I am not usually a big proponent of conspiracy theories. Oh, it's not that I don't think our government or other powers that be would stoop so low. I have no doubt they would and do. I just also know the world is full of anarchist drama queens who will be happy to blame the government for everything from a terrorist attack to their latest hangnail. I have never felt I had the time or interest to sift through the mountains of rubbish to find the conspiracy theories that might be true. I - like so many other people - figured "oh well, stuff goes on, what can I do." Best to ignore it and just get on about my day.
Until recently. I was bored one day and poking around online, and ran onto some information about the 9/11 theories. I knew they existed, but like others, I just hadn't ever paid any attention. As I was perusing some of this information, thinking "yeah, yeah, yada, yada," something in my lemming brain began to kind of wake up and start paying attention.
I read a little more. I paid a little more attention. Then I began to wonder. I did some more research. I went in search of 'the other side' - the people 'debunking' the "consipiracy theories," to see what they had to say. Then I went back to see what the "conspiracy theorists" had to say about that.
Well, to cut to the chase, after lengthy review (not all just that one day, over time) of voluminous information and questions online, I have to tell you ... I believe there's something here. The evidence is overwhelming in favor of there being something very wrong with the 'official version' of events. And not just wrong in that "there are some things the government must keep from the people, to protect vital interests" line of BS way. I mean something wrong in the 'flat out lies and cover-ups' kind of way.
Let me make one thing clear. Just because I believe there is something wrong with the "official version" of 9/11 events doesn't mean I buy, hook, line and sinker, every theory out there. I've heard some I find implausible. I've heard some I haven't yet taken the time to thoroughly investigate.
But, contrary to some arguments, this isn't an 'all or nothing' proposition. I've read some sites purporting to 'debunk the conspiracy theories' which say if you believe any one of the theories, you must believe them all, then they will go on to debunk only the most fallible of the theories. I believe that is ludicrous. There are some theories I don't buy (like there was no plane at the Pentagon, it was a bomb; or that all the passengers from all the planes were actually spirited away to an empty NASA building in Cleveland, and weren't even on the planes that struck the buildings, to name a few).
Just because I don't buy some of the more implausible theories, doesn't mean there can be no merit to some of the other theories. It doesn't work that way. Some people may have jumped on the bandwagon and embellished things that were perfectly legit. That doesn't mean, however, that all of it is perfectly legit - or that none of it is.
But I think what gives me the most pause are two things: first, I believe it is an undisputed fact (I can't swear to it, but at this point in my reading I believe it is true) that many of these issues were never addressed by the 'official version,' and will not be. They just won't deal with them. Why not? If there's nothing going on, then why not put the worst of it to rest by addressing it?
Second, unfortunately most of the 'debunking' I've read doesn't itself stand up to great scrutiny. As I mentioned, much of it takes the most ludicrous and fallible scenarios, debunks them, then says, "There, we've dealt with all of the conspiracy theories." Not true. Or their debunking consists of saying "That's silly" or "there's no evidence for that" - without presenting any of their arguments. Merely saying something is silly isn't the same as showing it to be untrue. Some of their answers simply do not address the question being asked. They give a red herring answer that sounds fully plausible if read on its own, but when you compare it to what's really being said, or asked, it just does not address the real question.
If it were just one or two things, that'd be one thing. But it's not one or two ... there are so many things that are questionable. And, to me at least, legitimately questionable.
So, I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
This is my little contribution in the Truth War. I'm going to post at the bottom of this page a list of links to some of the more interesting pieces of information I have found. I urge everyone who has read this far to go check this out for yourselves. And / or do your own research (just type anything about 9/11 in a search engine or on YouTube, and you'll turn up everything you could ever want to find).
Don't take my word for it. I'm nobody, but an interested and concerned citizen. But I don't know eveything. I just know some people raise some very valid questions, which deserve answers. And which to date do not seemto have been adequately answered.
Think for yourself, make your own decision.
But do us all and yourself one favor - don't make your decision "just because" or only based on half the facts, or God forbid just because "the government says so, it must be true." Do the research, check out the evidence. Make an informed decision, not a lemming decision.
WhatReallyHappened.com
A lot of information here; follow the links within the articles for more in-depth information.
911Truth.org
Scholars for 9-11 Truth
Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth
Pilots for 9-11 Truth
Firefighters for 9-11 Truth
Prison Planet
Find their search box on the right-hand side of the page, switch it to search their site only, and type in "9/11"
Charlie Sheen's Message To The President
9-11 Research
This site handles 'both sides' of the controversy, upholding the 'official version' of events when the facts warrant. For example, some conspiracy theories claim there was no plane that hit the Pentagon, and in fact it was bombed (by us). 9-11 Research has a lengthy article dismissing that claim and offering evidence that there was, in fact, a plane flown into the Pentagon. However, the site also thoroughly researches - and when applicable, supports - other theories that do indicate 9/11 was an inside job. In other words, they are 'fair and balanced'.
"Loose Change" video on YouTube
In support of the official version of events:
Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories - Exploding the Myths
Popular Mechanics rebuttal
I'll add to this list as I find anything new worth posting here.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Finally - The Dining Room!
