The Real Happiness

Many of my book reviews end up like some kind of "what would the baby be like" analogy, don't they? That said....imagine if Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Neal Stephenson has some kind of meosis event. And then someone rolled the resulting protoplasmic goo along the party floor of a convention.

It's as good as other people have told you.

It rolls. It accretes and gathers momentum, and you don't always see the same face of the ball, but it's always coming around and around.

Read if: You like nerds, magical realism, and hopeless love.
Skip if: You don't like missing any references, you hate random other-language intrusion, or the inexorable hand of fate annoys you.

And I am one of a small number of people, but it is totally evocative to say that Trujillo out-Mbutu'd Mbutu. It is redolent of a whole icky era of American history and colonialism and pet kleptocracies.

Working late tonight, partially because I have a lot to do and partially because I have been dragging my feet on things while jobstuff is making me crazy (more on that privately, but suffice it to say I live in interesting times).

Tomorrow night is movie with LT. Thursday sil is picking A. up from the airport, and we may feed her real food. Friday, I don't know what I'm doing yet, but may be crazy enough to go to Harry Potter in Ballard. Or dancing. Saturday, skating lessons and then getting the kids ready for a sitter, because sil and I are going with the extended family to see Utopia Ltd, as performed by the Seattle G&S society. Sunday, much-needed housecleaning, I think.

I am dead of cute. Baz figured out how to set up a group chat on Google so he could talk to his grandparents and I at the same time, because he's not a speedy typist yet.

I know I haven't been posting much of substance lately. I hope to find my brain again soon, but it's been a really hectic month, and it's not slowing down anytime soon.

On Friday, I went out to Turtle Dance with A. This is an ecstatic dance event, full of woo woo hippie love. It felt really good to move my body after days stuck in a car. I may go again. I would like to leave my internal ethnographer home, but that seems unlikely.

On Saturday, I went to the godfather-character's house for a work party. Due to my lack of work gloves, I ended up on girly tasks, inside, like dusting. The entire upstairs looks like a Boy Scout museum exploded. Two dresser drawers full of patches. Three broad-brimmed hats, plus the red beret. Uniforms of every type. Books. Card on card of belt buckles and neckerchief pins and bolo ties. It was epic. I left at two and escaped the wilds of Magnolia to head home, pack, and get a shower. Then it was off to Baz's skating club fundraiser. Damn, do they have a huge speedskating team. Also, a junior derby team. I did not fall on my ass, but it was really warm. Melt! Then I hustled the kids off to Mineral, where we arrived just in time to pick berries before sunset. We had berries and ice cream for snack, then I bathed them and put them to bed. I stared blankly at the tv while The Fugitive was on.

Sunday morning, I got the kids ready for church, we went to church, and no sunday school. Baz completely stumped Dad at hangman, but I believe it was accidental that he chose 'juicebox', which contains a high percentage of low-frequency letters. After church, the kids and I hung out for a few minutes performing on the theme of "respectable offspring" for mom's visiting guest. He is a friend of hers from her high school youth group (Nazarene). He did needle me about being UCC, and I smiled and said we were all the children of God, according to mom's sermon, which shut him up. Then the kids and I went the the post-baptism party. They were reasonably good, and found a pack of other kids to stravage around with. Baz caught a foam football. I was watching, and I was unreasonably proud. Happily, he could not see my unflattering surprise. ;) We left with extra food.

We went home, and I fell over for a bit, and then we had family dinner watching America's Next Top Chef. The kids got tucked in, I caught up online, and went to bed.

This morning, I got up 90 minutes earlier than usual so I can get in before the 8:30 conference call with India. This will be the new normal. I am moving my whole schedule by 90 minutes.

I worked yesterday, mostly mucking out my inboxes. But today i am back at work. So far, I have moved my computer to my new cube, mucked out my inboxes, and tried to figure out some less awkward way to deal with the phone. If we had IT, they would just change this phone to my extension. No IT for me. On the bright side, udon for me.

Hey, local people, want to come to an awesome roller-skating thing? Baz's skate club is having a fundraiser tomorrow night, in Auburn, $10 a head for sketti, skate rental, music of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, and nifty demonstrations of skating styles, including jam skating (I love watching jam skating). Funds raised help support his coaching fees and the team representation to nationals. But mostly, it'll be awesome. And it's 4-7, so you can go do evening stuff afterward.

Beth and Joe
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

We had high tea. Note Beth's fetching tiara.

Gang sign
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

Nerdy gang sign from Beth and Joe's photo-safari pre-wedding party.

