Sunday Stills

Two pieces of technology that make my life a little better, every day:

First Ski

This week we've had snow, and although I've done plenty of walking through it, today was the first day I went out and skied upon it. This afternoon, Brian and I headed up to the U of I cross-country course to ski around on the groomed paths.

It was a pretty good first ski for me. My lovely husband had thoroughly waxed my skis, so they were nice and slick. The snow cover was good. The course was well-traveled. I had a fun time and actually felt quite solid despite not having been on skis for so many months.

Although I am not nearly as fast as Brian, I am excited to get out there again in the near future.

A New Perspective

Well, it's that time again. I changed the look of my blog. This time the change was inspired partly by the restless knowledge that it had been the same for a rather unprecedented amount of time for me, and partially because I'm trying to remotivate myself for posting here. One thing that might help with this second goal is the new toy Brian and I recently treated ourselves to.


It's a Canon Rebel - digital SLR. Something I've sort of wanted for a very long time. So, I'm excited to mess around and see what I can do. I'll be subjecting my readers to frequent snapshots, I fear.

Here in Iowa we are currently experiencing a blizzard. That's what the weather reports tell us, anyway. It snowed all night, and this morning I took our new camera out of doors and tromped around in the drifts, attempting to get some images that captured the early-morning-not-quite-light-winter-snowy-beauty.


Then I came back indoors and pulled some scones out of the oven.

A Nice Trip Home

Another Year

I passed irrevocably into another year of my life last weekend. To celebrate, I spent the day with my favorite Iowa City companions - Brian and Steen.

this photo was not actually taken on my birthday, and it's already on Steen's blog, but it cracks me up so I'm posting it here, too

We let Cal hang out with us as well, and we went for a nice ride, followed by tea and a quiet afternoon, with much talking on the phone to family and friends not in Iowa City. One exciting feature of the day was a video call with my brother and his fiance Susie, who are currently in England.

we had a nice chat, the two of them on one end of the camera, Brian and me on the other

they even lit a candle for me, though in the end Susie had to help me blow it out

In the evening, Brian and I headed downtown for a lovely dinner. It was a pleasant evening and we enjoyed the walk and the food.

So, really, my brithday was mostly just like any other typical weekend day in the life of Robin. I suppose it says good things about my life that I find it difficult to think of any other kind of day I could enjoy more.

Almost Frosty

Late last week a huge late-fall storm rolled in and blew all the pretty leaves off the maple in our neighbor's yard. This has done a lot to change the feel of the study. It's looking increasingly wintry out the window.

I find myself actually looking forward to the next season this year. I am anticipating skiing again, and even the glacial simplicity of winter rides at the barn hold a certain appeal. I kind of enjoy the change to fluffy horse-hair and bareback rides, and working on little, refined things that won't cause Steen to break a sweat.

A few weeks ago I went to the Orthoptics Clinic due to the eye-problems I was having, and when the doctor stepped out for a few moments I chatted with the resident. She told me she had just moved to Iowa City and was already certain the winter would be horrible. I gave her my advice - get out in the cold, do something in it to get your blood pumping, and you will adjust. She looked at me with great skepticism and said, "I'm an indoor girl."

What can you do for these people?

Finally

I generally like to think of myself as the sort of person who finishes what I start, but I must admit so far my track record for this summer's projects has not been so great. The blinds, for instance, hit a number of big snags after I got the first one up. Mainly, all of my attempts to cut the second piece of music wire I bought to weight the bottom of the blind failed miserably and ended, eventually, in the temporary maiming of both my hands. So I gave up and put it off and put if off and then nearly two months later we still had mismatched blinds in the study.

I nursed my wounds, healed and returned to the music wire with new gusto and failed and failed and had my very strong husband try where I had failed and he also failed. Finally I decided to just hang the blind without the weight and revisit the weight issue later. So, yesterday I otherwise finished constructing the second blind, which took rather longer than it should have for two reasons. One, I'd completely forgotten much of what I did when building the first one and two, I sewed all the ribs to the wrong side of the blind the first time around.

Ah, home improvement projects are so wonderful.


But, they are up, anyway! They look fine raised. Now I just have to find a way to conquer the music wire and we'll be finished.

And in case you are wondering about my lack of posts here, do keep in mind I have two (yes, two!) other blogs. Steen's blog and my newly created, 100% professional BWS blog.

to the point

The Love of Place

Yesterday, I believe I fell in love with Iowa.

This was an interesting experience for me, because, until yesterday, I kind of thought of myself as a one-geographical-love kind of girl. I love the desert. Period. I always have, I always will. I told my sister years ago that if I die suddenly I want her to take her horse, Jak, out on my favorite trail, my ashes in some sort of recyclable container, and tell him to do his favorite thing - run. When he's running, take the lid off the container, and let me blow away in the wind.

