Merry Christmas

It's been a bittersweet holiday. On the one hand, the family gatherings this year have been more close feeling and energetic than I can ever remember. Perhaps it is because I've been away from home for the first time, perhaps it is because both my nana and our close family friend have survived their respective bouts with cancer and are thriving. Either way, I enjoyed the feeling (I also impressed my grandfather with the mad fire-building skills I picked up in CT, no starter logs for me!)

On the otherhand, it has been a sad time due to the unexpected death of Brendan's stepfather. He and Brendan's mother had barely been married a year, and I cried when I first found out what had happened. Brendan and his family are of the kindest, most generous and caring people I have ever met, and it hurts me deeply to see them have this to go through. Brendan, you are awesome and strong and I am always here if you need me.

Tomorrow will take back up to Connecticut, let's hope my airline doesn't go bankrupt until after that happens

Book Review

Carleton's stepfather, Tom, has a habit of occasionally coming in and tossing a book to me saying "this is good, you should read this." I don't mind it at all, as my need for leisure reading since graduating has been somewhat gluttonous, I'm always on the search for new books to consume.

The most recent one has been The Unschooled Wizard by Barbara Hambly. It's actually a collection of two novels: The Ladies of Mandrigyn and The Witches of Wenshar. Tom told me to ignore the poor cover art and not-very-well-written back cover blurb, so I took off the bookcover altogether and started reading.

It is a very good story and very well-written. The plot in each of the sub-novels led to total surprises for me, which is quite impressive, as I have a habit of sniffing out a "clever" plot twist from miles away.

It's fantasy, but not *too* fantasy, in that it doesn't rely on the stock elements of fantasy to make it a good story. (Brendan and Dave, I think you both would like it a lot).

Books and Weather

I believe I've hit a new reading record for myself: A 435 page novel in less than 6 hours (subtracting some time of boarding and unboarding the plane, the drive home, and the time it took to eat a late lunch).

 Also, I wanted to make a clarification. Judging by the bewildered expressions and exclamations of people I told about the heavy, 14 inch snowfall here in Louisville, it seems there is a huge miscomprehension in New England that everyplace south of Pennsylvania is a vast, burning desert with year-round heat waves. This is not true. Just wanted to let you guys know.

 Merry Christmas! It'll be below 0 for ours.

Snow...boooo

Yesterday was the first time I couldn't enjoy a snowday because I'm a grown-up. Booooooooooooooo.

Motto

Lately, all around I've been seeing bumper stickers, magnets, and signs reading "United we Stand," which is the first part of Kentucky's state motto, based on a song, based on some Aesop quote or something, it's a pretty popular saying. However, I've never seen the complete quote, and they're leaving out the second and just-as-important part, you know, "Divided we Fall?" That's kind of an important piece of the puzzle to just toss away.

Flash-piece art!

Once upon a time, Nate the Master Electrician went to the mall. He stopped by some store or another owned by an Asian couple. The store sold luggage or some such, but it also had little toys up at the front that you could buy for kids. One such toy was a coloring page. It was a fuzzy page of black line art that you could fill in with colored glitter--a fairly typical toy. However, Nate knew something was amiss when he saw the toy was not called "Glitter Art", as might be expected, but "Flash-piece Art." After figuring out that "flash-piece" was a translation of "glitter" from another language to English, Nate turned the toy package over to read the instructions. And this is what he found: http://www.wertle.com/gallery/d/793-1/flashpiece.jpg He immediately purchased the toy and brought it back to the theater to share, and we all learned new words like "fundus", "exiguous", and my personal favorite, "tridimensional". (if the "I obviously used some computer algorithm to translate this" instructions weren't funny enough, I also got a laugh over the fact that it was a coloring page for a picture of Snoopy--a completely black-and-white character)

CRRRACK!

Today at work, as a special event arranged by Company Management, my boss's chiropractor came in to give a free crank to the run crew and the interns. He told my boss later that he was totally shocked at how many young people's bodies were totally busted, and named me off as one of the busticated. It comes from slouching all my life, I think, and after my adjustment I was thrilled to find that trying to stand up straight no longer was a painful activity! I'm going to try and force myself to stand up straight as much as possible until the usual pain returns (as a quick chiropractic adjustment surely won't undo 10+ years of bad posture). All that whining I did when I was little and my parents told me to stand up straight, what was I thinking?

 In other news, I moved my betta and his one-eyed catfish companion to a 10 gallon tank the other day. Fish is loving it. He's grown to be so large that even his old 5 gallon was starting to feel cramped. Once I get the tank cycled, I think I may add some docile tetras to the mix, as I've heard the non-nipping ones make good additions to a community tank with a betta. I may even give Fish's old 5 gallon to Mr. Laguna (my office betta).

I noticed that although I'm a regular poster to the community, I don't often show off my fishies in my own journal. So here they are! Fish: Around when I first got him-- Now under fluorescent lighting!-- The New tank: Mr. Laguna (the crowntail I keep at the prop shop) Spaz, the one-eyed Cory Cat (good side then bad)

St. Nick's Day

Being from Kentucky, and growing up in Louisville no less, there was a time when I thought that the Kentucky Derby was a normal holiday, like Easter or Halloween. I just figured everybody celebrated it. When I got a little older and the scope of my mind expanded beyond my immediate surroundings, that changed rather quickly.

However, I discovered this week that *apparently*, not *everyone* celebrates St. Nick's Day. Who knew! It went like this:

(Tuesday)

Me: "Oh drat, I totally forgot about St. Nick's Day!"

Boss: "What's St. Nick's Day?"

Me: (after I figured out he wasn't kidding)...WHAT?

Boss: Huh?

Me: You know, St. Nick's Day, with the shoes and the candy!

Boss: ...WHAT?

Horrified, I proceeded to ask every person who walked in the prop shop that day if they knew about St. Nick's day, what with the shoes and the candy. Nobody did. I had NO idea, people in Connecticut apparently don't know anything about this holiday, or maybe just people in New Haven? I then attempted to figure out what regions the celebration of St. Nick's day fell into, but I had no luck whatsoever.

For those who don't know: On the Eve of the feast day of St. Nicholos (Dec 6), you hang stockings on the fireplace mantle. You then get goodies--small things, usually candy or a slinky (having most assuredly broken last year's slinky, at least that's how it was with my family). If you want to be super-traditional (or if you live in a dorm), you leave a shoes out in the hall overnight, and St. Nick (your RA) leaves candy in them for you. Perhaps not the most sanitary of holidays, but still! You get goodies! It's like pre-Christmas gratification.

My props carpenter said that the tradition probably died out as the whole St. Nick/Santa Claus/giving presents thing got merged in with Christmas. But hey, WE still celebrated it!

What other holidays am I mislead about? Time for research.

Food and Fun

Last night I had my annual/semi-annual gathering with Jaime, Laura, and Becca. We ate at Maido on Frankfort avenue, and it was AWESOME. Among the generic hibachi grills/sushi bars, it is the only "for-real" Japanese restaurant in Louisville. A little pricey, but for the amount and quality of food you get it is well worth it. I'll be dragging people there for dinner on my visits home for quite some time now, I suppose. We then went back to my house for a night of video game fun. We eventually played a bit of DDR, then decided to be innovative and attempt to play other games using the DDR pads as controllers. Crash Team Racing worked very well. You could sit on the mat and hold your foot on the accelerate button, using left and right to steer and easily punching the fire button when you needed to. The difficulty came in the lack of the R1 and R2 button, so no secret hopping-over-ledges-to-get-a-boost and such. Spyro the Dragon proved to be much more difficult. One person breathed fire, one person charged, on jumped/flew, and the other steered. Steering was really the most difficult part, and we often rotated positions to give the steerer at hand a break. We managed to clear the first world, though it took some time to do it. It is definitely something people need to do as teamwork activities at those terrible business retreats. Lastly, we attempted Soul Caliber II. That mostly involved 2 people flailing and beating the DDR pads like the ape people in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But if you think DDR is good exercise... All in all, it was a very fun evening. I'm mostly glad that I still see some highschool friends on a regular basis (even though it may turn out to be only as regular as once a year), it's always a joy to gather again.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

If anyone remembers the christmas cactus I rescued from the gloom of props storage last year, I'd like to announce that it is blooming like crazy. It's ready to be re-potted, too.

 A more general thought: every now and then, I am forced into some situation (being stuck in an airport lobby, for instance) in which McDonalds is the only feasible means of nourishment. I usually buy something, eat it, gag in disgust, and make a dramatic proclamation that I will never, NEVER, eat McDonalds again EVER.

