) and that was about it.

So, I did have the advantage of watching most of Farscape in one fell swoop.  I may have felt differently if the whole John-Aeryn-Talyn!John thing had been strung along over long, endless months, but by and large, I was captivated.

I've been buying the Buffy comics as they come out in multi-comic volumes (trade paperbacks? I think that's the term)...but the Farscape ones...I may have to buy as they come out.

I highly recommend the show, if that's not obvious by now.  You do have to somewhat engage your suspension of disbelief, because of all the muppets, but the ultimate effect once you let go of wondering how the guy running Rygel managed to stay out of sight, is far more immersive than Star Trek.  Aliens are actually aliens, and look like it.

Also, in case you hadn't noticed in my Stargate commentaries, I am a huge fan of Claudia Black's.  In Aeryn's case, she did an excellent job of creating a believable journey as Aeryn struggled to break out of the mold she'd been forced into.  Claudia is a master at hinting at hidden vulnerabilities -- with Aeryn, it takes the form of bluster, bravado, and aggression; with Vala, it mostly takes the form of snark and sarcasm.

But the effect is the same -- it makes for a truly three-dimensional character.

It's later in the series, but one of my absolute favorite moments of hers (as well as Ben Browder's) comes after she has been tortured to the point of breaking (which, in itself, is a character "development," but I don't want to give too much away).  She wakes up in a panic, and the look on her face...speaks volumes.  Encyclopedias.

Anyway, I'm losing track of things, but suffice it to say that anyone looking for a "new" show to tide them over through summer re-runs might want to give Farscape a try.

The Spear in the Other's Heart

"The spear in the Other's heart is the spear in your own; you are he.  There is no wisdom, and no other hope for us but that we grow wise."  -- Diane Duane

Rest in peace, Evan.

Although my thoughts are with Evan's whole family, I'd like to especially send my karmic good wishes to Evan's sister Josie.  She's in a position I try actively not to think about.

ETA:  More about Evan here, here, and here. These are blogs that I read (err...lurk, I suppose; I rarely leave comments); if you read the post on Vicki's blog, you can link to many more tributes.  I'll add more as the news trickles out to the blogs I do read.

Packaging Ridiculousness

Just to clarify, the little box from Canon came in the big box from Amazon.

The Eyes Have It

Yes, it's a bad joke.  So sue me.

I got my new glasses Tuesday, and boy, did the eye doctor change something.  The first night, I thought my head was going to explode.  (This is a bit unusual for me, but I quite often have a breaking in period for glasses...it's just usually more like, "Hey, wait, how far away is that?"  In other words, my depth perception gets...weird.)

Anyway, as my eyes adjust, the headache has been less and less intense each day, but...eesh.

I got the super-flexible ones...which does not make them Bulldozer-throwing-proof, but it might prevent badness from when I accidentally step on them afterwards.

For those that want to boggle, my left eye is 20/175-ish, and my right eye is 20/550-ish...which means that I have to be twenty feet away from something to see it as clearly as you would from 175 and 550 feet, respectively.

And, no, that does not make me legally blind.  Legal blindness means that with the best possible correction, you see 20/200 or worse -- so if I were wearing the strongest glasses I could get and still only saw 20/200, then I'd be legally blind.  (Or if my field of vision were 20 degrees.)

Just clearing that up, as that's almost always the first comment I get, and I'm a stickler for accuracy.  :-)

(I do, however, have a restriction on my driver's license that I must wear my glasses to drive.  Fair enough...although in an absolute, utter emergency, as long as I knew were I were going, I'd get there without hitting anybody...I just couldn't read street signs and would have to remember that my depth perception is all wonky.)

Meanwhile, "The Island" is one of the most melancholy songs I've ever heard, and the guy I'm listening to right now can't sing it.  This guy can.  Of course, he wrote it.

And, really, it's not that he technically can't sing it -- it's that he has no idea what he's saying.  He says "so we sacrifice our children to feed our worn out dreams of yesterday" with no more feeling than "this wasn't meant to be no sad song" (which he sings without irony, except that it's...ironic).

