Never Gets Old

I really enjoy reading about beauty, changing standards of beauty, and body modification. It seems neoteny and child-like beauty standards come up as topics during nerdy dinner parties once every few months. Here is an interesting NYmag article on The New New Face.

grand dame and a piano

I was listening to my mp3 player on shuffle to day and this song came on:

I don't think I'll ever grow old of her song-writing. She kills me at 2:15 when she looks straight at the camera and sings my favorite lines of the song:

I took off my glasses
While you were yelling at me once more than once
So as not to see you see me react

Should've put 'em, should've put 'em on again
So I could see you see me sincerely yelling back

The little moments in our little lives - I'm happy somebody has the talent to translate our condition to the keys.

schedulesnippet (gopher edition)

Tuesday: learn how to use Wordpress for company website, attend intro music & physics class, meet with student, make up list of available equipment (plus replacement costs) for incoming tenure track position, eat supper with my boss, invigilate a mid-term, go home.

Wednesday: get the stupid Linux machine up and running at it's new I.P address, do WHIMS training and test, gather paperwork for tax credit, schedule a meeting with tax consultant, do an experiment?, gather paperwork for other tax thing, go home to change maybe, go to potluck with friends, play games, relax, drink wine, go home.

Thursday: list our excess equipment on the scientific equivalent of ebay (once I find it), price out exhibitor costs to attend the largest North American conferences in my field, attend music & physics class, have meeting with website guru to teach me Wordpress things I couldn't learn myself, eat lunch at my desk, run some bioinformatic scripts on seed proteins, fulfill some requests I'm not even aware of yet, dick around on the internet reading celebrity gossip, go to birthday party and potluck, go home.

Holy Crap

I totally want to be a mosquito whisperer.

Intellectual Ventures Lab

I could have blue hair and it would be fine.

Winter Waking

Not too inspired lately to write nor take pictures, despite having some ideas for blog posts rumbling around in my brain. So I'll stick to short updates for now:

My birthday came and went. Drank cheap beer at the pub and ate frozen (birthday) cake from the grocery store next door while doing it. I'm still a Capricorn, because if I'm going to believe bullshit it doesn't matter if it's wrong.

Two of our laying hens went broody so we had to sequester them for several days in the dog kennel. As a result our 1-year-old dog got a trial run sans-kennel, and everything seems to have worked favorably (our hens are laying again, our dog hasn't destroyed anything but the wet garbage can).

I officially started a new position with the university where only part of my time is dedicated the the company I used to work for. This is beneficial to everyone including the company, who no longer pays my whole salary (but still has expertise/an extra set of hands when needed) and myself since the hard-negotiated benefits are better at the university (maternity leave at 95% salary for 17 weeks + I get to take one course per semester for free!). I am actively working on the paperwork needed for a giant tax benefit for scientific research companies (company offered me a bonus upon completion as well as a new MacBook Pro!) AND a new company website. We've started training some new students too, so lots to do.

And at the house, our little operation is humming along slowly. The subfloors are all up and hubby (who has returned to school for a short bit due to apprenticeship) has repaired all the holes where old chimneys or whatnot used to run through. We've been budgeting and planning and eating really well. This morning for breakfast I ate this baked oatmeal and it was delicious! Cranberries from our farmers market, organic apples/raisins (I dried the apples in my dehydrator), eggs from our chickens all cooked up then drizzled with local maple syrup (Xmas gift from my sis). Mmmm, I brought a second piece to work and I'm going to go eat it now...

inbox examination

In my inbox this morning I found some science-spam trying to convince me to attend a conference in Beijing. Here is the list of some of the speakers:



Team Sweden.

Blue Day

I have a really simple playlist for falling asleep in unfamiliar places (like airplanes) when I'm already really tired but I just have to drown out sounds. There are two songs on it, both from Esthero:

I Drive Alone:

and

Amber and Tiger's Eye


Esthero was one of the first artists I saw in concert (at a music festival) - I think I was fourteen years old. It rained HARD during their set. Fond memories.

A Tear in the Bucket

There's a striking parallel here, somewhere.

I scrimp and save to reduce my carbon footprint at home by shutting off all phantom loads and then I come to work and throw ten tons of disposible sterile plastics into the garbage while walking though humming rooms of energy-gobbling equipment that remainly mostly unused. Gah.

My culture tells me to plant a tree for every mile in an airplane I travel this year but all around the world increasing energy needs are being met with dirty power like coal plants. Double gah.

Homespun Holiday

I thought I was getting away with the most indulgent holiday break ever because I could still fit into my clothes. Unfortunately sometime in the last 36 hours this ceased to be true. Time to strap some snowshoes on or at least take advantage of the fitness centre pass included in my new job at the university so I can slug through a work-out with my fellow revelers.

My boss asked me what I got for Christmas this year and the list was decidedly low-tech:
-impressive chicken-killing knife from Cutco
-amazing KitchenAid enameled cast iron pots to cook on the woodstove with (75% of our food is cooked this way since the weather got cold)
-a Whirley-Pop for making popcorn on the woodstove
-a book from this lady on financial planning
-homemade dessert wines

Combined with the hours and hours spent hanging out with family, this holiday break was particularly spectacular. Welcome 2011!