I have to wear it, my wife made it
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

Iron Artist was really funny this year. This is my husband sil explaining that he has to wear the vest because I made it for him.

Sibling affection
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

Baz and Kay really like each other.

Columbia Gorge
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

This is why I love the east side of Washington. It is so beautiful. Click through here for more scenery pictures.

Is usability worth more than security? - Security

-- in which Jakob Nielsen is a wild-eyed radical, and I kind of like it.

So, Kay turns 5 in late October, too late for her to automatically enroll in kindergarten next year. But both sil and I think she is probably going to be ready. So I called the school district and asked if there was opt-in testing for a little flexible placement. Indeed there is, for kids born in September and October. After November, sorry Charlie. Works for me.

Here's the deal: They do a couple hours of testing on the kid to make sure they are mentally, physically, and emotionally up to par for kindergarten. I applaud this. Putting a kid in school before they are ready for it sucks for the school and the teacher and the kid.

Here's the catch: They charge you for the test. $250 (which, for two hours of testing, plus eval and team meeting does not seem unreasonable). This is, I think, BRILLIANT. It weeds out all the parents who are not committed to their kid getting in early. It means that if the kid is not ready, the school district is not out of pocket. It makes parents really really evaluate whether they think their kid is ready, instead of a 'hey, what does it hurt to ask' attitude. That means the school district has enough resources to test those kids who probably really are ready (like mine, I hope).

Of course, they want to do signups mid-July, and testing late in the month, which means I need to find the money, but it can be done. And it means that we will attentively read our packet and determine whether we think our own special snowflake is "extremely academically advanced, emotionally mature, and physically capable". Full day kindergarten is no joke, physically.

As a side benefit, if she's in the building, it's gonna be that much easier for them to do her speech therapy. In fact, her speech needs are the one worry on my horizon. But we shall see.

I'm hopeful, though. I think she will love the extra socialization, the structure, and the general awesomeness that was Baz's kindergarten experience.

ETA I should have linked to this.
Kindergarten Early Entry Testing is available to families whose child’s 5th birthday falls between September 1 and November 1 of the current school year. Costs for the assessments will be paid the parent(s)/guardian(s). Exceptions will be made for those families who also qualify for free and reduced lunch. Parent(s)/guardian(s) must request a preadmission packet from Student Services. Packets will be mailed out in May.

Applications must be completed and accompanied with the testing fee before August 1 of the school year. Applications received in Student Services by June 15 will be assured of assessment results by August 20.

Goodness, I've been so busy doing stuff I haven't had much time to tell you all about it.
( newsy )

Tailgunner
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

Before skating, Baz got to play at the little amusement park. Here, he is making machine gun noises.

Baz and I are off to Portland, itinerary somewhat loose. He has to check in at The Oaks for his skating demo at 4:30, to skate at 5:30. He did really well at practice, demonstrated an awareness of where he was on the floor, and how to adjust the skating to the music. That's my big kid. Coach is very proud of him. At least, I think so. Coach evidently gets nerves before big meets.

On our way, we hope to get comics, meet people, and spend some time at the amusement park. I think a day of overcast and 65 is perfect.

Now to make sure I have everything he'll need.

My superpower is the ability to pull up a visual picture of the last place I've seen something. It's how I keep track of all the crazy-ass places my family leaves things.

and now... I have lost something. Something important. Namely the cradle to my Rocket ebook. Which I want, TONIGHT, to load my ebook with books for my dad to take on his cruise to Alaska (presuming he is limpy because he is limpy, not because it's something dire). It's a piece of electronica....lost in my house. I am so. fucking. doomed. It looks like electronics. It's kinda cordy. It's charcoal grey. (cue doom song)

Other things to do tonight, when I exhaust all the places I have seen this thing or something like it:
Dishes
Fold laundry
Start packing pile for Great Migration
Reduce disaster-level of house
Go to bed early

On the bright side, I was a rock star at work, and by dint of hard work and judicious giving the people what they ask for (not what they want), I do not have to work.

ETA: Found it. Best daughter ever.

Now to go look for something...cable-y.

So far, there are only two episodes of this little USA number. The story setup is: happy rich pretty doctor makes a choice to treat a poor patient who needs it more rather than a rich patient who dies in a fluke accident. He is fired. (this part made me yell, but hospital politics are what I was raised on) He is despondent and loses everything until his brother comes and hauls him away for a weekend in the Hamptoms. He ends up saving a socialite's life, and instantly becomes (against his will) a concierge doctor, treating the rich for fat checks.

There are sidekicks, and a love interest, and I thought it might be an amusing thinly-disguised Lifestyles of People Richer than People Watching Cable TV Shows.