Minor Whining Rant

Point the first:  When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, he said that the reason he chose EDGE over 3G and chose not to include a GPS antenna was that both would (a) drastically reduce battery life or (b) require a much larger battery, thus affecting the form factor of the device.

Cue a year of whining and complaining about not having 3G and GPS and furious speculation over when the iPhone would, in fact, include those technologies.

Point the second:  The new iPhone 3G has (duh) 3G and GPS.  It also has a shorter battery life while both are turned on.

AND PEOPLE ARE WHINING AND COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

I just....

I just....

Grrr.

Disclaimer:  I have an original iPhone and have yet to procure a 3G because I am too lazy to wait in the lines.  I did try one evening, gambling on the line near the mall's closing time not being too bad, and missed it by 5 people.  I just can't take the whining anymore.

One of Those Days

From the old to the young.

It would have been Katie McCarron's sixth birthday today.

Wherever she is, I hope she is surrounded by people who love her, and that she gets cake in her favorite flavor and two of every present she wants.

Wherever you may fall in the (many, sometimes contentious) debates in the autism world, please take a few minutes to think of Katie.

Boo

R.I.P., Estelle Getty.  Patrick is going to be crushed.

A Glimpse Into My Sense of Humor

The joke is below, but to make it make sense, you should to read this.

I've posted before about how my interest in Stargate SG-1 waxed and waned over the years, and I'm fairly certain I mentioned how much I liked the note of whimsy that Claudia Black's Vala brought to the show in the last couple of seasons.

(It should be noted, however, that I feel that one of Claudia's strengths is an actress is to show a character's subtle weakness -- and as the series went on, I felt that much of Vala's wisecracking was hiding some of her inner torment.)

In any event, driving home from Vegas the other night, Patrick watched the two-part episode "The Quest," in which the Stargate team is trying to find a weapon to defeat the bad guys.  They have to go through a series of puzzles, and the last one is to say the protector's name.

The protector is a mechanical dragon.  When it appears, the following exchange takes place, loosely quoted until the row of *****, at which point, it's an exact quote.

Ba'al:  I may have exaggerated when I said I knew its true name.

Vala:  Maybe it's Darrel -- Darrel the dragon.

Mitchell:  Or Smokey.

Teal'c.  Perhaps Puff.

Mitchell:  Okay, well, we know bullets bounce right off of Darrel --

(Vala preens.)

Mitchell:  (blah blah blah flawed plan blah blah blah)

They discuss some more, until Daniel realizes that the dragon is merely a device, and that the real protector is Morgan LeFay, whose name in her own language was Ganos Lal.

Vala takes off running into the open field.

******

Vala:  (triumphantly)  Hey!  (with emphasis)  Morgan LeFay!

Dragon:  (roars)

Vala:  ... Darrel?

Daniel:  Ganos Lal!

Dragon:  (goes away)

The point of the joke, of course, is Vala's plaintive yet hopeful "Darrel?"

And, yes, I find the whole thing hysterically funny.  And yet, comedy movies like...say...Adam Sandler movies or Will Farrel movies...not so much.

I must be weird.

Actually, I just like word play and situation-based humor, instead of...slapstick.

Hailing Frequencies Closed, Sir

So, a while back the news broke that Star Trek: The Experience was closing on September 1.

Patrick adores the place, even though he doesn't like the food, because there is a large-screen TV and a wandering Klingon that will sing his beloved "'ej HumtaH 'ej DechtaH 'Iw," his favorite Klingon song, with him.

Of course, having no idea that I would not feel too well, I agreed that we could go one more time after summer school was over.

Therefore:

That is at an overlook at Lake Mead (Hoover Dam), which is only about half an hour outside of Vegas.  I just liked the way the lines of the road and the hill intersected.

I took the picture to show how much the water level has gone down, but it turned out really pretty to boot.

(Note:  This is the first time I've shot for a whole day in RAW.  Yay me.)

I really liked the pattern of the little waves on this one.