I finally got started painting the dining room Monday. I didn't get it done, but that's okay - just getting it started will give me the momentum to keep going till it is done.
Here's the wall I was working on Monday, before I started. That dark, dreary paneling had to go!
Two coats of primer.
And, first coat of paint.
It was very hard to get this to show up well in a picture, but it's a pale green ... I don't remember the name of this color, but it's very similar to a color I had my dad paint my bedroom walls when I was growing up, which was called "seafoam green" - so that gives you an idea.
I was very concerned about this color ... we thought and thought for weeks about what color we wanted, specifically what shade from the dozens of paint chip samples we'd picked up. We finally settled on this, but when it was mixed and the guy showed it to me, I was worried - it looked a little too "minty green" to me just then, almost like some type of 'candy green.'
But once it was on the wall, it looked much better. Actually, I'd have preferred something just a little 'greener' - more of a sagey-celery color, but this color is really good. It's actually got a tiny, tiny hint of a blue-green in it in certain light, which is also reminscent of the sea, so I'm happy.
It almost covered completely in one coat (it looks much better in person than in these pictures), but later we did notice some thin spots. We decided to wait till the whole dining room is done, then go back over all the walls with a quick second coat, just to even things up and cover those thin spots - I thought that sounded better than trying to spot touch-up. I waffled a long time about what paint to buy, too, and the salesguy talked us into the more expensive Valspar Premium, but it was worth it - it really was a dream to work with, went on very easy and smooth, and almost covered in one coat - probably would have covered in one coat if I hadn't been in kind of a hurry because I was axious to see how the whole wall looked, done - and the light is so bad in there, it's hard to see what you're doing. There was almost no paint smell, too. (and it wasn't *that* expensive - it was $20-something a gallon, whereas the cheaper stuff we were considering was something like $17 or $18 anyway; I'd heard of paints costing $40 a gallon or more, but this didn't).
Ironically, we bought 2 gallons of paint and only one of primer, and it's the primer we're looking likely to run out of, while I doubt we'll use anywhere near even one whole gallon of paint. We can't return it since it was custom tinted, so something, somewhere, is going to be seeing a lot of this green. That's okay ... it's a nice color, we'll find a use for it. (The Imaginarium comes immediately to mind).
The dark window-thing in the middle of the wall - that's tricky. It was probably originally an actual window (as this room used to be a porch) which was turned into a pass-through into the room next door, closed by two shutters. We're leaving it, mostly because I don't want to go to the expensive of having someone patch that big hole in the wall. We decided we'll leave the shutters as they are (they're actually a pretty wood) and paint the inside of the opening with one of our trim colors, then use that for something - I'd suggested putting shelves across it, and using it as a little knick-knack cubby or something.
Just this wall color alone isn't enough to 'fix' this room, but we have Plans. The room is going to have a 'beach house' theme, so this color is a great base for that. We're going to be deciding on trim and accent colors (I'm leaning toward a cream color, and either a melony or yellow contrast color). Eventually the carpet's going away, and we'll have some type of tile put in. New curtains, a new table and seating (I love this table, but we need a bigger one; this one will go live in the Imaginarium), add a little wall decor (some of which we already have, stuff we found this summer and knew would be perfect for this room), and the room will be done, and will look 175% better than it has since we moved in!
I'm psyched. This room needed the most work of any place in the house, so it's nice to be getting it done.
We're also having a guy in tonight to talk to us about the insulation issues upstairs (the house is an over-sized Cape Cod, so the Imaginarium has those half-walls and slanted ceilings, behind which there is no insulation to speak of; the upstairs was freezing last winter, and I'm determined to fix that before this winter).
So some significant progress is being made now on the more important things, and that makes me happy. Once we get the bigger stuff out of the way, we can settle into the fun little details.
Here's the wall I was working on Monday, before I started. That dark, dreary paneling had to go!
Two coats of primer.
And, first coat of paint.
It was very hard to get this to show up well in a picture, but it's a pale green ... I don't remember the name of this color, but it's very similar to a color I had my dad paint my bedroom walls when I was growing up, which was called "seafoam green" - so that gives you an idea.
I was very concerned about this color ... we thought and thought for weeks about what color we wanted, specifically what shade from the dozens of paint chip samples we'd picked up. We finally settled on this, but when it was mixed and the guy showed it to me, I was worried - it looked a little too "minty green" to me just then, almost like some type of 'candy green.'
But once it was on the wall, it looked much better. Actually, I'd have preferred something just a little 'greener' - more of a sagey-celery color, but this color is really good. It's actually got a tiny, tiny hint of a blue-green in it in certain light, which is also reminscent of the sea, so I'm happy.