What it actually is (or appears to be) is a polemic about the state of healthcare. No shit. There are healthcare politics alllll through it. Hank (the main character) does not understand why the rich don't go to the local hospital. The love interest is a hospital administrator struggling to open a free clinic. Hank also treats the Hamptoms' working class people, as an explicit "Robin Hood of Medicine". Characters are at risk from untreated medical conditions, and it tears at Hank, and at the other characters, and by extension, the viewer.

I find this FASCINATING. I mean, it takes a while to develop and promote a show. This has been in the pipeline for a while. But it is deeply relevant to the current debate on healthcare. While also containing zingers, snarkiness, and pretty, pretty people. Go, watch.

Mini-review: It has a flavor like a slightly-less cracked out RAWilson Illuminatus Trilogy. I wonder if it's possible to do a sf novel about a church/corporate structure without either sounding like that or Dianetics.

Read if: you kind of like the Illuminatus trilogy, or wacky aliens, or wacky coincidences.
Skip if: wacky is not your thing.

NB: There are no actual androids in this book.

If you want that dino-camo print I made Kay's skirt out of, you can buy enough for a skirt on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/3-Yard-Yards-Dinosaur-Dino-on-Camo-Camouflage-Cotton_W0QQitemZ320298129423QQcmdZViewItem

Otherwise, you're out of luck, it was a Jo-Ann's exclusive last year. The stash giveth, and the stash taketh away. All hail the stash.

The Downtown Seattle bus tunnel is now open between 5 AM and 1 AM, instead of closing at 7 PM. I cannot tell you how much I wish I had noticed this information. Also, I am not always the brightest. In my defense, it was a very skeevy bus stop, and the skeeviest people were smoking clustered around the sign that had the notice, down at the bottom. This is the bus stop where I was standing there reading and minding my own business when a guy hit the back door of the bus with his fist, hard enough to star the safety glass. Then he stravaged up and down around the bus stop yelling about bitches and whores. It was exciting.

When I finally got to the right bus stop, it worked fine, but the weird intermodal transit freaks me out. Buses and trains sharing the same road! Cats and dogs living together! Total anarchy!

Also, my parents have been after me to listen to a part of Prairie Home Companion this week, because they detected poetry. Indeed, parents, indeed.

Tomorrow is Baz's kindergarten move-up.

or they think I've gone off the deep end. Last night, I spent 2 hours tracing pockets, welts, collars, collar linings, belts, and part, but not all, of the other parts of the vest. They laughed the laugh of people locked in a room with someone detached from reality when I told them my timeline. I feel a bit like laughing that laugh, too. On the easy vests, the only thing you have to change is the front panel and the back panel. On these, there's the front panel, the front hem facing, the front lining (which is a different pattern piece, the belt (which is not rectangular), the back panel, the front collar....

Also, last night, by the time I got home, I couldn't talk. Well, I was talking, but it wasn't tracking well, so I went to bed early....at which point, I couldn't get to sleep. On the bright side, I designed two skirts while I was trying to go to sleep. On the downside, I continue my run of sleeping only 6.5 hours in a night, which is not enough. I have had a headache on and off for a week, and I think these things might be related. As usual, I plan on sleeping when I'm dead.

My boss is quitting. Sorry to bury the lede there. She told me yesterday, and I am still working my way through the implications, but I have to imagine it's going to drastically increase my burnout rate if they put me under uncleboss. Um, on the bright side, I get a window cube? On the downside, I lose a layer of insulation. I hope to god they replace her. I wish I thought highly enough of everybody's sanity to assume that they would. Two weeks.

Tonight I'm working a little late and then going home to hang out with my family and maybe do more tracing.

I'm reading The Android's Dream by Scalzi. Some day, I am going to compile a list of books built around goofy literary jokes. This and Seas of Venus (free!) by David Drake are going on that list. (Seriously, the entire setup of the book is so that you can have a moment when you realize that the hovercraft is full of eels.) It was very nice of sil to get me a book from the library.

Dino-camo front view
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

Dinosaurs in camo. On a skirt that other people are using for school uniforms. PUNK. also, note the charming self-fabric rose. I think a smart mommy might have put that on a big safety pin so it doesn't get trashed in the wash.

Yes, she is wearing a shirt.

It was a little big for her, but the retroactive installation of some elastic seems to have helped.

I am so far behind on book comments, it's not even funny, but I finished this book last night, and strike while the iron is hot, right?

( possible mild spoilers )

I got sil's vest and frock coat pattern from Laughing Moon Merchantile.