Who needs a tripod when you can lay your camera on its back on a camera case and use the self-timer?

(Actually...me.  That kind of limits what you can shoot.  :-)  Fortunately, my dad had two, one of which was more easily accessible than I thought...which I found out after the fact.  Oh well.  Also, I learned that my limit for hand-holding a shot is about a third of a second.)

Patrick's restaurant.  There are rumors of the concept being shopped around to other casinos in Vegas (Planet Hollywood seems a good fit to me), plus there's the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle.

(Also, it is a travesty that there is no Planet Hollywood restaurant in Planet Hollywood.  They have the best Caesar salad....)

Maybe the salt monster can kill the Gorn before he throws any more fake foam boulders.

I cropped this one about ten different ways before I found an image I liked.  I wish the huge crane weren't there, although continual construction is part of Vegas, I suppose.  Note the colored monorail blur.  This was about a ten second exposure, as I recall, sitting on the railing of the Hilton's parking structure (yes, I was holding the strap to prevent disaster).

Holy Relapse, Batman

Oops.  Spoke too soon.  I feel like I've been hit with a truck, my eyes hurt, and I had one of my not-fun stomach aches this afternoon while at the same time being so tired that all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

(Apparently, I eventually did...but all I remember is laying there hoping it wouldn't get so bad I had to get up and move.)

Meanwhile, io9 has a teaser poster picture of Sy--whoops, I mean Spock.

I rather wish, now, that I hadn't watched Heroes.

(I am now re-watching Heroes with Patrick, so that hopefully we can have a weekly "date" and watch it together, so he can protect me when Claire is flayed alive and such (blech).  We have made it up to the first instance of "Flying man!" and Patrick is very amused.)

Anyway....while Zachary Quinto's facial features do, indeed, bear a striking resemblance to Leonard Nimoy in the 60s...those eyes...those eyes are Sylar's.

(I think I've said before that I can spot actors even under many layers of sci-fi makeup, often because of the eyes.)

And, you know, Spock wasn't a brain-eating sociopath.

So, you know, "Shi'Kahr, we have a problem."  Especially, I imagine, when Spock is at his most restrained and emotionally controlled -- given that Sylar at his most sociopathic tends to be quiet and emotionless.

And we won't even get into "McCoy, Leonard McCoy."  (And, yes, I have more trouble with the fact that Karl Urban was "Caesar, Julius Caesar," than I do with the fact that he was Eomer and Cupid.

It does worry me a bit that the main poster (all four parts here) includes a bad guy, Spock, Kirk, and Uhura.  I mean...what the heck?  It was always Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Sure, Nichelle Nichols deserved a bigger part (or, at the least, to have her character's name spelled right in the credits of Star Trek VI), but...Uhura?

(By the way, and totally unrelated:  yay.)

Slowly Recovering

Had a bit more energy today...didn't even take a 3 hour nap (of course, that was because I was copying progress reports for summer school and renting a car).

Today was Superhero's last day.  :-(

In other news, the current TV Guide has a rather perplexing cover:

You'll notice at the bottom that it says:

Now, maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but "fall in love" does not equal "get together."  They were in love during the series.

(Also, I find it very amusing that the fandom term 'ship originated with X-Files.  It's so ubiquitous now, but I remember having to explain it if I slipped and used it.)

Anyhow, I realize that it was debated heavily through most of the series, but she had his kid, and the last shot of the series finale was of them cuddling in bed together.

Now, do they ride off into the sunset together?  Who knows?

But...seriously...do they "fall in love?"

What show were you watching?

This rant brought to you by one of my all-time favorite fandom quotes ever:  "By the sixth season, there weren't no 'sub' in that there 'text.'"

Replies and brain-intensive stuff probably coming tomorrow or Saturday.

Brain Freeze

I am tired.  I know I owe replies and computer fixes and the like to some of you, but I'm just not up to it right now.

Meanwhile, go read the blog Rachel (of Signing Time) wrote about her family's recent vacation.