I've lived in Iowa for years now, and though I have learned to like it quite a bit here, I've never exactly felt my heart would break if I had to leave, forever.

But yesterday I took Steen out for a light ride. We walked along, just the two of us, between a corn-field and a pasture dotted with horses. The leaves are just starting to change and the light was soft and warm on everything. Steen was relaxed, I was relaxed. The breeze was cool on my face but my core warm inside by dirty orange barn-vest. And then it hit me - the thought, "I love this."

It is hard to imagine two more disparate tableau's than Arizona and Iowa, but as I rode and took in the scene yesterday, I found my adoration for white sand, barbed thorns, and crinkly underbrush moving over to make room for rolling hills, the rustle of wind in corn, and the soft thud of horse-hooves on grass.

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

It seems one of the great injustices of life that during our childhood, when we are most likely to be greatly impressed by what we are exposed to, we have precious little control over the sorts of things we come into contact with. I, myself, will never say anything but that I had a positively magical childhood through which my two siblings and I waltzed largely unscathed by the sorts of concerns that touch most of the world. We grew up in sand and rock and cactus, limited in both our contact to the wider world and in our exposure to media.

Mainstream media, I can't help but feel retrospectively, makes pernicious use of the impressionability of young minds. When I was a child, I harbored a genuine belief that all human children needed to drink lots and lots of milk from cows simply to stay healthy. This belief came directly from the "Does a body good," milk campaign of the 80's. I can still hear the end notes of the jingle that accompanied a sequences of dancing children and cows ( suddenly bipedal, udders bared to the world), and the way that slogan was spoken in a quiet, cool voice as if as an afterthought. These images and sounds remain in my brain with perfect clarity, often unearthing themselves, unbidden, just because I happen to think about milk. It seems unfair, to say the least, that I should have to carry this inane, inaccurate view of the world with me, always, but that I cannot, in all truth, actually recall specifically the first time I rode a horse. Probably because my mother didn't think to provide me with a theme song and slogan to associate with the event, not knowing the heft that experience would lend to the rest of my life.

But a less pernicious association I can't get rid of also came from media exposure. When I was a kid we read a lot, watched a little TV, and listened to a fair number of stories on tape. In one of these mediums (yes, bizarrely I can't remember which) I encountered the story of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. I loved this story solely because of that word. Blustery. And the way the blustery wind took over everything else simply by virtue of its blusteriness. It was a new word to me, the first time I encountered the story. And a word that has stuck with me, since.

Now, on days like today, when it is chilly and I hear huge gusts of wind battering the outside of the house, that is what I think. Better stay inside, Pooh Bear, it's blustery out there.

When It Rains

The month of September in Iowa came close to setting records, weather-wise. It went weeks without raining.

This, while a fairly common occurrence in, say, Arizona, is next to unheard-of in the Midwest.

I, desert rat that I am, prefer days that aren't rainy to ones that are, and the dry weather came at a particularly convenient time for me, being that my horse has been laid up with a gigantic leg-wound all month. To be able to get through the bandaging stage without sogginess and mud in the picture was a huge help.

But the weather is sort of the only thing that's been cooperating. I can't help but feel I've had my own personal little storm-cloud of metaphorical gloom hanging over my head for months now, and it makes me remember what I said to my sister after my wedding. We were talking about how great it was that I married Brian, and I said something along the lines of, "I can't help but feel a little precarious. Things have been going to so well. It's like I'm waltzing through my own private field of magical flowers. It just doesn't seem like this can last."

I was right. It didn't. While Brian and I are still happily immersed in marital bliss, lately we have been sharing our quarters with a nasty flu bug. The summer has been riddled with bad health news in our families as well.

It's funny, how one takes good health for granted. I have been sick the last few days in a way I haven't been sick in years, and I had completely forgotten what it is like. It makes basic tasks impossible. For instance, I went to the drug store to buy a thermometer, and in wandering the aisles trying to find the thermometer area, I found myself continually having to stop and think, "Now, what am I looking for again?" Like, five times. In just a few minutes. I eventually had to ask someone to show me where they were. It was alarming and humbling, to see how much what I consider my innate level of competence was so thoroughly impaired by simply running a fever.

So, here's to good health. I'll appreciate it more in the future, both in myself and in those I value.

Going Mini

We all know I am something of a computer nerd. I try to keep this aspect of my personality to a minimum, but I find it necessary to own both a laptop and a desktop because, to me, the two types of machines serve very different functions in my daily life. My laptop is my me computer. I like to use it to type, lounging on the sofa or arm-chair in my pajamas. Also, as my business grows, it is necessary for me to be able to stay in touch with my clients and possibly make small changes to their websites when I am away from home.