First, I have to say that I am impressed with both their directions and their production. I am left to wonder if there is some super-sekrit vanity pattern-printing company, and how much it costs to get that many sheets of newsprint and tissue all sorted. I don't think $15 was at all an unreasonable pattern price.

Second, I have to say that I am COMPLETELY INTIMIDATED.

( blah blah blah horsehair interfacing blah )

In the course of one conversation last night, I went from writing a worship order, to D/s themes in hymns, to animated penguin hatesex, to the Mommy Wars. Because that's how I roll.

Random donut today. Yay! Baked goods for all.

My parents found a box that had been missing. It contained most of my cake pans, including the angel food pan we had desperately been missing, and the round and square layer pans. Woo!

My pattern for sil's Convergence clothes came today. Well, it came yesterday, but there's the whole 'left at the office' problem. Anyway, now I can make him his riverboat gambler-style vest. We are both big Apollo 13 fans, and back when he and Mike were still running programming, I thought it would be funny to present him with a vest, Gene-Krantz style. The first one was a relatively subdued and tasteful celestial pattern on navy blue. The next year, I was pregnant with Baz and made him a vest with multi-colored cartoon llamas. The mardi-gras feather-print vest with the green satin backing that was extra from K's baby quilt. The space-babes. The hawiaan-print vest and the reversible pinstripe/silver were both last year, for the 10-year anniversary. I must be missing a couple. This year, I am leaving the shackles of Simplicity and their ridiculous 42-inch chest behind, and I bought a pattern for people who do historical recreation. It's technically victorian, but in the fabric we have selected, it will be riverboat-gambler-riffic. And by happy happenstance, the pattern comes with a frock-coat pattern. Because who doesn't love frock coats? He will be resplendent! The only things that could make me happier would be to find shiny circuit-printed fabric for the vest, and to have the time and money to make myself a matching costume.

Did I mention it took me 5 hours to do the order of worship? 5 HOURS. There went that night. But I don't have to do it again for weeks.

Last night, Kay started bedtime in our room. For reasons unknown, she closed the window, put plastic toys to bed on sil's side, got out of bed with a blanket and a pillow, donned a fleece-lined winter cap, and fell asleep on the floor. The other hysterical thing was sil calling from the living room "Let the cat out of the bag, Kay!". Because of course she had stuffed poor Squishy in a doll's sleeping bag. Parenting. It really is that weird.

Tonight, TV with LT. I am hoping for Deadliest Catch. And maybe pattern reading. Tomorrow night, sil is going out dancing. I don't think we have anything wacky planned for this weekend, except we are ramping Baz's practice up because he is performing at the regional skating competition in Portland next week. I get to go hear how my worship planning went on Sunday. Next week, Baz's kindergarten move-up, regionals, and sil's weekend of peace before he's in the car with the kids for three days. Ok, how did it get to be the 10th? Must commence freaking out. Because, with the impeccable timing they have always shown, all of my work deadlines are right before the 4th of July furlough. And my sewing deadlines. And I need to do what I can to get the family ready to leave on the 24th or so. Which is two weeks away. TWO WEEKS, people!

aaaa!

Have I mentioned lately how nice it is to have hymns that I know the tune to, but with new, more awesome lyrics?

To "Crown Him With Many Crowns"

Praise to the living God, from whom all things derive
Whose Spirit formed upon this spere the first faint seeds of life;
Who caused them to evolve, unwitting toward God's goal,
Till humankind stood on the earth, as living thinking souls

also

...God toils where'ere we toil, in home and mart and mill;
And deep within the human heart, God leads us forward still.

I love how modern and aspirational these lyrics are, a wedding of evolution and divinity.

mmm

Friday, the whole family went and watched Up. Which I really liked. It made me cry, and think about how many kind of adventures are important, and I expect it will lead to thoughtful conversations with my children. If you go, you should know it will be sad, and if you are partnered, it would be best to go together.

Saturday, I watched "The Immortal Sergeant" with LT. In which we made fun of the way movies made during the war have funny budget gaps. Also, the sergeant wasn't so much 'immortal' as 'symptomatic of schizophrenia', but you know, whatever.

Also, I read both Sarah Tolerance books, because I'd had them out for signing at Wiscon (which I didn't manage). And Swordspoint. (don't ask -- it all goes together in my head)

Currently, I am two pages into The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and a third of the way in to Privilege of the Sword. And I have a pile of comics.

Red skirt walking
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

This is the skirt I got done just before Wiscon. I love how it moves, and how it makes me feel, and how ass-promoting it is.

Bonus sundress!Kay.

Photo by Baz, who made me 'walk like a lady in a fashion show'.