The point -- for me -- isn't so much "aww, what a wonderful mom!" (though Rachel is, and the post proves what she'll do for her girls) or even "good Lord, that can't possibly be little baby Lucy I remember from when I worked as an aide," (which is roughly the same reaction I had to an earlier post about Leah's birthday, since it made me realize that the kindergarten-aged kids I worked with when I was an aide are all in, or about to be in, middle school now), but "why call something a glass-bottomed boat if it's an unaccessible submarine" and "why can't the submarine be accessible?"

Back when the new Nemo subs opened at Disneyland, I wondered roughly the same thing -- why couldn't they have a cherry-picker type platform lift?

It also makes me remember the field trip we took to the little zoo thing they have at the community college whose name now escapes me.  They were advertised as fully accessible, but within fifteen minutes, I was carrying the front of one boy's manual wheelchair while his mom carried the back, and several of the strongest male aides we had were trying to get another boy's power chair out of loose gravel.

I do mean to talk about this more, but see above (or below) re: exhausted.

Yawn

Without getting into gross details, I have figured out why I've been so tired the last couple of weeks, and I feel like smacking my head and yelling "duh!" at myself.

For the last two or three months, I've had an unusual numbers of the insane, horrible, oh-my-God-I-want-to-die stomach aches** that accompanied my brush with mononucleosis as a kid.

** I hate doctors.  Hate them hate them hate them.  And yet, when I would get those stomach aches, the only thing that kept me from insisting someone take me to the hospital (if for no other reason than to be sedated) was the thought of sitting in a car (or, God forbid, laying down) because the pain got worse when I sat.

(Googling today has revealed that that's not as uncommon as I thought; apparently, it's quite likely my spleen was swollen.  Yikes.  It can also, apparently, affect liver function, which explains why the doctors at Amie's mom's office way back when first thought I had hepatitis.)

I got those four or five times a week in the months leading up to getting really, horribly sick with mono, and ever since then, I get one or two a year.

Anyhow, there is a gross, TMI way (visual only; it's not THAT gross) I used for years to gauge the likelihood of a Stomach Ache of Doom in my future, but I've been sloppy lately.

Well, today, when I pried myself out of bed (after a several-hour nap yesterday and going to bed relatively early), I employed my TMI way of determining the state of my recurrent virus.

Whoops.

Call it Chronic Fatigue, call it relapsing mono, or call it Epstein Barr: the quick answer is -- utter exhaustion.  No wonder I've had such trouble keeping up with stuff this week.

By the way...I am one of apparently only 6 percent of people that get recurrent symptoms from mono, and one of very few people who get the nifty Alice in Wonderland side effect as well.

Maybe someone else should do the driving for a while?

Belated Pictures

Because I am diabolical that way, Amie's comment that Patrick looks so grown up reminded me that I wasn't keeping the blog up when Patrick took Chaline to the prom.

So, to go along with the "so grown up" theme, here are a couple of pictures of the happy couple.

Well, What Do You Know?

Huh.

There actually was an Iolaus, according to Greek mythology, and he did help Hercules with his labors.

He was just Hercules's nephew, instead of his buddy.

Grrrrr

Okay, I know Disney is Disney, but for crying out loud, people -- why aren't there coloring pages that aren't the Disney Hercules?

Part of the kids' journals each day looks like this:

One week I did an ocean theme, one week a sports theme, one week a Fourth of July theme...and this week, I'm trying to do a mythology theme to go with the stories we've been reading.  I did okay yesterday finding a picture of Zeus, but...geesh.

(By the way, I'm slowing increasing the size of the box for the period, to fade the prompt that it comes last.  So far, everyone can identify it.  :-) )

Well...back to google.

Things I Learned When Watching 10,000 B.C.

1.  The Emmerich brothers have a thing for ancient Egypt.

2.  The Emmerich brothers have a thing for the year 10,000 B.C.  (Unless it's been way too long since I watched Stargate, I believe that's when Ra first showed up there.)

