elanya

I stayed up too late last night for no real reason, and had a hard time waking up this morning as a consequence.

I did do a bunch of cool stuff once I got to the museum though. We recorded a walkthrough of me going through the VR Longhouse - I mostly wanted it to take screencaps from, since we didn't have any from this iteration of the program. But apparently they might use it for some other things, like... virtual virtual tours? or a commercial? There are some students from the local community college who are putting together something, anyway, plus something about some kind of partnership with Microsoft for skype tours? Anyway, then had some interesting discussions about the Database of Doom, and its future and uses.
Came home, did a teensy bit of writing on Space Swap, and helped with dinner. Tonight was knitting, and I got a bunch more done on my second sock for Pretentia. Going to watch the end of season 2 of sw: rebels here in a bit :3

The weather here today has sucked - it was sleety hail and snow this morning, followed by gross cold rain. It started pouring on the walk to the game café where we have the knit night, and I was chilled and cold after that. Probably the chocolate milkshake didn't help, but it *did* have bailey's in it. It wasn't raining on the trip home at least (though we managed to catch a bus), but the wind had turned bitter, and now it is thundering outside. But at least we aren't getting freezing rain and snow like other parts of the region!

I emailed the plot running types to see if I can find out what is going on with my LARP character, who volunteered to be hostaged off to some fey at the end of last game. I'd initially emailed on Monday, and hadn't heard anything back, so I sent a gentle poke. The next session is only a week from Saturday, so I don't think I'm being too pushy to at least have them tell me what to expect! I could NPC if I can't play her, and that's fine, but I would like to know :o

So, I managed to get up slightly before ten. And then my bookcase came! So I spent the morning - and the better part of the afternoon - putting it together, filling it, and generally reorganizing my room. I even put up more art! It's so much better now! And it was even easy to find a place to store my suitcase in the basement. And I managed to rehome all the random junk that was in the basket on top of it. and I can find the top of my dresser and there's a bunch of clear space! It really does make me so much happier :3

Other than that, I did bunch of writing - on the underworld wiki thing, and also on my Space Swap, which I have now started. And I made some NPCs for thirteen (we were each supposed to make an NPC for each other character... I am not holding my breath that everyone will do it, but I put some down, and it was fun).

Tomorrow is a museum day. I'm going to work on a short article for a museum web publication on the VR stuff... And then on the survey stuff. Probably.

All we have left of S2 Rebels is the season finale eps. *Braces self* I mean I know how things turn out but still...

So, the cabinet/stacked drawer thingy I ordered came today, so after I got back from the museum (where I finished and turned in my summary report of the VR surveys), I put it together, and then started reorganizing my room. I got rid of the small bin of papers and Stuff, and cleared out a bunch of things from my dresser, which now only holds Things I Actually Use, for the most part.

Inspired by this, I stated thinking about other ways to save space... Which really means I want a bookcase. This will let me take the books that were in that box and are now in drawers and put them somewhere better for them that I can also access, and free up those drawers of things like, oh, probably yarn if I'm being honest, as it is overflowing from its assigned space, as yarn is wont to do >.>

I tried going to Walmart for a bookcase, but they didn't have what I wanted, or much at all for book cases. I did buy myself a real garbage can, so that I can repurpose the actually pretty nice wicker basket I'd been using to replace the cardboard box of stuff that is sitting on top of the suitcase full of Stuff that is sitting where this bookcase is gong to go (and the basket can still live on top of it). Whew. I did buy some big 25 gal. rubbermaids while I was there, and cancelled the ones I'd ordered from Amazon. I'm going to do that repackaging tomorrow, at some point. Maybe I should take an allergy med now to stave off the exhaustion that typically follows when I take one.

Meanwhile, I ordered a bookcase from Amazon which should fit perfectly, and should be here probably on Tuesday (but maybe earlier). I guess I can pack away some wintry things (such as I have, anyway) in the suitcase before it finds a new home downstairs?

Anyway - things are getting better in here - things are more accessible, if nothing else, and a few more things are put away. But not everything. I still have waaaay too much stuff. Some of it will just stay in storage until I have a space to put it, but some I think needs to be gone through and purged. If only I could get to it... I'm definitely taking a basket or a bag to put donation items in when I go through stuff tomorrow.