However, deep in my heart, I know the next time I stop at a rest station on a long trip and that's the only food for miles, I'll shrug off my promise to myself and eat again....only to be disgusted again....only to swear I'll never eat it again. What is it about us humans that we constantly and even knowingly make the same mistakes in life, over and over and over again? Happy Thanksgiving!

Incredible

Finally saw The Incredibles last night. It was, well, incredible! I will agree with Jaster that Syndrome looks surprisingly similar to Checkerboard Nightmare, perhaps with a little Freakazoid thrown in. Anyway, I'm going to blow glass today for the first time since the spring! I'm super excited, although I'll probably just make some cups to get back into the swing of things.

Rudolph with your nose so bright...

So, I figured as long as I'm on this Hero's Journey, I might as well consult an Oracle. Delphi was a bit too far away, so I settled for a Christmas-themed flower supply store in Wallingford where--after venturing through a "Winter Wonderland" of frightening yet festive robots--one could enter the private chambers of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

As I went in with my props-mates, Rudolph offered us a clicking, jerking, animatronic greeting. We chatted with the beast, and he sang Happy Birthday to one of my co-workers, all the while rolling his vacantly-painted eyes in a creepy, robotic fashion.

Finally, I asked the Ora...I mean Rudolph to tell my fortune*, and he told me, "You will wake up happy." Satisfied with my consultation, I went looking for a cyclops, or perhaps a hydra, figuring that's my next course of action. There weren't any at the park.

 *For a moment, I thought about asking why Bono counts "1, 2, 3, 14" in that U2 song. I mean, that's a pretty big leap from 3 to 14. I'll save that question for another Oracle, I guess

Moving here and there and everywhere

It's been a busy week on my gas tank!

I drove up to UConn yesterday to see a show that Carleton designed lights for at Eastern. The lights were quite awesome and there were some kick-ass masks in the show. It was actually the first time I've ever seen his lighting before (not counting photos, which look pretty, but you miss out on a lot if you don't see it in person).

 I woke up early this morning to transport his fish, Ivory, back home so that he doesn't have to worry about it when he frantically packs to come home for Thanksgiving. I'm also going to bring Mr. Laguna home from work for the holiday. Fish is very excited about flaring at his new tank neighbor :)

 I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving! The year is rushing by, but I don't mind the holiday getting closer, as I am ready to go home for a visit. I hope I can arrange visits with everyone in that short of time, but I'll be satisfied with a bit of Halo 2 and a trip to the Pie Kitchen.

And to Guadi's. I'm going to the Guad, and no one can stop me! But they may accompany me if they wish ^_^ If I do that I may try and visit Sheldon, since no one will be on campus due to the holiday and all.

 Well, Ivory seems to have settled in nicely from his move, off to work with me!

Big Change

No, I'm not quite dead yet! I am having some journal changes though. Brendan's frequent praise of Newsbruiser has inspired me to give it a try, and my new journal is taking shape (I'm still working out a theme, I have terrible design sense, if anyone with *good* design sense can offer advice, i'm all ears). HOWEVER, if you guys still want to use LJ to keep track of my going-ons, I've made an LJ feed for it, so if you friendify , things will go on as if nothing had ever changed *cue mysterious, dream-like music* I still have my eye on you guys! :)

Big Change

No, I'm not quite dead yet! I am having some journal changes though.

Brendan's frequent praise of Newsbruiser has inspired me to give it a try, and my new journal is taking shape (I'm still working out a theme, I have terrible design sense, if anyone with *good* design sense can offer advice, i'm all ears).

HOWEVER, if you guys still want to use LJ to keep track of my going-ons, I've made an LJ feed for it, so if you friendify , things will go on as if nothing had ever changed *cue mysterious, dream-like music*

I still have my eye on you guys! :)

Recalling

Does anyone remember pocket rockers?

I'm pretty sure I had a pink one.

Whew!

Thanks to the brilliance of Carleton's step-brother and a Knoppix disk, we were able to discover that my computer's ailments were due to bad RAM (unfortunately for me, it was the larger stick of RAM). We swapped it out with another smaller stick we had available, just so that my computer won't hurt itself trying to run Windows XP on 128 MB of RAM, but I'm still glad to find that was the problem rather than something wrong with the cpu itself.

I still think I spend too much of my free time on the computer, though (even though I spend considerably less time on it than I ever have, that time in proportion to my overall amount of free time is much higher, and thus it is a much bigger nuisance.)

Fundraiser: Final Week

Hey all, it the 4th and final week of my fundraiser, the random prize is This matted and framed drawing.

The random number is: 6

Other fundraiser details here

Baseball??

Connecticut is between New York and Massachusetts, thus I've been surrounded by both sides of this rivalry for the past couple of weeks. Now, I don't even like baseball, but I suppose that because more people at my workplace are Red Sox fans than Yankees fans, then through association, or diffusion, or some other means of physics, that makes me a Sox fan too. And, as said to me, it is interesting to watch the potential ending of an 80+ year curse. So...go Sox! Or something ^_^

In other news, my computer is down for the count at the moment (I'm at work). I guess after all this muttering to myself of "I spend too much time on the computer" and "I need to quit the internet", my puter thought it would be nice and help me out.

Voting schtuff

For anyone in Louisville having trouble filling out their absentee ballot (or for people who will be in Louisville for the election but know nothing about politics), I found this site remotely useful:

http://www.wave3.com/global/Category.asp?c=57805

Granted, all I had to go off was a 30 second blurb from each of the candidates, but I felt like that was better than picking people at random, given I know NOTHING else about them.

Also, for people *anywhere* in the states who are doing absentee ballots, if you don't have yours yet then get on the ball! Send in the application like...yesterday, and call the county clerk offices and nag and nag (that's what I did, I sent in my application in August, then started nagging them a couple of weeks ago. Turns out my application never made it in, so they had to mail me a new application to sign and send back, and then my ballot. This took a little under 2 weeks). Time is short! Take care of it asap!

Plug 'n Chug

I wanted to plug some cool links to some of my closest friends' artistic endeavors.

First up, for those with a short attention span, I recommend Brendan's Anacrusis, a constrained writing project in which he writes short stories that are exactly 101 words long, 5 days a week. You can also get it as a newsfeed from

For those with a much longer attention span you must explore The Little Blue Penguin, Dave's site of wonderful writings, including Just Something, his serial novel.

For the glasstistically inclined, look at Ken's stuff, because Ken's stuff is awesome. Congratulations to Ken for getting a for-real job as a glassblower.

For the musical types, D Flo's skills as a composer are boundless. Be sure to check out his requiem (it comes in 3 parts), which was his final senior composition. It is awesome, though the recording quality is somewhat poor (if anyone has good sound editing skills and knows if there is a way to fix this, please let me know).

For the theatrical sorts, you must look at Carleton's website, and see his latest production photos from the shows he designed lights for. He is the best lighting designer who has also been my boyfriend ever!

Fundraiser: Week 3

Hey all, it is week 3 of my fundraiser, the random prize is A dragon etched vase.

The random number is: 14

Other fundraiser details here

A little <lj user=_anacrusis> of my own

Once upon a time, there was a river, and a field, and a great green pipe. Wertle emerges from the pipe for the second time and approaches Siddhartha, who is tending to his ferry.

“Is it my turn to be the ferryman?”

“No, you haven’t even left the city yet.”

“But…but I used the whistle!” She waves it desperately in the air.

“I’m sorry, but it doesn’t count.”

”Drat.”

“Why so disappointed? You knew that before you came.”

”Yeah, I know.”

“At least there are no Cyclopes in this version.”

“Yeah.”

Wertle climbs back into the pipe and disappears.

Fundraiser: Week 2, and other stuff

Hey all, it is week 2 of my fundraiser, the random prize is two dragon tumblers.

The random number is: 11

Other fundraiser details here


The opening of Guys and Dolls went extremely well. The audience seemed to love it, and we (the props crew) got tons of compliments after the show about how great the props looked. It was quite gratifying, and although we had to suffer through the great post-show slump the day afterwards, we were able to close up shop and have Friday off.

This weekend, Carleton and I went up to Maine to visit his Dad's family. The weather was wonderful, so on Saturday we all went to South Portland to see the biggest ocean liner ever, The Queen Mary 2: Judgement Day. After careful observation, I concluded that it was indeed a great big boat. Then we went hiking on a nearby island. It was a very cool little nature reserve type place, and at one point on the hike there is a "fairy village," where people come and build little "houses" out of sticks and rocks and other things lying about. Some of them were quite impressive, and it seemed like a very fun idea.

That night, we went on a Haunted Hayride, on which Carleton's 9-year-old half sister was terrified to the point of tears, only to brush it off afterwards and say "yeah, those chainsaw guys were scary, I guess." I, on the otherhand, was quite impressed with some of the masks the jump-out-and-scare-you guys were wearing. Some of them were really awesome, and it made me think that I should just give up everything and make masks for a living. Hehe.

