~k

Guerilla-ing

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:58:00 +0000

Seeing this book on the shelves was really the first moment I had heard of the movement, and it seemed fantastically appealing. I have always craved bringing life and use to neglected spaces, houses, objects. Potential is irresistible to me, and I took the book home with all the excitement of someone who felt that so many nebulous ideas were about to be solidified. This movement is based around gardening on property that is not your own, out of a love of beauty and a desire to fight neglect, misuse, and abuse (which seems to be the primary driving force for the author himself) - though occasionally the battle is more political and against perceived waste, proprietary ownership and capitalist industrialization. In all of the cases I found an interesting tension.

To clean and improve the spaces around us I find to be only human - and a glorious part of being human at that. In most cases the projects do seem to start out here, with a bit of adventure in late night gardening on someone's abandoned lot or traffic median. A delicious idea, and a triumph over more than just trashy ground. Often these spaces are haunts for drug addicts and alcoholics, with hypodermics and shattered bottles littering the space. But it seems that it doesn't take long for edges to blur, lines to shift - and suddenly what was a gift becomes a right. This is our garden now. And we will fight to keep it. Murky battles rage that are (occasionally) hard to choose a side for. I found it interesting that those who rage over their property rights could have so little concern for the property itself, and that those who clearly close one eye to property rights could then be so proprietary.

The very nature of this type of work almost dictates it's eventual dissolution. Improving space increases value and draws attention, prompting the original owner to take notice of the changes - whether it's with displeasure or pleasure, they tend to step in. Isn't the likely transience of the garden a risk you need to be prepared to take? It seems that is easier said than done. In the beginning you half expect it, but a few years later when you have grown attached to your seedlings and the garden is established - it would seem to require saint-like mentalities to watch the land be bulldozed for a new condo. It's a particularly interesting situation for renters - who, by improving the land, improve property values and may well be increasing their own rent!

These tensions I find particularly interesting considering the evident respect the author has for Che Geuvara, and the obvious parallels between guerilla warfare and guerilla gardening are drawn throughout the book. Some of this is done with tongue in cheek, but it's clear that there is much respect and study of Che. This prompted me to learn more of him, and I was struck by another slight parallel between Che and factions of the GG movement. Che represents to me what can happen to a human being when you become so entrenched in an ideal that you loose all sight of the original promptings of that goal and become obsessed with the ideal itself. The man who sets out to fight the worst of capitalist oppression and exploitation becomes the worst of socialist oppressors, destroying any man who dared to breathe of disagreement. He was an incredibly heroic, idealistic and terrible man, who seemed to embody the extremes of all that was beautiful and hideous in masculine nature. The goodness of his original desires to help the exploited lower classes, combined with the tragedy of how vicious and despotic he became seems ridiculous to line up with a topic like gardening, nevertheless I was struck by how people could be so focused on a goal that they can't see the goal anymore. How it stops being about a neglected space that you gave a use for (and perhaps now the owner has another use for it) - and becomes about the garden. My garden.

Because not every post can be about cooking.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 01:12:00 +0000

It's important that I talk about other things on my blog so that my activities seem more exciting than the occasional perfectly cooked meal. In the spirit of this, I wanted to run through the current exhibit out at the Frist Center, Color As Field.

Through the Frist newsletter I heard about a few free lectures on the current exhibition, and resolved to give them a try before seeing the art itself. The lecture did well in setting the stage, though some of the most interesting things came from follow-up googling about some of the artists. The Color As Field movement raises eyebrows from the more traditional mindset, coming straight out of the 50s/60s with a dedication to intuition, lack of form, and... well... color. These are the artists who poured paint on rather than brushed it. Who did giant works composed of vivid or overlapping blobs and rivers of acrylics. Who used squeegees, putty knives, gravity, their hands - pretty much anything but a traditional paint brush to create something. Call it all nonsense if you like, say that its notoriety came entirely from one lone art critic's flight of fancy, but it does help to understand where they were coming from and what they were trying to achieve.

From the rejection of form to the limits of formlessness.
Previous Abstraction styles had moved away from work that directly represented real life, but it still held to an altruistic need for some kind of recognizable form, be it human or otherwise. A sort of hyper emotionalism could be felt in their works. Color as Field was one of the movements that craved something more austere and shrugged off the last vestiges of desire to be representational of something else. A description from the catalog for the exhibit put it nicely: "While scrupulously avoiding anything resembling psychological symbolism, the ‘post-painterly’ [Color Field] conception of ‘cool’ included the belief that a painting, no matter how apparently restrained, could address the viewer’s whole being — emotions, intellect, and all — through the eye."

This gives us a clue to what all these works were getting at. Obviously, there was a large emphasis on figuring out just how much color alone can convey - but the underlying goal for these artists was escaping all preconceived notions and exploring the limits of the bare essentials of a painting (two dimensional space and color). How far can those two essentials take you until it just doesn't work anymore? How big can a painting be until it's no longer a painting? How many colors? How few? They were very into the idea of "all-overness," of paintings that seem bigger than the canvas that holds them. More than one of them donned blindfolds in an effort to break themselves of conventions and to retrain into relying entirely upon subconscious instinct. The painters often borrowed language from the musical realm, painting "in the key of green," and their work was likened to jazz improv sessions (interesting how musical and artistic movements seem to coincide). The results range from vivid and powerful to murky (literally) and difficult to connect with. One painter in particular had works that hit both ends of the spectrum for me. Jules Olitski, who turns out to be a very fascinating and charming man. A tragic younger life led him to a deep depression and insecurity where he rarely spoke and even attempted suicide, yet he gradually emerged to become one of the more well-spoken artists with an honesty and sense of humor about himself and his profession.

As you know, it's not cool these days to acknowledge any connection with previous art. What a hunger for immaculate conceptions among some of our artists. When did this begin? I remember reading a piece by one of the eminences of Minimalism in which he appeared to be claiming that he and his co-Minimalists had given birth by themselves to themselves: their art owed nothing to the past or present, nothing to no one. For shame; even the Holy Virgin admitted some contact from some source. Of course tradition can be intimidating; we can influence ourselves right into academic paralysis, which is probably what Emerson was warning his contemporaries against: "Carry not the corpses of yesteryear on your back..." Take what you can use from the past and throw out the rest. Keep going back and you'll find more and more to take and maybe more and more to get rid of. It seems the tradition that fathers you is the one you most want to transform; it's the one you bounce off against time and again until you made something of your own. This creation (call it your vision) may not look at all related to its father, and the more different it looks the more likely it will get put down, especially if it's good.
~ Jules Olitski

What to say to a nice neighbour of mine, a man who hasn't the foggiest notion as to why Rembrandt is in a different league than Ben Shahn, but who feels free to jeer and go on about "that phony Jackson Pollock and the rest of them fakes"? ... I was foolish enough to point out to him that Rembrandt painted some of the most original paintings of his time, but if he were alive today he would not be painting Rembrandts as we know them.
~ Jules Olitski

There is value in long years of obscurity, if one doesn't go insane or suicidal, in that, simply because nobody is looking, the habit of fooling around and trying things out gets ingrained.
~ Jules Olitski

It's time for a few Color-As-Field heavy hitters (click on their pictures to go to a slide show of some of their other works - not all of which are at the Frist mind you).

