The way woot works: it's only $10 today (no shipping), but they will make it available in a week for $15. They put up a new shirt every day, and they hold themed contests.
I'm wearing this shirt today. It was one of the finalists in the Fake Band competition.
I managed to get out of the house this morning without my bookbag. I was up too late again last night; my contract with the website people ended and they wanted me to work on a last few articles. Then I had to go meet the people whom I'm dogsitting for next week (Sam is a huge Great Dane, very sweet), and send another book out via Amazon Marketplace. I did get to watch some of the All Star Game, which was nice.
While I was grocery shopping, a funny happened: I was picking up my bags and I heard the cashier giggle; a woman's voice replied, "It's not what it looks like!". I turned, and coming down the little conveyor belt: whipped cream, strawberries, and a coil of rope. :-D
I will be in Killeen Fri-Sun (yay) for a little anime con. It's juuuust close enough that I'm driving back and forth every day. Hopefully I will sell many shirts.
- Mood:
chipper
Good god. I'm 45. And it's the 21st century. Why aren't I vacationing on Mars?
I have no idea what I'll be doing to celebrate--I know I'm going out for Indian food either tonight or tomorrow, and I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. Woo hoo!
It's supposed to be 104F today. According to the National Weather Service, it was 105F on the day I was born. Hm. This is indicative of something, I'm sure.
Weird things what happened on this day:
1913 – Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
- 1962 – Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.
births:
John Calvin, French religious reformer (d. 1564)
Friedrich August von Quenstedt, German geologist (d. 1889)
Adolphus Busch, German-born brewer (d. 1913)
Donald Sinclair, British hotel manager, inspiration for Fawlty Towers (d. 1981)
Bobo Brazil, American professional wrestler (d. 1998)
Jerry Nelson, American puppeteer
Zoogz Rift, singer/songwriter and wrestling booker
Tom Meents, American monster truck driver
Anyone know of any other obscure facts?
- Mood:
busy
cufflinks final 2
Originally uploaded by LillianB
They're DONE!
I spent almost 4 hours grinding and polishing and swearing at these, and they're finally done! I think they turned out spiffy. There are a couple more pictures on flickr. I'm definitely adding these into the portfolio.
To recap:
1) I flattened an ingot to make the 16 ga silver for the bases.
2) I soldered, using a very hard (high-temp) solder, without destroying anything, including the initials and bezels.
3) Laid a pattern on the background, domed the main pieces (with the bezel and initials on already).
4) Assembled, with more soldering.
5) Three layers of enamel, with four firings in the kiln (which has no window, so I was guessing on the time).
6) Grinding and polishing.
7) Careful bending of the stem.
DONE.
- Mood: accomplished
2 stencils
Originally uploaded by LillianB
These are my first two enameled pieces, made by sifting a base coat on, firing that with a torch, and then using a stencil to sift another color on top, which was also torch fired. Both are on copper. Check out the rest of them, though--I'm getting lots better!
eurypterid adjusted flash
Originally uploaded by LillianB
Chased into fine silver sheet. This is my first chased piece, based on a drawing in "The Fossil Book" of a young eurypterid (sea scorpion). Much larger than life.
I finally got the flash adjusted correctly, even though the stone is still too dark. (A lovely piece of light-green schist.)
The second piece is still a work in progress in my enameling class.
Slinky, the Lumpen Sidekick $1000 Cat, has settled on the perfect revenge for taking him to the OMG VET and making him wear the OMG COLLAR.
He sleeps with me.
I don't know about where you are, but here in Central Texas, the only time it gets below 80F at night is for about 30 minutes at 4 am. I don't even want to think about my AC bill. So, sharing a bed with 20 pounds of long haired cat wearing an e-collar makes for an interesting evening.
It might be the pain meds he's on, or maybe he's just trying to guilt me, but he also follows me around. And he purrs. Loudly. (This is creepy, since he usually stays on the other side of the apartment from me, and rarely gives me a grudging purr when I'm grooming him.) The collar stays on for another week, but the pain meds end tomorrow. Should be interesting to see what happens when the happy pills wear off.
Ripley the Wonder Cat is still convinced that he was replaced by aliens ("He has a satellite dish on his head!"), and hisses whenever he comes near. She's the one hiding under the couch now. *sigh*
- Mood: working
I brought home the $1000 Cat today. Ripley the Wonder Cat has been sulking, not eating, for the entire time he's been gone. And when he shows up in an e-collar, she runs away, completely freaked out. (This is the cat, who, when she sees Slinky through the window or the screen door, growls, because that is not the same cat, damnit! She's such a little freak.)