But for now - sleepos!

It's been a good day - I'm updating early because Nary is getting in tonight and I know I will probably get distracted and forget, otherwise :P

I finally got my 3D print of the scissors I was working on done yesterday, and it didn't break when I consolidated it, and then today I got to wax them and hand them off to the museum director so she can take them to the person they are for. I also *almost* finished the report I'm doing form the VR survey responses. I can finish that next week and send it to the guy who made the VR Longhouse, and then get on with redesigning the survey to work online (hopefully).

I was able to pick some stuff up for my sister when her text arrived just exactly when I was walking by the store. Serendipity! It is also much much nicer today than it was yesterday - there was light fluffy snow this morning, but no wind trying to blow me off my feet, and it was overall warmer. I generously bought my sister some snacks as well because I'm awesome, I guess!

Then I came home to tidy up my room and do some vacuuming. And I discovered that my tax return had come in! \o/ It was Not Small, and I was able to buy the new mattress I've been dreaming of for months. I'm so excited! I got an endy, because the reviews seemed pretty good for my needs and it's a Canadian company. I am also earmarking money to get the next part of my arm sleeve done - but that's going to involve a trip to Toronto, so we'll see how it shakes out!

I also feel less bad about spending like $30 on Star Wars comics yesterday. The Kanan ones were pretty much exactly what i wanted. The Darth Vader one was okay, but not as good as I had been led to believe. Mostly I was sideying some of the support characters. You might think I would appreciate a rogue archaeologist character but she was so.... I dunno - fawningly self-inserty in a way that did not appeal to me, I guess. "You're so cool,I'm such a fan, I know you're going to use me and probably kill me and I'm so okay with that." Meh. And the overall plot was kind of meh? But Vader was well written for the story he was in, I guess. I'm not disappointed I bought it, but I would need reassurances that it gets better from that first volume to drop any more money on it.

Anyway.... I feel lie there was more, but I forget. But all in all a good day. And now the kids are home, and we're going to go walk the dogs so we can go to knitting right after dinner. And then Nary gets in later tonight ^-^

Not too much to say - it is too late and I meant to be in bed. There were ridiculous shennanigans at ex-work that are not My Problem (yet), so lol. I spent too much money on Star Wars comics today. I ate some feelings when mediawiki updated and broke the Rocksfall wiki and I can't fix it yet. I missed a bus by less than a minute and wasted part of my afternoon buying junk to kill time and being buffeted by crazy winds. Such was my day. I sleep now.

Going to try to make up for last night crap sleep by going to bed 'early'... The time change may allow for this on a technicality.

Day at the museum went well, except I'm tired and my back is sore from standing as much as I did. I bought a pretty beaded barette, and I learned some cool stuff about traditional First Nations maple sap harvesting, and what/how they used it for. I got to see the blessing (really more like asking *for* a blessing) done pre-harvesting. And that the maple is the Man tree - something to do with it bringing the first water, which is a reference I did not get. And I learned that the sap won't flow if there is a north wind blowing, apparently!

The pre-contact/traditional way of harvesting was to make a gash - either single or an 'X' with a stone axe, and use a thin piece of wood to direct the sap into a container (generally birch or elm bark). (I may add a picture I took from the temporary gallery display if I can get it off my phone.) There is some evidence that they would use pitch to close up the gash after the sap stopped running. In addition to making syrup and sugar, they also used the sap directly for cooking and drinking. They tapped other trees as well, but I forget what kinds off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure birch was one, though. Oh also, you can freeze the collected sap and skim off the top ice layers, as the water freezes faster and it helps concentrate it pre-boiling. Hmm, what else did I learn... The sap itself is pretty nutritious, with lots of useful vitamins and minerals. I can't remember which ones though - some of the B ones, and maybe manganese?

Okay, I sleep now, really.

I was supposed to do a few things today! I did.... some of them!

