I am at an archaeology conference this weekend, for the Ontario Archaeological Society. This is my first time! I'm here for work and networking, basically - I'm not presenting this time, though I kind of regret that. Maybe next year?

The theme of this year's conference is From Truth to Reconciliation: Redefining Archaeology in Ontario, and there are some really cool sessions planned around those themes, and around collections stuff, and also maritime cultural resources, so.... here I am! Unfortunately there is a lot of overlap between the papers I want to see, because of course there is.

But also, the opening reception had free drinks (2 each), and actually had people wandering around with trays of food, which legit until this point in my life I have never experienced, and it was great! My favourite was the grilled cheese with smoked salmon and some kind of maple cream drizzle @_@

I stayed for about an hour and a bit, which is pretty good for me considering I really know very very few people in the room. But I talked to people I knew better first and then the people I knew less well, and then was encouraged to go talk to people I didn't know and I actually did!

Of course by then I'd had my two complimentary cocktails, and of course that's when someone asked me tough questions that I'm not able to answer well at this point in time ;p But then we exchanged cards and this person (who works at the Canadian Museum of History, in Gatineau (not Ottawa!!!)) is going to send me some interesting maritime installations and also a shipwreck from on the Hudson Bay coast which sounds cool to me :V I talked to a few folks at the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport as well, which was nice. Anyway. I did some networking, which I hate and am generally terrible at, so good on me.

And hen I came back to my hotel room and watched the end of Stranger Things with Nary. I liked this season quite a bit, especially all the Aliens references and nods.

And now it is much later than I intended to go to bed! So I better do that I guess...

I saw Thor tonight, and it was hilarious! And generally good, though I feel like they underused Bruce and introduced some things that will probably never come up again, because that's how it goes in Marvel: only the team movies have real consequences.

I also did a bunch of dishes.

I cleaned the 3Dprinter at work, which was an interesting adventure in taking things apart. It still isn't working, though. It was close... I was running it's test print, and it seemed to be going okay... But literally the minute I looked away from it,it failed. Of course


I did a bunch of other things, though, so hey.

Making a cake tomorrow, after baby bedtime, for a birthday on Thursday. Chocolate almond and cherry with boiled icing, I'm thinking...

I'm tired, so this will eb brief. but it will *be*!

I finished a fic! Technically I 'finished' it yesterday, but I did some revision today and I think it is better for it. I'll post tomorrow, as it is for a tumblr 'event' (Voltron!). It's even smut! I hadn't written anything since August, and nothing smutty since April, I guess. It feels longer :o

I did some more dyeing, finishing up with my walnuts. I now have the stuff for dad's scarf, and I can wind that and warp my loom as soon as the darker skein is finished drying. I think I might have made the skein that is supposed to be lighter a little *too* dark, and it may lose contrast in some places.... hopefully it sill still look good as a houndstooh. I also dyed a skein for socks, which turned out a lovely dark golden brown. I know the pattern I want to use if I can get ahold of it....

And tonight I went to a local friend's graduation party - she is now a doctor of philosophy too (history)! It was cool, though I think I almost completely failed to interact with people I didn't already know. I ate many (too many) snacks, and am stuff very full. But it was nice to go out. I still have such complicated feelings about my own degree. She is doing a much better job on following up/following through, and I wish he luck making her career!

I finally defeated the stripped screw in the 3d printer, but I still can't get it to work -_-

My knitting is going great though ;p And I started writing a short fic (not YUletide though I am percolaing thoughts on that too)! I haven't written anything in months, so that's good.

Tomorrow the Hallowe'ening begins in earnest! Wererogue rolled his ankle, so I'm going to go with Longpig to take the kids to the local kid themepark's trick or treating thing. PLus we have a million pumpkins to carve. I was going to go as a stick figure, but my white pants didn't come in on time, so maybe not. Unless I can get some white tights tomorrow, then maybe? Anyway, bedtime now!

....is tomorrow, wooh!

We're giving public tours of work. And by 'we' I mean me, because I'm the only one who currently works there who can do it.

The ED at the museum sent around a schedule which had me doing 2 tours between 10 and 4, and that seemed reasonable.... but the one that got send out has *four* tours, which is too many, and I never got to see that one. I basically have a 15 min break between them, assuming the don't go over time (I won't have to say as much about the scanning since the museum has coopted that, which I wasn't actually consulted about, really, but whatever.) Anyway, I did volunteer but I would much rather be at the larp event this weekend and it doesn't seem likely that I will get a ride out there afterwards, assuming I even am still keep on that after like 4 hours straight of talking to strangers :p

I did some dyeing tonight for dad's scarf but I'm not super sure about it. a: I didn't mordant because I was under the impression that with walnut it isn't super necessary. b: I didn't leave it as long as I might because one of my dye batches smelled *really* gross (made from moldy walnuts. The one from the walnuts from last year smelled pretty good, actually!) And the yarn did *not* take up the dye well at all. And the old bath was much more exhausted than I thought. Still, I have a light brown and a pale brown and they will still probably make a nice contrast. I just don't know if dad will wear them I guess I'll see what it looks like when it is dry.

I might go right to bed, but I did want to try spinning a little bit each day, for practice and to build up my hand strength. So maybe I'll do that for a bit, and then bed.

FTR: the thing at work *is* really broken, but I didn't have time to try and fix the 3D printer.

Today I went to Toronto to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), to see the Guillermo del Toro exhibit At Home With Monsters- it was pretty cool! There were props and drawings from all (I think - certainly most) of his movies, and other interesting collectibles of his, or that he'd chosen from the museum's collection to compliment the show. We'd gone to the bistro for lunch, and I had possibly the fanciest cocktail I have ever had in my life (inspired by the exhibit). It was Dr. Casares' Willow Water: Ron Zacapa 23 yr. rum, El Dorado 12 yr. rum, cherry wood smoke, black cherry simple syrup, orange oleo-saccharum, housemade clove tincture, clove-spiked orange zest (from the menu). It came to the table covered so the smoke wouldn't all dissipate!