I am watching Slinky get used to the e-collar. He'll have to have it on for TEN DAYS. I have to dose him with pain meds for 3 days and give him ear drops for the nice yeast infection he had going in the ear with the growth for TEN DAYS as well. This will be annoying for both of us, as he is most emphatically not a touchy-feely-friendly cat at all. Just as well I'd decided not to go anywhere for the 4th...
I had to take the cover off of the cat box and I've put food and water on top of risers, and I just moved the bed away from the headboard by almost a foot so he can get back there and "hide" in his comfort zone. *sigh* i'm such a pushover.
Good news? The growth was barely held on with a little bit of skin, and they have held the surgical site together with a cautery/styptic pencil. I should hear about the growth itself in a few days; but since his bloodwork was normal and I haven't noticed any change in behavior as to eating, etc., I am optimistic. Annoyed as hell at the expense, but optimistic.
And how was your weekend?
Last night, while grooming him, I noticed a big lump inside Slinky the Lumpen Sidekick's ear, along with some blood. Oh crap, an abscess. I called my clinic (yay 24 hour vet offices!) and made an appointment for this morning. I got him into the carrier with a minimum of fuss and got him to the vet in a minimum amount of time. Great! Well, not so much.
The hairball has managed to gain 3 pounds, even on Senior Science Diet.
And it's a growth, not an abscess. Growths mean surgery, and $1000+ bills. I handed over the credit card (almost paid off, alas) and left him there. If there aren't any complications, I'll hear from them tomorrow. Then I get to pill him. Oh, joy.
Damnit. I'm worried about him and pissed off that he's costing me 1/3 the price of a scooter. He's not even my favorite cat--he tolerates me OK, but that's it. If if were Ripley the Wonder Cat, I would have gladly handed the money over and then asked them if they needed blood too. I would never not get my cats treated. But I'm pissed off about it. Does this make me a terrible person?
Now I'm all depressed and angry. *sigh*
- Location:home
- Mood:
depressed
Yesterday: 105F
Today: I've seen forecasts from 104F to 106F. We'll see. The Heat Index is 110F, right now.
Lowest forecast high for the next 10 days: 99F.
The low (for about 10 minutes at 5am) was 76F. When I got up it was 81F.
WTF?
It doesn't normally get this bad until August, anyway. (Oh, August...*shudder*.)
I can haz new job somewhere cooler, plz?
Since my company has informed us that we have to take X number of vacation hours every quarter, and I had a day and a half remaining in that time, I took off today and half of tomorrow. It's been nice--I got a ton of errands run/phone calls made that I needed to do. Made cake for a work birthday tomorrow (I still have to make the peanut butter icing tomorrow morning), and brownies for my enameling class. *
Sleeping late in the middle of the week is grand. I approve.
I have a new workspace! Some friends who run Scare for The Cure and Haunted Trails are renting me a corner of their warehouse workspace. One of my friends asked me to permanently borrow a handmade jewelry bench (yay!), and one of the guys at the warehouse supposedly has a metals kiln. I'm going to go look at it this weekend. I am now trying to figure out what I'm taking over there (some hammers, some stone, sheet metal, some wire, saws...) and what will travel with me (pliers, precious metal, files...). I am going to order my torch and flexshaft soon, since I plan on moving in over my long 4th of July weekend. I need to get propane and oxygen too. (Adds to list.)
I'm enjoying my enameling class immensely, and I promise to have pictures up this weekend of what I've done so far. Actually, I've been doing more metalwork as prep for enameling than actual enameling--I want to start making rockets and robots and I'm working on some cufflinks for my Yuppie Adopted Little Brother for his 40th in a couple of days. They'll be late, but I think they'll look excellent.
*The oven was hot and the mix was there. :-)
Undeterred, I went online and found a set of screenshots that I thought would help me; they did, up to a point. So I girded my loins and tried AT&T tech support.
Well, there's 45 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
I finally had to browbeat her into trying to walk me through the reset procedure, which she failed at. Finally, after multiple resets, she said she couldn't help me. I called the World's Best Niece to have her help me with the steps, since she also has U-verse, (lo and behold, the tech had neglected to tell me a couple), but even that didn't work. So right now I have a TV that is a great DVD player and not much else. :-(
To top it all off, my toaster/convection oven decided to get all freaky on me. I was heating up some pizza and noticed that the LCD screen looked weird. Then it turned off, and when I unplugged it and plugged it back in, none of the controls would light up or turn on. *sigh*
Going to bed now. Enameling class tomorrow, thank goodness.
