Gee, it's a real shame our new cat's having such trouble settling in:



I wish he felt more comfortable. Guess it would help some if he didn't have to share his king-sized bed with humans.

It's also not true that he was caught snuggling with Brandy on the back of the couch yesterday. Definitely not true. I lack photographic evidence, so it can't possibly be true.

Things around the new house are still in a jumble, as there don't seem to be enough hours in the day. For starters, I seem to be spending too many of those hours at work. I've got lots piling up on my desk (no surprise, what with the furloughs), and so I tend to stay an extra hour most nights... which is silly, because see above re: furloughs. If they wanted me to do more work, they'd pay me for it, yeah?

So no more of that. I've got lots of walls to paint (and boxes to unpack, and papers to file, and pictures to hang, and outlets to rewire, and shrubs to prune) at home, which is far more fun than rewriting laboratory SOPs to comply with ISO 17025. Well, most things would be more fun, unless you're really keen on quality control audits. Which I'm not.

I've been thinking about what I might do, content-wise, as part of the Three Weeks for Dreamwidth celebration, and I'd very much like to write some more Real Tales from the Forensics Lab. (I did this many years ago on LJ for NaNoWriMo.) This means I'm actively soliciting questions that might spur forensic-related posts, so hit me up in the comments! Did you see something on television and you want to know if that's really how it's done? Read something on a court case and want to know more? Just have a general question about forensic testing works (or doesn't)? Comment with a question and/or a link and I'll see if I can elucidate in a future post!

Some background on me: I work in a small county police crime lab where I do DNA testing, which includes testifying in court on occasion. I've been at this for eleven years now (the time, she flies), either in serology and DNA or in drug analysis, though I can speak fairly intelligently about blood pattern analysis and crime scene processing as well, and might be able to point you in the right direction if you edge into other forensic specialties.

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Six young men in a pickup stopped by just as I was contemplating a break from the shoveling, and I paid them to do the last third of the driveway (the bit with all the snowplow crap) and most of the sidewalk. This house is on a corner lot; we have a lot of sidewalk.

So in three hours (with help), everything's clear except for the front sidewalk along the main street, which I'm responsible for clearing, but which is under an extra six inches of snowplow muck. Bleh. I'll see how I feel in an hour.

The power came back on a bit after nine this morning. Thanks for the prompt return to service, BGE! Your poweroutage map is extremely nifty, even though you don't bother listing it on your front page. (Really, that would be so much more helpful than the link to your locked, unviewable-to-anyone-without-an-account Facebook site.)

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When my sister came over last night, she brought with her a quart-sized ziplock of crochet thread. I gave her an odd look, as I could've sworn we'd gone through all of my late grandmother's crafting supplies.

"Granddad heard something rolling around the floorboards of his car," she said. "This was under the seats."

Wow. That's some seriously persistent stash right there. Due to failing eyesight, my grandmother barely did any handwork in the last several years of her life, and she's been gone more than three years more. Nice to know I've come by this tendency to hoard yarn honestly.

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Drove up to Manhattan today to see the revival of A Little Night Music on Broadway. The show was wonderful; the entire cast was completely delightful, though the orchestra seemed off. I've forgotten how much I love live theater, and it's been years since I've seen a full-blown musical production of that sort.

But visiting Manhattan always leaves me teary in the end. I didn't live there long at all -- not even a year in the late 90's -- but it was both a miserable and utterly wonderful time in my life. I detested Columbia, but adored the city, and spent hours upon hours walking all over creation. I'll never be in a position to live there again, but there's no other city like New York. I'll always miss it.

...well, maybe not in the dead of winter when the wind comes screaming down the avenues. Just everything else.

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On my fingertips, at least, which are torn up from my adventures in jewelrymaking, thanks to Operation: More Joy and our associated Etsy shop, which is funding a good chunk of the gift-giving. It's not that we don't have pliers at hand, and several pair at that. It's just that I tend to use my fingertips whenever possible, especially when I'm wrapping wire and twisting things into place. I'm a tool-using mammal who doesn't.

This entire project, which has been going on for a few weeks now, has been amazingly freeing. I don't think of myself as being creative, you see, but rather as a skilled technician with a knack for reverse-engineering. That's how I approach photography, and it's how I used to write fic: I found what I liked, I broke it down, and I mimicked. This is a preliminary form of creativity, I know, but I've too much of the editor in me to be unabashedly exploratory.

