19 November 2009

True.




Somewhat related: Clients from Hell.

18 November 2009

Work and other interruptions.

Have I mentioned that work has been crazy busy of late? One of the digitization projects that has been coasting for ... well a long while ... has been bumped up to top priority, and with the stepped up timeline come a whole lot of staff who need to be trained to do (part of) what I do.

Last night, we went out to see Jann Arden in concert. I enjoyed the music (especially the songs off her new album, even if I don't think that "Free" was the best choice for a title) but really, truly wanted to take the teeny folding chairs we perched on and launch them into the sun.

This evening, as the wind and rain rattles the house -- enough of a worry that I brought out the candles and lanterns "just in case" -- I have been getting stuff done that got snugged in between the stuff I was supposed to be doing this month. Sigh. I was also watching CBS detective dramas (Criminal Minds and CSI NY) that were distractingly entertaining this week.

Speaking of distractingly entertaining....

15 November 2009

Getting stuff sort-of done.

It's halfway through the month so I thought an update on PeGeStuDoMo was in order. The book project is somewhat stalled at the moment. I thought I had a plan to deal with one issue but am not sure that I can make it work.

On the other hand, I did finish the one specific craft challenge -- a first attempt at catnip nunchucks!* -- and have written the specific tutorial (for reusable produce bags) but it needs some editing before I publish it. I have also made headway on the first of the three articles in the B section of the plan and published one of 6 FrugalVictoria articles (another 5 are in various stages from notes to ready to go).

I am not feeling very positive about my progress but I am still making progress so I suppose it's all good. We have some busy nights ahead (this week includes the Jan Arden concert and our Sooke Harbour House do-over) and I also have to squeeze in some prep for an upcoming craft fair... so the jury is out on how much I will finish!

*my only regret with the nunchucks was using a dark brown fabric -- it is unfortunately the same shade and shape as a kitty accident on the floor. Eww.

09 November 2009

Just watch it.

If you liked the Incredibles, you will love this short film. Totally worth the 6 minutes.

08 November 2009

Scientific tangent

I am making progress on PeGeStuDoMo -- yesterday I spent several hours adding content to the book and I have been puttering toward the other goals too -- but this post is not about that. It's about science.

Specifically, this tangential post is about chemistry and the periodic table. Kiddo has expressed a keen interest in chemistry (currently "chemist" is her answer to what she wants to be when she grows up) or possibly biochemistry (she has also showed a lot of interest in how medicines are created). However, that's not how we got to today's "awesome time-sucking and deceptively educational site of the day." We got to that site by way of a smoke detector.

The battery had started to bleat, so I pulled it down to change the battery (it's a model that clips into a base that is attached to the wall -- I like this design because I don't have to change the battery while standing on a chair or ladder). While it was down, Kiddo noticed the radioactive symbol on the side. I said it contained a tiny amount of radioactive material called, according to the label, Americium 241.

In the quest to find out more about how the smoke detector uses 241Am, we came across the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Periodic Table of the Elements pages and spent an hour clicking and learning wonderful chemical trivia.

I read the page about Platinum (Pt) which got me curious about the precious metals market wherein I realized that I clearly have not been paying attention to the news**. Gold (Au) closed at about $1100.00 per oz this week! It reminded me that for years I thought I should be buying gold but never had enough cash. Look at this chart of the past 10 years. Crazy. And in case you are curious, compare this to Platinum, which closed the week at about $1350.00 per oz and Silver (Ag) (clearly the "poor cousin") which closed at about $17.50 per oz.

Oh, and all of this also reminded me that I totally want a periodic table shower curtain.





**However, this does explain the proliferation of scam artists entrepreneurs buying "your old gold" by mail.