Helen Frankenthaler
Generally acknowledged to be the source of the movement, when Noland and Louis went to her studio and saw Mountains and Sea they left full of ideas. Louis famously called her work "the bridge between Pollock and what was possible." Color as Field (or if you really want to impress someone you can use it's awful synonym - Post-Painterly Abstraction) was born.

Mountains and Sea - the face that launched a thousand ships, as it were.

Morris Louis
It's hard unless you've seen them, but it's necessary to really get the scale of his work. The one below (similar to my favorite of his at the Frist) is about 10' by 20' or so. Louis went through droughts with his painting, destroying many works that he created and struggling with painter's-block, for lack of a better term. He always seemed to emerge from them and ultimately gave Color-Field some of it's most defining paintings. Unfortunately Louis, much like his paintings, took a bath in the world's first acrylic paint - Magna. His longterm high-level exposure to this rather toxic paint is thought to be the reason he died fairly young of lung cancer.

Alpha Pi

Jules Olitski
Remember my pal Jules?

Julius and Friends - this one lended some credibility in my mind to how riveting color alone can be. I felt completely blown away by this huge piece (as tall as me). His oft' quoted craving in painting was to capture color. "I want to spray color in the air and have it stay there."

For those who have seen the exhibit (or haven't, but still have an opinion), I'd be curious to know your thoughts on it. Knowing they held that art made sheerly "for the eye" is capable of grabbing you intellectually and emotionally - did you find any painting that did that? Did they fall off the edge of the limits they were exploring, to the point that their works no longer qualify as "paintings" to you?

The museum flyer says: "The Color Field painters believed that the source of creativity was the unconscious and that the artist's role was to make the unseen visible, rather than to depict what could be seen." I was struck by this quote and the similarity it held to what some theologians claim is the reason for humanity - to make the unseen visible.

Culinary Arts

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:12:00 +0000

Before you confidently build yourself up with excitement thinking this is yet another total-catastrophe blog regarding my domesticity, I must inform you that this entry has an almost unwavering tone of triumph all the way through it. The secret to my success (and, let's be honest, to my even attempting anything at all), is the CSA program I signed up for this spring with Avalon Acres. The idea itself was completely irresistible to me - a quarter bushel of vegetables every week of whatever was currently in season from local farmers. Though not 100% organic their focus is on sustainable family-owned farms which is exactly the type of thing I want to support. Apart from checking off all the buzz-words, I was also delighted by the idea of a surprise every week. You never knew what was going to be in that box! Surprises aside, and apart from the charming and oh-so-trendy idea of cooking within the season, there was also the attraction of the challenge. You have thirty radishes, one head of cabbage, five thousand strawberries and four days until rot. GO!

That was the idea, at least. And in practice it did work out to be true most of the time. I'll confess right now that many a veg has met my trash can because I couldn't think of anything in time, but I chalk it up as healthy organic matter being contributed to our trash piles and a contribution to education. For, much like any sensible predator sizing up an unknown quarry, I usually have a phase where I must stalk the vegetable. What exactly are you? What do you do? Ah. It seems you are an enormous scallion. What do people do with scallions? And then I attack! Or I continue stalking, it all depends on how daunting the preparation seems to be.

Thats where the cookbook comes in. Beautiful, delicious meals built on high quality ingredients where the recipe doesn't go on for miles. It's really a perfect balance for me: good enough that I don't chuck it all and order take-out from fido (I have to say I'm pretty spoiled to really well done restaurant food), and simple enough that I feel like I can really learn the flavors that go in to making food. Right now the spice rack is just so many odd looking powders. I toss them in not because I know what they do to food, but because the recipe says so. Or because it seems like it might be fun and more chef-like to sprinkle something on something, and so I embellish the recipe. Regardless - there's certainly no method to my madness.

Veggie Burgers
This was a defining moment for me. It was week 2 and I had lettuce and radishes coming out of my ears, couldn't go through the strawberries and the bread was getting dried out (I was getting a loaf of fresh bread every week). It was a sink or swim crossroads, and I remembered I had wanted to try a veggie burger recipe I had seen (which she happens to have on her website as well). I scanned through the ingredient list. Gasp! Onions! I already had them in the form of our new friend the scallion! And bread crumbs! I could use my drying leftover bread and make breadcrumbs with my brand new blender! Now I know it may not sound like much to you, but this was a big deal to me. To actually have some of the ingredients and equipment on hand without having to buy everything from scratch at the store? To find a use for a food-stuff that extends beyond a single menu? To not have to throw something away because you couldn't think of what to do with it? Such things were utterly unheard of in my world. I was thrilled to make them, loved eating them, and loved that they made individual patties so that I could put them in the fridge and pop one out whenever I felt like a sandwich. Ah Mazing.

Roasted New Potatoes and Beans
This is where I met the scape. I diced it very thinly and mixed it in the olive oil as a replacement for garlic (which I didn't have). Roasting definitely brought out a deep flavor in the veggies, but I think I want to try steaming the beans next. Must. Purchase. Steamer.

Strawberry Popsicles
For as much as I put it off, this one was super easy and completely delicious. It pains me to think of how many bins of strawberries were consumed by mold rather than me before the discovery of puree! A handful of pureed strawberries mixed with french vanilla yogurt, capped off in the molds with straight vanilla yogurt - beautiful and very tastey.

And for the leftover puree mixture? It made an amazing smoothie.

allow me to tell you about parenting.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:35:00 +0000

[note: This was written ages ago, it just got left in my drafts section. I stumbled across it and decided to post it along with another related item farther down below. Get all the parenting advice out in one giant post, I say.]

I'm the curious type who enjoys listening to knowledgeable people talk about their favorite subjects - particularly when that subject is a departure from my normal day-to-day experience. Ergo, a family therapist giving a free lecture on his rendition of "The 10 Commandments of Parenting" hit both the "expert" and the "completely outside of my realm" marks nicely. I also happen to believe that adults aren't as different from children as they'd like to think, so a lecture on the needs of children may have insights into our own weaknesses that we don't like to consider. Naturally, I took no notes at all during his presentation. This allows me to rehash the lecture in my own words without the invasion of clarity or accuracy bogging down the process - thus you will see below a blending of the lecturer's words and my own thoughts added to his words. Not everything he says I entirely agreed with, but such as it is and as I remember it, here it is.