Instead of applying for jobs, though, I convinced my sister to go out for lunch at a fancy Italian restaurant downtown after I picked up my prescription. The duck confit was incredible - the skin was perfectly crisp and all the fat was rendered, and it was otherwise just amazingly delicious. We each had a couple of cockatils (the Sicilian Sour was particularly delicious), and we split the carrot cake. Apparently the pastry chef at Abruzzi is all up into molecular gastronomy stuff. The cake was like a cloud of cake, extremely light and fluffy and I have no idea how it was made. There were candied and glazed carrots around it, and also a sour cream vanilla gelato. And it was dusted with browned butter snow, which was powdered deliciousness. Also a few drops of caramel? It was super fancypants, let me tell you! The waiter warned us that it was not a traditional carrot cake, but Longpig was all "It's okay, we watch top chef." He laughed. I'm pretty sure the tiramusu involves espresso caviar. Other than the food, it was nice to get out of the house with her and do something a little different.

Continued watching SW: Rebels tonight, and got through the end of Season 1 and into Season 2. Now there are more people I care about :V But Ezra and Sabine, at least, are growing on me. I also appreciated Tarkin's incredible bitchyness in his scenes.

And now, bed, because I have to get up pretty early tomorrow to get up to the museum. It should be a good day, at least! I need to walk up to the stop where I'm catching the bus, and I might try and stop at a bank machine, as there will be vendors and such. They're feeding me lunch though, which will be good.

So I was organized enough to take my computer in this morning, more or less. It turns out Best Buy doesn't open until 10, though, so I spent about 20 minutes waiting outside. There wasn't really anywhere to go that was good to kill time that wasn't also a food place, and I wasn't hungry. If I had known it wasn't opened, I could have gone to the mall - if anything was open there yet, I could have gotten Bubby's birthday present. I do still have some time for that, at least, and some ideas.

Anyway - it was not a simple fix that they could do instore, which is what I suspected. So I bought a new external hard drive and backed up everything that was important that I could remember and reasonably grab. That was not everything, of course - I missed some fortunately easily re-creatable tax stuff (just calculations for exchange rates), some music, and maybe a cover letter or two? I think I have everything else *somewhere*. But it will be a few weeks. Fool that I am, I forgot to sign out of all the things, so, uh, I hope you're trustworthy, best buy people! This is what happens when I only commit to something at like 12:30 at night and then have to follow through with only an hour to do all the morning things. Of course, if I'd known BB wouldn't be open yet I could have done better :V Now I'm back on my old laptop, which works okay but has some quirks, like the fact that it is missing it's left arrow key and is, mysteriously, slow as hell. Still, it's like an old friend.

Things went well at the museum today - I finally managed to get a good 3d print of the scissors I scanned without them falling apart. We have a powder-and-binder printer so that we can print in colour (it's basically an inkjet with glue ;p), so pretty different from the plastic/metal extruding types people are maybe more familiar with. The way the scissors were oriented in the print bed meant that the handles were really really delicate, and they kept breaking before I could even put them in the glue bath. I'd also been having colour issues, but the structural integrity was way more problematic! I got that resolved - there is a bit of a trade off because of how the layers work, in that the surface is more clearly striated, but for the particular purpose I think it will be fine.

When I came home, I basically slept until dinner. Then Nugsy was a total wreck (overtired and still sick) and being a complete jerk about it, screaming and doing anything he could for any kind of attention, good or bad. And, of course, insisting that he was NOT tired (he was tired). His dad did eventually get him settled, demonstrating incredible patience, and I think he fell asleep pretty fast (shock!) I haven't heard him coughing tonight, though, so that's a good sign.

I did a little knitting, but this part of the pattern is pretty complicated and it was slow going. Watched some cooking shows and that's about it. I'll have to re-locate those job ads tomorrow to apply for them, since all my tabs were open on another computer and I don't have my chrome integrated enough to bring them up here.

At least I still had my computer open, I guess.

Not too much of interest - it was a Museum day, and I talked to HK there about the plan for tomorrow, where we are giving a tour and demoing some stuff to one of the director's classes. So I'm going in in the afternoon instead of the morning, and will head straight downtown to find myself dinner somewhere and go to kitting.