It almost covered completely in one coat (it looks much better in person than in these pictures), but later we did notice some thin spots. We decided to wait till the whole dining room is done, then go back over all the walls with a quick second coat, just to even things up and cover those thin spots - I thought that sounded better than trying to spot touch-up. I waffled a long time about what paint to buy, too, and the salesguy talked us into the more expensive Valspar Premium, but it was worth it - it really was a dream to work with, went on very easy and smooth, and almost covered in one coat - probably would have covered in one coat if I hadn't been in kind of a hurry because I was axious to see how the whole wall looked, done - and the light is so bad in there, it's hard to see what you're doing. There was almost no paint smell, too. (and it wasn't *that* expensive - it was $20-something a gallon, whereas the cheaper stuff we were considering was something like $17 or $18 anyway; I'd heard of paints costing $40 a gallon or more, but this didn't).
Ironically, we bought 2 gallons of paint and only one of primer, and it's the primer we're looking likely to run out of, while I doubt we'll use anywhere near even one whole gallon of paint. We can't return it since it was custom tinted, so something, somewhere, is going to be seeing a lot of this green. That's okay ... it's a nice color, we'll find a use for it. (The Imaginarium comes immediately to mind).
The dark window-thing in the middle of the wall - that's tricky. It was probably originally an actual window (as this room used to be a porch) which was turned into a pass-through into the room next door, closed by two shutters. We're leaving it, mostly because I don't want to go to the expensive of having someone patch that big hole in the wall. We decided we'll leave the shutters as they are (they're actually a pretty wood) and paint the inside of the opening with one of our trim colors, then use that for something - I'd suggested putting shelves across it, and using it as a little knick-knack cubby or something.
Just this wall color alone isn't enough to 'fix' this room, but we have Plans. The room is going to have a 'beach house' theme, so this color is a great base for that. We're going to be deciding on trim and accent colors (I'm leaning toward a cream color, and either a melony or yellow contrast color). Eventually the carpet's going away, and we'll have some type of tile put in. New curtains, a new table and seating (I love this table, but we need a bigger one; this one will go live in the Imaginarium), add a little wall decor (some of which we already have, stuff we found this summer and knew would be perfect for this room), and the room will be done, and will look 175% better than it has since we moved in!
I'm psyched. This room needed the most work of any place in the house, so it's nice to be getting it done.
We're also having a guy in tonight to talk to us about the insulation issues upstairs (the house is an over-sized Cape Cod, so the Imaginarium has those half-walls and slanted ceilings, behind which there is no insulation to speak of; the upstairs was freezing last winter, and I'm determined to fix that before this winter).
So some significant progress is being made now on the more important things, and that makes me happy. Once we get the bigger stuff out of the way, we can settle into the fun little details.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
A&S 50 - Pewter Casting
I completed my second A&S 50 project in pewter casting today - I cast 60 medallions for our local group's upcoming event.
The first step was to carve the mold, and the first step of that was to get the shape and depth right. This was the mold before I'd added the design.
The first step was to carve the mold, and the first step of that was to get the shape and depth right. This was the mold before I'd added the design.
Looks kind of alienesque at this point (like a satellite-picture crop circle kinda thing). This is the first time I've used a sprue - that funnel-shaped thing (appropriate, since that's what it is) at the bottom of the mold. That's the 'correct' way to do it. In the past we just carved the mold, poured the pewter in, and slapped a handy piece of marble on top. That was a hit-or-miss method, as if you got just the right amount of pewter in the mold it was fine; and if you didn't, it would squirt out between the two pieces, making a useable piece but one that needed lots of trimming.
With a sprue, you use a 'backing' piece for the mold - basically two pieces of soapstone clamped together - and you use the sprue as a funnel to pour the pewter in. Like this ...
Then it only fills the mold, and the extra comes back up the sprue, instead of squirting out around the edges ... like this ...
Well, more or less ... I didn't have the molds clamped together tightly enough, so I did have a bit of leakage, but nothing like when you don't use a sprue. It's not really gold-colored, either - that's just the way the lighting was making it look.
An interesting change that I made was, usually the sprue is carved into both halves of the mold, to make basically an oval shaped funnel. But I was experimenting, and only carved the sprue into this half, not the backing half - but it seemed to work fine, so I didn't bother to carve the second piece of soapstone. That way, it's still a pristine piece of soapstone that I can use for future molds.
The seond new thing was, I'd never made a piece with the loop at the top for a string. Robin wanted the bardic medallions made that way, but I didn't think I could do it, so instead I just left an empty space at the top, and drilled a hole in them.
But the event medallions I was using as a model all had the string-loop at the top, so I thought I ought to try to do it 'right.' It was tricky.
So first I did a test cast before adding the actual design, just to check my shape and depth (and the string loop at the top). It turned out pretty great.
I made a few minor modifications, and was ready to start on the design. Unfortunately I had issues with that part, but that's always the hardest part. For one thing, despite that I did this last time, and reminded myself all morning not to do it again ... yeah, initially I forgot to carve the design backwards. Which meant I had to buff out half the design that was done wrong, deepening the mold. Fortunately, it didn't deepen it too much, and my medallions were still good, not too thick.
At Pennsic we bought a little pewter casting kit, because it had a bunch of stuff we thought would come in really handy (and it did!). One of those things was 5.5 lbs of pewter in an iron pot. Easily enough, you can just set it on a stove burner and melt it. And handily enough, there's a stove up in the Imaginarium!