1) Slow down.
Multi-tasking is teaching people how not to be present to any one thing they are doing. This mentality spreads to the young ones, resulting in anxiety filled children who are good at doing but terrible at being. They absorb your example - what lessons do you teach when you pick them up from school while talking on the cell phone? Teach your children by example how to focus and live in the moment.

2) Let your child go to school
Remember that this is their experience, not yours.

3) Make sure your child has a bad teacher.
It's an opportunity for your child to learn resilience. It's also an opportunity for them to have a window into the frustrations and sufferings of others. Social intelligence is the capacity for resilience and the capacity for empathy - bad teachers can be very good teachers of these two skills.

4) Teach them how to loose.
Children who don't know how to loose are unable to celebrate the victories of their friends. Don't be so quick to comfort when they suffer a defeat - suffering is a part of life that they need to learn how to cope with. Jumping in to smother them with comfort also implies that you don't trust them to work through things. Give them a moment to sort through it, and then go in with a comforting word. Don't over-validate their pain when they lose, they must learn perspective and to bounce back. Don't underestimate their ability to cope, either. As an adult you are no longer used to the intense emotional highs and lows children move through. They may feel tragic, and then be on to something else in a short while - don't take their defeats so much to heart that you are left hurting long after they have recovered.

5) Stay curious
The question should be "What did you learn today?" not "How well did you do?" Your curiosity about life and learning is subtly felt by a child - and so is your lack of it. What affect do you have to say to children "these are the best years of your life." What a great way to reinforce a child/teen's idea that adults are irrelevant and boring - they simply believed you when you said that childhood is the height of living. If you are bored and uninterested with your own life you will be boring to others, and children will certainly pick up on this. As an adult you need to have your own interests, hobbies and goals. Keep your own life... alive.

Also, who wouldn't want to remain in their adolescent years when someone else pays all the bills, when you kicked back at the pool with friends, when you were going on class trips to exotic places. Don't give your child so many experiences in childhood that they have nothing left to look forward to - "Why be excited about being independent and doing things for myself when Mom and Dad pay for me to go on exotic class trips right now?" If there is something positive for you to look forward to in the future, you will make better choices in the present.

6) Model Respect - and insist on it.
Sibling rivalry is not okay. There are indeed families without it. Don't validate it, and don't be so quick to separate the children when there is conflict. Learning how to resolve it and tolerate others is necessary. In looking at large families, there is an added encouragement for the children to find a way to work things out with each other. If you have to bed down with that person at night, you'll try to be a bit nicer to them. There is a respect and obedience that has been lost - previous generations of parents didn't care as much whether their kids *liked* them. If your constant goal is trying to maintain warm fuzzy happiness in the home, you will do your children a disservice by not allowing them to learn how to resolve conflict.

You need to ask yourself: what is the culture of this home? What tone is set by the parents? Note that depression is the 2nd most contagious emotion and anxiety is the first.

7) Stay in the adult world
Our primary emotional and social security should be met by peers, not by the generation beneath or above. Desiring to have a relationship where your children tell you everything is not healthy.

8) Own your own home
In a study done of affluent families, the least entitled kids were the ones who were required to clean their own room. It's your home. You pay the mortgage. They are allowed to use some of the space, but there should be no mistake in their minds about who owns it, and that part of their responsibility in order to use that space is to maintain it.

Other "less entitled" kids were those from families that eat together or do community service projects together.

9) Give Less
Make sure that the kids have to create something themselves. They should have had a job by the time they graduate from high school.

10) Live like a blessed person
The best antidote to anxiety and entitlement is gratitude. Brain studies were done (please don't imagine I remember where) showing that those who write down things that they are grateful for each day have an increase in focus and creativity.

Use structure in your day, but try to keep it so that it gives example. For instance, if there is a time for homework, let that be the time for the entire family to do their "homework." Everyone is at the table, working on something during this time. It allows the child to borrow "ego strength" from the adults working on a task.

Aaaaaand... thats all I can remember. There was more to the lecture though.

----

Corollary! I was listening to npr a couple of months ago (npr is a recent phenomena for me) on my way in to work and heard some Experts talking about child's play and how it went terribly wrong over the last 20 years - giving us yet another trend to regret that started out so innocently. Doesn't it seem to be the fashion these days to look back on the last 50 years and say "If only they were enlightened like us!" It's the only politically correct demographic to pick on these days. Anyways, I digress. Their argument was pretty compelling I thought, and not far from common sense which always lends more credibility to the opinions of Experts.

It all began, they say, one fateful day in the 50s. Children gathered around a strange boxy contraption called a television and watched the mickey mouse show. Thats not the only thing that debuted in the 50s - toy commercials. The pundits were saying that this caused a dramatic shift in children from play being free make-believe to play being focused on the object. Gotta have that toy. The toy on the commercial. The exact one. Must. Have. It. Generation X'ers had another grand idea (it seemed plausible) - why not cut out more of that make believe babble children do and make sure that we sneak in some learning into those playtime hours! Thus children began to be shuttled about from one adult led class/activity to another - learning karate and ballet and piano and soccer and.

What's the big deal about moving away from make-believe? I'm sure you could think of a few reasons you wouldn't want to loose make-believe entirely, maybe related to fostering free creativity and imagination, but they brought up one that I wasn't expecting. Have you ever heard a child playing make-believe? Especially little toddlers? In make believe the child creates their own rules for play and follows them. You'll even hear them telling themselves what they will do and how they will do it. True, these games and rules seem bizarre to us, and a child has been known to change their own rules in order to secure the intended outcome, but it's surprising how detailed they will be with themselves (and you). "You will sit in this chair and I will hide behind the couch like this so you won't know I'm there and you will say 'Where is Mark?' and I won't say anything and then you will ask again and then I will pop out and you'll be so surprised!" You will also play this game exactly as instructed over and over until you distract the small child with the idea of a snack (yet another habit we've now come to regret, but desperate times...). What are they learning? Self-regulation. What were they learning, I should say. It seems we've cut out so much of the time that children historically used for make-believe (where they essentially taught themselves how to control themselves and act inside of a set of rules) that it's really starting to show through.

Whats the point of talking about anything these days without vaguely referencing a study?? A study was done at [don't remember], asking 3, 5, and 7 year olds to stand still as long as they could. 30-40 years ago [blanking on the timeline] the 3 year old just couldn't do it, a 5 year old could do it for 3 minutes, and a 7 year old could do it for as long as the studiers asked them to. Nowadays? They are even better! Just kidding. You knew this wouldn't end well. 3 and 5 year olds failed spectacularly and 7 year olds barely approached the level 5 year olds used to be at.