On the other hand, when I'm actually working seriously on a website, I need to be at my desk. I often sketch out ideas before turning them into their digital manifestations, and I like my good speakers, my large monitor and the easy availability of my external hard-drive, scanner, printer, and my wireless mouse.

Still, part of me craves the simplicity of one computer. I try, on a fairly regularly basis, to find a way to give up one or the other. My most recent attempt was last week. My fairly antiquated HP laptop, which has been on the verge of possible catastrophic failure for months now, broke some important internal part of the jack that connects the power source to the computer, and I find I can no longer unplug the one from the other. This is a problem, for obvious reasons, not the least of which is that the battery is so shot, my computer can only run for a very short period of time whilst un-plugged. And so, the knowledge that the next time I unplug my laptop from its power source will likely mark fifteen minutes before the end of its useful existence drove me to try to answer the "what next" question.

I began to hunt for laptops. Ok, fine, I'll be honest. I've been secretly keeping my eye on what's out there for many weeks, but I didn't really know what I wanted. I cruised over to Lenovo, and nearly got seduced by a sleek, powerful model they've just released. But as I tried to justify spending many hundreds of dollars on a computer I would basically use to type and check email, I knew I'd never talk myself into it. I spent a long while researching docking stations, trying to determine if I could buy a nice laptop that could be the best of both desktop and laptop for me, but I found something unacceptable about every option, so I gave up.

Discouraged, I decided to think in the other direction. Instead of the fastest, most versatile laptop I could get, I wondered what the cheapest, simplest solution might be. Enter the Dell Mini, 10v. It weighs 2.5 pounds, and has a ten inch screen and a nearly full-sized keyboard. I had heard about netbooks, of course, and read some reviews and initially wasn't all that attracted to the idea of a tiny computer with one-eighth of the processing power of my desktop. But, the more I thought about and read about the Mini, the more it interested me. The main selling point, finally, came down to the fact that it has no fan. Since it is so small and so simplified, it can cool itself passively. I've owned probably four laptops in my life now, and in every single case, the fan has degenerated over time from annoying to, in one case, intolerable. No fan seemed like a great idea to me, and since the Mini I decided on is actually twice as powerful as my old, dying HP laptop, I realized it would still feel like an upgrade.

Won over, I settled on the best deal I could find and placed an order, paying less than half of what I payed for my HP when it was new. The Mini arrived yesterday. It's tiny, light, adorable, and so far I find the keyboard totally adequate. And the peaceful silence of its fanless design is going to extend its lifespan by a lot, I think.

At Least It's Not Just Me

It's been a busy summer and blogging seems to have fallen a little by the wayside. So, unless you want to read all the gory details that were involved in my horse's recent injury, I will entertain you with something someone else wrote, but applies to my life as well.

Article: If Architects had to Work Like Web Designers

I thought it was funny, anyway.

Pay No Attention to the Bear Behind the Curtain

My long-suffering, overlarge, stuffed bear, Peanut, is having a rather rougher time of it than usual lately. I've been in the process of making shades for the study for a couple of weeks now (if someone ever says to you, "Oh yeah, making Roman Shades is quick, easy and cheap," do not believe them). I've needed somewhere to store my partially constructed pieces throughout the process. The corners of the dining room decorative molding work nicely.


In spite of quite a few glitches and diversions, I am nearing the end of my endeavors. I am certain this would have been easier had I followed a pattern or done anything more than skim a few different versions of instructions before starting...

Still, making the shades has been a mostly enjoyable experience, and my first ever wifeish project since actually becoming a wife. Now that one is hung and the other is over halfway finished, I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I thought I'd publish some simultaneous before and after shots of the window with one new blind, and one old.

The shades will usually be up, since the sun rarely comes into the study, and when there is no sun, there is no reason to block off this window.

It can get rather hot up here in the afternoon, though, so we need some way to block out passive solar heat accumulation. This how the new blind will look when closed.

I needed a smile....

... and sharing is good for the soul, too.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Rest in Peace, Squishy

It is with a heavy heart that I share some sad news - news of one intrepid little fish who defied the odds and lived, lived and lived! Until he died, which he did, in his bowl on the counter at my parent's home in Tucson a few weeks ago.

I first saw Squishy in Pet's Mart, during the "Fish Habit" phase of my friendship with Liz (who I would link except her blog is private so it would only frustrate people). I believe we went for guppies, but we saw the two tiniest little orange fish we'd ever laid eyes on, and we had to have them. Into a bag they went, home to our tank they came and Squishy and Spec entered our lives.