Although it did take almost half an hour on high to melt the pewter, but still ... far, far easier than trying to do this in the fireplace with a propane torch. (sounds like a game of Clue).
Here's the medallion in the mold, after it's opened and before it's popped out.
Some medallions laying around before their sprues were broken off.
After breaking off the sprue, I used my Dremel tool to smooth the edges, and they were done.
So I carved the mold, cast and finished 60 medallions all in one day - nothing like waiting till the last minute (the event's next weekend), but it goes to show casting doesn't take an enormously long time. I did have help, as Robin helped me with the casting for awhile, before he went off to work on his own projects.
The chest of finished medallions.
And a close-up of one.
I would like to say this isn't my best work, but unfortunately it probably is - seeing as how this is only the second thing I've ever cast, and the first one left a bit to be desired. I kind of messed up the "I" of the "IX" and my "S"s are crooked (though yes, they are supposed to be straight and spiky like runes, not curvy like normal S's). Well, it's a learning curve (S pun not intended) - rather, carving the mold is. The actual casting isn't that difficult, but carving the mold is everything because once you're done with that, that's what you're stuck with - and to me, that's tricky. But all in all I'm pretty happy with them, and the event autocrat said they were good, so as long as they're legible and serve their purpose for the event, that's what counts.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Busy Day; Fish; Moroccan Veils; Stars
I had a busy and productive day - despite being an utter idiot last night, staying up till 4:00 a.m. playing Zombies, drinking too much, and not getting nearly enough sleep. In fact, I felt so poopy this morning, and was so mad at myself for being such a tool, that I dived into one of the weekend's tasks - cleaning the garage - with a vengeance this morning mere moments after I'd woken up, semi-hangover and all, purely for personal penance.
It worked out well, however. I feel better, and got a ton of work done on the garage. Here's what it looks like now ...
... and while that may not yet look very good, you should have seen it before. If there was even a path through it before I started this morning, I don't remember it. All of the stuff in the garage either went upstairs in the Imaginarium, or downstairs in the basement ... which meant a lot of trips up and down stairs today, carrying stuff. I'm finally building up a tolerance for it, a couple trips up and down no longer make me feel like chewing a Bayer aspirin and calling 911, just in case.
There are obviously still some things to deal with, but it's really very minor. The few things left all have a place to go, I just finally ran out of steam before they got there. The rest of the stuff is gardening and lawn stuff that stays in the garage, just needs stored a little more neatly so I can get my truck into a space that only leaves me a few inches of clearance. It'll be interesting, and require some creativity, to see where and how I can store stuff I need in the garage, and still be able to use it for the truck.
The back half is another story - it's still a disaster, but ... one thing at a time. Today accomplished the goal of being able to get my truck in the garage again, which I wanted to do before winter. Also, the garage door opener needs fixed, but I couldn't have someone in to look at that until I could clear a space for them to actually get to it. (I'm hoping the home warranty covers that ... it may).
We'll worry about the back half another day.
Meanwhile, Greg was up on the roof ...
... doing some little repairs. I'd noticed awhile back that some shingles were kind of popped up, as if there was something underneath them - and that didn't seem right. When we bought the house there was an issue near the front door which had caused water to get into the closet just inside that door. It wasn't a roof issue per se, it was an ice dam issue at the gutter. So as part of the negotiations, the sellers hired and pre-paid a roofer to come out when the weather was better, to install a moisture guard on that section. We finally just had him out last month, and while he was here, we asked about those popped-up shingles. Funnily enough, he told us exactly what was causing it (nails popping up), and said he was too old to be climbing around on a steep-pitched roof, so he showed Greg how to fix it instead. Nice guy. And that's why Greg was on the roof today.
This roof is not in the best of shape. It's been patched and repaired quite a bit, and has a lot of moss growing on it. We're going to look into having the moss cleaned off, but even so, the roof is not in its prime. I had estimated it would cost between $7,000 and $10,000 to have a new roof put on this house, and our roofer guy confirmed that was the ballpark.
Ouch. Well, the good news is, he said with care and maintenance we can probably get another 5 to 7 years or so out of it, and in that amount of time we're hoping to be able to either (a) save up the money to pay for all or part of it, and / or (b) get a home equity loan for the rest. If we can finance less than $5,000 payments should be relatively low (I had several loans at the old house for that amount or less, like when I remodeled the kitchen, and the payments were very reasonable) and we'll have a good, brand new roof for another 20 to 25 years before we have to worry about that again (and by then we should be living in North Carolina anyway).
Meanwhile, I found this in the garage today ...
... my old 10 gallon aquarium. Yeah, it's looking pretty raunchy, but I'm debating on cleaning it up and setting it up again. Part of me wants to - I always loved aquariums - and part of me dreads the massive amount of work involved, even in a small one - sometimes worse in a small one, as it's harder to keep the pH and other levels right. I used to really go overboard, though, studying it like a scientist, stockpiling hundreds of dollars worth of chemicals, and really getting kind of O-C about it. Maybe there's a happy medium of doing what needs done, but not getting excessive about it. I could set it up with a nice sea theme, and then only have a couple of really nice fish - not try to get a tankful, as I used to try to do.