Could they be wrong in their connection? Could it be related to diet? TV? Lack of parental discipline and involvement? Could the statute of limitations be way up on trying to remember something I heard on the radio? Very, very possible. But it makes one wonder, doesn't it!

Soup. Seriously.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 02:06:00 +0000

I'm sitting here eating gazpacho. Which, to the educated, is a cold bread soup from Spain, involving garlic, olive oil, salt, vinegar - and the occasional tomato and random vegetable. To the uneducated who got lured in to an attractive cook-book picture and set out to buy out the grocery store on plum tomatoes, it turns out to be a pureed mild salsa that you eat like it's soup. Interesting. I don't hold the recipe responsible (it's not like I choose the peak season for tomatoes to do this) and I could see how in small doses the salsa-soup could be refreshing on a summer day. Be that as it may, I'm forcing down spoon fulls of it out of sheer obstinate determination to like it. It seems like such a good idea... sigh. It has made me learn a few things that I never knew though.

1) I own a blender. I knew this at one time actually, it was a hand-down from my sister two years ago, but I think within a day of storing it I forgot it existed. Cabinet exploration really is exciting. 2) This blender has a funny smell when run for long periods of time or at high speeds. The kind of smell that makes you look for smoke. Did that stop me? Heavens no. I forged ahead. 3) It is important to re-tighten the bottom of the blender every time you do a batch, or risk tomato juice oozing out the bottom. My exact mental thought at the time: "hmm. I'm pretty sure thats not supposed to happen." 4) Anyone that survives cutting an onion with all of their fingers intact has directly experienced divine intervention. 5) I do not have the patience to force eight cups of tomato-vegetable mixture through a sieve with a spoon. Forget it. 6) Édith Piaf, Marilyn Monroe, Norah Jones, Nat King Cole and a touch of Van Morrison makes for good cooking music, and practically requires you to drink wine while you cook. I already knew that though. Sidenote: I didn't drink any wine, because I've recently learned something very disturbing: you have to polish off a bottle of wine within a few days of opening it or it goes sour. Shocking, but true. When I become an alcoholic or I stop caring about pouring out half a bottle, I may change my cooking habits.

I think thats all I learned. In the coming days I may be able to add one more to the list - 7) This is how (not?) to dispose of 2 gallons of salsa-soup: _____.

Me, Myself, and Irene.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:22:00 +0000

As many of you know, I've been shopping for a bike recently (the non-motorized kind) so I could start biking to work/library/ymca/etc (another undeniable factor is the second childhood I seem to have entered). The bike quest has been pretty dismal lately though, with all the bike shops having "the perfect model" for upwards of $400 (even craigslist didn't have much under this price) - which was a bit more than I was hoping to spend for a get-around-town bike. I also didn't want one that was all perfect and new, so the inevitable scratches and dings aren't as traumatic (confession: it's been over 10 years since I've been on a bike). I was about to pack myself up and head to Clarksville to a bike shop that had been recommended to me when I thought I'd give craigslist one more chance - and there she was. Being sold right next door in East Nashville only sweetened the deal, and I went out there to take a look. Max had built her for his mother apparently, but when she preferred a different bike style he put "Irene" up for sale. She was positively perfect in every way and I bought her after a quick ride to Eastside Cycles for a checkup.

Sunday arrived and I desperately needed to return some things to the library, so Irene and I combined that with some exploring. Bike, backpack, ipod - I couldn't possibly have been more urban. Eventually I stumbled across the fountains at Victory Park, an irresistible pair, and CLEARLY made for you to dip your feet in.

Soundtrack for my day: Iron and Wine, Sting, Norah Jones, The Cars, Led Zep, Rachael Yamagata, The Shins. Think Garden State soundtrack.

One more note before I run out - I had grown tired after 2 years of sitting on the bedroom floor to use a mirror, and with a bit of money tucked away to take care of this serious problem I went in search of a small table/chair/mirror combo. I typically have one rule when it comes to this kind of thing - it must speak to me. However, I also didn't want to call out the gendarmes just to help me get a vanity table, so I went with the thinking that if I couldn't move it myself or fit it in my car, it's likely too big for the space anyways (my room feels bigger than it actually is - a trick of the high ceilings). I wandered through a few thrift stores hoping to avoid mass produced options (which was an adventure in and of itself - who knew you could find a rainbow bright doll on top of a 70 year old radio next to an old mantel piece?), but I ended at Target who had the only thing that I could manage myself. I do love the one I bought though, it's the kind of table that makes me want to sit in a dressing gown and write lengthy letters to my sister - using words like "gainsayed" "vexation" and perhaps even "caprice."

more pictures of all this nonsense here (yes, it's flickr).

Decisions, Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:24:00 +0000

Every so often in a persons life, they encounter real, life-changing, agonizing decisions that need to be made. Decisions where there seems to be no right answer and your destiny lays in the balance. THIS is not one of those decisions. I nevertheless happily agonized over it this morning.

Smugmug or Flickr
???? ?? ? ??????? ?

I know.

Okay first of all, they are both quirky, with odd hiccups you can encounter along the way. Still, there's no denying that smugmug has a nicer layout and some neat little features - and Flickr? They have the power of popularity. Try searching for "oscon 2007" on flickr and smugmug and you'll see what I mean. I'm not sure thats enough though. In fact I must confess myself to be completely charmed by smugmugs personality. Who couldn't be after reading a completely unpretentious blog from the owner concerning the direction of smugmug? Not to mention the wonderful dedication to customer service. No! I declare them to be the adorable twin of emma in the picture storage world, and I'm not sure I can resist setting up camp with them. I have a 14 day trial going for now though - and I hope to hear from all of you what you think of either service.

Kim's Flickr!
Kim's Smugmug! (only good for 14 days unless I renew)

Whooooo wants to test out embedded slideshows?

Interesting. Flickr doesn't really seem all that helpful here.

Smugmug?
Holy crap. Am I really asking anything SO WEIRD here?

Well this is kind of blowing my mind. Surely I've just overlooked the way to get to it. Errr... Picassa?

Interesting. Well done, Picassa. Maybe I've also overlooked a third competitor in this heated debate.

Now I do realize that abusing the embedded slideshow may be the 2k equivalent of animated gifs and blinking text - but c'mon. When used with restraint it's not *so* bad. Is it? I just decided to give myself a chuckle and googled "web design sins" Awesome. Indeed, www.webpagesthatsuck.com completely cracked me up - not only for their commentary but the fact that they openly confess to sucking.