3.  The Emmerich brothers have a thing for the "it tastes like chicken" gag.

4.  The Emmerich brothers have a thing for revolts.

5.  The "wise blind man" motif is alive and well, unfortunately.  This time, complete with weird, creepy voice.

6.  There is no number 6.

7. At some point, the Emmerich brothers will probably do a movie about Atlantis, given that they referenced Stargate in one breath and Atlanteans in the next (loosely quoted, "Some say they from the sky.  Others say they flew across the ocean after their land sank to the bottom of the sea.").

8.  The Emmerich brothers think ancient Egyptians all wore long gold fake fingernails (what the heck?).

9.  If there was an Independence Day reference, I missed it.

10.  Stargate was awesome.  Independence Day was very, very good (except for the whole president's wife = Laura Roslin thing...).  This one was...meh.

Commercial Pointlessness

Okay, I realize the big digital TV transition is a big deal.

However -- what on Earth is the point of advertising on local cable?  If you have cable you don't have to worry about the digital TV thing in the first place...even the commercial says this.

Also?  The commercial that says the digital TV transition was mandated because -- note that conjuntion...because -- the picture is so much better.

Felgercarb.

The government wanted to auction off the over-the-air wireless spectrum for lots of money.

End of story.

How Patrick Eats Bread

The Rest of the Pictures

Go here to see the whole gallery from yesterday, which includes the pictures below.

A good rule of thumb is that if the file name is prefaced with IMG, it's from the point and shoot and therefore taken by Patrick (except the pictures of...well...Patrick).  If it's prefaced with CRW, it's one that I took.

Incidentally, one nice side effect of having to be in full manual mode to shoot in bulb mode is that, while waiting for the fire works, I finally figured out at a gut level the interaction between exposure length and ISO speed.  (I haven't quite managed to work the aperture part of the equation in, because I couldn't find an easy way to adjust that and experiment too, but, hey, it's progress.)

It's funny -- I always say that I learned to use a computer by playing and experimenting...I should have remembered that about the camera.  I just had to get in and mess around with stuff.

I had read all about photography, but that doesn't compare to real life experience -- it doesn't make you get that the whole goal is to have the ISO low enough to have no noise while also (if you're hand-holding your camera) keeping the exposure time low enough that you won't see evidence of camera shake.

Nifty.

M Day

That is, Mark VII Monorail Day.

A full four years after Monorail Orange was removed from the resort in order to reverse engineer it (which has never made sense to me; Disney Imagineering -- notably, with the still-living and therefore still-consultable Bob Gurr -- designed the things to begin with), seven months after Monorail Red arrived at Disneyland, and five months later than expected, Patrick got to ride Monorail Red (which is still in soft opening status).

Unfortunately, the camera wasn't ready when he turned around and blew a kiss to it as it entered Tomorrowland over Submarine Lagoon.

The rest of the night was taken up with keeping Patrick hydrated and sugared (something is still wacky with his electrolytes, which his doctor doesn't believe, but that's a post for another day) and taking pictures with my remote shutter release.  It is nifty, but I have already decided that I need to dig out one of my dad's tripods next time -- a fanny pack on a camera case on a trash can does not a tripod make.

Link to the gallery coming soon.

Repeat Rant, but I Can't Help Myself

(Pardon the CAPSLOCK OF RAGE.)

Ahem.

IT IS NOT "COULD OF."


COULD'VE IS A CONTRACTION OF COULD HAVE.  AS IN, "I COULD HAVE GONE TO THE STORE BEFORE WORK IF I HADN'T SLEPT TOO LATE."


IT IS NOT "COULD OF."


IT IS NOT "SHOULD OF."


IT IS NOT "WOULD OF."


HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE.


IT IS COULD HAVE (OR COULD'VE), WOULD HAVE (OR WOULD'VE), AND SHOULD HAVE (OR SHOULD'VE).


*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

*relieved sigh*

Holy Block of Text, Batman!

Argh.

I'll try to fix it later.  One attempt to do so already didn't work.

C'mon, blogger....

