My friend fieldsofseaweed successfully defended her Master's thesis and is now working for a company called Regeneron. Among other things, apparently, they're working on a drug to combat Macular Degeneration. How cool is that?

We were at the zoo on sunday, looking at some sort of animals. The viewing area we stood on was made from wooden boards, like a deck or boardwalk. I noticed that the end of one board was sticking up and not nailed down properly.

Thinking that it was kind of a tripping hazard, I walked over and stepped on it, hoping to wedge it back into place. The end of the board was warped though, and it wouldn't lie flat.

I put both feet on it, to give it my full weight. It wiggled but returned to its original position.

Determined now, I carefully balanced on the balls of both feet, directly on the end of the board that was sticking out. I gave it a good bounce, trying to use my weight plus gravity to force it down. It went down, then sprang back up to where it wanted to be.

"Hmm," I thought. "Bouncy!"

The balls of my feet on the end of the board, I used my ankles to bounce up and down. It was like a miniature trampoline! I stretched out my arms for balance, and bounced more vigorously. My companions were looking at me a little strangely. "You guys should try this," I told them. "It's fun!"

I gave an extra-good bounce and sprang off the board. They rolled their eyes at me and started to wander to the next exhibit. I followed with a shrug, but smiled when I saw in the corner of my eye: a couple of young women to my left had been watching, and one was approaching the board. The other woman encouraged the first, "Go ahead, try it...."

Announcing the opening of online pre-registration for Penguicon 2009! Information is here. It's in the "How To Attend?" section of the site. Registration will be $35 through the end of October.

This year the page has a new feature. "Will this be your first Penguicon?" and a checkbox. "If so, please name who referred you to Penguicon:" with a text field.

This rewards program will be administered by Mara Tynan. At an appointed time during the Penguicon weekend she'll distribute rewards to those who are on her list from this form. You get $5 for each newcomer who names you as referrer, up to $35 total if you bring seven people. In order to claim your reward, make sure they put your name in that field when they check that box!

I'm having a procrastinatingey day, while running programs that take too long. Here is my latest creative effort... (cross-posted to team_alpaca). I don't know that my image-hacking artwork is all that great, but I think the general look is kinda cool. I want one! Now the big question is: does anyone else?? I need 6 to place an order. If there are 10, it's around $18 each. If there are 20, it's around $13 each.... (my example is ladies style, 'cause I'm a girl, but we could order men's cut and women's cut in the same color green)

Also: Tour De Troit is September 20! It was fun last year; we should go again.
http://www.tour-de-troit.org/

Clearly, yesterday's Twitterization of my blournal didn't work out quite as well as I had planned. I left my MWF morning Astronomy class (/instructor seems fun, material is interesting, students skew decidedly female/) and rushed off to do a five hour stint at work (/very busy with orientations and questions/) during which I developed a pretty solid headache. By noon, light hurt dramatically, the sound of my own voice was as painful to me as it is usually to others, and I was on the verge of vomiting from the mind-shredding pain. Not fun.

After work released, I went back over to the other school for my Assembly and Computer Architecture class (/instructor has a pretty thick accent, but he is very funny, writes on the board a lot, and is entirely engaging as a speaker; since I'm into the topic, it should be a fun class/). This would have been much more fun had my brain not been burrowing out of my skull, but was enjoyable nonetheless.

Fortunately, I had found that labs weren't taking place this week, so my longest day (9am to 9pm) was much more manageable, and I was able to climb into my chair, eat a handful of Aleve, and be taken care of until my headache abated enough that I could be productive again.

Today, I opened the lab at 8am and did around 15 or 20 orientations in 4 or 5 rounds (around 30 minutes of talktime by me per session) amidst all of the other course-work questions that arose. At noon-thirty I drove over to the school campus, snatched a sandwich from the cafeteria, and hauled ass to my Stats and Probability for Engineers class (/we might have a new instructor next class, but if we keep this one, I won't be unhappy, the class shouldn't be too hard, I enjoy the material and have seen much of it before/) where I found that Brendan (a friend from HFCC) is in the same class. I've definitely missed hanging out with him, and he's smart as hell, so it'll help having him in class too.

I'm now on my only break of the day, a hour and a half to chill and get organized before rejoining my day already in progress! Tonight is an AASFA board meeting then sleep before the one-class, no-work Friday during which I already have far too much planned. Ugh. :)

Oh, and happy late birthday to thatguychuck, be sure to let me know when you'll be on campus!