"Yes, WebPagesThatSuck.com fails to pass the checklist. The site's design has always sucked."

Head over to the checklist and get a giggle for yourself. My particular favorites are the checklists for text/links and graphics/audio. Classic. Then, if you haven't laughed enough, check out his awards for the worst of 2k6. My picks:

Winner in category "Site Most Like A Monty Python Skit" — Association of International Glaucoma Societies

Winner in Category "I Have More Links Than God" — HRODC

and finally:

Winner in Category "We're Back in 1995" — NEIU Foreign Exchange Lab

INCREDIBLE.

4 and 4 meme

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:59:00 +0000

I got tagged by Jenny at wildflowersandmarbles - my charming sister who is far more hip to the world of blogging and tagging than I am. She may also be the only person on this planet that could "tag" me into a blog-chain and have me be delighted to respond. Now let me see... 4 things about myself and 4 new things done in the last 4 years.

4 things about myself:

* I have a pretty good memory for concepts and ideas, but I'm terrible with specifics. Who wrote it? Don't know... but I'd be happy to chat with you about what was written. When was it done? Not sure. Where was it? No clue. Typically I have to have a few embarrassing conversations where knowing specifics on something is necessary before my brain will actually decide they should be held on to long term. This is why people who walk around with their brains filled with random trivia completely astonish and awe me.

* My favorite colors are: blue, pink, and green. Not just any shade thereof though! Rich blues like the colors of the ocean or the sky (day or night). Fresh bold greens that remind you of new spring leaves. Pinks that are light but have a bit of spice to them - like corals.

* I enjoy restoring, cleaning, and organizing things. Nothing is more irresistible to me than an old worn down house that needs paint, a yard full of junk that needs to be cleaned out, a worthy cause that can't seem to get mobilized.

* I am ironically not very personally organized! My day job can be mentally intense, so by the time I get home I just want to sit and relax... okay fine - I'm just lazy. I'm working to get better at being organized using GTD though! Good stuff. When applied.

4 new things in the past 4 years:

* I graduated college after giving up on the 6+ different minors I was enamored with.

* I started working at miss emma

* Visited a couple big cities - Chicago and New York. So much fun!

* I discovered my love for restoring houses (at least I think that was within the four year mark, maybe not)

Ack! Now I'm supposed to tag people to do this too... hrm. The pressure of the moment has caused me to only think of people who don't have a public blog or who's site is currently down. I propose that I shall edit this entry eventually when I've compelled them all to make themselves available.

NYC.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 19:47:00 +0000

I considered how I could do an entry about the nyc trip without it being a phenomenally boring play-by-play, and finally decided you just couldn't do it in written form. We saw too much. The idea of a blog entry littered with "and then"s and "next we went"s sucked the initiative right out of me. Pictures, I think, are the key thing here, so after digging around on the web for a few pics to augment my own stash, I've set up a slideshow and a yummy little google map so you can see where we were (no doubt I've forgotten a few places). Anyhoo... fun stuff.

(if you don't see the slideshow, you may need to go directly to my blog)

It doesn't get much more manly than this...

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:55:00 +0000

For all you guys out there seeking new toys and/or new ways to remain secure in your manhood even while handling kitchen utensils - this is for you:

Genius.

This is why I'm a fan of popular radio.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 12 May 2007 16:04:00 +0000

I'd once heard it said that language is an ossified form of poetry, and poetry is an ossified form of music. Each level reaches higher and more intricate forms of communication. Tolkien even considered music to be God's language, and I think there is some evidence for that in the world.

Now poetry set to music isn't uncommon in these days and times, but I have to say that there are some shining lights that rise above the rest. Some who's lyrics evoke powerful thoughts and emotions in us - even bringing us close to tears. Such a one I heard yesterday while driving in to work. I hope the author will forgive me for quoting a bit of it for you:

There are some great gems to be found in the rest, but I think you'll find the above excerpt sums up the core of what he's trying to say. I'm sure you can agree with me that the country which was able to produce such educated minds, and then provides the kind of population that appreciates the resulting genius, is a country which shows a bright and sparkling future. I can only hope that then, as now, our educational system will always leap into action, ready to help those who may have been left behind in their younger years. One perhaps even filled with drops that we would all be able to pay for with quaps.

Mims - you are a credit to us all.

Absurdly Trivial Melodrama.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:49:00 +0000

I don't decorate a room until something speaks to me. That means that a room can look completely bare for months, even years, before it is transformed. And so it happens, this past week, that my bathroom went from the way it had been for the last 18 months, to cute - all due to drink coasters found at fire finch. I'm sorry what? Drink Coasters? Thats right.

I had fun with it, anyways :) Except for one small thing.

Everyone has something in their home they are picky about. Dishes, sheets, bath robes, lighting. I can put up with eating out of tupperware and using fluorescent lighting, my couch is covered with white blankets because I don't feel like getting another yet, my tv is almost ten years old and it's perfectly fine for me. But towels??? I'm afraid no. They MUST be big, soft, snuggly, and able to stand up to washing.

That having been said, I went all over this great metropolis last week looking for towels to match my new color scheme, and tragically became so wrapped up in finding the hard-to-find colors, that I completely lost sight of my rather stringent towel standards. The color was finally found, and in my near frantic joy it just seemed an added bonus that they were dirt cheap and on clearance. "How lucky!" I thought. Alas, hindsight 20/20. The absolutely perfect-color towels I bought practically exploded in my washer on the first wash. Arg! Fiends! Who could possibly look themselves in the mirror every morning and make a towel that can't be washed a single time without looking like a choral colored Pomeranian exploded on it?? Clearly someone can. And to them I say: watch out.

Thats not the only adventure I had in washing this weekend, but sadly the other one was completely my fault. Why *not* put your favorite cream/white colored shirt in with the black, silky, never-before-washed item? True, both need to be washed on delicate cycle, but might I propose that other things should be considered besides cycle similarities? Fortunately - following that fateful wash, a phase of complete and total panic, phone calls with my mother, frantic searches online to see if a certain shirt was available *anywhere* for purchase, and several more washings (one with a tooouch of bleach) - I think I can now go on living. So what if it's a tad more white now than cream, I can live with that. What did NOT survive was any pride or idea I may have had on one day being a domestic queen. C'est la vie, I suppose. I'm certain that my future significant other will be happy to both cook AND wash. Or, alternatively, not care if he eats occasionally burnt food and can't count on the color of his clothing from day to day.

What to say?