This guy is very excited about Google Wave.

I'm....medium excited. I think it has potential, but I do not think it is an electricity-level revolution in how we communictate. I love the idea of all my communication on a topic getting archived together. Currently, I use Microsoft OneNote, but not as much as I expected to, even though it is a cool tool that lets me organize my thoughts. I use gmail, and I consider gchat as sort of another flavor of that, and google docs, so it's all tied reasonably well together, but I can see how the integration could get tighter.

But I am a skeptic about any software/app/thing on my computer that claims to solve that many needs I don't have. Even as a remote worker, I don't particularly need to be able to talk at the same time I am editing a draft while the specs are scrolling by. I'm good at continuous partial attention, but not that good. As I just demonstrated by typing something someone said on my teleconference into the document I was writing. Medical transcription training, not as useful as I thought it might be.

And, in futherance of a battle I lose daily: The medium is part of the message. If I want to read your tweets, I have you friended on twitter. Propogating them to LJ and Facebook is not only decreasing the value of that medium to me, it is terribly policy, because, after all, given more than 140 characters or 10 seconds, wouldn't you be a little more verbose? If I read your lj, then why put the same things in facebook? And if you don't generate enough CONTENT to be interestesting on all three simultaneously*, then consider letting a day or two pass. It is not the worst thing in the world that you not tell me something every day. I will be that much happier to see you when you do have something to say. /crank

*I will give a break to people actually promoting something. But pick one thing a day to promote, ok?

Also, Google Wave gives me a twitch, a significant twitch, in my single-point-of-failure.

We shall see.

Baz is an excellent reader. And I'm very proud of that.

I, too, was an excellent reader once I engaged in it. So I have a pretty good idea what it looks like from inside his head. Reading is enjoyable for him, he chooses to do it, he loses time, he is engaged in the story, he has excellent comprehension. He's going to be ok.

Yesterday, he came home with three bags of prizes from school, for being the best reader in kindergarten - 75 kids or so. He got all kinds of awesome toys.

I think this is totally the wrong message. We reward the people who have it easy? Whose brains and background and education already make them successes? We don't reward the kid who is 'only' reading at first-grade level, even though she's an English Language Learner? We don't pay tribute to the hours of sweat and failure she is putting into something my kid finds easy?

This feels WRONG to me. It makes me sad. I'm happy that Baz is happy, but I think that all of us have been that other kid sometimes. When you watch someone who can run a mile without thinking about it, and you think, "That's for the birds. I'm never doing that. Why bother? What a stupid thing. And SHE gets a prize for it? She didn't even SWEAT. Screw this."

I don't want kids to think that about reading. Or about anything. I don't want them to feel that talent and luck and yes, privilege will always trump hard work. Partially because the world doesn't work that way, and partially because it does.

I think that most of us in this rarefied internetty environment have also had the flipside of this. After years of effortlessly acing vocabulary tests and spelling tests, after a couple decades of your teachers and professors telling you that you are the brightest, most talented, most awesomesauce student ever, the one who lingers in their memory, it's a RUDE FUCKING AWAKENING to have to do and learn things that are hard. That you suck at. That other people are good at, and you're not. It's kind of shattering to write a good paper and get a C, or a D. It's even embarrassing and makes you want to walk away when other people are better at plastic guitar or knit through the back loop or whatever else it is. Either way, I don't know that children are served by celebrating their talents instead of their work. The high school award I may cherish most is my "Most Improved" trophy from volleyball. The one I care least about is my fourth-in-state plaque in Business Law, because it was a standardized test I happened to take between speech competitions, and well, I'm good at those tests.

The King County Library system has a summer reading program. When I was a kid, I hated reading programs because they penalized people who read complicated books and rewarded people who read many easy books. But this one is smart, and does not reward anyone unfairly. It's based entirely on minutes spent reading. It doesn't matter if it takes you if it takes all week to finish a book, if you are reading at 1 word a minute, whatever. You are rewarded for the WORK you have done. A slow but dedicated reader could totally earn more reward than a facile but tv-loving reader. And the more you practice, the better you get, no matter what level you start at.

Baz is excited about the program, and I am, too. I like that his effort is more important than his good fortune. Effort will do more for him in the long run.

This is a Wiscon post.

I went to a fair number of panels (although not the 8 AM ones, because oof). These are my briefish panel notes. I still have more to say about panels I was on.
( cut for rambling )

silmarian came home from SFO yesterday, and I went to church lady sewing. At which I blocked my pretty necklace and traced the pattern for a skirt for Kay. I came home earlier than usual, and sil and I hung out laptopping together. While waiting for Kay to go to sleep. Which took a long damn time. Once again, I am considering her sleep aversion with foreboding.