Bulldozer Hannah

It is a cliche in Stargate SG-1 fanfiction (or, at least, I assume that it must be, given that the twenty or so stories I've read over the last ten years all seem to include it) for Sam to, at some point, exclaim, "Holy Hannah!"

Whether that ever happened in the show, or it's one of those things that started in fandom and became "fanon" (fan-invented canon...I know, I know) or whether I just missed the origin of it, I don't know.

Well, today warranted a Holy Hannah, but not the way you're thinking.

Bulldozer was...think Energizer Bunny on fast forward today.  He literally could not sit still -- this wasn't a willful I-don't-want-to-do-it thing, it was a literally, genuinely, I just can't do it kind of thing.

Unfortunately, hyper mornings like that often become...difficult...afternoons, and today was no exception -- but that comes later.

Anyway, Bulldozer often comes to school with...stuff...in his backpack.  For the last two days, it has been a pair of headphones.

Today, as Bulldozer was prancing, hopping, skipping, jumping, and in all other ways whirring through the classroom at the speed of helicopter wings, he stopped and grabbed his headphones and planted them on his head.

He started singing.  He pointed to a pair of 3-D glasses he had also brought (very useful for the kid with one eye, she says sarcastically) from the Hannah Montana movie.

(Translated:  "Hey!  Look!  I'm Hannah Montana!")

And then, he proceeded to dance about the room, singing, playing air guitar, and -- at random intervals -- deeply bowing.It was...cute and funny and reminds me all over again of why I adore Bulldozer (95% of the time).

But the kicker came about an hour later.

Bulldozer has finally settled down enough to finish his morning journal (with frequent popping up and down to get things that OH MY GOD I MUST HAVE RIGHT THIS INSTANT, LIKE FIVE PENCILS AND A PEN AND MY PENCIL CASE AND ANOTHER CHAIR AND JUST THAT ONE TISSUE).

Halfway between the desk where he was working (also a sign of impending doom -- when he starts wanting to be all by himself) with Aide Mrs. B (with Sleeping Beauty in Hawaii and Superhero at home, it was one adult per kid today...that'll never happen again), he froze.

His hand went dramatically to his head. Picture this but with more of a "d'oh!" expression:

"Uh oh!" he said.

When he's in that giddy mood, just about anything can happen.  "What?" I said.

He held out the cord for the headphones and pointed to the tip that would normally be inserted into a CD or mp3 player.  

"Uh oh!" he said again, and shook his head, then signed "Home, broken."

(Translated:  "Whoops!  My headphones aren't plugged into anything because my CD player is at home and broken.")

I opened my mouth to commiserate, when Bulldozer stuck the headphone cord into his pocket, touched his ears with a grin, and started singing again.

Why People Have SLRs

(Both pictures have been cropped to eliminate reflections from the surface they were sitting on, and have had some minor exposure/contrast corrections done in Aperture.)

2 year old 7 megapixel point and shoot, propped on a mailbox, 15 sec exposure using self-timer:

4 (?!?! holy cow -- it's been that long?!) year old 6 megapixel Digital Rebel, on a roll of packing tape on top of my car, 36 second exposure using my nifty new remote shutter release:

There's still some grain and color weirdness in this one, but not nearly as much as the point and shoot, and significantly less noise (I had to zoom in and use the loupe to see it on this one, as opposed to just use the loupe for the point and shoot).

Of course, now that I'm getting the hang of more of the manual features on my Rebel, I'm starting to feel like it's time to think about upgrading to the 40D, not that I have money for that at the moment (Sparky Junior, I'm looking at you).  The 5D hasn't been updated in forever, and the 1D is overkill for a hobbyist like me.

(Dang, though, this is an expensive hobby.)

Meanwhile, it's been quite the week.  I picked up a stomach bug on Monday, had to go to a meeting on our useless language arts program on Tuesday, wherein half my class fell 100% apart (turns out I gave the bug to Superhero, who was grumpy), and Bulldozer had the bug today.

But my funny story today.  The other week, I got my hug from Goodfella.  We have APE class with most of Teacher M's class, including Pudge.

The teacher is....

Yeah, anyway.