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:19:00 +0000

Yesterday was a good day. We had long since planned for St Pat's day to be when we'd try to stay all morning at the clinic, and I wasn't sure what to expect with that for several reasons. Would I get fidgety and lose focus? I can have a short attention span sometimes... Would I need to break away for a bit? I'm not really well known for my stamina and endurance. :) There was the added question mark of how I would handle being a counselor if Brian should ask me to. I hadn't taken on that role in a long time, and it can be intimidating if you think about it to much. We had a ton of people show up for the prayer group, way more than I expected - though I should have known the bishop's rock-star draw would have an affect. Brian walked over to me with a smile and I knew what was coming :) But with the kind of support we had with prayer it felt so much better to be out there as counselor. I don't think they realized the difference they made.

I've done enough counseling in the early morning to know basically how that goes... some good responses, some cold - but no one was aggressive. There were definitely some heartbreaking situations that brought people there that day. So, so tough. Fortunately Brian got to talk to one of them for a little while, and I was so happy to see that warm handshake when they parted. There wasn't much anyone could do at that point to stop the process, but he was able to give comfort and kindness to someone who really needed it. Soon the morning wore on, and people began to come out. That is an entirely separate ballgame from when people go in, and it was harder for me to see than I thought it would be. There are support groups out there filled with women who've been through this before and worked past it, but when you see someone come out of that place dazed and in shock - it's difficult to reach through the blankness to tell them about it and offer encouragement. Some of them don't even get out of the parking lot before they are in tears and it's heartbreaking.

My bro cheered me up over a handful of grade-F beef tacos from Taco Bell after we left, and combined with a good long nap I was ready for a little Justin-birthday celebrating down at the saucer. A very little birthday celebrating :) Definitely good times, but I still got a bit tired after a few hours despite my nap, and the real killer of an incredibly smokey bar started making my eyes burn so bad I couldn't stop rubbing them and tearing up (though the tears may have also been due to laughing so hard I couldn't breathe). Anyways, my eyes were stinging! Sigh. I'm such an old lady :) It was hysterical all evening though, those people crack me up. Am looking forward to a little centennial park cook-out action with them soon.

Of the difference between steady and spiritless.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:42:00 +0000

Why do I have to be in the middle of something to remember how much I enjoy it? And if I am in the middle of something, why can't I remember that there are other things I enjoy doing too? I've been thinking lately about how focused I can be on whatever I happen to be doing at the present moment. I enjoy being passionate and energized about what I do, I just don't like that I can loose sight of other things that aren't immediately in front of me. Put me in one situation, and I'll think "wow... I'd forgotten how much I love this. I should spend more attention on it. Let me do that by promising to do ___! How fun!" A bit of space and I'll think "dang. I'd rather be doing ___." Usually with much growling I'll follow through on what I promised to do, and almost always end up happy that I did - still. I wish I was a bit more even-keeled.

Really this isn't anything new to me, I've known about that tendency for a while, so I try to be careful about what I let myself commit to. Sometimes too careful. Steadiness doesn't seem to come naturally to me... when I aim for it, I skew into being overly-cautious and indecisive. It's fun to hop from activity to activity, not tied to any one place - but it's also shallow. How do you learn discipline, courage, or trust doing something like that? Constantly reminding yourself when you want to jump into something that "you may not feel the same tomorrow!" is a terrible and sure-fire way to do nothing at all. Really it's an uninteresting and absurd statement - of course you won't feel the same "tomorrow." How else would God teach perseverance (or humility - when you have to admit you got yourself involved where you shouldn't have)?

So I'm not sure yet how to temper enthusiasm to something more reasonable, but I think I prefer being overly-bold (and occasionally grumpy about my obligations) to being... lukewarm and timid.

Chicago Hangover

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 02:27:00 +0000

Back to being south of the mason dixon, and I had a big smile on my face when I heard the captain saying "current temperature in Nashville is at 40 degrees." I feel like I saw as good a view of Chicago as you can get in sub-freezing temperatures, am happy to be back, but it's still an adjustment to return to normalcy. First off, I'm used to having all my meals/bar-stops planned for me. Lastnight we went to the observatory/cafe at the John Hancock building and leaned over people eating appetizers to look out all the windows on the 96th floor. I will second the vote that the view from the women's bathroom is the best in the city, only the windows were frosting over so you couldn't see *as* well. We tried to take a few pictures, but it's hard to really convey how it looked with a camera. Then there was a round of wine and cheese sampling at bin 36, finally over to Mike's favorite Italian place (which is likely mob run). I can't even tell you how awesome the food was at this place, and the owner/head-chef came over and insisted we do a shot of tequila with him. There was nothing I could say to get out of it either :) He insisted that if Katie Holmes took a shot at his request, I could too - or he would never speak to me again. So obviously I took the shot (he had them pour me a small one. such a sweetie). Today I had brunch with some of Mike's family, followed by a visit to the art museum where we overdosed on pretty pictures until time to leave for the airport. Well, some were pictures. You get into the modern art section and there's no telling what you'll find. One guy decided to "shun the use of color" at some point in his career and only did black paintings (think solid black paint covering the canvas). Another decided that the physical realization of his art was unnecessary, so he just put the title up on the wall. Most of the stuff was awesome though. The flight home was amazing as usual, I love seeing cities at night from the air.

I think I'll hold out on my overall opinion of Chicago for seeing it in nicer weather. You just couldn't walk around and get a good look at the city when you were focused on keeping your core temperature above 60. Still, the shopping made it good and the people made it amazing - can't ask for more.

So. Tired.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 14:34:00 +0000

Yesterday was a marathon of activity and food. Lunch was at chipotle near Mike's work and I got to see his swank office. The lobby of this office building is incredible - huge, 100% marble encrusted, ceilings at least 100ft high, with walls of marble going up like 20ft or so sprinkled throughout in crescent shapes. Crazy. He has a great view from his office, and risked his professional career by raising the blinds so I could take a picture. From thence we went to his apartment (awesome) and to the merch mart. I've never seen so many leather couches, enormous vases, and faux greenery in my life. It was pretty cool, more fun once Mike and I began the game of "guess how much that costs," and after a couple hours of going to random floors we broke for some Baskin Robbins in the food court.

Mike and I were starting to flag, but we pulled ourselves together for the next round of festivities: meeting his coworkers at Peterinos, the bar Avanade takes over every Friday. I have to say he works with a fun gang. Everyone I've met in Chicago is so friendly! I would have thought there would be more big-city reserved seriousness, but not at all. At least not in the people I've stumbled across. Anyways, we had to break away from Peterinos for our dinner reservations at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba (Mike's favorite tapas place) and after that meal Mike and I were near comatose. We managed to make it back to his place and called on a bottle of wine to keep us awake until the 11pm show at Second City. I don't know if it was because I was so tired or what, but I wasn't hugely impressed with the show. I mean it was funny, but I think I laughed harder at the bar when Mike tipped over a chair than at the show. It seemed more like shock-humor where you think "nooo... they didn't just say that!" (which I'm not really a fan of because it's usually hurtful or insensitive to a really sensitive situation). Still, it had it's funny parts. :) We were seriously so tired by this point, Mike literally dosed off in part of the show, so I think it was a relief to both of us when it was over and time to catch a cab for home.