We also went to Curiosa, which is a new curiosity shop that also sells Harry Potter tat. They are the kind of store that should sell BPAL. I told them this, and they took notes. They haven't even been open for two months, but they seem to be doing quite well! There were two young girls in Gryffindor robes there, one of whom showed me the trick to one of the puzzle boxes that was fore sale. Longpig picked up some neat things for the kids for Christmas.

After the AGO we went to check out Yarns Untangled, but since we are going to the Woodstock Fleece Festival next week, I was able to hold off on buying anyting. I want to weave a few Christmas present, I think And then we went to a Vietnamese place for dinner(a Bahn Mi shop). I had pho and springrolls, which were delicious, but something did not combine well with whatever else was in my system at the time (plu I think my body overreacted to the tiny amount of sriraccha I added.... my face turned all red and hot, though the pho didn't taste that spicy) , and I'm glad we wen home after that. The walk back to the car was unpleasant, but things seemed to settle out after that.

The trip itself was cool, it was a fun bunch to travel with!

I also finished my first loom project today, because weaving is stupid fast. My edges are a little wobbly, which is fine, they definitely show improvement and I know what to look for, but the bigger issue is that I wasn't consistent in my weft beating, so the fabric on one end is way denser than the other. That's the difference of today and yesterday's weaving - practice, I guess! I have more cotton to play with though, so probably more of these little.... towelettet things are in my future while I get it sorted out ;)

ETA: Apparently I am out of tags on DW and need to pay for an account or edit mine down @_@

I have eloquent thoughts sometimes,but rarely time/energy to express them. I suppose practice helps. I can make myself write entries fairly regularly, but I can't make them into things anyone is much interested in reading.

Pie party went well! We talked a lot about DILFs I guess, and also swirly porn and whether that's a thing (it is). We ate a respectable amount of pie and ice cream.

Work continues to be something all right. My back continues to be messed up and uncomfortable if not in straight up pain. My dog continues to be awesome (I got to spend some time with her alone in an otherwise dog free area).

I guess things are pretty okay.

I went to the Powwow at the museum today, and it was fun! I mostly wanted to go to some of the workshops and talks and such, but I missed a few of them. I caught the end of the one on the medicine wheel, and the end of the one on traditional harvest stuff. I did catch the whole one on traditional food, but a native dietitian, which was neat, and most of the one on corn as well, and in general I learned a lot throughout the day, which was my goal. The only things I bought were a taco and some quilt raffle tickets for one of the indigenous support services places that has some cool programs.

Then I came home and fell asleep for a while, because it was quiet and I hadn't had tea (and I even survived the day without much of a caffeine headache, wooh!) The kids were having a sleepover, which meant pizza for dinner, and then I did a little bit of RP for Underworld, and a whooole lot of tag modding for Yuletide! We've gone through maybe... 1/3 of the tags, but we start with the easy stuff so that doesn't mean too much. I'll do some more before or after game, or both. But for now, I'm ired and my allergies are acting up (I hope), so it is bedtime!

...is how long I think it's been?

Yesterday I finished reorganizing space at work. On Tuesday when I go in, I'm going to finish up (for now) with that collection.

I wound up volunteering to run a one shot on Monday. I have the characters ready and a basic idea in my head.... that's all I really need, right? People seem excited, anyway.

Played Arkham Horror for the first time in aaaages tonight! It was good times.

In other news I have some kind of annoying rash around my neck? I dunno what the deal is.

I'm up too late, again. Time for a shower and sleep forever! The rest of the fam is going on a day trip tomorrow, and I'm hoping to get some dyeing done during game. Wererogue rearranged the living room today too, and I like it but it keeps catching me off guard. It's like it's divided into two spaces now instead of one.

I dunno, I'm just reaching for titles at this point ;p

Work was good! Everyone wants to do flotation this week though @_@ busy busy! N is back for a few days, but he is going to Quebec City at the end of the week, so who knows when I will her back on any of the stuff I did while he was away. Or the people he asked me to contact, etc. Whatever. I finished a draft of the 'this is how the database is meant to be used/work' thing that I put together, because I think that is more useful than just a step by step guide for doing specifi things. It's so variable. We do need to work on some 'translation' guides for data entry, but I might ask my counterpart at the other facility to assist with that.

I also had some good conversations with J about his post-doc project, which is putting together a project portal for various kinds of heritage research, to put researchers in touch with communities - the communities suggest the projects and the researchers - students and faculty - can pick from various ideas and know that a: they will have support for the research and b: that since it is community driven it is muuuuch more likely to be competitive for grant-based funding. We've been tossing around with ideas for SA (some of which are Really Cool), and also brainstorming other sorts of things, and he keeps saying things like "we should write a paper." hah :V Who has time for original research ;p

In non-work news, it is Longpig and Wererogue's anniversary today (also my mom's birthday), and they went out to dinner, and I got to take care of the kids. Which included making a quick dinner when I got home - cheese and tomato omelets with cucumber slices and snap peas. wooh! They both ate everything, pretty much, so I'll call it a win. And they were pretty good at bedtime. Other than that, I finished weaving in the ends o the baby sweater, which is now "blocking" before final assembly. It's cute but heavy! ahh well. I am going to have back out of the actual shower though - a Toronto day trip is pricey, and the place where the shower is being held is not convenient from public transit.

I should go to bed. I've been really bad about getting in to be before midnight lately. I was on track for it tonight but something something the internet happened.

Night all!