This also got dredged out of the garage today ...
... my dad had bought me this telescope for Christmas some years ago. It isn't a super high-end one, of course, but it is a fairly nice amateur star-gazing one. It has a built-in star finder computer that does a lot of neat things, and amazingly still works, for the fact that the telescope is somewhere between 7 and 12 years old, and had been stashed out in the garage since February. You input your location, do a few orientation settings, and then when you point the telescope at anything you can see in the sky, the little computer screen tells you exactly what star or planet or whatever, that you're looking at. Also, if you want to find a specific star, planet, nebula, or what-have-you, you find it in the computer's list and the screen will guide you in moving the telescope to center whatever you're looking for exactly in the view. It's pretty cool.
Anyway - I never used it much, because at my old house there was so much ambient city light that I really couldn't find anything with it. Several times I considered taking it out to a local state park or something, but I never did.
But here, though we still live in a city which is never the ideal situation for viewing through a telescope, it's much, much darker at night. I mean, our back yard is inky like being out in the middle of nowhere. So when we unearthed it today, Greg brought it out and set it up, and once it gets dark, we're going to see what we can find. I'm pretty psyched - one thing I do know is that I was able to see some pretty amazing detail on the surface of the moon with it, and the moon's full right now, so we should at least get some awesome looks at that tonight.
And now that's it out and functioning again, I think I'll take it to North Carolina when we go ... we ought to be able to see amazing things with it from the deck of the beach house at night!
Last but not least, the Tangier antique shop owner finally got back to me, and sadly, my Moroccan veil has been sold. Bummer. Well, I'll just have to study the pictures, and embroider my own.
And that's all my news for the day.
It worked out well, however. I feel better, and got a ton of work done on the garage. Here's what it looks like now ...
... and while that may not yet look very good, you should have seen it before. If there was even a path through it before I started this morning, I don't remember it. All of the stuff in the garage either went upstairs in the Imaginarium, or downstairs in the basement ... which meant a lot of trips up and down stairs today, carrying stuff. I'm finally building up a tolerance for it, a couple trips up and down no longer make me feel like chewing a Bayer aspirin and calling 911, just in case.
There are obviously still some things to deal with, but it's really very minor. The few things left all have a place to go, I just finally ran out of steam before they got there. The rest of the stuff is gardening and lawn stuff that stays in the garage, just needs stored a little more neatly so I can get my truck into a space that only leaves me a few inches of clearance. It'll be interesting, and require some creativity, to see where and how I can store stuff I need in the garage, and still be able to use it for the truck.
The back half is another story - it's still a disaster, but ... one thing at a time. Today accomplished the goal of being able to get my truck in the garage again, which I wanted to do before winter. Also, the garage door opener needs fixed, but I couldn't have someone in to look at that until I could clear a space for them to actually get to it. (I'm hoping the home warranty covers that ... it may).
We'll worry about the back half another day.
Meanwhile, Greg was up on the roof ...
... doing some little repairs. I'd noticed awhile back that some shingles were kind of popped up, as if there was something underneath them - and that didn't seem right. When we bought the house there was an issue near the front door which had caused water to get into the closet just inside that door. It wasn't a roof issue per se, it was an ice dam issue at the gutter. So as part of the negotiations, the sellers hired and pre-paid a roofer to come out when the weather was better, to install a moisture guard on that section. We finally just had him out last month, and while he was here, we asked about those popped-up shingles. Funnily enough, he told us exactly what was causing it (nails popping up), and said he was too old to be climbing around on a steep-pitched roof, so he showed Greg how to fix it instead. Nice guy. And that's why Greg was on the roof today.
This roof is not in the best of shape. It's been patched and repaired quite a bit, and has a lot of moss growing on it. We're going to look into having the moss cleaned off, but even so, the roof is not in its prime. I had estimated it would cost between $7,000 and $10,000 to have a new roof put on this house, and our roofer guy confirmed that was the ballpark.
Ouch. Well, the good news is, he said with care and maintenance we can probably get another 5 to 7 years or so out of it, and in that amount of time we're hoping to be able to either (a) save up the money to pay for all or part of it, and / or (b) get a home equity loan for the rest. If we can finance less than $5,000 payments should be relatively low (I had several loans at the old house for that amount or less, like when I remodeled the kitchen, and the payments were very reasonable) and we'll have a good, brand new roof for another 20 to 25 years before we have to worry about that again (and by then we should be living in North Carolina anyway).
Meanwhile, I found this in the garage today ...
... my old 10 gallon aquarium. Yeah, it's looking pretty raunchy, but I'm debating on cleaning it up and setting it up again. Part of me wants to - I always loved aquariums - and part of me dreads the massive amount of work involved, even in a small one - sometimes worse in a small one, as it's harder to keep the pH and other levels right. I used to really go overboard, though, studying it like a scientist, stockpiling hundreds of dollars worth of chemicals, and really getting kind of O-C about it. Maybe there's a happy medium of doing what needs done, but not getting excessive about it. I could set it up with a nice sea theme, and then only have a couple of really nice fish - not try to get a tankful, as I used to try to do.