Mike and I are planning on hitting up the art museum this afternoon, eat at his fav italian place (I'm going to gain fifty pounds on this trip), and hit up the john hancock observatory tonight for some pictures (he's letting me borrow his camera for the rest of my trip). OH WOW! I HAVE AN IPOD. Mikey got a sleek new video ipod over the Christmas holidays and gave me his old one that he doesn't use anymore!!!! I'm so pumped, and heading down to the apple store today to get a few essentials for it. *So* exciting :) :) Not sure if I'll go shopping this morning or go to one of the parks with Daniel. I feel like he hasn't taken the time to get a feel for Chicago at all! Then again, if a city isn't over a thousand years old, Europeans are uninspired with it. I have a feeling if I take him to a park he'll be like "eh. You should see the parks in Paris." It's not a snobbish thing, it's just a natural outcome I suppose. When you grow up around those types of places so rich with history, it's hard to see something in the US as being impressive. :) Still, I'm happy to be someone who would love to see those places overseas but can still be enchanted by simple twinkle-lights on trees lining an avenue. :)

Chicago Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:32:00 +0000

I've got a few minutes before I have to hop on the train to go meet MikeV, so I'm sending out a quick update. Travel here was pretty good, with only one item confirmed lost (my knit hat, lost at the nashville airport). The flight was *amazing*. I still have that child-like excitement about going on a plane. It's hard to recognize the land below you as the city you've lived in all your life, and the scale of it always impresses me. You look down and see so many houses, buildings, cars driving to their destination - so many people with their own goals and dreams and problems, with no idea that I'm seeing a little snapshot of their life from a plane. It makes me feel very small in the grand scheme :) So impressive, how complex the tapestry is that is being woven with my life and everyone elses. Then the plane climbs up above the clouds and it's like another world. I'm not sure I even have the words, but it's incredibly beautiful. I tried to take a picture but a) my camera is lame and b) the plane windows were a little cloudy. Sadly, because of point a on that list, I haven't been able to get the picture off of my camera, so I'll have to figure it out when I get home and post all 6 pictures I'll be taking on this trip (the batteries for my camera fade in about five minutes. again, see bullet point a).

Okay so I get here to the hotel and settle into my room (which is nice), and promptly head out shopping. Well first of all, understand that it is incredibly cold and I lost my knit hat. So I walk a few blocks and run across Water Tower Place (huge building that is basically a shopping mall), and run in to Macy's to try and find a hat. Several cute knit things were on sale, and I felt certain this was a sign from above as to the level of success I'd have for all my shopping this weekend. With my new goodies for keeping warm, I set off again - destination: anthropologie. OH. MY. GOSH. Is it possible that someone specifically constructed a store just for me? I was like a child in a candy store, and basically spent the rest of the afternoon there until I had to head back and meet mike at 8pm. I could easily have gone bankrupt in that store, but I'm happy to say I kept a decent grip on sanity. Still, I dare say that once the weekend is said and done, the shopping line-item is going to make me very glad that I don't have a husband to tell about it. I'd look awfully cute with my new things when I did tell him though, and I have to think that would have helped.

Dinner that evening was Chicago style deep-dish pizza and oh so good. My eyes got big the first time I saw it, I had no idea thats what people meant when they said "Chicago deep dish." An incredible start to the food discoveries. Then I came back to the hotel and going up in the elevator met a guy from Germany who had been here on a business trip for Mercedes-Benz for the past week and was bored out of his mind, and so we grabbed a few drinks at the hotel bar. He is actually from Croatia where his family is and has a house there, but works in Germany. Always so interesting to hear people talk about their home country and the different culture. I feel like he was a little bit hard on American culture (not in a mean way, just his observations), but I'll chat more on that later. A really good-hearted, sincere guy, so it's nice to have stumbled across another friend in Chicago. Now I have enough buddies to cover all meals and exploration! An excellent set-up so that no one person feels like they need to keep up with me all the time :)

Not sure what I'll be up to today. A lot of food obviously seems to be on the plan. Daniel (German friend) and I grabbed some breakfast from the hotel restaurant. I know that sounds lame, in our defense we tried to set out in search of something more... special. Two people who know nothing of Chicago aren't going to get far on that plan, though, and it's too cold to wander around aimlessly outside, so after walking the block in search of some place he saw from a taxi cab, we chose warmth over special. In a few minutes I'll be on a train to meet mikey and his friends from work, and then going to his favorite lunch stop. I think I'd like to hit up the merchandise mart/water tower to walk off all the food and then go to the john hancock building tonight to see the city from the observatory and drink an exhorbitantly expensive cocktail :) I shall conserve as much camera juice as I can - maybe I can squeeze a few pictures on it before it dies again.

Nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:45:00 +0000

::: A longing for the past, often idealized and unrealistic. :::

I've been journaling a lot over the past 24 hours. Mostly in an attempt to stay awake during the latest Battle Against Corruption (Sungard Holiday Edition 2006). I filled out a few things for myspace early this morning, and now I feel like my regular journal may get jealous. Still, you guys know how I roll. Biannual posting only. I won't even insult your intelligence by pretending that I may one day do it more often (though secretly I think I might - this is fun).

As I wandered around my war-torn apartment, cleaning things out, going through closets, throwing out junk and long-since expired food stuffs, medicines, and lotions - expressing physically the cleanout occurring spiritually and mentally. Time to come back to the real world, where people sleep and look away from their laptop, encouraging them to have relatively clean and inspiring surroundings. Marcus and I were reminiscing about past battles in regards to this. Battles where we didn't come out so unscathed, and we both agreed that we are starting to get good at this whole DEFCON 1 thing. The ability to recover afterwards is better, and there is less panicking involved. A little bit of Anger? Tension? A shift into a dialect consisting primarily of four letter words? Absolutely. Sadly I do more swearing during these times than I do all year. It seems to be a mental crutch - can't think of the noun or verb you need? Here's a word that can fill that role in a sentence. But! A few more runs through the gauntlet and it'll be like relaxing on the beach.