There were some misunderstandings from the start. For one, we could never really distinguish between the two, so they were sort of interchangeable. For two, we knew they were female - it said right on the tank. Female Dwarf Somethingorother. But we always called Squishy and Spec "he."

Squishy and Spec, during their childhood in Flagstaff, AZ

In spite of these ongoing demoralizing factors in their lives, the two tiny fish prospered. They watched the coming and going of many a guppy. They survived the move to a new apartment, the departure of Liz to Santa Fe, and out-lived every other fish we had - even those purchased much later.

Eventually, it came time for me to leave Flagstaff, and I had a tank containing only two fish - Squishy and Spec. I packaged them up and hauled them all the way to Tucson. At this point the two were no longer tiny, and at least two years old - which is getting up there as far as small fresh-water aquarium fish go.

Spec, tragically, did not survive the journey. Squishy, (finally a distinct individual), did. My parents placed him in a bowl on the kitchen counter, where he participated in the daily rhythms of family life. He learned to anticipate his feeding time, swam to the edge of his bowl whenever people passed, and overcame a horrible disease that looked like it would claim his life.

Three years after he came to Tucson (two and a half years after my departure to Iowa), Squishy finally shuffled off this mortal coil. A nobler, more endearing, more enchanting tiny orange fish I have never known.

Rest in Peace, Squishy

A Quick Look at a Long Journey

Brian and I just completed a pretty excellent road trip to and from Montana. We crossed a lot of new territory, visited old friends and spent lots of time in very close quarters. For a road trip of its length and breadth, things went remarkably smoothly.

Our impetus for the journey was the marriage of our friends Drea and Guillaume. We left Thursday after work, and managed to get four hours on the road in before deciding to camp for the night near the western edge of Iowa. Unfortunately, the site was crowded and buggy and our tent was a tiny two-man backpacking affair with no floor. Not ideal, and we did not sleep well, but we carried on early in the AM. After fourteen hours in the car (and one brief stop to buy a more robust tent) we made it to our destination. During our two nights in Bozeman, we stayed with our other friends Sukha and Margaret. It was great to catch up with them, and the area was very neat, though we somehow neglected to take our camera out and snap a single photograph until the morning of our departure. Oops.

The wedding was great fun, and the next morning we attended a brunch with the family and friends before hitting the road.

some guests on the lawn at the brunch

We left Bozeman and went to Yellowstone - another new place for both of us. We had a tricky time there navigating the crowds. I must say it was one of the oddest experiences of my life, being somewhere simultaneously so remote and so choked with people.

We started with a look at some of the hot mineral springs that ooze boiling water onto the earth and a sulfurous stink into the air. The colors and textures left behind are pretty incredible.

some neat steppe areas and a pool

taking a close view

We left the area as it started to rain and drove on, finding ourselves in some high, beautiful valleys. At one point we found a little side-road and decided to hike, but upon leaving the car were immediately descended upon by mosquitoes with the bulk of bumblebees and the aggression of rabid terriers. We immediately dove back into the car and drove on, itching.

Eventually we found another area of geysers and mineral pools. This too was crowded and the first bit was frustrating, but eventually we discovered a side path no one else seemed to have noticed and got some time to ourselves.

the ground was hot and things were erupting and sending scalding water into the air rather frequently

We walked around for a while, feeling we'd somehow stepped onto another planet; a very safe one with wooden paths to lead us everywhere interesting.

the colors in the pools were something else

Finally, we left the pools and geysers and drove on, eventually arrived at a canyon and leaving the car again. There we found some beautiful views once again clogged with veritable droves of people. We poked around some, and this time we found a trail-head marked by a warning sign, telling tourists the path was uneven and rough. We proceeded down the trail eagerly, and soon found ourselves hiking along the rim of the canyon. It was an incredible view and left me feeling woozy and tiny.

the canyon below the falls

us, all alone, on the rim

We left the canyon and returned to the car feeling energized and ready to check out a mud volcano that the map told us was nearby, but we continued through some more upper valleys and then found ourselves in a serious traffic jam. We were stuck for over an hour, traffic moving mere inches at a time, watching as the line got longer behind us and wondering what was going on. Finally, we reached the crucial point and discovered human movement had been all but shut down by the movement of the bison. A few hours before we'd been in a near accident because of bison. Maybe I'm just a hardened cynic, but to me the presence of a big undomesticated cow by the road doesn't warrant slamming on the brakes on a wet, slick road so the person behind you has to skid and slide to a stop, but I appear to be a rarity among Yellowstone visitors. The numerous massive bovine park inhabitants attract all sorts of enthusiastic attention. So, although the herd was crossing only one at a time at fairly long intervals, people were sitting in their cars staring and snapping photos while the line of cars piled up behind them.

a buffalo, in the road

After the traffic jam, it was getting late and we were well ready to get away from the crowds and the traffic, so we skipped the last couple of things we intended to do in the park and took the quick route out. On a quiet road, we skirted an alpine lake at sunset, with the surrounding peaks capped in storm-clouds, and proceeded through a mind-blowing pass. We were too busy staring to take photos.