Oh, also, my ex-coworker (he still works there, for now) made a VR bowling game :V It was pretty fun, though not what I'd meant to try out!

I did some writing tonight, but I'm getting close to the 'end' of the story, which is all fine, but I'm not sure if It is going to manage to seem like a story and not just a series of events. So we'll see. I need to tie things together more tightly, I guess. Maybe this last pivotal conversation I'm working towards will give me more room for that. And maybe if I aim for that I'll have more inspiration.

Despite being awake and staring at my computer until almost 3 AM yesterday, I somehow managed not to make an entry. I am really bad at making and keeping habits. I am totally the person who will do something everyday for a year and then just miss it one day with no reason. I wonder about my brain sometimes :p Sometimes I wish you could just get brain scans or whatever without having a specific need, just to have a baseline for comparison. But that would be pointlessly expensive. And there are people in my life who need them for more legit reasons :/ I admit I am sometimes paranoid that there is something wrong and it just hasn't been noticed yet, but I know that is not really rational. If there was a real problem, I would know by now, not just wonder. Everyone's body does weird things from time to time, so I shouldn't get all hypochondriac, especially when I have seen what more serious symptoms look like.

Anyway.

Yesterday was decently interesting. I didn't get to scan anything, but I did compile exit surveys from the VR exhibit. It gave me surprising feels! Partly to see the number of older women (over 40 and over 60) who'd tried it and loved it. They said a range of heartening things, like that ii was immersive, that if gave them a sense of emotional and spiritual connection to the history, that they were pleased to be able to participate in this wave of new technology, and so forth. I am also amused at the mid-twenties dudes complaining that the vive headset was too heavy when women old enough to be their grandmothers were all 'no complaints, it felt fine!' It was nice to be even tangentially involved in the project, anyway. And I did a minor bit of tech supporting for the equipment while I was there as well.

Then last night, among other things, I was knitting, and managed to work the tip off one of my Karbonz, because of course I did. I'm pretty sure these are the ones I already had to replace (my US 4's). But maybe I'm using my 5's? Anyway, this is a new issue, but also a resolvable one. I just superglued it back on. Luckily I was near the end of the row. If I didn't love everything else about these needles so much I would probably stop buying them. But honestly I think the problem is me :p Meanwhile, have a pic of my work in progress on this scarf!

( Pic! )

This morning I got dinner in the crock pot, then has my "post-board review" with the HR person from PC. It was informative, mostly in the sense that it confirmed a lot of stuff for me that I suspected. i am terrible at having examples, and need to elaborate more on my answers, and take more cues from the questions. In these kinds of interviews, they aren't allowed to prompt for further explanations, so it is all on me and how I answer things. It seems like on some of the most-relevant questions I did quite well, but fell down in a few key areas. Part of having not great examples is a matter of experience, and part of it is not being vicious enough to past employers, and part of it is not being able to explain myself well when I do. As I said, it was helpful, if a little depressing. They interviewed less than ten people, though and since it was an open call I know that to make it that far I had to pass a lot of benchmarks. But in the end, I didn't even make it into the hiring pool, let alone make it to the top. Ugh. He was very encouraging though, and aid I should definitely continue to apply for other collections type positions with the agency. I'll keep an eye out, but they don't come up that often :p Meanwhile, I hope I didn't screw up my SA interview as badly. Ugh. At least they *know* I'm awesome. Right?

There than that I managed to get some laundry started, change the sheets on my bed, and do some general room tidying. I might try to put up the poster I got from the art show on my wall... I have the print tacked up just to get it out of the way, but I'd really like to get it framed. I'll keep an eye out for something nice for it. karanguni asked my for a pic, and I took one - it isn't super great, because the print is in a plastic sleeve and there is some glare, but it gives a pretty good idea!

( The Cat by Justin Erickson )

I have a bunch of other things I'd like to do today - mostly writing stuff, at this point. I did my EI report and subsequent phone call, but was only on hold for about 15 min this time, so not too bad. And I should go switch the laundry too... But I want to touch up my chocolate box, and work on the Thirteen story and maybe do some other little chocolate box thing? We'll see how my afternoon/evening goes, I guess.