This also got dredged out of the garage today ...
... my dad had bought me this telescope for Christmas some years ago. It isn't a super high-end one, of course, but it is a fairly nice amateur star-gazing one. It has a built-in star finder computer that does a lot of neat things, and amazingly still works, for the fact that the telescope is somewhere between 7 and 12 years old, and had been stashed out in the garage since February. You input your location, do a few orientation settings, and then when you point the telescope at anything you can see in the sky, the little computer screen tells you exactly what star or planet or whatever, that you're looking at. Also, if you want to find a specific star, planet, nebula, or what-have-you, you find it in the computer's list and the screen will guide you in moving the telescope to center whatever you're looking for exactly in the view. It's pretty cool.
Anyway - I never used it much, because at my old house there was so much ambient city light that I really couldn't find anything with it. Several times I considered taking it out to a local state park or something, but I never did.
But here, though we still live in a city which is never the ideal situation for viewing through a telescope, it's much, much darker at night. I mean, our back yard is inky like being out in the middle of nowhere. So when we unearthed it today, Greg brought it out and set it up, and once it gets dark, we're going to see what we can find. I'm pretty psyched - one thing I do know is that I was able to see some pretty amazing detail on the surface of the moon with it, and the moon's full right now, so we should at least get some awesome looks at that tonight.
And now that's it out and functioning again, I think I'll take it to North Carolina when we go ... we ought to be able to see amazing things with it from the deck of the beach house at night!
Last but not least, the Tangier antique shop owner finally got back to me, and sadly, my Moroccan veil has been sold. Bummer. Well, I'll just have to study the pictures, and embroider my own.
And that's all my news for the day.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Meal Plan's Working; and Vacation's On!
The meal plan is proving itself out quite well. Tuesday night night it was pop a pan of lasagna in the oven, and eat when it was hot ... meanwhile, I sat in the backyard enjoying a fire Robin built for us, and doing some embroidery. Last night was throw a bag of Hamburger Helper in a pot of boiling water and go downstairs and embroider while it heated, then eat, and no dishes except the two we ate out of (the pot only held boiling water, so it was clean).
Yep. I'm liking the plan. It's a keeper.
Meanwhile, we finally booked the beach house today for the annual pilgrimage to the Sea (aka our yearly Outer Banks vacation). We waited late to do this, and the selections were extremely limited. We'd finally narrowed it down to two acceptable choices, and it was tough ... one was beautiful inside, but near a nature preserve so had a huge dune between it and the beach - quite a long trek through the dune sand to get to the water. The other was not as nice inside (okay, nothing wrong with it, just not as fancy-schmancy) but right on the beach - as in, mere feet away from sand while sitting on the 'front porch.'
We opted for the 'beach in your face' choice in the end. My take on the whole thing is, if I'm going to the ocean, I want to be AT THE OCEAN - right there, 24/7. I don't want to drive 14 hours and then still have to walk half a mile to get to it. Now that it's officially booked, I feel we made the right choice. We'll give up a little in posh indoor living, but who cares ... we'll spend most of our time outside anyway.
So now that it's official, I am so totally psyched! Can't wait, can't wait, can't even wait. I think I'll go start packing.
Yep. I'm liking the plan. It's a keeper.
Meanwhile, we finally booked the beach house today for the annual pilgrimage to the Sea (aka our yearly Outer Banks vacation). We waited late to do this, and the selections were extremely limited. We'd finally narrowed it down to two acceptable choices, and it was tough ... one was beautiful inside, but near a nature preserve so had a huge dune between it and the beach - quite a long trek through the dune sand to get to the water. The other was not as nice inside (okay, nothing wrong with it, just not as fancy-schmancy) but right on the beach - as in, mere feet away from sand while sitting on the 'front porch.'
We opted for the 'beach in your face' choice in the end. My take on the whole thing is, if I'm going to the ocean, I want to be AT THE OCEAN - right there, 24/7. I don't want to drive 14 hours and then still have to walk half a mile to get to it. Now that it's officially booked, I feel we made the right choice. We'll give up a little in posh indoor living, but who cares ... we'll spend most of our time outside anyway.
So now that it's official, I am so totally psyched! Can't wait, can't wait, can't even wait. I think I'll go start packing.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Plan Needs Tweaked
That's okay ... I think it's tweakable. It took way longer than I'd hoped it was going to ... it did, literally, take all day, and I didn't even get everything done.
But I think that was bad planning on my part. I didn't look through what I wanted to make very clearly before just diving into it. So I saved some of the more difficult complicated things for later in the day, when I could have started them early and had them cooking while I worked on other things. I also didn't combine cooking the same ingredients for multiple meals, but cooked each thing individually - like, I needed so many cups of rice for this meal, so many for that meal - but instead of cooking all the rice at once, I cooked each batch for each meal separately. That was more poor planning, where I could have saved some time.