Free of the park, we drove into national forest, and made camp at our first opportunity.

our first camp on the road home, in the morning

We woke early, and proceeded to load up and resume our journey. We hadn't been on the road long when we came to a stopped car on the small highway. From my side of the vehicle we could see a man waving a flag. We couldn't figure out what was going on, but a moment later it became apparent.

cowboy before the sun - that's a couple horses in the lower right-hand corner

Soon a whole herd of horses, led by a mounted cowboy, came loping up the road and crossed over to Brian's side of the car.

the horses, followed by another mounted man

It was only a few moments before we moved on, but it was a neat start to the day.

We made it to Spearfish, South Dakota by early afternoon, which was good, but our afternoon hike plans got rained out, so we mostly drove around and checked out some other towns in the area and explored the Black Hills a little. It's a pretty incredible area.

Finally, tired of driving, we found another dirt road in national forest and set up camp again.

our tent and rain fly, drying from the night before

We passed a nice evening with some light rain showers and some beer.

Brian and me, happy to be out of the car

In the morning we woke, loaded up and drove for another eleven hours. Back in Iowa City, we are ready to stay here for a while (I've spent more of July traveling than home). But, in spite of rain every day and lots of hours in the car, we certainly saw some incredible sights and racked up a few good stories.

In and Out

I have been somewhat silent as of late, mainly because life has seemed unbloggable. Things are starting to return to normal, however, and I'm trying to resume my old habits.

I did something I've been kind of wanting to do for, like, years now and bought a new graphics card a number of weeks ago, which was exciting because it has its own RAM and its own fan and it's just cool looking. The problem was that after I tore my computer apart and installed the card and messed around with games I hadn't been able to run previously, my computer seemed to slow down significantly. After banging my head against the virtual wall of hardware trouble-shooting for a good long while, (and updating drivers, flashing my BIOS, cleaning up my registry, scanning my entire machine for spyware/viruses) I took the card out again because things had gotten so sluggish as to be unbearable. Except taking the card out didn't help. When I discovered this I gave up, and mostly left my desktop turned off for a number of weeks except when I absolutely couldn't avoid updating client's websites.

Today I finally returned to the problem, and after some more frustration figured out the hitch wasn't with the graphics card, but one of the drive emulators I installed to test some new game I was apparently excited to try out a few weeks ago. Gurgh. Anyway, I removed the emulator, put the graphics card back in my computer and now things seem hunky dorey.

But this episode has forced me to face the fact that my current installation of Windows is just getting beat up and sloppy (I'm a little hard on operating systems...). I've known in my heart for a while now that I need to do a clean wipe of my hard drive and reinstall everything, (something I used to do once a year, every year, around Christmastime, in my energetic youth) but now that my computer is larger and more vital to my livelihood than ever before, this just seems like a daunting task. So I've been putting it off, kind of hoping I can make it to the release of the new Windows 7 in October. Except I refuse to install a new OS within six months of its release to avoid the bugs, which means I'm looking at a really long span of sub-par operating.

So, we'll see if I can make it. And in the meantime I must admit that the games I've been daydreaming about being able to play for the last two years are a universal disappointment and not even worth one good binge. Oh well. I suppose I should count this as a blessing, be grateful that Photoshop is running faster, and use the saved time to do things like go outside and enjoy my life.

Act II

My long-time readers might remember something that happened just over two years ago now (boy how the time flies). My lovely Jamis Aurora was stolen from my front porch. I was heart-broken, but eventually moved on and replaced the bike with a "new" Fuji, which was actually a good deal older than the Jamis. I fixed it up, converted it into a single-speed and fell in love with it. I eventually recovered my Jamis, and put the whole experience behind me. I discovered, however, that the Fuji was a rather superior town bike, with its flat bars, simplicity, durability and basket. Since then, I've favored the Fuji for my daily rides.

Fast forward to last Friday evening. I was at work, my Fuji locked to the tree outside, and a huge thunderstorm had rolled in and was dumping copious amounts of rain. My boss offered me a ride home and I, looking at the river that was the street to my house, accepted, thinking I'd return for my bike in the morning.