So every time we go to PE, Pudge finds Aide Mrs. B and latches himself to her (usually covering his ears in distress from the insane noise and activity level in there -- it's a sensory overload nightmare and I'd actually consider bowing out for the summer if Mr. Voice didn't receive the service).

Today, after banging sticks on the floor to the tune of "We Will Rock You," they got out yarn balls and had the kids (I kid you not) chuck 'em at each other.

Pudge was wandering, vocalizing a bit, and his teacher was following him.

Pudge wandered over to me, so I said, "Sit down, buddy," in my softest, most soothing voice.  He plopped down in front of me and leaned on my legs, and stayed there for ten minutes.

(Until they got out the ginormous beach ball and let the kids hit that at each other.  Yeah.)

In related news, if you ever want to see a textbook example of "overstimulated" and "sensory overload," come visit M after APE.

Seriously.

Now THAT Is How You Do It

I came home today from an aborted attempt at a final blood test from Bulldozer biting me in February (someone counted wrong and should have had me come in August), 

and find the usual random selections in my TiVo's suggestions folder.

Most often, those suggestions are cooking shows (because I have a season pass for Good Eats) and history channel specials (because I watch those all the time).

Today, one of them was an episode of Molto Mario, a show where Mario Batali is alone in a kitchen cooking for three guests.

Imagine my surprise when one of his guests turns out to be a woman with Down syndrome.  (Based on a couple of close-ups, I'd guess she was in her thirties.)

Now, that's cool enough.

It gets better.

Mario fields questions from his guests as he talks about what he was doing.  The woman with Down syndrome asked three questions (I honestly couldn't tell if they were scripted or not, but my guess, based on Mario's reaction to her second one -- see below -- was that they were not).

And Mario handled them beautifully.

The woman (if they said her name, I didn't catch it) spoke slowly and laboriously, but he didn't rush her or put words into her mouth.  He waited until she finished her first question (she asked how he got flavor into vinegar, which I think was asking why he put olive oil and vinegar in a pan together to cook) and then answered it cheerfully.

Without talking down to her.

He took her question as seriously as he would take a question from anybody else, and explained that the heat would cook the two together into a syrup that would taste very good.

She asked a second question when he started cooking a pasta, and got the same careful attention.  She asked, loosely quoted, "Pasta - you're supposed to cook pasta al dente always, right?"

He paused for a second -- I think trying to come up with something to say other than "yes" -- and then cheerfully went into an explanation of how exactly to determine how long to cook a pasta to cook it al dente (follow the instructions on the bag, but subtract 30 seconds from the lowest number (so if it says 8-9 minutes, cook it 7.5) because whatever sauce you add will cook it more).

Finally, at the end, she asked why he put extra olive oil on something that had finished cooking, and he explained, unhesitatingly, that it would the heat would make it taste "exceptional."

Kudos, Mario.

I'll always be a Good Eats girl 'cause of the science, but that was just awesome.  Kudos, kudos, kudos.  His interaction with her should be used as a training video for "how to interact respectfully with adults with cognitive disabilities."

Oh Dear

Hmm.

I went back and fixed a typo in the previous post, and when it updated, it turned into the massive block of text of doom.

It's much too late now, but I'll try to fix it and make it readable tomorrow.

Sorry 'bout that.  :-(

Randomness

So, I found the little CD folder I had used to take DVDs to Disney World last summer.

(Yeah, yeah.) 

Anyway, I had slipped in what I thought were season 3 DVDs of Lois and Clark; they were, in fact, season 4.  

Now, the first half of season 3 is my favorite run of episodes in the series, from the first episode ("Who's asking?  Clark...or Superman?") through the Christmas one.  Right after the Christmas one, the frog thing happened, and...yeah. But now I'm on kind of a Lois and Clark kick, which is a shame because the DVDs are very poorly labeled (hence me packing what I thought was season 3 and was, in fact, season 4). 