But I think overall this is a good scheme, which will work out great as I get things sorted out and plan a little better. Now I have the joy of an upcoming week with a bunch of pre-cooked meals in the freezer, and little to do after work - yay!
Plus, once I get the system tweaked, with good planning I can just make double batches of some things, so that I only have to cook those particular meals every other rotation - as little as every four months. That's pretty awesome.
Meanwhile, I seem to have gotten a cold, which last night had me feeling pretty horrible, although this morning I don't feel quite so bad. It just ticks me off, though. I hate being sick, and especially right now - I'm so far behind at work it's downright frightening, and I really can't afford to either miss any work or be slow and unfocused during the day. I'm hitting my Airborne and hoping for the best. Maybe my frozen meal plan will come in handier than I thought this week, as without having to do all that cooking, I can rest more and hopefully recover faster from the stupid cold.
But I think that was bad planning on my part. I didn't look through what I wanted to make very clearly before just diving into it. So I saved some of the more difficult complicated things for later in the day, when I could have started them early and had them cooking while I worked on other things. I also didn't combine cooking the same ingredients for multiple meals, but cooked each thing individually - like, I needed so many cups of rice for this meal, so many for that meal - but instead of cooking all the rice at once, I cooked each batch for each meal separately. That was more poor planning, where I could have saved some time.
But I think overall this is a good scheme, which will work out great as I get things sorted out and plan a little better. Now I have the joy of an upcoming week with a bunch of pre-cooked meals in the freezer, and little to do after work - yay!
Plus, once I get the system tweaked, with good planning I can just make double batches of some things, so that I only have to cook those particular meals every other rotation - as little as every four months. That's pretty awesome.
Meanwhile, I seem to have gotten a cold, which last night had me feeling pretty horrible, although this morning I don't feel quite so bad. It just ticks me off, though. I hate being sick, and especially right now - I'm so far behind at work it's downright frightening, and I really can't afford to either miss any work or be slow and unfocused during the day. I'm hitting my Airborne and hoping for the best. Maybe my frozen meal plan will come in handier than I thought this week, as without having to do all that cooking, I can rest more and hopefully recover faster from the stupid cold.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
A New Scheme: It's Cooking Day
In my never-ending slouch towards nirvana, I have cooked up a new scheme (pun intended).
I have been feeling for awhile as if I don't get nearly enough time during any given week to do things I really want to do ... not things I 'have to' do like cooking and cleaning and laundry, but the things I really want to do, like working on my SCA projects, or gardening, or playing music. The reason for this is that, by the time I get home from work, chill for a few minutes, make dinner, then eat dinner, it's usually 7:30 or 8:00. Yes, that leaves me a couple hours before bed (since my wonderful boyfriend is in charge of cleaning up after dinner, so I don't have to do that), but I'm usually too tired by then, or it just feels too late, to get involved in anything much.
On the weekends, Saturday had turned into errand or chore day ... we'd go to the grocery store in the morning, come home and put all the groceries away, and often had some place else we needed to go, or some unexpected house project that needed done. By the time we got done, most of the afternoon was shot, and it was time to start the dinner downward spiral through the evenings.
That pretty much left me only Sundays, and for years I've been trying to make Sundays my one day a week to do nothing I don't want to do - totally devoted to whatever personal projects I'd like to work on. I didn't think one day out of a whole week was too much to devote to such 'frivolities.' But it has never really worked out that way, because all the stuff from earlier in the week that I didn't get done starts piling up, and I feel compelled - with a whole day free - to take care of it on Sunday (knowing I'm not going to have time to get to it during the upcoming week). So I'd end up spending large chunks of Sunday doing laundry, or cleaning or bill-paying.
And the next thing I knew, it was Monday morning and time to start another week, and I'd had no time for the personal projects I'd really wanted to get to. And week after week, they languished. And I was getting angsty from lack of creative outlets.
So ... I have A Plan. The worst time-eating thing during the week - and the only one I really have any power to modify - was dinner. But, we have to eat, and I'm determined to continue to try to have at least semi-healthy meals, so resorting to TV dinners wasn't an option.
I decided to take a clue from our Pennsic meal plan in the past. I made up table /calendar document, and planned out an entire month's worth of meals in advance (actually, two of them, so we can swap back and forth and have more variety). I populated the menu plan with as many meals or parts of meals as possible that can be cooked in advance and frozen, like in Seal-A-Meal bags or whatever works best. Then, for a large number of weekday evenings, all I have to do for dinner is boil a pot of water, toss in a Seal-A-Meal bag (or pop a pan of something in the oven), and wait for it to heat. Way better than spending an hour or more in the kitchen cooking.
There are several nights during the month when I will actually cook a whole meal - because there are some things I'm not willing to take out of our dinner rotation that just don't lend themselves well to being cooked in advance. But that's okay - if I only have to do it once in awhile, instead of every night, it's no big deal. I don't actually mind cooking ... I was just getting frustrated with the amount of my evening it was taking all the time. And even the nights I'm cooking something from scratch (like baked chicken) I can still have other things that are made in advance and frozen (like rice).
