The most recent entries are first. If you haven't been here for a while scroll down or click on a date. And remember most pictures are links to a larger version.
Comments? Your movie reviews? I would love to hear from you! lauralu@mac.com Enough about you, let's talk about me....November 22, 2006Happy Thanksgiving 2006 Here's a little turkey courtesy of the little girl on the 3rd floor.
November 16, 2006Cut Throat Competition Austin is off and running with his new blog auspics-whatsthebuzz.blogspot.com He's been very prolific - 11 posts in one week.Lenore and Lynda are competing for the best scar from ovarian cancer surgery. Although Lenore's scar from her breast cancer surgery increases her total scarage, Lynda's stomach scar is longer and was cut into again for her second surgery. The prize is getting the most sympathy from the family. And you thought we only competed making puppets, writing sonnets and creating black velvet artwork. If you are squeamish, DO NOT GO HERE. By the way, here is a list of our Christmas competitions:
Some more movie/DVD reviews Kilnieks (Hostage) Lorella and I went to see this Latvian movie directed by Laila Pakalnina that was part of the European Union Film Festival. It is a story of a hijacker who forces a plane to land in Riga. He lets all the hostages go except an 8 year old boy who asked to stay on the plane. The story is about the hijacker and the boy's friendship as well as about a number of interconnected events that happen around the airport involving racing cyclists, farmers, detectives, biathletes, folk song choirs, bunnies, dogs, cats, cows, bees. The director manages to include many Latvian traditions and favorite foods in the stories. It was quite enjoyable although I am not really sure what happened at the end. Even though we see the hijacker and the boy sitting and talking in a tree it is not clear if they got away clean, died, or if they were just in the imagination of some children playing in the sand. The film was in English and Latvian. I recognized alot of words but unfortunately my grasp of the language has severely dwindled. November 11, 2006Another Blog Austin started a blog today. Of all my siblings he was the third least likely in my mind to have a blog. But I think it is pretty cool. I'll post the address once he gets it looking the way he wants (colors, fonts, a picture or two).Also exciting today was getting the latest version of Final Cut (video editing software), which has all sorts of add-ons for special effects. The box was at least 15 lbs, mostly manuals. We're watching a documentary about the CSC cycling team getting ready for the Tour so I am getting inspired. All I need to do is find 40G of disk space to install it This week I was all "international" attending events (Dana's dance concert Tuesday night, an old movie Wednesday night) at the Embassy of Austria and one at the Organization of the American States (OAS). The OAS event was a silent auction benefiting Peruvian orphans. I went with Austin and William, their Peruvian friend Ralph, their neighbors, Shelly and Matthew and Matthews's father and his girlfriend Mary. It turns out Mary's father is Latvian. Like my mother his first impression of the US was the deep south. He landed in Tennesee, my mother in Mississippi. The OAS building is one of the most beautiful in the city. Here are some dark and fuzzy pics from the OAS event:
October 29, 2006The Wedding of the Century So some pictures are up of Lyla and Tracy's Wedding. Currently there are 3 sections but I will add at least 2 more as I have time and get pictures from others who were clicking away. Thanks Lenore, Lynda, Cheryl and Dad.Some memories:
October 18, 2006Past Hauntings So Lyla and Tracy's wedding went splendidly. Lots of hard work paid off. I will have pictures up soon. Austin went to Augusta GA for his 25th reunion and he took some pictures of my past (thanks, Austin!):
October 9, 2006Work Happenings
Some more movie/DVD reviews October 1, 2006Jazzercise & War So my Jazzercise teacher is back from her eventful trip to visit her family in Lebanon. The bombing started shortly after she arrived but she managed to get out safely and her family is OK. She did not seem to want to talk about it much. She only said that it was hard to leave her family behind and that she feels selfish that she can just leave. While she was gone an aerobics instructor took her place but I did not like it - no real dance moves, just mostly jumping jacks, shuffling from side to side and running in place. And her music was no fun. Here's another neighborhood picture, this one of a diving shop window: It is that time of year again to start not working on the McDonald Family Christmas Contest. September 16, 2006Local ColorThursday my aunt Zita treated me to a dinner at a cool-looking restaurant called Pazo. They serve tapas and other small dishes. The mushrooms and the ciabatta bread were my favorite. As I waited for Zita, her neighbor Caroline and friend Steve to arrive I had a drink at the bar. Today Joe and I went to the National Building Museum and saw a documentary on the architect John Lautner (a student of Frank Lloyd Wright) and an exhibit on environmentally "green" homes. It made me want to live in a beautiful house made of concrete and glass in the hills overlooking Los Angeles with cork and bamboo flooring, solar panels, and recycled glass tiling throughout. Here's what we saw on our walk from the museum to have some lunch and then to the Metro.
September 8, 2006Another Sighting
Some more movie/DVD reviews Morvern Callar A Scottish movie about a woman played by decent actress Samantha Morton who claims she wrote the book written by her boyfriend wrote before he killed himself. She is not a nice person and not really that interesting. She just takes advantage of her change in luck and does not think twice about her dead boyfriend. It was a pretty movie but that did not make up for my complete lack of interest in what happens to her. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou I have liked all of Wes Anderson's movies and although this was messy and certainly not his best I still enjoyed it. Bill Murray is fun as a sarcastic and sour Jacques Cousteau type character with a crew of strange misfits and a bunch of interns trying to get class college credit. The dialogue and some of the situations are quite funny. The Wire Excellent HBO series we are watching on DVD. The first season is about a group of Baltimore drug dealers and the cops who are trying to solve a series of murders that some of the dealers may have something to do with. The characters are all extremely interesting and the plot is complicated but rewards your attention. I am obsessed. September 1, 2006MimobotI bought a little 1GB jump drive so I can carry data around when necessary. OK, you're right, I bought it because it is cute but I am sure that someday soon I will find it very useful. I also could not resist the little outfit that has a clasp for easy accessorizing.