All in all, a very pleasant weekend. Next weekend my parents and aunt are coming to visit, hooray!!


One more thing..

ATTN ALL CENTRE-FOLK

Does anyone know how to get ahold of Jeff Meyer?
I have lost his phone number, I don't know of any new email address, and I want to get back in touch with good 'ole Jeffery K. Any help?

Venting on the state of things

Every time I participate in, or even spectate, a conversation about the "state" of "things", it drops me into an imediate downward spiral of instant depression. We are such ridiculous RIDICULOUS people in this country. And sure enough, when I say that, people whole-heartedly agree, thinking only of how stupid the part of the population is that has opposing world views to their own. It is so very very very VERY FRUSTRATING.

You browse around on people's personal opinions wherever they may pop up in various forms of media, and you may see blatant ignorance in one form and say "oh they are so bad" and immediately turn around and see blatant ignorance on the other side. Vehement, hate-filled mirth about opposing culture on one side and childish vandalism and misinformation on the other. And quite likely both of these things can be criss-crossed across the board.

The only use of reading these very hurtful things in one field or another is to keep me from drifting too far into an extreme mindset myself.

I used to think trying to be moderate was a cop-out, but someone I consider to be an extremely wise and a fine example of a human being changed my mind when he spoke about how difficult it is to do just that. It's HARD to walk the middle line, in any situation, not just politics. It makes sense, it's much less work to be an extremist on one side or the other, because you have a whole half of a spectrum to dismiss as wrong, and don't really need to research farther than gaining enough to back your particular stand. Being in the middle is a ton of work, having to take in both sides to make any sort of opinion, with your only reward being called a leftist by the rightists and a rightist by the leftists, or perhaps being accused by both of "changing sides" when the need arises. I really don't know if there are any true moderates, but if there are they deserve cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. Endless supply.

At any rate, realizing things about the state of the world and the horrors of what is going on and how divided people are is very depressing to me. It makes me feel very helpless, and if I do anything to try and cheer myself up, I immediately feel guilty for ignoring such a pressing world-problem. The worst of it is, there are not many to talk to who are not easily worked up in emotion over one issue or another, in spite of being very good listeners.



EDIT: On the other hand, brighter news shows that at least everyone appears to be happy about Spaceship 1

Fundraiser with Prizes!

In light of recent monetary needs, from pesky car payments to buying insurance, my internship stipend is falling a little short. I'm having a fundraiser for this month to raise money for the upkeep of my website and hosting, and if anyone can spare even a small donation, I would be endlessly grateful.



this text can also be found on my website

The Fundraiser will Last until 12:00 AM EST Sunday, October 31st.

Click below to donate!

To make this fundraiser a little less dull, I've decided to give out prizes!! Here's how it works..

Random Prizes...

- Every week of the fundraiser, I will select a random number. The person who is that number to make a donation will win a prize! For example, if the random number of the week is 11, then the 11th donor (regardless of amount) will win. If less than 11 people happen to donate that week, then the random prize will go to the closest number donor.

Week 1: an 8 1/2 x 11 inch print of the Fenton picture on glossy photo paper.


Week 2: Two dragon-etched tumblers


Week 3: Small Dragon-etched vase.



Week 4: "Serpent vs. the Terrible Crayon" 9 x 12 inches, matted and framed with a uniframe.



Fixed Prize...

- There will also be one fixed prize for the person to make the final donation before the fundraiser ends. An orange crackle vase



Grand Prize

- In addition to the random prizes, the grand prize for the highest donation will be a free commission, either a watercolor/colored pencil piece, a pastel piece, or a polymer clay sculpture (medium and subject decided by the winner)



Thanks very much to everyone for your generosity!


This week's random prize winner number is: 38

Presidential Debates!

Plug stolen from

Make watching the Debates fun with Planet Socks' Debate Bingo

I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a jar of angry bees...

Tech week is crazy-busy, but I am still enjoying things. We're doing much more building of props this week, which I prefer much more than prop shopping. It's great to see all the big props finally coming together.

The master electrician taught me how to solder today, and how to wire the candle effects for some candalabras. It was very exciting and a good skill to add to my list-o-abilities, I'm glad I was able to learn. I'll definately post pictures of the candalabras, I've worked quite hard on them the past few days.

Time for bed, work in the morning.

Turtle Eggs! (maybe)

Today, Carleton and I went on a walk at a nature preserve. It was very pleasant and brisk, and we had some interesting finds, one being a nest of reptile eggs, likely turtle eggs (I only make this assumption because the nest was on the bank of a pond, I know nothing of New England turtle species to make a guess of what kind).

I at first plucked up what I thought to be a small, deflated ball, only to realize that it was actually the leathery egg of some reptile. We soon found more half-buried beneath the sand where the first one lay on the surface. Now, it's awfully close to first frost, and I don't know enough about the nesting habits of turtles to say if the eggs were still kickin or if they were drowned in the recent rains or what. Nonetheless, it was still an exciting find, and we recovered the eggs that were poking out and went on our way.

We also found several lively frogs, a woodpecker, a few finches, and a dragonfly that let me hold it as if to say "Look at this pose! Aren't you sad you didn't bring your camera? HAHAHAHAHA!!"

This week is tech for Guys and Dolls, so I will be absent and chained to the theater. Have a good week, all!

Pie!

Tonight I went to Long Wharf's "Season Kick-off" cookout. It was pretty fun, I got to mingle and get to know my co-workers a little better. There was a pie contest (not pie-eating, just who makes the awesomest pie).

I also met Dr. McAllister's long lost twin, by my theories. Not only does he LOOK just like M.C. Allister, but he also has that constant smile that never ever ever goes away. His voice is different, and he's an English/Classics sort of person instead of a Mathy sort, but otherwise, it's definatley his long lost twin. Very bizarre.

Anyway, been making some new artstuffs. Playing with pastels. All fun and good.

Next week is the last week before the late-night pre-tech days at work begin, so we'll see how well I like my job after that ;)

EDIT: Brendan is my hero

"There are 2 good things about long weekends, the first is that the weekend is longer..." -Carleton

I really enjoyed my Labor Day weekend trip to Vermont, it really is a very lovely state. It reminded me a lot of Kentucky in some ways, with the exception of being surrounded by mountains. Carleton's grandmother lives right on Lake Champlain, so he took me out sailing, which ended up being quite awesome. We also lingered around Burlington, ate at Ben and Jerry's, saw a moderately decent and good-humored street performer, and ate lunch at the infamous Al's French Frys twice (yes, they really spell "fries" like that). All in all, a good weekend spent.

Thanks for the support about my Nana, the surgery went very well and she is recovering in ICU right now.

I miss you guys back home (Ken, how is New Orleans?).

Chaos, madness, and settling in

Well, the first couple of weeks up here have been successful. I really enjoy my work, and everyone at the theater is super nice. It is a very different atmosphere from summerstock theater, and certainly from what I've done at Centre. At any rate, from the looks of things this year is going to be great.

Thought I lost my wallet this morning which was stressful, but turned out the couch was just trying to eat it. This weekend, Carleton and I are going to Burlington, Vermont to visit his grandparents. He is always speaking of how wonderful a place Vermont is, so now I'll get to see if it's really true ^_^

Tomorrow, my Nana is going in to surgery for her cancer. It is a very nervous time, so if those of you who are praying sorts would please add her to your list, it would be most appreciated.

I've settled in enough to work on new art, so we'll see what future updates hold.

Sound Bites

Carleton's family lives right near the shore on the Long Island Sound, and this morning we went critter scavenging on the beach.


A little crab



A skull thing, any ideas on what it is from?


The shell of a little horseshoe crab


A fish vertebrae


And our biggest find, a huge horseshoe crab that had washed up in a bed of seaweed. It was pretty fresh, but most of its innards were missing, so we decided to take it home with us to clean it. Soon I will have the shell all nice and clean for display (or perhaps to make into an awesome helment ¬_¬ )

Part 2

I'm moved in and mostly settled, and all is well. Today I went and had lunch with the props shop, and they were all very nice and welcoming. They took me around the theater and introduced me to everybody there. It is very exciting, I get my own desk, mail slot, and my name is even on the staff list on the website! It's like the real world or something!

Otherwise, things are good. Fish survived the journey with little more than hunger and grumpiness, and he's settled in enough to have built a bubble nest today. Yay!

Now I have a few more things to do to get settled with the idea of living in Connecticut, namely registering to vote and finding out what needs to happen to establish educational residency, in case I end up going to grad school at UConn.