Also, while I was rambling on my myspace page, it asked about favorite movies. I began to think of all those movies that were your favorites as a child... that is until you watched them as an adult. Still, you can't fight the force of nostalgia. No matter how bad it is, you'll still inwardly like it. Much the same could be said for my lunch today. I felt like I was back in college again. Following a full tilt cleanout, the fridge was empty except for beer, cheese, a frozen pizza, and some bread products. I say was, because the pizza soon became my meal du jour. It was one of those chemical laced 99 cent totino's pizzas, and I loved every bit of it. My brother and I used to consider them the height of cuisine, and indeed it was my brother who, in a fit of nostalgia, bought a few of them last weekend on his way over to watch Napoleon Dynamite.

Welp, I must away. Worn-out must give way to better times.

Strange.

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 00:38:00 +0000

Has anyone seen the comcast workplace commercial - showing an office "coming to life" in the morning, presumably because of the efficiency and power of comcast services. File cabinets straighten out, lights turn on, the water cooler bubbles, and chairs move into position around the conference table. If you could walk into a world saturated in the exciting shades of toast, you'd have a decent idea of the look and feel. No shred of color, no drop of innovation. It's all the more frightening because it's such a generic office, representing probably 90% of work places in this country. Is it possible that I could ever work in such a place? Thinking along these lines and trying to place myself in the position of working there, I had a strange feeling, one that I've only had one other time in my life for something totally unrelated. I began to feel prison walls close in around me, and this huge feeling that it was not the life that was willed for me. My soul was practically screaming for escape from a life I didn't even have! And all that from a silly commercial? Melodramatic? Yes, I suppose it was. I wasn't expecting that much aversion. It's also strange because I'm not really facing down a decision to do what I'm being averted from. Am I? My current workplace is a far cry from such a beast. It is, in fact, such an ideal environment that I forget sometimes that people actually do work in such terrible places. So, is this a warning for future, or something else?

Quiet

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:26:00 +0000

It's quiet. Snow is falling. Looking out my bedroom windows I can see crystallized branches and millions of snow flakes floating in the air. There is something about this kind of weather that casts a spell, and suddenly you find yourself whispering and turning off music. If only this were a Friday night and I had no plans for the weekend. But it's not, and I do have plans for the weekend. They have potential to be exciting plans, though. I'm off to Washington DC with a group from Aquinas, for both site-seeing and to join our support to the pro-life march on Monday. I'm not the driver of the van, but still. We are talking an 11+ hour drive here people. It's probably best that I not to think about it too much.

As a random side note, I've decided to boycott TV. There is just something about it that I've come to distrust. How on earth can a box of moving pictures mesmerize people for hours at a time? And how much has it affected life and society in general? "Come on," you say, "now you are taking it too far". Am I? How much conversation, humor, and gossip in the general population are now centered around the phrase 'I saw it on tv. wait, you haven't seen that show??? what planet are you from?' A steady diet of television now seems necessary just in order to hold conversation with these poor people. Now, I don't think TVs are intentionally piping subliminal messages into our brains to keep us watching, I haven't gone that far, but I do know so many people that show all the signs of an addiction when it comes to tv. There just seems to be something about it that isn't... natural. Intentionally or not, it hooks into the human brain too strongly. So! Other than happily sitting to watch an occasional movie, I plan to be as tv-free as possible in '06.

-- I need to add a note here that this post does NOT apply to an episode of Project Runway or anything EWTN.

Drowsy

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 03:15:00 +0000

I feel the need to ramble as I sit here in my pjs on my computer when I ought to be sleeping. A bit of light code-releasing has made me too wired to lay down just yet, but my eyes have had enough of laptop screens. Still, it was exciting for me to play around with GIMP - something I thought I had to leave behind me the day I was handed a windows laptop. So - hurray for gimp!

In celebration of this I dug around for some images to play with, and remembered one of my favorite photographers, Andy Goldsworthy, who I meant to post about ages ago. My father has a book of his, and it's one that I will definitely be getting for myself should I ever be living away from easy access to the current copy. His work is so amazing to me - so much effort into creating something so temporary. He works for hours arranging sticks, leaves, ice, rocks - whatever is at hand - into something that looks truly incredible. But ice melts, wind knocks the leaves off course, fish eat the berries arranged on the water surface - all the problems that come from trying to create art with nature out in nature's world. I think it fights against that side of people that wants to obsessively control everything, to only make something that will last for centuries. His work shows the beauty and complexity in common things, and also invites people to enjoy a more child-like wonder at the world.

"I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and "found" tools - a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn."

What a week

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:06:00 +0000

What a week, ladies and gents. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but man. My brain is reduced to the cognitive ability of a box of hair. Releases, connectivity problems during releases, server problems, fallout from server problems, more releases to patch server problems, which turned out to be buggy releases that had to be rolled back and forth until I'd almost rather have the server go down again than deal with it any more. Almost. Well okay, not at all. But it was a nice, dramatic thing to say. Oh, and my car wouldn't start yesterday, dead battery. Nooo... it wasn't my fault this time! That I know of.

The weekend shall consist of... getting my car back from the shop, hearing the lecture on why one does not neglect oil changes for *insert period of time that I'm too embarrassed to specifiy*, I need to work some on the kitchen, likely do a bit of painting, target run... and an official overhaul of all the stuff in my possession (too much stuff! things on things under things, piled on top of stuff!), so I expect a goodwill trip will be in my future.

Another year, another attempt at a website

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 12:10:00 +0000

Welp. I believe that I've not only decided I don't want to write my website, I also don't want to take the time to understand or deal with a slightly over-involved one. Enter blogger, and i'm excited so far by all the ways my laziness has been catered to. After being inspired by the look of MikeV's blog, here I am with kimhatcher.com v3.0 - fresh, easy, and ready to be ignored for another couple of years. Nuke was good for some things though, so hints of it will pop up here and there. Such as the album - i'll likely have some photo albums hidden unless you sign in, which those who have a nuke login will be able to do. Enough!

Here it is, morning after taking the last two days off, and I must decide what I shall do... work on the house? This always has a certain level of enjoyment and I tend to get quite a bit done. For whatever reason, on occasion God sees fit to grant a freakish level of endurance for this kind of work to a 115 pound female. Why? I really don't know. It's almost alarming for those present to watch... even a little strange to me quite often. But! Things get done, so who can complain? Anyways, it's a lot of trim work today, which is *not* my favorite thing, so perhaps I shall choose something else? I bought some delicious little painting supplies lastnight, I belive I may play with that some. After going to the store, however, my fears are slowly growing that I may be (YET AGAIN!!) choosing an expensive hobby. Expensive hobbies seem to be my lot in life, as MikeL can testify - so why fight?

A brief word from Mark Mackintosh

noreply@blogger.com (Kim) — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 23:02:00 +0000

I hope you have a nice day trees! We play baby puppy a lot.

:-) [he wanted a smiley face to be put in, this was the best i could do on short notice]