I've added a new state to the list of places I've biked: Wisconsin! Here I am showing off the Milwaukee skyline in the distance, while riding the Oak Leaf Trail with my sis.

Updated list:

Michigan
Massachusetts
Vermont
California
New York
Illinois
Maine
Wisconsin
Ontario
France
Italy
Switzerland
Belgium

I love naming things. If you ever find yourself saying, "but what are we going to call it?" please let me name it.

To show that I have no hard feelings. I present you all with a little ditty I found on them thar Internet:




This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Wait! Has anyone actually done that! Maybe Sarah can do it!!

What's your favorite software for photo editing, drawing, making logos, that sorta thing?

What's your favorite FREE software for the above?

Yes, there's a hurr-cane coming.

It's ok, I'll be spending it in the hospital.

Locked down. Fun!

And for those who wondered: I'm doing an elective month of internal medicine in Wilmington because I heard good things about their program and want to apply here. Nick stayed behind because of money + job stuff. I miss him bunches.

As a plus, they have awesome beaches.

That means no more Kwame as mayor - a felony conviction is an automatic ejection.

EDIT:

Kwame Kilpatrick expected to plead guilty at 9 a.m. Thursday
Judge Edward Ewell Jr. presiding judge of the Criminal Division of Wayne County Circuit Court said the mayor’s court appearance has been put over until 9 a.m. tomorrow in front of Judge David Groner. It had been anticipated that the mayor had been planning to plead this afternoon before Ewell, but that did not take place.

Welcome to what will essentially be my abuse of LJ as a Twitter of day 1 (the real day one) at school.

Intro to Astronomy was inexicably moved to a new room in a new building (and with a new instructor). I think I'm going to like this class; more than 50% female and largely attractive ones. Nice :)

My Milwaukee visit ends tomorrow - alas! It's been fun though. M was here all weekend, and yesterday we all went to Chicago. He headed home on an airplane, while I stayed here for a couple more days for Sister Time. I'll take the ferry back to Muskegon tomorrow afternoon, then drive home.

Today I "worked from home", and by this I mean I worked from my sister's home. The neat thing about working from home with a laptop is that I can really do it anywhere that has good internet connectivity. I don't have the comforts of my own custom office setup when I travel, but I do have the opportunity to spend more time with friends and family than I would otherwise be able to do.

Interestingly though, it turns out that my 8:15am meeting is actually at SEVEN fifteen when I'm in Milwaukee. Yikes, that's early. Time zones are funny things. I mean: my meeting is at the exact same time every day. Yet when I'm in Gent, it feels like afternoon. When I'm at home, it feels like morning. When I'm in Wisconsin, it feels like extra-early morning. If I were in California, it would feel like nighttime - and yet the meeting time never changes! It's a little surreal.

Along with working with my sister's cats, I also got an extra treat: my sister and I drove downtown for lunch today and met up with cynnerth! It's not often that the stars align enough that I am actually able to meet LJ friends in Real Life, but this time I was able. It was a real pleasure. We've known each other via LJ for years, though neither of us quite remembers how we met.

Annoyingly, my head is still being funky. I now think it must be sinus-related. My left eye hurts off and on, especially when I look up. And the top of my left cheek, and the area of my head behind those two spots. I'm also kinda sniffley and sneezey today. Not tons though, and I don't feel sick... just somewhat icky. When M was here he gave me a couple of allergy pills to try, and I think they helped some. Not 100%, but I do think I feel worse now that he and his pills are gone. (Or maybe I just miss him! heehee.)

So anyway, I think it's allergy and sinus related. The funny thing is that it's almost exclusively on my left side. So what this means is: I'm allergic to something which is always found hovering to my left. Perhaps it's a ghostie, a pollen ghost?

I think tomorrow I'll try a decongestant, and see if that helps any. I may even visit CVS in search of allergy pills. I also might start tossing salt over my left shoulder, or wearing a clove of garlic tied to my left elbow. What else wards off ghostly allergies, I wonder?

Did you ever think you'd see Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible sing Still Alive with Mr. Coulton?



That's what we poor SOB's missed by not going to the Penny Arcade Expo, by the way. *s* Frickin' August!