Part 1

Well, the first leg of my trip is complete. Carleton and I left early this morning and arrived at my aunt's house in Virginia at around 4. The fish seem to be just fine, if not a little grumpy for being cooped up in a shipping cooler all day. I think that once Fish gets into his 5 gallon when we get to Connecticut and a nice meal with extra bloodworms, he'll be back to his old cheerful self.

I'm glad to be traveling, the sadness and worry and anxiety leading up to the big move was starting to get heavy, but once I got on the road things were much better. Having a nice place to take a break and spend the night helped too ^_^

We'll set out early again tomorrow morning and be in Connecticut by evening, which will give me plenty of days to settle in before starting work on Monday. Yay excitement!

AvP

So last night Carleton and I went to see Aliens vs. Predator

...

ahem


Well, we went in pretty much expecting the worst movie in the world, and thus our mindset allowed the movie to be enjoyable and good compared to our standards. They we pretty straightforward about it, all throughout it was like the movie was trying to tell us "Yeah, we know, we aren't trying to fool anybody here, just sit back and enjoy the spectacle."

Carleton said the only resemblence the movie had to the comics was the Predators' basic ship design, and that was pretty much it.

My favorite part: The humans are in the sacrificial chamber, they drop a glowstick through a floor grate and see it land. "Oh, there is a chamber below," they conclude. A few scenes later, the main character is carefully consulting her compass. "This must be the room below the sacrificial chamber," she concludes...from her compass, mind you, not the fact that they find their HUGE RADIATING GLOWSTICK ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF THEM!! It had me in giggles for awhile.

So, the moral of the story was, if you kill an alien all by yourself, the Predator will say "aw, I guess you're cool, you can hang with me."

They never did resolve how she got out of the antarctic wasteland all by herself, though.


In other news, I finished Panda's commission. Yay! Doing it gave me a better idea of ranging of prices to charge for commissions, in case I ever start taking them regularly.

The next couple of days will be devoted to packing and preparing for the big move. Nervous!

Back from the Gather

Back from the Con! I posted a review over on the Gather Journal if anyone's interested. It was fun times, I met cool people and had fun. Art sales were very slow this year all across the board, and not much went to auction at all. It was disappointing, but oh well, I did sell a few things (my sculpey dragons and mask) and I got lots of compliments and "bring this to the show next year when I have money and I'll totally buy it" comments, so oh well. Hopefully things will bounce back next year.

I also met a guy (well, re-met, he's been at that con every year) and found out he did glassblowing at Illinois State in Che Rhodes' program, small world and all that.

I also get to now reveal the commission I'd been working on this summer, which I had to keep secret because it was commissioned to give to one of the guests at the Con as a gift: http://storage.wertle.com/albums/art/finished/fenton.jpg

It's a long story, but I'm proud of the drawing. It's watercolor, colored pencil, ink and a bit of acrylic.

Anyway, I only have like a week before I leave for Connecticut, it's getting exciting and scary. I now have such mundane goals as getting my room clean and packing, both of which will be considerable chores in their own right.

Notes

A note for anyone who still uses my ldbrow00@centre.edu email address, it is now officially non-existant as Centre begins their new year (*sniff*). Email me now at my wertle.com address.

In other news, I really am on the verge of getting Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client, but the only thing holding me back is their lack of calendar (I use Outlook's a bunch). Does anyone know of a good stand-alone free calendar program? I suppose if all else I'll just get Thunderbird and then only use Outlook for its calendar from here on out.

Went to King's Island yesterday, rode many roller coasters, had lots of fun.

Conglomeration is this weekend, and I'm pretty excited about it. I have a ton of art to put in the art show, so hopefully some of it will sell. If you're in Louisville and have nothing to do this weekend you should check it out.

Bloody fun times

I seem to alternate off and on for good blood donations and bad blood donations.


As many of you know, I have O neg blood, the universal donor type, and thus the Red Cross is always on my back about donating. Seeing as my area was in an emergency state regarding blood supply shortages, I thought I'd go ahead and give. All was going well and I was complimenting myself on a good donation when came the time where they put that little capsule in the tube to get the last bit of blood for testing. Well, as I was told later by the donation people, the new manufacturing of these little test tube parts have been somewhat faulty, so he stuck it in the tube, and suddenly the end broke off inside of the test tube. Blood shot EVERYWHERE. All over the guy, all over my hand, all over the floor.

It didn't hurt at all, and in fact all I felt was the warm rush of blood over my hand, but I could see the girl sitting across from me in her mid-donation process get a horrified look on her face, so I started to laugh heartily to cast it off as no big deal, so she wouldn't freak out.

And it wasn't a big deal, but I knew I was going to have a reaction. See, they had to clamp up the tube so blood would stop shooting out, so that backed up and put a lot of pressure in my arm, which was uncomfortable. Then they had to pull the old test tube out in order to stick a new one in, lest my donation be totally wasted, so when they did that, blood shot out everywhere again, and going from backed up to gushing out did a number on me.

Some ice cold paper towels, orange joice, elevated feet, and several fig newtons later, all was well, but I certainly was reduced to a zombie-like state for the rest of the day. Next donation I'm going to start doing apherisis, sure it takes longer, but that way I won't have any more zombie days.


Today, Carleton and I went to the Louisville Science Center, where I used to volunteer in high school (it was awesome fun). Julie, my old volunteer coordinator boss person, was still there and delighted to see me. We caught up and stuff and things seem to be going very well in the program, it was nice to see her again.

We also went to the Frazier Historical Arms Museum which was pretty freakin cool. When I was on my England trip a couple of years ago we went to the Royal Armory in Leeds, and I thought it was awesome, and some stuff from there was donated to this museum. Swords and armor are fun and cool, but we were too hungry to stick around for the sword fighting demonstration.

Caught up with Brendan tonight, seems that crew had an awesome time at Comic-con, according to Brendan's account. I'll have several copies of our ashcan comic, Honor, to hand out at Conglomeration. Making that comic was fun, and I'd like to do it again next year (only this time, start planning it NOW, so I can actually have a decent story and not so rushed drawings).

My boyfriend is teh awesome

So last night at around 10:00 the doorbell rang, much to my bewilderment. I went to answer it and who should stand there but Carleton, who I was not expecting to even be able to come down until later on in the week. The sneak drove down to surprise me, I love him!

In other news....well, there is none, hehe!

Postcards and Pupils

You'd think that postcards would be one of those things that's easy to find. Not so. I scraped all over the city looking for a place that sold Louisville-themed postcards for the activity, and after I finally got a lead from one of my Kempo friends, I had to go to the evil Hawley-Cooke-eating Borders to get some. Got them all sent out today, though, was fun.

I'm taking a break from working on my Comic-con contribution. I think I'll manage to get it finished on time, but yikes do my wrists hurt.

Eye appointment today, I'm really excited. I know that sounds lame, but my eyesight has deteriorated quite a bit since my last examination, and getting new glasses is always an incredible experience. I can't wait to be able to see the leaves on the trees!!

In other news, it was estimated that 100,000 houses in Louisville were without power after the storm on Tuesday (not me!). The meteorologists get so excited about tornados, but when these straight-wind storms come through, they are much more mellow, in spite of the damage being much more extensive.

Oh well, if any Louisville-peeps are without power, you can come over to my house to eat hot food or do laundry!

Dream

I usually don't write about dreams but, eh, it was an interesting, thought-provoking one.



So first, some background. I'll let you know when I get to the dream, but this part is actually real.

When I was little, my grandma lived next door to some people who had a wolf hybrid. I was too young to understand what the word "hybrid" meant, so when visiting I'd often ask to be taken over to visit "The Wolf." (who had a name, I just could never recall it). The people kept him in a pen in their backyard. I don't recall them ever letting him out of the pen, because they were in a fairly urban area. But I was way too little to formulate any opinions or coherent thoughts about proper facilities and care for wolf hybrids.

Anyway, I would go over and stand at the door of the pen, and I remember The Wolf being really really big, like almost as tall as me, and very very calm. And he would come over to the door and look at me, and I would look at him, and I would hold up my hand and he would sniff it a little, and then look at me some more. I remember his eyes being really intelligent and sad, and thinking "wow, must be a bummer to have to stay in a pen all the time, even Bruno (my grandma's dog) gets let out of his pen to run around the yard a bit." It made me feel very small that I was unable to do anything about it. Anyway, on my visits with The Wolf, I would pretend to have conversations with it and such.

But that was a long time ago, and I actually had never thought about it up to now, because....

(this is where the dream starts)

I dreamt about The Wolf last night. I can't recall if I was a little kid in my dream or the way I am now, probably somewhere in between. Realizing that I hadn't even *thought* about the Wolf until that instant, I said "Oh! I remember you!" And he looked at me the same way he had when I was little, intelligent and sad, and I felt the same way, small and unable to do anything. I don't recall that The Wolf was in his pen, though.

