Energy of Spring, Trappings of Winter

Reena and I joined Mike and Sarah to experience Solas at the Somerville Theater on Friday night. This theater has great world and folk music shows in a beautifully restored theater and movies in a few other rooms. The only drawback to the kinetic energy and entertaining band was the space left for your legs after you sat down. The seat backs in front of us forced us to sit at strange angles. The music, however, transported one away from the setting and made me want to get up and dance.

In response to making a gloomy winter fractal, I made a spring themed one to celebrate the upcoming season that is now sure to be a while in coming. We are blanketed in ice with more snow on the way. So view this fractal and dream of spring.

Winter Snow and Ice

Yes, we have been hit, and we didn't miss a day of school. Today, I helped quite a few people out of the ice, and I am a firm believer in Yax Trax. They kept me on my feet across the many sheets of ice formed by last night's melt freezing.

In honor of real winter weather, I have created a fractal that I call Winter Storms.

IMAX

What fun. Gigantic forms so much bigger than life. Hollywood expressed as it wishes to be seen. IMAX theaters really let you get into a picture. I was struck by the visuals of the opening credits of Night at the Museum. They were computer graphics that took various perspective angles as if they were solid forms floating in space amongst the museum displays. In the IMAX, they were outstanding. The seat rumbling with deep bass sounds was entertaining, too. All told, seeing Stiller and Williams do their things was a wonderful reintroduction to the living world outside my apartment. The 3-D clip before the movie was mesmerizing, too. The group that went consisted of 6 people of whom 5 were teachers. It was amazing how many of the lines translated to what we often want to tell kids. At one point Robin Williams admonishes Ben Stiller who wants to hit the animated monkey, "Remember who is evolved." I know this movie got poor reviews, but I enjoyed the silliness and fantasy of it.

Solid food once more

As I recover this Friday, I am again back on that wonderful solid food of saltines.

Jim pointed out to me that the image of the virus and the image of the cupcakes look remarkably similar! Enjoy his chop to the right. Too bad I didn't get any of the cupcakes in my belly instead of the viruses.

Roomba is busy in the living room circling around and chasing bunnies. Did a few new spirographs today and will post them soon as I lug the scanner over to my computer and scan them. I think my spirograph buying addiction is over as I have almost all the different pieces out there. What a fun toy!

Been playing with the template for my blog. Upgraded to the new formats which are foolproof and take quite some time to transfer over old template info. Updated a few links and rearranged my links a bit. What do you think of the new look?

Third time's a charm

Yep, got the stomach bug a third time. Here is one for you to look at. Say hello to the norovirus. Many people in this area are saying hello in all kinds of personal ways.

I found this helpful blog entry to explain what is going on.

Here is a Globe article about it.

a walk on a pond

It is cold. So cold, in fact, that I walked across a reservoir with my buddy. The melting and freezing of ice around objects left partial skins of ice hovering around rocks and logs. One stone had thawed and frozen a space around it in the ground.

Reena and I poured packing peanuts between the screen (where the storm window is missing) and the window in our middle living room window in order to help insulate it and block a bit of the wind. We'll see how that works when we get a windy day. It looks cool, though.

These photos are taken with my camera phone and are not the greatest quality, but it is convenient for taking quick snaps.

Social Butterfly, Sick Puppy

I've been both recently. School party with awesome food, dinner out with friends. O.k. the list doesn't go on for ever, but that is more social than normal.

On the reverse side of that coin, I got a touch of the stomach flu that is going around again. Not as bad as Jan 1, but enough to make me unhappy yesterday. I am through with all the stomach upset!

Do you remember what it looked like when leaves were on the trees?

Here are some very fancy cupcakes that are sold at a diner close to my school. They look so great that I can never eat one for fear of the taste not being as good as the visual.

Jay

Yep, convinced the guy to come visit so I could blow off my three day weekend and enjoy myself. The best medicine in the world. Had a small gathering last night. Friendships are gold, one of the most valuable things in my world.

doing better

My nose seems to have passed the major healing state and is on the vaguely irritating once in a while stage. Much relief. I am breathing through my left nostril in a way that I don't remember doing for a long time. Much joy!

Jay is coming to town this weekend. Much more joy.

bad start

Well, 2007 started with nausea at 3:30 and finally tossing my many fine eats from the celebrations at around 6:30. Still up. Sucky way to start a new year, but it can definitely go up from here.

a big year

This certainly has been a big year. Marriage and moving the school building stand at the top, but it has just been a long year with teaching. The recent nasal surgery is my first surgery besides wisdom teeth.

I am looking forward to next year hoping to regain a bit of bounce. So, raise a glass to the possibilities of a new year. I know it is just a continuation of what has been, but there is a psychological break and feeling of starting fresh.

Cheers.

Kaleidoscope Krazy

Yep, I have officially gone kaleidoscope crazy! Patterns, my Cafepress store, is testament to that. Here are a few more of my favorites shown on various products since the images are smaller than my source images.

Kaleidoscopes

I just started playing with a kaleidoscope plug-in for Adobe. What fun. There are quite a few examples on my cafepress site, but here is one of my favorites

nose job

Having not been able to breathe well through my nose for quite a while and not having any success with diet to change it, I decided to see an ENT. Deviated septum and thick turbinates led to a surgery yesterday. This morning was no cake walk, but I am doing better.

No pics with this post!

Yep, that is me in a tux! Hasn't happened since junior year in high school!

funky website kaleidoscope

check this one out! This is an image from our honeymoon that has been kaleidoscoperized.

Internet secured!

I did it. I moved the server and associated little boxes of blinking lights over to the new building, and it all works. Yay. A process started August 1 is now over, and I can move on to other things.

honeymoon pics

Honeymoon pics are up.

School on the horizon

The new building is coming together. It looks beautiful. The new year is fast approching, but I am not getting excited as I usually do. I have not spent hours developing curriculum or reviewing what I have already developed. I don't know what is holding me back, but I am sure when the kids hit the room that I will be energized.

On another topic, I have started editing my novel again. A group of friends have signed up to help edit and revise with me. This is a great way to keep the pressure on to continue doing it.

Reena and I have joined Netflix and we are seeing how that works to get some movies in the flow that were not coming in from my voracious appetite for buying movies.

busy day still going

Today was a very errand-running type of day. Actually it started off with my making a huge push to get the revamped freedmanriles site off the ground. Pretty successful with some minor issues to deal with. I am in the process of editing the pages Adobe puts out for a website of photos to resize the images on the page but not to actually resize them. Some wedding shots are ready. The site still needs work, but it is functional.

Then, I had a 1.5 hour, deeply-needed massage. I feel so much better. Ready for camping next weekend.

I then tried to send a bottle of wine through the mail. Oops. Can't do that. I deposited the marriage lisence in the safe deposit box along with other essentials that we don't need at hand (like passports). Next I stopped by school to get the next year's calendar and chatted with people including Alicia. If you read this A, congrats on the new kitty.

Off to Framingham (a 20 or so minute drive) to pick up a tent that can house both Reena and me this weekend. Luckily there was a FedEx next to the REI, so I shipped my package of glassware.

Back home to work on cleaning and straightening the house. Bedroom is now uncovered. This means that everything in there that had to find a room in my study is now crowding my already-crowded space. Tomorrow is going to be clean study day.

Tonight, after running a few more errands, is get back to revising story night. I have started, but must get through some more notes before I am ready to send out to the readers who will be checking, reading, or just ignoring it.

Oh, and I gotta get dinner.