Making jewelry, however, and making it primarily with the intention of giving it away has short-circuited my editor. Perhaps because it's going out into the world without any expectations? Perhaps because it's so easy to take apart, to do-over? Whatever it is, it's been just plain fun. I don't think there's been a day in the past two weeks I haven't at least dug through the bowls of beads and wire on the kitchen table to plan out another piece. I'm all about the wire and the metal; D's obsessed with beads and glass.

It's also been a great impetus for trying something new when it comes to photography. I've always been fond of macro shots, but never tried product photography. In the past month, I've used softboxes, backdrops, external lighting rigs -- all things I've never tried before. I spent several hours just this afternoon reshooting the items in our Etsy shop, this time with various props. Scarves were not nearly as useful as I expected, but I think books, metal bowls, and glass jars are going to be frequent guests in the makeshift studio. (Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle hardcovers make for excellent props, by the way. Nicely chunky, with just the right air of pretension. Thanks, Neal.)

But my cuticles are in even worse condition than usual, all torn and bleeding. This is particularly untimely as D and I started an ASL class last week, which necessarily involves lots of people focusing on my hands, and having band-aids on multiple fingertips is awkward. I should keep the Aquaphor in with the jewelry-making supplies for the rest of the fall.

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synecdochic is speaking at OSCON 2010 this week, so I've tagged along to see Portland. The one in Oregon, specifically; I once visited the one in Maine, albeit many moons ago.



Yesterday morning, as we rode the MAX train into Old Town, I was struck with an odd, almost-sort of déjà vu. The Skidmore fountain seemed familiar -- the name of it, at least -- and I vaguely remembered the quad-bowl water fountains are called Benson bubblers. And where had I first heard about the International Rose Test Garden? I'd read about it somewhere online, recently...

...and then I realized I only knew about these particular Portland institutions because I'd read about them in a fic. In lazulisong's Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit , which is ST:Reboot, completely marvelous, and entirely gen, so you should really read it if you've any interest in Trek whatsoever and haven't done so already.



Sadly, I do not have my own Vulcan mentor with whom to explore Portland, but did spend many hours in Powell's yesterday, and tromped all over the (surprisingly compact) city today. This included a lengthy exploration of the Lan Su Chinese garden, which was a lovely place to sit and crochet while watching the morning fog burn away. I think I'll head over to Washington Park and the aforementioned rose gardens tomorrow.



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I've been super busy this week, what with hosting stitch'n'bitch on Sunday, then having a two-day audit of our DNA lab, then taking a look at three properties last night (which was not what you'd call successful. I haven't had a chance to knit for days, which is a pity, 'cause I have several projects I'd like to finish for this year's home arts competition at the Maryland state fair. It's such quirky, anachronistic sort of competition -- bake a cake! knit some booties! win a ribbon! -- and brings back wonderful memories of annual trips to the fair with my grandparents each Labor Day. Entering something has become a highlight of my summer.

And I'm this close to finishing a lace shawl -- this shawl -- that I've been working on for gblvr, on and off, for a year now. In fact, it's been exactly one year today, according to my notes on Ravelry. I was really hoping to finish it tonight, but a dropped stitch required some tinking, so I've still got two rows left. With about four hundred stitches on the needles, even two rows is a couple hours of work, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I did, however, finally remember to take photos of these washcloths I designed:



I'm very proud of my geekery, even though I'm only a passing fan the Stargate 'verse. I think the glyphs would be tremendously adaptable to filet crochet as well. I think a table runner with a gate address worked in would be most excellent, yet subtle enough to go unnoticed by non-fans.

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I have just been educated by my Jersey-born-and-raised girlfriend about modifications to the offside rule and how these changes have ruined hockey. I'm just nodding and agreeing for my own safety.

Now she's yelling at the refs for breaking up fights before there's blood on the ice.

I've a powerful need to watch some NASCAR after this. Now there's a sport where I know what's going on and can out-call the announcers.

* Even if your adjusted gross income exceeds the levels for Free File, you can use Free File Fillable Forms. It does all the math for you and e-files your federal return at no cost. It doesn't walk you through step by step the way Free File does, but if you're the sort who does your own returns anyway, it's perfect.

* Maryland also offers free e-filing for most Maryland state taxpayers with no upper income limit.

While my apartment's not any cleaner, I did use my snow day to do some virtual cleaning. I actually have some breathing room on my hard drive now, having archived eight gigs of old photos and music.

The snow was still falling on Saturday when I went out for a walk around Baltimore. There were dozens of people out, enjoying the novelty of walking down the middle of Pratt Street without dodging traffic. Photos of how downtown weathered Snowpocalyspe are here.

I also got around to uploading the photos from our trip to Wellington last month:





Can't wait to make another trip to New Zealand one day; even without the flat whites, I'd've fallen in love with the place.