That's all it was, very simple, but kind of fascinating to me to dredge up an old memory of The Wolf (who was probably almost entirely dog, but hey, he was a wolf in my little-kid mind). Thoughts thoughts thoughts

Ponderings

Point of order #1: Things that were really funny when they happened that I totally forgot about and then was suddenly reminded of. Specifically, "Science is so cool, we're replacing the word 'cool' with 'science'!" I'm going to miss going to SETC with the Centre kids next year.

Point of order #2: And I apologize in advance for this, but, I MISS MY BOYFRIEND *sob*

Point of order #3: Artstuffs, selling artstuffs, and commissions. So far I've only ever done 2 commissions (3 if you count the T-shirt design I did for CentrePeace), both special cases for one person, who was a friend, which helped in working out how to go about doing a commission. I'm half-wondering if it'd be a good idea to take commissions now and again. I know the basic "bewares", such as not taking on a bunch at the same time and getting burnt out, and getting payment things worked out and such. I dunno if I should do commission auctions, or just have flat rates for particular mediums, or what. I've done pretty well auctioning off the occasional piece of glass on ebay, and this year will be the first year at Conglomeration that I have 2D art so we'll see how that goes. Just pondering over whether it'd be a worthwhile thing to try out or not.

Saw Spiderman 2...

DOC OCK ROCKS MY SOCKS OFF!!!!!!!!!! (try and say that 5 times fast)

Oh, and puppets will rule the world.

If I had 4 bionic arms, I would use them for good, I promise (or maybe I would use them for awesome)

Pre-holiday weekend cleaning

I bought the Triplettes of Belville yesterday on a whim, I think everyone is entitled to an impulse buy now and again.

This weekend we (my family) are going over to Virginia to help my aunt move into her new home. Her husband is in the army, so they and my two cousins have played the move-everywhere-across-the-world game for quite some time now, starting out in Germany, then New York, then Houston, then back to Germany again. They are finally finished and coming back to the States for good now, much to everyone's excitement (the entirety of my mom's side of the family lives here in Louisville, so it's been somewhat of a strain on them to have a family member so far away all the time. Granted, Virginia isn't exactly down the street, but it's closest so far!).

My mom went up there with my aunt earlier this week to help paint, so today I am clean clean cleaning so that when we come back my mom won't freak out at how dirty I let the house get, hehe! It's also for myself, though. As much as I hate to admit it, the dirtier and more cluttered my room gets, the less inspired I am to do work. My work on my puppet and new painting have dwindled this week because of how much stuff is strewn across my room. I guess it's not a terrible thing, at least it will inspire me to clean a bit more often.

Whenever my room is freshly cleaned I am inspired not only to work on current projects, but to start like 10 new ones (I suppose it's some entropy-driven urge to dirty up the room again). Maybe next week I'll start building another mask to sell at the con, or maybe some little sculpey dragons.

I really hope I can finish this new painting I started for Conglomeration, because I think it will be a nice one. We'll see, I guess.

Calling all PHP People!

I revamped the personal section of my site. I'm trying to keep it small and compact, and there is as always stuff to be added. If anyone has a browser other than Internet Explorer 6 or Mozilla Firefox 0.9, could you take a look and make sure the layout isn't totally whacked out? Thanks! There are new photos on there too, of seahorses!

http://www.wertle.com/personal

Also, I need all you people who are good with PHP! My next assignment I've given myself on my art archive is to do two doable but probably very tedious things.

One is, to have my search results display on multiple pages, so 10 results would display on one page and so on.

The other is, when you click on an image and go to the display page, to have Back and Forward buttons that will go through the images in the search results.

Both of these seem like they need to involve some magical global list to store search results in (it would actually only need to store 1 attribute of the results, because I can get all the info I need from the id number), but I do not know enough PHP to figure out a good way to do this.

Any advice?

It's Late, I'm thinking

Tonight on the ride home from Kempo, James (one of my instructors) and I were talking about Carleton, and how we met and started dating, when James broke out in a fit of laughter. When probed upon the reasoning behind his laughing, he told me that I should write a book called "Lisa Brown's Guide to Getting What you Want Exactly when you Want It" and that it would start out with "I, Lisa Brown, who is of sound mind and sound body do swear this is true. One day, I decided that I wanted to get good grades, so I did. One day, I met a boy. Sometime later I decided I wanted to date this boy, so I did." and so on.

We laughed at the jest, but it made me think about my amazing strokes of good luck that I have experienced thus far in my life. I've always had good experiences at school, I was really distracted during high school so I totally missed out on the general hardships that befall most teenagers, my parents made sacrifice after sacrifice to send me to an awesome college where I had a wonderful experience, after several years of searching I acquired a new and wonderful best friend, decided to date him, and thus acquired a wonderfully awesome significant other, got a job after college in a field that I love. Yeah, amazing good luck.

Not to say there haven't been rough times, there have been many. Brendan can attest to many a time comforting me as I lay on his couch in the dead of the night crying for seemingly no reason. Dave, Ken, D Flo, everyone has helped me through some minor tragedy in my life, but I got through them and learned from them and all that. A spoonful of resilience and a default positive outlook go a long way, I guess.

But, on the whole, things have definately been awesome. I have invaluable friends, a wonderful family, the right boyfriend, and for all this stuff I am infinately, infinately grateful. These are things that I never want to take for granted ever, because I know how precious they are and how lucky I have been. I just wish I could share it with everybody.

For the next chapter in my book: "One day, Lisa decided she would go to Japan to visit her friend, Andrew. The next summer, she did." *starts budgeting*

Comicathon

In July, Brendan and Maria are going to Comic-con, and Brendan thought it would be a good fun idea to make a comic compilation with me, Will and Stephen. (phew! lotta links)

Anyway, upon realizing that we are all terrible procrastinators, we realized the only way this could possibly get done was to have an all-day comic-drawing-athon. It was really fun, and productive (in spite of occasional video game and food breaks), as I went in with only one idea--that I wanted to use my old character, Samurai Virus--and came out with new characters, a story idea, and good 5 pages of rough sketchiness. Of course I'll upload it when it has been completed, but I'm warning you right now, A PUPPY DIES ON THE FIRST PAGE.

*ahem* Yes, so, good productive drawing fun. Goals for next week include: cleaning this mess I've made from puppet building, finishing my Fish painting, starting a new small painting of a dragon, and of course working more on this comic.

Buildin a puppet for fun

I have now constructed a dragon puppet head that opens its mouth and blinks. I am in the process of building flapping wings for its body. I would take pictures, but it looks like a mutilated cyborg right now, due to being mostly upholstery foam, wood, fishing wire, coathangers, and electrical tape (don't worry, I'll take a photo once I get his head all prettied up).

It's ended up being a lot bigger than I was planning on, but that's okay. Hopefully I'll have it finished by Conglomeration, so I can carry it about and have it steal baby carrots from the Con Suite. Woo!

In other news, the squirrels have realized that my cats can't get them through the window, so they have taken to running right up to the window sill and teasing my cats on the other side, saying things like "Oh oh, lookit me! You could totally swipe me if that glass weren't there, but it IS, and you CAN'T. HAHAHAHAHAHHA!" Silly squirrels.

yesterday i scrounged trash bins until i found an old plug, which i used to make an adaptor for charging my ipod and camera battery

Nate () is my hero.

General Update

The summer has been going exquisitely, in spite of some sleeping problems I had after Carleton left on his trip, but I think I've gotten a handle on that now.

It is wonderful, I have so much inspiration to do art! I'm working steadily on that painting of Fish, as well as a commission I am doing for Scott. I also finished up some gift art that I started for Flamestryke two years ago, but stopped when we lost communication. I decided to start over and finish it up, after I regained contact with him this spring. It was another vector-coloring experiment, to counter balance the oil painting and watercolor/colored pencil pieces I'm working on.

I also have an inkling to try batiking (or to make a batik...is it a noun or a verb?) I tried it once in high school with so-so results, but I had an idea of a door hanging that I would love to make, I just need to go buy supplies for it.

Last night I went to a tapas bar in town with Jaime, Becca, and Laura, and it was reeeeeeeeeally yummy! I had always wanted to try a Spanish tortilla, I'm glad I got a chance. Tapas are tasty!

I keep having dreams about the Science Center, which I am taking as a sign that I need to go there. I need to visit it at least once before I leave Kentucky for the year.

Other tidbits: I've picked Kempo back up full swing (it's great to see everybody again), I've been making regular trips to the library, I am secretly writing a story...in secret, Dave () still owes me pie.