Tonight, dishes and laundry and all that jazz. I once added up all the kinds of specialized detergent, surfacants, cleansers, and solvents we use, and I assure you, the list was impressive.

Baz and sil went to the zoo for the Kindergarten field trip today. I am looking forward to hearing all about it.

It's nice to be back into a routine, at least for a bit. In three weeks or so, sil and the kids will be off to MN. I will join them for Convergence. July should be relatively quiet once we get back, and then there is a wedding in MN again, and the kids are off to their grandparents. Scottish Fair. Utopia Ltd. sil's birthday. State fair. It's very pleasant to have such things to look forward to.

In which an article that might have been useful is hijacked by a metaphor, then coshed on the head and rolled out to bleed by the side of the road.

Email: An open door to sophisticated security threats

There are no action items. No links, really. It's an 'opinion' piece, so I guess I may be expecting too much, but...arg.

And because I had to look up "Rock Fish", you don't have to.

ETA: Rock PHISH. I can spell phishing, honest, my fingers are just overhelpful.

I'm a happy Ravelry member, even though I am currently in a knitting doldrum. I don't use all the features, but I do use enough to make me feel happy and like I am getting value for my intellectual property.

I'm also a member of PatternReview.com, which appears similar. Both sites, after all, are essentially wikis which harness the experience and intellectual property of a community of crafters to the benefit of the community. Which is why when you search on ravelry for Artyarns Beaded Silk, one of the photograps you see will be mine, and I pay for the photographic hosting, and I am glad to have the photo credit. It's why you can see that at least 85 people have made the hat that LT wrote up, and why, if you search on pirate hat on ravelry, you get that one. YAY! It's also why, when you search on, say Burda 8677, the first hit is Pattern Review, because it is more useful and relevant than the company's site.

Pattern Review is not as pretty, not as web-2.0. It doesn't have automagical links to Flickr and Picasa, and the search functions within feel a little clunky, but Ravelry is, I think, awesomely usable. PR also offers online classes and some other features. And they have a feature that I think Ravelry would do well to imitate -- the review template, where you can fill in a standard set of questions about how the garment you made from the pattern turned out. But in other ways, I don't enjoy PR as much. Their revenue model is not (highly-pertinent! unobstrusive!) advertising, but a subscription model, with deliberately limited* account privileges (AND text advertising). Like you can't see all of a pattern review unless you are a member, and unless you are a paying member, you cannot add more than 20 patterns to your pattern catalog. grrr

Mind you, Flickr does this too, but 1) I know that storing pictures actually costs money, real money, and 2) Flickr gets none of my intellectual property. I upload pictures, sure, but I don't craft reviews, or post pictures specific to other people's needs. Flickr is much less community-based than PR. I'm not saying that whoever is running PR doesn't deserve money to pay them for their time and to keep their servers running, but for some reason, with the Ravelry model in front of me, I am cranky about shelling out $30/year. It's possible, too, that I don't sew/review/read enough to make it worth that money to me. Or it could be that I expect my investment of content should be rewarded and celebrated. I am part of the community value if I post reviews, whether or not I pay.

The other obvious comparison is LJ. I do pay for my account, because I value it the same way I value flickr. It is a place for me to store my content, even if I am not contributing to the greater community. Also, I hate the ads.

tl;dr - I want to either pay for my community in cash or intellectual property, but not both.

---

*Wiscon and its membership have done a good job of pointing out to me the ickiness of saying that software is "crippled" or "disabled". I am trying to be mindful about talking about limited things with less ableist language.

If I ever wondered where I get my gifts-of-service ethos, I don't today. My mom listened to me whine endlessly about the state of my house, and today she came up (the week before she goes to camp, and the day before Pentacost) to spend 3+ hours scrubbing my kitchen with me. And dad did kid duty. (until Kay had a bad reaction to her sunscreen). And my kitchen is sooooo much better, and doesn't make me feel all uptight. Gift of service. So that is very nice indeed.

Also, I got up super early, rousted the kids out of bed, and got us to skating lessons. Kay is not currently taking lessons, but Baz is, and he had some bruising falls today. I feel so sorry for his bony little ass, especially the time he landed on both the floor and the skate wheels. However, his waltz jump is looking better, and the amount he has grown in the last month has made all the difference in the world in his ability to do crossovers.