So, in order to distract myself, I went trolling through things that were hanging out on my TiVo waiting for my attention, and found one of my favorite early Stargate episodes ("The Fifth Race," where Jack absorbs knowledge of the Ancients and -- even better -- begins speaking randomly in Ancient.  At one point, he grumbles, "I've apparently lost the fallatus to speak properly!") along with a good Cam/Sam 'shippy one ("Line in the Sand") from later on. 

Then I notice that there's an X-Files on there that I haven't watched in a long time -- "Triangle," an episode that was set in the Bermuda Triangle on a ship in the 30s -- only to find that Sci-Fi had shifted its schedule ahead by five minutes, so the end was cut off.  Grr. 

(They do that a lot with late night Twilight Zone reruns too.) 

Sci-Fi has been promoting the heck out of Stargate: Atlantis's return next week, and...well, I don't much care.  I did like the episode "Trio" last year, wherein Sam, McKay, and the doctor were trapped in a big hole (I especially liked the doctor's casual reference to a bar game, and Sam and Rodney's blank "huh?" reaction), but that's about the only episode I've watched in full in years.

Meanwhile, adapting Greek myths for my kiddos this summer has been fascinating.  It turns out, for instance, that the Titans' parents were Mother Earth and Father Sky.  Not only that -- the Greeks had a flood myth, just like most other culture in the world.  In theirs, Zeus was so angry about Pandora opening the box, he sent a flood to destroy all of mankind, except for a couple of humans who floated around in a box. 

Ironically enough, a couple of weeks ago, I found a neat book on the bargain rack at Borders called Parallel Myths.  I have only skimmed some of it, but the gist of the book is to examine those exact similarities. It'll be interesting to see what the author says.  

I had a teacher in high school who led us in a discussion of Jung and the collective unconscious after reading Heart of Darkness (although it may have been The Metamorphosis -- but I don't think so...'cause that was the one she likened to the episode of TNG where they think they've left the holodeck but haven't).  

Anyway, she asked us to follow along the argument that all the similarities in all of these cultures come from humanity sharing some sort of unconscious bond, and we create these stories because we're all tapped into it. 

Funny...I only just now realized exactly how radical a thought that was for a teacher at a Catholic high school. Anyway, I find the subject fascinating on a variety of levels.  Are we all tapped into some shared memory, as Jung's theory would suggest?  Are we, as a historian on a special about Egypt once said, a species with amnesia?  Do we all have expulsion-from-paradise stories because, at some level, we remember becoming aware and, for lack of a better word, sentient, and leaving the carefree in-the-present world behind? 

Clearly something is going on, for cultures all around the world to have stories about fallen "angels" (for lack of a better word), stories about a great flood (perhaps remembering a period of high ocean levels, or a remembrance of a particularly terrible tsunami), but is it just expression of universal fears, or something more? 

Richard Matheson's What Dreams May Come posits that heaven is what you expect it to be -- that your own expectations and desires frame your existence.  So, if you expect heaven to be floating around in the clouds, that is what you'll experience.  If it's lounging around on an endless beach, that's what you'll experience. 

If that's true, you'll find me planted in a giant celestial library, watching playback of Earth's earliest history. I wanna know, one way or the other, about Atlantis.  I wanna know if it really was the Minoan civilization on Santorini, with outposts like Akrotiri that faded into obscurity, or if it really was an actual continent that sank. (Or, if -- again bringing up the idea of a species with amnesia -- if it's some much earlier memory of continental drift changing landscapes.) 

Speaking of Atlantis, however, one other fannish-type thing:  Cameron Mitchell is just too cool for words. 

Actually, two:  I saw posters for the X-Files movie today.  Despite my desperately trying not to have expectations of it going in -- one way or the other -- it's kinda neat to have that to look forward to. 

Okay, three:  the Star Wars special I watched yesterday was interesting but I think it didn't quite do Amidala or Leia justice.  I do agree with them that the movies are way more about Anakin's journey than the first...err...the 70s era trilogy would have had you believe.  Also, I like that they acknowledged Anakin as a tragic hero -- who caused his own doom (much like Oedipus) by trying to avoid his own doom.