Crazy LJness

Hey guys, I've seen some of you on my friends list post the Russian Meme, and I thought I'd give you the heads up. It's a potential security problem. More info here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/gregoire77/120830.html

and

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rosenho/274752.html

Crafty Ideas

So today, I was preparing a list of things I plan to sell at Conglomeration this summer, thinking about my boyfriend as he flies to Russia, and noticing my small collection of matryoshka, you know, those Russian nested wooden dolls?. I suddenly thought, "How awesome would it be to make a set of those!" and visualized a dragon-themed set.

Unfortunately, I am far from a master woodworker, or even an amateur woodworker, or even a woodworker at all, so fashioning my own set of dolls is out of the question. Making dolls out of some other material wouldn't feel right.

I'm still feeling awfully inspired, though, and perhaps I'd be able to hunt down a set of "blank" dolls to paint, if only to have a set just for myself.

Website update

Sorry for the two brief updates in one day, but if anyone has been to my website recently, they will notice some renovations have occurred.

The biggest of which is that I got my spring databases course final project, my online portfolio and image archive, up and semi-running:

http://www.wertle.com/portfolio

This is especially for all you guys who have asked me "Hey, do you still have that picture of that thing you drew two years ago?" and those of you who have prodded to see all those Life Anthropomorphized comics again.

There are still some large images that escaped my uploads, and not all my old images have been uploaded yet, so there's a large gap between like 2002 and now, and the Search features in the archive will probably get expanded in the future, but for now, I hope you enjoy it!

Unusual Observation

Today I went to see Shrek 2 with my parents, and there was a fire alarm during the movie. After everyone was let back into the theater, we all went and sat in the exact same seats as before. Is that a little odd to anyone else?

Artsy stuff

Thanks for the replies on my last post everybody, there were many an insightful theory presented.

In other news, my sudden gain in free time has unleashed the floodgates as far as artistic inspiration. One of my current projects is an oil painting of my betta, it's going along really well. I've been taking advantage of the good help available on the Yerf critique forums while working on it.

I posted some process images in my DevArt Scrapbook...

http://www.deviantart.com/view/7801969/

Obligatory LotR rambling

Matinee and Manatee are way too close of words, especially since I often mispell the latter as "manitee". In reading LJs I have been confused one too many times as to why someone would want to go see a manatee show, I mean, they aren't that exciting.

Anyway, I have a question for you LotR people out there. So, Gollum used to be something that was somewhat related to a hobbit, right? However, his race seemed to be almost instantly overtaken by the ring's power (hence the initially struggle and murder upon finding the ring), whereas Frodo and Bilbo and all thems hobbits seem to have a decent resistance to it. Explain!

(Brendan's explanation was that Gollum's race were fishermen, and thus took on the traits of the fish, and thus were naturally cold-hearted. While it was a decent impromptu explanation, I'm sure *someone* can make up something a big more reasonable)

In other news, I got my room cleaned and organized, and am 90% unpacked. Tomorrow I have plans to do some arting, maybe even drag out my oil paints.

Graduation

Graduation is over, I am no longer a college student. Actually, I am no longer a student, period. This will take some getting used to (probably won't realize it until the fall when I don't go back to school).

Having Carleton around during the time of pre-graduation chaos was wonderful, and having him around during post-graduation relaxation is even better. I feel very inspired to do the cleaning, unpacking, stuff-purging bit.

So much to do, but now I have so much motivation to do it! It will surely take me a week alone to unpack and clean and get organized, but that won't be without regular resting and visiting breaks (Dave, Ken, and Brendan, prepare thyselves!)

I think the summer will be good.

In other news, D Flo and I are the masters of Taboo (mogui! mogui!)

Super Mario Brothers School of Princess Rescuing

After many obstacles trying to get this to a decent filesize, I finally give you one of D Flo's () commercials from his film class this spring.

The Super Mario Bros. School of Princess Rescuing

(might be best to save this one to the harddrive first)

Senior Show Pictures

(x-posted in

So, here it is, I finally got some photos of my senior show pieces. These are what I've been working on aaaaaaaalll semester. There's one photo missing because my digital camera decided to mess up on one.


These are all very thick vessels with ground and polished planes on either side. I was interested in getting color fades, so all of these pieces are made with only 2 colors per piece.

This was my first successful piece. It is only about 3 inches tall, and I made it by fading together amber and blue (where they cross is what makes the green)


These are all about 4 to 4 1/2 inches tall. They are all displayed on top of light boxes, and some of them have blinds behind them, hence the swirly liney things.






This one looks like it is only one color, but I promise it is two. The camera just didn't pick up the distinction between the amber and the red very well.




These are the four larger pieces I made. The first one I made on my own, and is about 5 1/2 inches tall. The next three I had help me make, since I did not have the sufficient manstrength to move them around, and they are between 7 and 8 inches tall.





So far I have sold 3 of these (Dusk, Oceanic View, and Ore) and made one trade with another one of my senior art majors (Seed). These were a ton of work and I'm happy at how they turned out, especially considering this will probably be the last pieces I make for awhile since I am about to graduate.





In other news, Lino Tagliapietra is at Centre this week doing demos. I got to watch him today and it is really spectacular. I recommend anyone in or near Kentucky to come down and watch the public demos this Thursday, May 20 from 10-12 and from 1-3 or Friday, May 21 from 1-3. It's really worth it, and I will be sure to post video clips I take of his demos later on this week.

HOORAAAAAY!!!

I HAVE A JOB!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!

I got a props internship at Long Wharf Theatre in Connecticut which I had applied for in early April. It is very exciting for me, and is another wonderful load lifted off my shoulders what with not having to worry about what I'm going to do next year (That, and I can now officially answer the neverending questions of "So what are you going to do after you graduate?")

The senior art majors defense was today and went quite well. I was able to form coherent thoughts and sentences even though my face was continuously trying to slide off. Lots of people showed up to the opening and it was really fun, I got a lot of great compliments on my pieces and on the show in general (and I made a trade for one of Augustine's paintings! Yay!) I'll be sure to post pictures once I get them.

Tonight was also the Jr/Sr drama dinner at Tony's. It was very pleasant; I got a sock puppet as a gift and learned how to play Cricket (sort of).

Overall, things are going awesomely, with the only damper being that I am very very sick. However, tomorrow after my algorithms final I intend to take some cold medicine and sleep for about 3 days.

I HAVE A JOB!!!!!!!!

Senior Art Exhibit

SENIOR ART EXHIBIT!

Opens tomorrow until graduation

Reception for the artists is this Friday, May 14 from 4-6 (that's when the food and partyin is).

Come and see what Nick, Augustine, Dawn, Kelly and myself have been slaving away on all year!

Ben Folds

I'm not ready for crunch time yet!

Saw Ben Folds last night, and I am happy to add yet another cool person to the Order of People who Constantly Have to Push their Glasses Up on their Nose. *pushes her glasses up on her nose*

The show was fricken awesome, and it was a nice break. Plus, I got the lightboxes in for my show yesterday. Technically, I could dawdle about and work on my pieces here and there, because the show doesn't go up until Tuesday, but my goal is to get everything completed today.

Plus, I still have to think of titles for my pieces! I'm a horrible title-thinker-upper. I had to force myself to come up with 2, because I talked about them in my artist's statement which was due on Thursday. Someone think of titles for these two, maybe they will inspire me to think of titles for the other 11 pieces:

http://www.wertle.com/glass/pic1.jpg

http://www.wertle.com/glass/pic3.jpg

Grind Grind Grind

Sorry for the weepy interlude, things really aren't that bad. I've put off ever single task I need to accomplish in order to work on finishing my show, and as such I've been at the studio most of the day, taking a short break now to rest my arms (by doing what? Typing! Good call, Lisa)

I keep hoping that if I work late enough, a mysterious elf-like creature will appear and offer to magically grind and polish all of my pieces in exchange for my first-born child.

(then of course I would trick him by adopting all my children! HAHAHAHA!)

No luck yet. Oh well, back to the grind. You'll know where to find me..

A weepy ramble

A little over a week of classes left, and I am too swamped to appreciate the whole "I'm going to graduate" thought, or to take some time and say goodbye. I feel awful.

I have been a severe hermit this year, and it's been pretty rough because of it. I miss you Centre kids, and I'm sad I won't have any time to hang out before I leave forever.

Is anyone sticking around senior week?

Strother, your DDR stuff is still stashed over here, don't forget it!

Is there a drama junior/senior dinner this year or what? I helped do dishes last year, dammit I want food for me as repayment, haha!

You guys are awesome, I'll be more specific someday. Bad timing for me to get all sentimental and sad...well, back to the grind (literally)

Books?

Okay, so I have an idea to propose to those of you in LJ land.