Before mom and dad arrrived, I got half the main-room floor cleared and vacuumed and carpet-cleaned. And the bathrooms cleaned. And the dishes done. No laundry, because I cannot remember to get dryerr sheets. The next step is to tackle (foreboding music) THE SHOE PILE. If I had the camera, I would take before and after pictures for you all. You'll just have to trust me that four people's shoes, in a highly variable environment, mixed with clothes intended for donation, dropped jackets, and possible small civilizations, is a challenge.

I just put a bid in for the Marvel Movie Crossover Ficathon. You should too!

The beauty part of this ficathon is that the entrance requirement for canon just involves movies. I may not have time to go through a ton of comics canon, but I own (most) of those movies.

This is not a Wiscon post (I only say that because there are more coming)

I have no saving throw against, "please volunteer for ". My church has figured out this weakness. Which is why I have a personnel committtee meeting on June 18th, have given my phone number to the college-age kids officially running continuing ed., and am supposed to leave for a worship committee meeting in half an hour.

It's possible I should transfer my membership, eh?

silmarian and I both got recruited for worship committee. I find this slightly hilarious because he never goes to worship (well, not never, but LT goes more often, and she lives out of state). They really wanted a male perspective, though. This afternoon, I sat down and read my 'homework' for before the meeting*.

Y'all, I think it's possible I am not hippy-dippy enough to do this. The homework made me roll my eyes in a significant, snarky way. F'rinstance:
One at a time, have individuals place their object on the table and say a sentence prayer using the object as a metaphor. For instance:
o chalkboard eraser
"I pray that God will wipe away our fear."
o keys"I pray that God will open the doors of our hearts to new things."
o plant "lpray that we will be nourished in our faith, and flourish and grow."

Invite the group to respond after each one with the unison phrase, "Praise
God who is in all things!"

When all have finished, sing a meditative refrain like "spirit of the Living
God" with a communal "Amen" at the end.
That's an excercise for the opening of the brainstorming session where one picks hymns and prayers.

I just joined up because
a) they asked me
b) how cool would it be to use this in liturgy:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I don't know that I can hang with "thank you god for most this amazing chalkboard eraser", though. We shall see.

---

*We are going to have to have a talk about meeting times that do not respect those people who, I dunno, WORK. IN SEATTLE. My mom has a protracted rant about tent-maker conferences held during the work-week, which is fine for full-time pastors, but, you know, TENTMAKERS**. They have other jobs. By definition.

** Inside baseball*** moment: Paul (the apostle) was known as a tentmaker, because in addition to writing a ton of letters about eating sacrificial meat and running races and loving each other, he also supported himself by actually making actual tents. In modern Christianity, a tentmaker is a pastor who has another job to support themselves, or a missionary who is doing work besides missioning. There have been lots of pushes and pulls back and forth about which way is better, because the Presbyterians, for instance, love them some nerdy pastors, and you can't really be a full minister unless you've been to seminary and can make with the koine. But when the congregational membership is 18, it's hard to work up the money to support a pastor paying off post-graduate loans. So my mom is a tentmaker, and a lay pastor (no seminary). Dad thinks that when she retires from teaching, they should go somewhere where she can go to seminary. I love how much he supports her. My parents are awesome!

*** This is particularly funny because I don't follow baseball. BORING.

Tags: faith, wayside

This is a Wiscon post.

One of the interesting things about Wiscon is how many cool people there are to talk to. This leads to this social phenomenon of conversational drift. There you are, talking about something totally fascinating with a person you haven't seen in a year. And then another awesome person walks in, and you want to talk to them too, or the person you are talking to does. So you make a half turn and say hi. And you catch up a little and fangirl at each other. And then there's another person! And another! And then you have a moment of guilt because that first person wandered off without you saying goodbye or anything. They were having their own intersections just like yours.

I used to feel terrible about this. In most circumstances, it's rude to leave a conversation without some kind of wrap-up. But it seems less weird when everyone is doing it, and expects it. I like that even if I didn't officially say goodbye to people, when I show up next year, or see them online, the conversation continues. Because we are all aware of how distracting the environment is, it's a different expectation.

Or I could be a big jerk. I'm not sure, but I hope for the first theory.

This is a Wiscon post.

The "Book vs. Media Fandom" panel was super-good. I like how much effort the panelists put into not declaring anyone the bad guys, even though it obviously skewed heavily toward a fandom that feels more ownership of their media. michaeldthomas pointed out that this is what we named the split that created Convergence. And olivia_circe moderated with grace and discretion, and ladyjax knocked my socks off (and is responsible for telling me about the timesuck that is tvtropes.org), and resolute did a great job of reminding us to avoid balkanizing ourselves. It was a great panel on how we engage with our science fiction, and what we expect from it. There were a lot of great things flying around, and I did a crap job taking notes.