Except in the morning my bike slipped my mind. I left my house before 8:00 AM, to help move Steen and the other horses at our barn from one side of town to the other. I didn't return home until early evening and was so exhausted my poor Fuji didn't even enter my thoughts. Also, I went in and out the side door by pure chance that day, so didn't see the empty spot on the porch where my town bike usually resides.

The next morning we slept in a little, drank our coffee and sat around reading. Brian finished his book, so went to the library to get another. I was still obliviously enjoying my lazy morning when he came home, a strange look on his face. "Steve just called to say he has your Fuji," he said.

Confusion. "My Fuji?"

"Yes, some guy brought it in to the shop trying to sell it. Steve managed to get it from him."

More confusion. "How did we not even notice it was missing?" I asked.

"You left it at work," Brian said.

Guilt. "Shit," I said.

We went and got my bike back. Whomever stole it picked my Masterlock and left the lock and cable by the tree. They also felt the need to abuse my bike between the time they stole it and tried to get money for it. The basket is mangled beyond repair. The grips are punched through at the ends. There are some scratches on the frame. A brake lever is bent out of shape. It was missing one of the fender bracer bolts too, but Steve (going well beyond the call of duty) replaced that for me. I have since done a little research and learned there are about a million instructional videos online teaching the masses how to pick Masterlocks. As Brian said, the information age has its disadvantages.

I am once again saddened by the people who have no respect for others. But at the same time I am grateful for the other kind of people - the kind who will recognize your bike when they see it in the hands of a nefarious impostor, and get it back for you.

Again

It worked once so I figured I'd have another go.

On Writing

I just read Stephen King's book On Writing. And while I don't say this often about books that involve one person telling another how to do something, I will say it for this one: It was truly useful and incandescently inspirational. I get the feeling I might read it many more times before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

The Start of Summer

It's been a busy few weeks for us newly-weds, with visiting family, parties in Chicago and some nice early summer weather. Work at the gallery had been interesting lately. I've had a lot of "take home" projects, from scanning and antiquing photos to organizing captions and formatting poetry. I also have been a bit accident-prone. I have at least one glass/paper cut on every single finger on my right hand, and a burn on my left hand. I seem to go through phases like this. I'll go for weeks without a single mishap on the job and then they all pile on at once. I'm sure I could draw conclusions on my broader mental state from this, but I choose not to.

In other big news, I took my yakima racks off my car for the first time in... um... well, since I've owned a car. This was not an easy decision for me as I always have liked the look of the racks, and for many years having them on was extremely practical. However, I don't think I've put a bike on the racks since I moved to Iowa City. It seems to work out here that if I'm going to need a bike somewhere, I will ride the bike to get there. If I'm going to take the car, that usually means I'm going to see my horse or hauling lots of stuff - activities which do not require a bike. So, as cool as they might look, I suspect the racks cut down on gas mileage and make a lot of noise at higher speeds. I am going to spend the next few tanks of gas gauging how much of a difference going rackless actually makes in these two areas and then make a final decision based on what I discover. I must say the initial change is somewhat unsettling. My car hardly looks like my car anymore, and I fear I will have trouble finding it in parking lots.

My Get-Rich-Quick-Scheme

Hearts have ruled for too long.

Green Grass and Pale Ale

It has finally reached that time of year where the ground in many places is completely covered in a wonderful snack for Steen, and he enjoys a little feast whenever I let him stop moving.

Brian and I thought we should spend some time enjoying some treats in celebration of the new season too, so when we both got off work at 2:00 on Friday, we pedaled over to our engagement spot in the park and participated in some hard-core lounging.

We sampled my new favorite beer, as well as a few others.

We enjoyed the warm sun and the green grass.

So much so, we decided to illustrate the view. Fascinatingly, we became better artists the more beer we drank!

Racking Them Up

One of the fun experiences in the aftermath of our wedding has been deciding what to spend our various and fairly numerous gift cards on. Last weekend I found myself poking around Bed, Bath and Beyond's website looking to spend some plastic. I had a few ideas for what we might want to buy, one of them being some sort of wine rack to help store all the pretty wine and port glasses we got for our wedding that don't really fit in our kitchen cupboards.

Though Bed, Bath and Beyond did not have a rack to suit our particular needs, I eventually discovered that they did have the various components we would need to construct our own rack. So, I ordered a plain oak serving tray and an under-the-counter glass hanger. Then Brian and I went to the hardware store and bought some hooks and some light-gauge chain. I filched a lovely discontinued oak corner sample from the trash can at work and sawed it in half so the pieces could serve as a place to anchor the hooks to the wall.