This summer after I graduate I plan on doing a LOT of reading. I miss reading for leisure soooooooooo much, and I plan on making freqent library trips.

However, I generally get into these fixes where I really want to read, but can't think of a book. Either that, or I'll read a book that I think is awesome and will want to discuss it with someone, but no one will be readily available.

So, I was pondering the idea of starting a sort of "book club" ish message board. On it, people could recommend books, groups of people could decide on a book to read, and then discuss it in a thread when they finished. (and yes, I also want an excuse to use the message board I am provided with my hosting)

I don't know if people would be interested in all, or if people *were* interested if it would get too big, seeing as it's not focusing on a particular genre of books, just books in general.

Sooo, does anybody think that would be a good idea?

Cocoanuts

Holy Crap for Crap! The show was abso-frickin-lutely awesome! I was so impressed with everybody. D Flo fell into the Groucho role so well, and Ian as Chico was amazing, considering Chico is one of the brothers I often overlook. Strother, I know you were sad about being the normal one, but you were a fabulous Zeppo. Plus, I got to hug Colin in his Harpo costume, which was very gratifying. I was not disappointed in the slightest.

Everyone else, I am astounded at the awesomeness with which the dance numbers came together. I know you guys put a buttload of work and pain and sweat and tears and the occasional blood sacrifice into this, but it really paid off. I almost peed my pants on several occasions.

So, as the "Who's your favorite Marx Brother" poll wraps up in my last post, it looks like Harpo is in the lead with 6, followed by Groucho with 3, Chico with 1, and Zeppo with a few "I also liked him"s

Thus as the prize, I will draw Wertle dressed up like Harpo, doing something....Harpo-ish. Don't be dismayed if you don't see it until after graduation though ^_^

Why a Duck?

So, for the past week or so, the amount of dreams I have had involving the Marx Brothers has been steadily increasing. I can only take that as an omen for the upcoming Centre production of The Cocoanuts which...well...one thing I know for sure is that the kids involved have been working HARD on it.

I like the Marx Brothers fine and well, though most of my knowledge of them...much like Apocalypse Now and Citizen Kane...has come from cartoons making parodies of them. I remember one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures where the students had to study comedians of the past, and so they did this Marx Brothers bit where I *think* Buster was Chico and Hampton was Zeppo. My memory is a little fuzzy on that one, but I know for sure that Babs was Groucho and Go-go Dodo was Harpo. Ah, Harpo, he's always been my favorite Marx Brother, you know.

DON'T DISAPPOINT ME COLIN!!!! No pressure or anything.

So let's have a contest. Who is YOUR favorite Marx Brother?

Reply with a comment here and tell me, and then I'll tally up the votes and the winner.......well. I don't really know yet. Maybe I'll draw a picture of Wertle dressed up as them, or something silly like that.

Anyway, vote here, go see The Cocoanuts this week if you are on or near Centre's campus, and have a lovely week.




You are Harpo Marx!
Quiet, but very expressive, you are probably the
most misunderstood, talented person there is.
You are good at slapstick comedy, and are
considered a fun, easy going person. You
consider friendship very important and tend to
form lasting bonds through out your lifetime.


Which Marx Brother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Day Off

In spite of the mountains of work I have to do, I decided to come home for the weekend, and am very glad I did. I probably would not have gotten any work done at school anyway, most likely would have just moped about. Coming home was instantly refreshing.

This afternoon I joined Dave, Ken, and Brad at the Cherokee Triangle Art Fair, which was similar to the St. James Art fair except more pleasant weather and less people. We actually spent most of the beginning of the afternoon resting on Brad and Evan's porch and people-watching. The art stuffs being sold were pretty varied, as the wares in these sorts of events usually are, but it was a pleasant day to be out walking. I also got to see Evan, but only briefly as I was on my way out and he on his way in.

I then spent the evening visiting Brendan and Maria. They introduced me to WarioWare, which seems to be a game invented specifically for people with ADD, but man is it fun. (note that site doesn't have any actual game info on it...or maybe it does, it's just hidden in those secret doors). We also dug out my old tape of Captain Power episodes, which was fun and nostalgic, but slightly lacking seeing as we didn't have any of the toys. It was okay, though, we shot the screen with finger guns and made the little shooting noise.

Seeing my friends and being home was incredibly refreshing, and I only hope that doesn't immediately drain out of me upon returning to school. Soooo much work to do, so little time. I guess that's always true, though.

Doing my civic duty, or something...

BUY BEN FOLDS TICKETS FOR CARNIVAL!!

This is something that *I* don't really have to worry about, seeing as I'm graduating, but the rest of you non-senior Centre folk better stock up on a ticket and support the show, or else you'll end up back on the streets with a really lame band for Carnival year after year.

What? What's that? You don't particularly like Ben Folds? NO EXCUSE. Buy a ticket. Or else (*looks fierce*)

Anyway, how about the rest of the world? Anyone near Kentucky on May 7 wanna come see Ben Folds? It will be awesome! You should totally come.

Prices are $20 upper tier/$25 orchestra for Centre Student ticket sales
$30 upper tier/$40 orchestra for Non Centre ticket sales

http://www.centre.edu/web/news/2004/folds04.html

Box office is open each weekday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
By phone: (859) 236-4692
1-877-HITSHOW or 1-877-448-7469

Bit-o-Humor

Every semester, before all students register for classes, they have to get their courselist approved by their faculty advisor (not anymore for me!). Sheldon (painting professor) often sends out emails to remind his advisees to come and do this early and not wait until the last minute, but the closing words of this term's email were just too priceless not to post.

"....Lastly, I will not be available during registration week (April 26 – 30), due to a heavy schedule. Don’t procrastinate. If you do, you’ll not get into your courses, miss out on finishing your degree, disappoint your family, ruin your career, be forced into menial disgusting jobs for low pay, and completely fail to attract a desirable mate. So choose those courses now!



Your companion in virtue and industry,

Sheldon "

Ah, Sheldon, I will miss your awesomeness ^_^

Outdoor classes

The weather is beautiful today, and as such the entire campus has decided to take advantage of it. In addition to the common student-napping-or-studying-on-a-blanket which pops up all over the lawns, many professors decided to teach their classes outside today.

As I walked across campus, the "outdoor classrooms" were all full (these consist of a big bunch of chairs and benches for professors who decide to have class outside), there was also a professor professing off the bug statue, as well as many classes grouped together out in the grass. Lectures in sidewalk chalk covered the walkways, from calculus equations to Hebrew lessons.

Of course, I observed all this as I walked inside to my computer science class, because we comp sci majors are doomed to the indoors on the nicest of days. Oh well, I'm sure if I'd had class outside I would quickly be whining about the heat and complaining of the bugs. ^_^

This and That

Another Algorithms test complete. This time, although difficult, it was not the physical violation that the last test was.

Yesterday started out as one of those inconvenient days, as my glass slot was moved back in the day, not allowing for a dinner break. However, it turned out to be for the better, as my slotmates and I went out to Guadi's after closing the studio. Now, Guadalajara's may not be in the league of 5-star Mexican restaurants, but when you crave it, nothing else will satisfy.

My motivation level is dropping at large rates, like radioactive decay. But if that's the case, then it will never be *completely* gone, so I'll still make it through these last few weeks.

Happy Easter

Whew! That was hard, but here I am again, safe in the folds of LJ. Well, what's been new.

Well, several people had the NERVE to get new journals while I was away ^_^ Anyway, I'll have fun catching up on , , and .

We had our group critiques for the senior art majors in early March, which helped me get on my way with my pieces. I like how they're turning out, but I have to grind and cold work them a lot, which will take up the bulk of my time. This week will actually be the last week in the hot shop for me, as I devote the rest of the time between then and my show grinding and polishing, grinding and polishing, grinding and polishing x_x Here are some previews..

http://storage.wertle.com/albums/art/glass/seniorshow/cascadingjewel.jpg
http://storage.wertle.com/albums/art/glass/seniorshow/globe.jpg
http://storage.wertle.com/albums/art/glass/seniorshow/seed.jpg

Let's see let's see, anything else? Well, I'm sure I'll think of things later. Hope everyone has been well! Time to catch up on journals.
School has been busy, but over Spring Break I flew up to Connecticut to see Carleton, and much FFX ensued, it was an excellent break.

Now, Easter weekend has been a much of a break in its own right. I met with some high school friends Friday night, where we bonded over video games and went secondhand book shopping the next day.

Yay Fat Tuesday

Woo! Last post before my Lenten hiatus.

My 8:00 Algorithms class was eased somewhat today, as my professor brought us all jelly doughnuts. She grew up in a Polish neighborhood where they celebrated Paczki day the day before Ash Wednesday, which is somewhat of the "poor man's Mardi Gras." Having no paczki available, Americanized jelly doughnuts had to do, and we had a mini Paczki Day celebration before class started.

