Just finished baking desserts for Christmas, including all of the cleanup and prep for transport. Even though I was tired after baking, I just wanted to be completely done. I spent most of the day between these desserts (planning, buying food, baking, cleaning, etc.) and final Christmas gift purchasing and preparing. I made pecan tassies (every year) and a gingerbread loaf (first time). Merry Christmas.
Personal posts page 54
Almost 7 years later and I still occasionally have dreams about working at the Winking Lizard. I just awoke from one where I had gone back, first day.
Continue reading post "#1318"Woo-hoo: Four day weekend! Happy Thanksgiving, all.
Keyboard troubles
I have a keyboard (the music kind, Casio CTK-671). I like to play it sometimes. It has, for a long time now, been difficult to turn on. Many times, the light and screen will come on, but the screen will be messed up in some way and keys won’t produce sound. I can keep turning it off and on and sometimes it will eventually work, but sometimes not. It has gotten worse over time, and is now to the point where I can rarely get it going. After like a week of not being able to get it working, I was considering getting a new one. Today, I finally got it running. I’m really considering just leaving it on long term, in spite of the electricity it’ll use.
The Planets + Sō
Saturday evening I went to see Akron Symphony perform Holst’s The Planets plus some other works, including a piece with Sō Percussion. I like The Planets and was glad to see it performed live, especially, as an EVN fan, Mars. The Sō / David Lang piece I found hard to follow and understand the apparent polyrhythms involved. The other pieces I liked well enough.
Akron Art Prize 2016
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I went to see the art at Akron Art Prize yesterday. Today was the last day, so I wanted to get in before then. I spent some time looking through the many art pieces. I actually read the little description and gave a good look at nearly every piece. There were lots of interesting pieces, but several that especially caught my eye, in no particular order, were:
- Blue Woods by J David Norton: I’ve been intersested in multi-layered transparent pieces since I saw Haley Litzinger‘s resin work. This piece is all glass and cool with light going through it.
- White Goes First by Brian Parsons: I’ve always liked intricate chess sets. This one’s pretty good.
- Just a Random Tree by Kim Ley: The metallic background of this photo really makes it striking, almost 3D looking.
- Frog at Dundee Falls by Anthony Contini: Neat photo with a subject above and below water. I’ve tried to experiment with this in the past, but struggled to get good results.
- Photonic Mesmerizer by James Leverton: Interesting device, computer nerdy.
- Terror of One by Mac Love / ART x LOVE
- Tantrique by Scott Alan Evans
- Planet Akron by Joseph C. Levack
- Color Study in Red and Green No. 2 by Donald Woods
The event is one of Cogneato’s clients. We built both their website and the voting system. The voting system, which started as a web based SMS + website setup and migrated to a web-based phone app (PhoneGap with an API server) provided a lot of interesting experience, some of which I haven’t really had in other projects. This year’s primary challenge was figuring out how to get the PhoneGap part working and deployed, as the guy who used to do that left the company. I took some notes on the deployment part.
Satellite flare
I believe I saw a satellite flare for the first time tonight. I saw a light moving across the sky about the brightness of a medium bright star, a little off of north to south. It suddenly started to get brighter and brighter, until it got well brighter than any star. It actually got a little halo around it, perhaps indicating some haze in the sky. For a moment, I started to think it was a slow moving meteoroid. But it began to fade at about the same rate it had brightened, until it went back to its normal medium star brightness. It then just continued on across the sky.
Continue reading post "Satellite flare"Ear unjam
Yay: after two weeks of my ear being clogged, I finally got it unclogged. My hearing isn’t fully back to normal, as I think I’ve got some water in there now, but it is way better than what it was.
Continue reading post "Ear unjam"Went on a riverboat cruise down the Cuyahoga. More industrial and history focused than cruises I’ve gone on in the past, which were mostly wildlife focused. Learned plenty of interesting things about the history of the river, bridges, shipping, the steel and other industries there, the fires and pollution, and the park and restoration plans. We got to see some of the steel operations including an ore bridge in grabbing and dropping stuff for a blast furnace. The operator saw us and did a demo pick-up and drop right by the river. It was pretty cool. Also saw a kind of heron I’ve never seen before. We went along almost the entire six miles from the lake to the end of the shipping route. I was there with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend in celebration of my brother’s looming birthday.
Ear jam
My ear is clogged. It has been since last Saturday. I’m not sure why. All I can think of is that I was listening to music extra loud on the commute home to help blast away the stress of a traffic jam. It’s a weird sensation, slightly disorienting at times. I can’t hear people or things well on that side. I can hear internal things very well, like chewing, breathing, myself talking, the clicking of my jaw, movement of my face, and ever-present tinnitus. I’ve tried several things so far, and the best I can say is that it might have gotten a little better, but not unblocked. I’ve tried q-tips, vinegar, alcohol, oil, carbamide peroxide, hydrogen peroxide, and blasting it with water from a bulb thing. I will have to try once more with these. I also saw some little ear brushes that I will buy if the chemical methods fail. And if that fails, I guess I’ll have to go to the doctors. I hope my hearing isn’t damaged, but the clarity with which I hear internal things would suggest otherwise.