We encountered one hitch when we discovered the wall we had decided to mount the rack on actually concealed our house's brick chimney, so we had to go back to the hardware store for a masonry bit and cement screws. It took all of Brian's formidable husband-strength to get the holes where they needed to be, and the bit was pretty well munched by the sixth hole, but luckily six holes was all we needed!


The trivet hanging underneath the glasses is another wedding gift. It mostly makes the kitchen pretty, but it is also there for snatching off the wall and placing hot things upon in a pinch.

Improvements

Lately Brian and I find ourselves second-guessing our decision to buy a home - mainly because everything we like sells for over asking price in a matter of hours after going on the market. Since a lot of our motivation to move came from the presumption we could get a good deal on a house right now, discovering that we cannot has cooled our jets. So, we'll probably wait for the fall to see if the market here in Iowa City (apparently the only place in the world that hasn't gotten the "we're in a recession" memo) will cool off.

Knowing we're not on the brink of leaving this house behind anymore has spurred us into some home-improvement projects. We have plans to construct a hanging wine-glass rack for the kitchen, we added a new shelf in the pantry,

(the new shelf is the one holding the nuts)

and biggest of all, we came to a realization. If you've ever asked yourself the question, "What is the only thing uglier than an old piece of press-board furniture?" you know the answer is "four mismatched pieces of old press-board furniture."

Our bedroom, while cozy, is sort of ugly. We don't want to go to the trouble or expense of buying new furnishings, so we decided to try to do what we could employing the lovely art of the veneer.

So, this is what our bedroom looks like now:

(note the three different chest-of-drawer styles)

This is the fourth (previously silver) mismatched piece - a book-case not in the photo above. This is how it looks after two coats of primer, the second applied just this morning:

We will keep you updated as the project continues.

When the Day Starts Right

I should have known it would be no run-of-the-mill day when Brian and I started out with a breakfast of tasty brie toasted on the first successful loaf of whole-wheat home-made-bread I've ever achieved.


But honestly, I wasn't prepared for the level to which the excitement continued. First, I took some more important (boring and bookish) steps towards making the BWS a real business, then I went to the gallery, where I promptly took a framing order (normally Nick's role, not mine). Up to this point, I'd have put the day on the busy side of normal. But then things really went nuts. Our Realtor called and told us she may have found "the one." (It turns out it was not the one, but still, talk about an adrenaline rush). Then, a customer came in to the gallery and I sold her not one but two pieces of fine art. After that, I got a call from a new client who wants a website. By the time happy hour rolled around, I was so keyed up I could hardly sit still.

I guess I should eat an exotic breakfast more often.

More Dorkey Web Stuff

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been going through some changes with my website business - and not just re-naming it. Another big thing is I upgraded to Adobe CS4 Web Professional. This was a large expense, but one I feel pretty good about. Already I have noticed a number of changes in Dreamweaver and Photoshop - some of which give me great delight and some of which drive me nuts. Hopefully those in the latter category will morph into the first before too long.

Beyond that, I have made one of the more liberating decisions of my (albeit brief) professional career. I have decided that I, personally, will no longer support Internet Explorer 6. I spent several hours today adding a notice to my own websites (all three of them) that is invisible to all visitors except those using IE6 or older. The notice explains that IE6 is archaic and offers a few helpful upgrade options with links. I found the gumption to do this when I discovered there are whole campaigns of web-developers moving en force to create a IE6-free world.

But, of course, I am anti-IE6 only in moderation. My sites still work in IE6. They just look strange. And I will offer my clients the option of being IE6 compatible when they hire me.

Ironically, in learning how to inform my IE6 users that they should upgrade I discovered what I'd say is the only cool thing about that old browser. It will show what is inside a tag < !---[if lte IE 6]------ >, and no other browser will. So, when people with IE6 go to one of my websites, they see this:


Any other browser sees this:

This is a nice, clean, javascriptless way to deal with the notice. Thus I will say for IE6, at the very least, it makes itself easy to phase out.

An Ode to CSS

Whenever I am working on building websites, two thoughts seem to occupy my mind more than any others. These thoughts are as follows:

* I hate IE (internet expolorer)
* I love CSS (cascading style sheets)

I have been building websites for many years now, and while I have discovered that both my hatred for IE and my love for CSS increase steadily the more I learn about website construction, if both these emotions were weighed on a scale that could measure the magnitude of the emotion felt, CSS would win.

The reason for this is simple. One of the reasons I love CSS is (usually) not even IE can screw it up.

So, it is with a heart full to bursting of love for CSS that I announce the launch of my new website, which sports my first ever CSS-only roll-over menu. That's right, folks, the image swaps are accomplished using only CSS. No javascript. This makes me happy because it opens oh-so-many doors.