Nice big thunderstorm hit tonight. I put a big towel over my back windshield since they were panicking and saying "Hail! Wind! Tornadoes! OMG!", and so, of course, we had only pea-sized hail--lots of wind and rain, thunder and lightning, though. I had a couple of scared cats and I kept the flashlight nearby (after I powered down the computer). Nice change after almost reaching 100F today. That's two months early...we don't normally hit those types of temperatures until August, at least. *sigh*
Brian Vickers Pulls Off Times Square Pit Stop:
A few years back, just before he turned 50, my brother decided to rebuild a Mustang. Nothing old or classic; he just wanted to rebuild one from the ground up (engine, etc.) and then "race it". Oh-kay, whatever, midlife crises are fun to watch.
He has spent I don't know how much money over the last few years on parts, tools, another body to rebuild later, this that and the other thing. But it made him happy and he picked up a couple of friends doing it, so we all supported him. Right?
Well, last Thursday he puts the car on the trailer and takes it down to San Antonio to try it out on a quarter-mile track they have there.
Two guesses as to what happened.
Yep, it's totaled. He bounced off a wall. Twice. Brother has a mild concussion, some bruising, and a bunged-up rib. This is what happens when you take a car up to 100 mph on an unfamiliar track when you have racing slicks on it. (And frankly don't have that much experience at those speeds.) He is very very sad about the car. He handwaves the injuries.
The sister-in-law is furious, and with the exception of the Nephew (who thinks it was awesome), we all think he's crazy. Because, yes, he's already looking for another Mustang to rebuild.
*sigh*
Is this what they mean by testosterone poisoning?
- Mood:
aggravated
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-thomas/t
- Mood: jealous
- Location:Boston
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
killerweasel: Thor has been cast! (And it's a great pick, IMHO.)We (the World's Best Niece, my sister-in-law and I) had a wonderful day at Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie. We left early and got in not long after they opened. The weather was marvelous--a nice cool sunny day after the rainy front passed. There was quite a bit of mud, but they had spread a lot of gravel and hay and such to keep it from getting too bad. Saw J and R at the LA Williams booth, where I had fun chatting and the fam bought pictures. I joked that they were pre-disposed to buy his work because I have several of his prints and Artist's Proofs hanging on my walls from my years of running SF art shows.
We mostly wandered around--we did watch one of the Last Chance Forever shows and then Wine & Alchemy. I never knew a big, stocky, tattooed guy belly dancing would be so hot, and yet it was. CDs were acquired. Talk was passed around to the effect that all our future men should take such classes, as we were certain that whoever he's with appreciates his hip shimmys. We sure were!
We followed a rumor that there were ping-pong ball crossbows to be found, but alas, the person who told us they were there was misinformed. We went into any booth that looked like it would carry them (and quite a few that didn't--we had to be thorough, after all!), but eventually I remarked that if someone was selling them, there was certainly a dearth of loose ping-pong balls lying about. I had some fried ice cream to console myself; my sister-in-law had a funnel cake. We called it good.
I did buy a purse, and a bopper sword with which to torment Ripley the cat. As usual, I wore the Black Death t-shirt, and got a lot of smiles. New haircut kept my head cool, and we stopped for kolaches in West (as usual) on the way home. And of course, we talked and talked and talked. Good times! Can't wait until the Texas Renaissance Festival in the fall.
- Mood:
mellow
ffutures :http://www.endofshow.com/2009/05/16/brea
You know, I really wanted to hate this show, but it keeps redeeming itself. I wound up mainlining the first 6-7 eps on DVR and was completely hooked.
I'm glad the World's Best Niece and I decided to go to Scarborough Faire tomorrow instead of today. It's been raining for at least 3 hours here with no letup. Which we need! Yes! But I'd rather be outside on the cooler day after the front passes, frankly. Ripley the Wonder Cat is completely freaked out, since the last time we had hard rain it hailed, too.
Going to see Star Trek for the second time today, and since I'll be out all day tomorrow I have to get laundry, etc. done today. Y'all have a great weekend!
- Mood: cheerful
The questions are a bit too skewed towards the boy side of nerdy. I demand parity!
- Mood: amused
What do you think?
( cut to spare your lists )</div>
- Location:drinking a Woodchuck 802
- Mood: relaxed
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- jeweler to the ages
- by Lillian
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