That will free up much more of my evenings, to either spend some time on a project, or to get other chores done like laundry or bill-paying, which will then trickle down and free up more of my weekend.
We also shifted our grocery shopping day to Wednesday after work, so we don't have to do it on Saturdays; and I'm going to work on getting any errand-running done on the way home from work one evening, rather than Saturday.
The result should be more free time during weekday evenings, and much more free time on Saturdays and Sundays.
The one tricky part to all this is, all that food has to be cooked and frozen sometime. So I decided to take one Saturday a month and make it 'cooking day,' when I cook and freeze all the stuff I need for the month's upcoming meals. This weekend is cooking weekend, although I had to move cooking day to today because we had other things going on yesterday.
While I don't particularly want to spend an entire day cooking, I figure a couple things. First, it's not really that hard, and it may not even take all day if I'm productive about it. Second, while some things are cooking that don't require constant monitoring, I can still do other things, like sit and work on an embroidery project. And - it's only one day a month, to have all that time freed up throughout the entire rest of the month. So it seems worth it.
So that's my plan ... this is the first month I'm trying it, we'll see how it goes. And on that note, I'm off to start cooking.
I have been feeling for awhile as if I don't get nearly enough time during any given week to do things I really want to do ... not things I 'have to' do like cooking and cleaning and laundry, but the things I really want to do, like working on my SCA projects, or gardening, or playing music. The reason for this is that, by the time I get home from work, chill for a few minutes, make dinner, then eat dinner, it's usually 7:30 or 8:00. Yes, that leaves me a couple hours before bed (since my wonderful boyfriend is in charge of cleaning up after dinner, so I don't have to do that), but I'm usually too tired by then, or it just feels too late, to get involved in anything much.
On the weekends, Saturday had turned into errand or chore day ... we'd go to the grocery store in the morning, come home and put all the groceries away, and often had some place else we needed to go, or some unexpected house project that needed done. By the time we got done, most of the afternoon was shot, and it was time to start the dinner downward spiral through the evenings.
That pretty much left me only Sundays, and for years I've been trying to make Sundays my one day a week to do nothing I don't want to do - totally devoted to whatever personal projects I'd like to work on. I didn't think one day out of a whole week was too much to devote to such 'frivolities.' But it has never really worked out that way, because all the stuff from earlier in the week that I didn't get done starts piling up, and I feel compelled - with a whole day free - to take care of it on Sunday (knowing I'm not going to have time to get to it during the upcoming week). So I'd end up spending large chunks of Sunday doing laundry, or cleaning or bill-paying.
And the next thing I knew, it was Monday morning and time to start another week, and I'd had no time for the personal projects I'd really wanted to get to. And week after week, they languished. And I was getting angsty from lack of creative outlets.
So ... I have A Plan. The worst time-eating thing during the week - and the only one I really have any power to modify - was dinner. But, we have to eat, and I'm determined to continue to try to have at least semi-healthy meals, so resorting to TV dinners wasn't an option.
I decided to take a clue from our Pennsic meal plan in the past. I made up table /calendar document, and planned out an entire month's worth of meals in advance (actually, two of them, so we can swap back and forth and have more variety). I populated the menu plan with as many meals or parts of meals as possible that can be cooked in advance and frozen, like in Seal-A-Meal bags or whatever works best. Then, for a large number of weekday evenings, all I have to do for dinner is boil a pot of water, toss in a Seal-A-Meal bag (or pop a pan of something in the oven), and wait for it to heat. Way better than spending an hour or more in the kitchen cooking.
There are several nights during the month when I will actually cook a whole meal - because there are some things I'm not willing to take out of our dinner rotation that just don't lend themselves well to being cooked in advance. But that's okay - if I only have to do it once in awhile, instead of every night, it's no big deal. I don't actually mind cooking ... I was just getting frustrated with the amount of my evening it was taking all the time. And even the nights I'm cooking something from scratch (like baked chicken) I can still have other things that are made in advance and frozen (like rice).
That will free up much more of my evenings, to either spend some time on a project, or to get other chores done like laundry or bill-paying, which will then trickle down and free up more of my weekend.
We also shifted our grocery shopping day to Wednesday after work, so we don't have to do it on Saturdays; and I'm going to work on getting any errand-running done on the way home from work one evening, rather than Saturday.
The result should be more free time during weekday evenings, and much more free time on Saturdays and Sundays.
The one tricky part to all this is, all that food has to be cooked and frozen sometime. So I decided to take one Saturday a month and make it 'cooking day,' when I cook and freeze all the stuff I need for the month's upcoming meals. This weekend is cooking weekend, although I had to move cooking day to today because we had other things going on yesterday.
While I don't particularly want to spend an entire day cooking, I figure a couple things. First, it's not really that hard, and it may not even take all day if I'm productive about it. Second, while some things are cooking that don't require constant monitoring, I can still do other things, like sit and work on an embroidery project. And - it's only one day a month, to have all that time freed up throughout the entire rest of the month. So it seems worth it.
So that's my plan ... this is the first month I'm trying it, we'll see how it goes. And on that note, I'm off to start cooking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)