A note about auctions: Even though I don't do the "Sundays doesn't count" thing, I'll be posting auctions and links to them on Sundays, so I'll feel somewhat less intrusive onto my hiatus. Keep your eyes peeled, I need money for that glass color x_x.

Expect these and other updates when I return at Easter:
-SETC
-Spring Break
-Survival of March Crunch

Extraneous Internet Hiatus begins at midnight tonight, so I'll still be around if you need to reach me up until then.

Now I'm off to fatten myself up. If I'm celebrating Lent this year I may as well be fair and celebrate Mardi Gras as well. Hope the spring starts out wonderfully for everyone, I'll see you guys at Easter!

Auction

Glass color money-raising auction number 1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3706519959

Lent

I always forget about Lent since I've been in college. It was easy to remember going to a Catholic gradeschool and highschool, because you'd be like "oh, it's Lent!" But not having reminders in college I'd go through half of March thinking "Why are they always serving fish on Fridays? That's unusu......ohhhhhh."

Anyway, entirely regardless of religion, I think any period of making a material sacrifice can be an enriching experience if you have the right mindset.

So this year for Lent (since I remembered it), I'm going to give up extraneous internet, which will be a huge challenge, but I think I can pull it off. The terms defining "extraneous" are as follows.

1. I'll still use it for research, because I can't get around that, but no leisurely browsings of forums, art sites, chats, Homestarrunner, etc. I'll probably accomplish this by doing most of my internet research in labs, which provides an environment in which I feel like I have to be doing real work.

2. I'll keep instant messenger open to people at school and family who may need to contact me for school or family-related business, but otherwise no IM

3. No LJ, neither friends list readings nor updates. The exception is I'll probably be auctioning off glass to get money to pay for that color, so I'll likely post a link to the auction as an update.

I think that mostly covers things. This process will have an additional benefit, in that hopefully it will force me to focus more on school and post-gradauation planning, which is always very heavy in March. So, if anyone has a drastically important need to contact me, do it by Mardi Gras (that's Tuesday). I'll probably do an update Tuesday night.

Mysteries Solved

So, remember when my parents' computer had that problem with cryptic messages typing themselves out in text boxes? We discovered that it was the speech recognition function. See, I swapped monitors with them at the beginning of the school year, and my old monitor has a built-in microphone. So all those ghostly messages were just it trying to interpret various sounds: sneezes, coughs, mumblings, etc. Doh!

Today I was compiling a list of color that I need to buy to use for pieces for my senior show, and Holy Crap for Crap! Glass color is EXPENSIVE! x_x Even when I calculated the price for just half a kilo of each color bar I need, it was still quite a hefty sum.

Maybe I should sell/auction old glass pieces to raise money to buy color to use in new glass pieces. There must be some other things I can sell besides glass to raise money... *rummage rummage* ...anybody want an upside-down running hourglass?

While waiting for dinner to cook, I could do something productive

...or I could fill out one of these..



ANGER
1. Who did you last get angry with?: Myself, more frustrated really
2. What is your weapon of choice?: hiding.
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex?: not out of pure wrath, but if I needed to...
4. How about of the same sex?: see above
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you?: probably Fish, he gets grumpy when I have to move him for his tank clean
6. What is your pet peeve?: snoring
7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily?: I think my record anger time is 20 seconds.

SL0TH
1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you haven't done in a long time?: floss
2. What is the latest you've ever woken up?: one time at 5, but I was sick
3. Name a person you've been meaning to call, but haven't: Ian, and he called on Monday. *writes herself a note on her forehead*
4. What is the last lame excuse you made?: "I'll do it later"
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through (one of the long ones)? no
6. When was the last time you got a good workout?: playing frisbee over winter term
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today?: 0, though I have long conditioned myself not to use the snooze

GLUTTONY
1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice?: Strawberry banana smoothies
2. Meat eaters: STEAK
3. What/when is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting/outing/event?: n/a
4. Have you ever used a professional diet company?: No. And might I take this opportunity to throw in that the Atkin's diet is bad for you. BAD. You'll find out, just wait *leers at the Atkins dieters*
5. Do you have an issue with your weight?: No
6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods?: Usually have to have some balance between salty and sweet.
7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought, "LUNCH?": There was that one time at Carleton's when I thought Vinnie looked particularly appetizing, but it was more just me wanting a chance to chew on the cat and then be fed.

LUST
1. How many people have you seen fully naked (not counting movies/family)?: Well, if you count figure drawing classes, then about a billion or so
2. How many people have seen YOU fully naked (not counting physicians/family)?: 0
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation?: No.
4. Where is number four? Right over there, to your left. Stupid question
5. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute?: No.
6. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy?: No.
7. Is love at first sight really lust?: I don't think lust is the same thing as physical infatuation, and no one ever said infatuation can't lead to love

GREED
1. How many credit cards do you own?: 1
2. What's your guilty pleasure store?: Great Escape
3. If you had $1 million, what would you do with it? Pay off my student loans
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous?: Neither
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks?: am I in some sort of financial crisis?
6. Have you ever stolen anything?: I stole 4 pencils from the office in Grant to use as props for those stupid Dr.'s clipboards
7. How many MP3s are on your hard drive?: I don't have time to count, dinner's almost ready.

PRIDE
1. What one thing have you done that you're most proud of?: Yellow Boat props
2. What one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of?: everything, I think.
3. What thing would you like to accomplish in your life?: Happiness
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place?: No.
5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill, knowing you were of much higher skill than all the other competitors?: I don't think so.
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score?: No
7. What did you do today that you're proud of?: Finished a drawing

ENVY
1. What item (or characteristic) of your friends would you most want to have for your own?: Confidence
2. Who would you want to go on "trading spaces" with?: no one! Because then they'd have to see my messy room
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?: Fish, I wanna see how far he can see out of the tank.
4. Have you ever been cheated on?: No.
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own?: good eyes--as my eyes get progressively worse
6. Finally, what is your favorite deadly sin?: Sloth

I support sugary breakfast cereal

Frosted Lucky Charms are magically delicious.

Strike!

Yellow Boat is finally officially over!

Strike was delayed a bit due to an impromptu private concert from Colin's dad (note: Colin is Colin McCann, son of Peter McCann, who wrote "Do You Wanna Make Love (Or Do You Just Wanna Fool Around)?", which the cast and crew was in love with). So after the pleasant sing-along, the disassembly started.

After putting props away, I spent most of it de-tangling the fiber optics used for the stardrop. What a paaaaaaaain.

In spite of my heavy workload, I'm dropping everything to go home tomorrow to see Les Triplettes de Belville, which I've been anxiously waiting to see since Brendan showed me the trailer a year or so ago. I'm very excited!

Time for an Update!

The Yellow Boat opened really nicely, and I was happy to see that we had reduced the audience to tears much earlier in the play than I expected would happen. Muahahahahaha! The Quilt ceremony was also really touching. Strother, you have a very haunting and powerful voice, I will capture you and put you in a jar and make you sing for me, and then I'll give you cookies as a reward.

In other news, classes are rough, but interesting. The Beowulf Clusters class is going to be an ordeal, as the only available place for us to build our little cluster is apparently a closet. Granted, it's a spacious closet, it's just mostly filled with biology lab equipment. I have been partnered up with Ryan the Younger, and as we discovered, neither of us knows squat about linux administration, networking, or any real hardware stuff. It's going to be a fun term (we've already decided to paint flames on the side of our node...you know...to make it go faster). To make things easier, I made sure our node was set up next to Jared and Zaid's, so we can pester them relentlessly for help.

Algorithms is going to be tough, because it's one of those "thinking" classes, and it's at 8:00. I'm trying desparately to convince Dr. Shannon of my poor arithmetic abilities. When we had our quiz this morning, we asked if we needed a calculator, and she said no. And I said "Are you SURE, you know I can't do math." and she's like "Nooo, you'll be fine, it's just a little arithmetic." Sure enough, I butchered Euclid's algorithm because I can't divide or subtract.

Why is that? Why is it that I can do derivatives in my head, or even standing on my head, but I can't do math. Like, at all. I'm a horrible banker in monopoly, because I can't subtract to give change (also, because I steal from the bank ¬_¬).

Anyway, moving on, glass seems like it will be good. I have some good ideas to get my rolling with my senior show. Databases should involve some fun and useful projects.

I wanted to go home this weekend and visit friends, but I think this week's workload will be too great. Guess I'll be spending Valentine's Day* getting ahead in my work...or catching up.

*Notice how I didn't say V-day