And as my new website indicates, I am finally, officially, embarking into the world of professional graphic design. I am registering my business as an LLC, under the name Brown Wing Studio. This means Vitzy's, for the time being, will be no more. But hopefully now my clients will be able to remember my business name and email address.

From Miss to Misses

Yesterday I finally got my act together and hunted down the Iowa City social security office. I took with me my marriage license, social security card and driver's license. A nice lady sitting behind a counter looked the documents over, had me sign a few things and officially declared that my last name is no longer what it has been for the last 27 years.

So, now I am in this odd state of limbo. My new social security card with my updated name has not arrived yet, so I can't start the process of changing my bank accounts, credit cards, driver's license and other important documents over into my new name. But I'm also not technically named my old name anymore. Strange stuff.

In other news we are still house-hunting. We found one very likely candidate and got in to see it the day after it went on the market, only to have someone buy it right out from under our noses. We have seen this ultra-quick turn-around a dozen times or more in the last months since we started our hunt. It is frustrating, to say the least, because Brian and I can't help but feel we'd like more than a handful of hours to think about and discuss such a large decision as handing over our entire joint savings and tying ourselves to a particular spot on the map for the foreseeable future. Apparently others in Iowa City don't feel the same hesitation.

Anyway, having grown frustrated both with conventional ways of buying a home and the conventionality of the homes available for sale, Brian and I have started pipe-dreaming about building our own. I've been reading a lot about straw-bale building, and decided to draw up some plans.

downstairs

upstairs

After all, should we suddenly and miraculously acquire some land and a lot of straw, we want to be prepared.

Herbal Suppliments

So, here is some trivia for you. What do all these products, Colon xR, Acai Noni and Vital RezV, all have have in common?


Well, to be honest, we are not exactly sure - other than they are produced and relentlessly marketed by people who exploit those with low self-esteem and a fear of death to make money. Until recently, Brian and I remained blissfully unaware such products existed. When all of a sudden these little bottles of pills started showing up in our mail, their packaging and sales-pitches rapidly became all-too-familiar.

At first it was a losing battle. The pills would arrive. I would call the distributor and cancel the account I'd never opened, checking my credit card statement again and again for charges that did not appear - thinking perhaps some other poor soul was footing the bill for the bottles we received.

Finally, today, we solved the mystery. It turns out we are indeed the victims of strange form of credit-card fraud. Someone stole my name, our address, and Brian's phone and card numbers. This person did not indulge in a shopping spree at Walmart or Best Buy. He or she did not book a ticket to Europe, or sell the information off to their friends and family so others could do any of the above.

No, most diabolical of all diabolic schemes, this person simply signed us up to receive every type of herbal supplement with a "free trial, you pay shipping only" promotion out there on the internet. The three brands shown above have already come in the mail. We have reason to believe a few more are on the way.

Luckily, all these companies require a valid credit card before they ship the pills, so when the number fails the flood should cease. Until then, we are hoping to make up for all the irritation by selling the pills on ebay at a huge profit to people with low self-esteem and a fear of death. It's either that or take the pills and go on with clear digestive systems, slim figures, and lives that will last forever.

Wed

At the risk of seeming redundant, as I have already posted photos on facebook, and Brian has also done a wonderful wedding post, I am going to regale all my readers with the tale of our nuptials.

First, my parents outdid themselves getting the house ready for the grand event. This is just one of the many impressive features they added - a back deck and bridge leading over the warsh towards the horse corral.

At the front of the house, we had the ceremony. We don't have any pictures of that yet as the actual real wedding photos are still on their way to us from our photographer.


The ceremony went well. I didn't start crying until the very end, which I thought was pretty darn good, considering many people seated in front of me lost it before that. We then proceeded to mingle for a while and finally my uncle and the band forced us out onto the floor for a first dance,


I think we did all right. There was no falling over, no stepping on toes and after a while others joined in to rescue us from the horrid fate of being looked at too much.

Other highlights of the evening included the cakes,

seeing the Gutpluckers dressed in a pseudo-respectable fashion in honor of the occasion,


and much spirited dancing. Partly behind the enthusiasm, I think, was the fact that the night did turn fairly cold. People needed to kick up their heels to keep themselves warm.

After the festivities began to break up, Brian and I took ourselves (and several plastic cups tied to our bumper) off to Hacienda del Sol for some hardcore relaxation. Our room was beautiful, as were the grounds, the food, the weather, the mountains. We even hung my bouquet up and it stayed fresh for days.


Our suite had a little back patio of which we availed ourselves our last evening there, watching the sun set on the mountains and drinking port.

All in all, we could not have had a nicer time and to now return home so well rested is pretty great too. Married life, here we come.