But for my money, the best part of the panel was an audience member whose badge name was sofvckinghot. Other people found her lj for me! She totally changed the direction of the panel for the better by being brave enough to stop us and ask questions when we were all running down the rails together. "What's a trope?" "What does that mean?" I think my favorite question was when she asked "The panel description says "bandom". What's bandom?" And when the panelists and audience explained it to her, she had a visible epiphany -- "I didn't know there was a name for it!" That moment, right there, when one person could find the community they had been looking for? That may have been my favorite panel moment of the con.

And because she slowed us down and reminded us to define our terms, we took the time to agree on the terms, and the whole conversation was more productive and pleasant.

It also happened in the "What's in a name?" panel, when someone asked us to stop and define "sockpuppet".

I am inspired. I want to be that person sometimes. Not disruptively, not dragging things down, or derailing, but I want to have the courage to say "time out -- I don't know how you're using that term". I want to speak up for the other confused people in the room, who think that if it's so obvious that everyone is agreeing, they ought to know too. I want to be that awesome.

Edited to fix moderator's name and a typo.
Edited to properly refer to sofvckinghot

This is a Wiscon post.

There were roughly a thousand people at Wiscon this weekend. And I would bet that about 950 of them had at least one moment where they thought, "I am not smart/witty/awesome enough to hang with these people. At any second, my basic lack of cool will be apparent to these people I want so desperately to be like."

Imposter Syndrome is the pervasive feeling that whatever success or acclaim you might have, it's all a cosmic accident, and other people really are much smarter and more successful than you. That at any second, you're going to be revealed as some kind of bullshitting fake, like the way you got a B on that paper you wrote in 6 blazing hours when it was supposed to take weeks, and there's no way you should have gotten a grade that good. I have a secret for you (and me). It really was a good paper, it wasn't all bullshit, and more work would have pulled it up to an A, sure, but you really are that smart.

I was on four panels this year, and one of them I moderated. And every time it got up to the point where I needed to prep for the panel, the bottom dropped out of my stomach, and my appetite vanished, and my hands shook, and I got flop sweat. What if I talked too much? What if I talked too little? What if, improbably, the panel I was moderating on anthropormophizing robots suddenly spun out into a pit of fail? Wiscon is a very generous audience and not prone to heckling or jeering, so I wasn't worried about that, but what if these people in the audience, who I know and like and respect and admire, what if I said something stupid and they wrote me off? aaaaaaa!

And, judging by the conversation in the programming green room, I was FAR from the only person who had this set of thoughts, or some variant of them. But you know what? We show up to our panels, and we fidget with the water pitcher which is designed to drip all over the place (I am finally wise to the water pitchers). We tap the mic to make sure it's on and not horribly feedbacky, and think to ourselves "I can't believe there would be enough people who want to listen to me that I would need a mic." Or we look at that group of people in the corner, where someone is gesticulating enthusiastically, and we drift closer, and we listen, and then we make the point near and dear to our hearts, about fanvids or whatever else is at hand. I love that about this con. It happens at other cons, too. I get flopsweat before I do pretty much any panel, and I get over it eventually, but something about the heavily female demographic makes it more obvious, more wonderful that we are all that scared we are fakes and we get up there anyway.

You really are that smart. It is not an accident or a trick. I wish I were more like you. More fierce, more funny, more witty in the face of rampant bullshit. I wish I watched more tv, read more books, listened to more music. I wish I parented with as much devotion. I wish, sometimes, that I even wanted to be a writer. I wish I had been brave enough to ask that question. I wish I looked that good in a polka-dot dress. I wish I had gone to grad school. I wish I were more like you.

To the other 50 people, who do not ever worry that they are qualified, who are assured that we all want to hear everything they are saying? We know who you are, and we find you slightly tedious.

Aspirational
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

I really enjoy the art at Seatac airport. This particular installation is at the corner as you head into A concourse. A concourse also has some awesome kinetic sculptures, which are hard to take pictures of, and a beautiful window-mural, which you can see if you click through.

Wiscon thoughts still coming!

If you are related to me, you so don't want to read this.

Um, hi, new people from Wiscon. I don't actually post much slash, but evidently I do get slightly drunk in room parties and talk about what I have written. And then I have to back it up.

To everyone I told that the Prof McGonagall/Lilly Potter femslash was the first fic I wrote, I evidently lied, as I originally posted this 1/09/07.
Alton Brown/Mike Rowe
This representation is not intended as reportage of real people
EXPLICIT SEX
( you were warned )
Tony Stark
Not my character
Kink, robots
( A Robot Named Sue )