Thursday evening I went to my aunt Zita's house to help her install AOL broadband. It should have taken an hour or so but it ended up taking 4 hours. We had to run to Apple store to get the lastest version of Mac OS X and install it. That took about an hour and a half. The rest of the time was dealing with Verizon's crappy install software and annoying technical support. When I finally reached someone who knew Macs it was so much less annoying. AOL tech support was fairly decent. I talked to a guy in India and he admitted he did not know Macs that well but he obviously had good step by step instructions. As we were finishing the call Zita asked me to find out his name and where he was. His name was Arun and he spelled it for me: A as in apple, R as in rock, U as in unicorn... I found the unicorn part to be quite entertaining so when he said he was in India I told him I might be visiting India at the end of the year. He invited me to come visit hime in Bangalore and told me how many kilometers and how many miles Bangalore is from Chennai (the only city I know we might visit). Anyway it all ended on a nice note and Zita can now have her email open all day without worrying about paying for every second she is online. August 28, 2006Camp DCGraeme spent his last week of summer vacation here in DC and Baltimore. From these pictures it looks like he had fun. August 13, 2006Vacation VideoYesterday Joe and I went to Rockville to have lunch and do some shopping. We first went to a pizza/sub place but it was unusually full of diners. We found out later that there was a pizza eating contest going on. We then headed across Rockville Pike where there is a noodle place and a burrito place we like. As we approached the row of restaurants there were fire engines parked nearby and firemen on the sidewalk. The restaurants seemed to be open but we decided it was a no-go since the burrito place was filled with smoke and the noodle place was crowded and the children to adult ratio was just too high. So we drove back across Rockville Pike to the Chinese restaurant right next to the pizza place. Luckily this worked out for us and it was cool because two ladies speaking Latvian sat down at the table next to us. I had a nice little conversation with them in English. As Joe and I ate I tried to come up with the Latvian words to tell them I was in Latvia last year but I could not remember the past tense of the word "to be" so I gave up. I did say "See you later" in Latvian as we left. As we were eating I also realized that I had unconsciously ordered a Chinese radish pancake-like thing because it reminded me of Latvian food. Here are two Quicktime videos from the Edisto trip. I am using a Quicktime conversion that may not work on PCs so please let me know if there is a problem and I will try a different conversion method. You gotta see these videos.
August 6, 2006Vacation, All I Ever Wanted...So I am back from a week and 2 days at the beach. It was great seeing my family and David, Susan, Lutz and their kids - friends I have had since I lived in Atlanta. It's great that we have stayed in touch. Some things that made me happy:
Some pictures present and past:
July 18, 2006Heat WaveGod, it's hot. Walking outside is like opening an oven door. There was some sort of incident at work and we have been cut off from any system outside of the gsfc.gov domain since yesterday and it may continue through the week. It has been so hard for both work and play. Whenever I have a computer code syntax question or get some sort of error message I go to Google. I usually get my "home" email at work and that's not happening. And during the Tour de France I check the day's outcome in late afternoon. I still am not sure what happened today on the Tour's toughest mountain day ending with the legendary L'Alpe d'Huez. We rented season 1 of Project Runway. It's a reality show like other reality shows but it seems to be more about the fashion and less about the bickering. I've been enjoying it. Season 3 has just started and it is being shown on NBC as well as cable which is great except for the commercials and the inconvenience of not being able to go on to the next episode right away. More neighborhood picture: July 13, 2006Spending Other People's MoneyDana is getting about $28,000 from the DC Commission on the Arts to buy hardware, software and spiff up the company's PR package. One stipulation is that board members have to attend meetings and be involved. I have attended 2 meetings, one to discuss our hardware/software needs and one earlier this week to network with other grant recipients about databases. It's been pretty cool, especially building a fantasy computer system. This week's meeting was in an art gallery and the antendees included others from theaters, art galleries, dance companies and the head of the DC commission and experts in fundraising. And there were coffee and bagels. The Tour de France is going on and without Lance Armstrong (due to retirement) and other big names (due to suspician of doping) the race is very interesting. A recent picture I took: Ice Cream Update July 2, 2006To the LimitI have a new employer. The contract I work on (about 350 people) is up for bid every 5 years and the competition is fierce. 5 years ago I switched companies. I liked the new company but they lost it this time around. I am not so sure how I feel about the new company. Only time will tell. It is somewhat disruptive and there is always the chance that the new company has someone already to fill your position but so far that has not happened. Joe and I took a longer than usual (for me) bike ride this morning. It was great. The weather was nice and the trails were fairly uncrowded for holiday weekend (well, holiday for some. I have to work on Monday). We rode from National Airport to Mount Vernon, through marshes, under the Wilson Bridge, through Old Town Alexandria to the RV parking lot at the home of George Washington. Here are some pics.
Some more movie/DVD reviews June 22, 2006Highway WarningI was driving home on the beltway last week and saw this entertaining warning on a truck. Luckily it did not say "Do Not Take Pictures".
Some more movie/DVD reviews June 17, 2006Hard LaborThe new Chinese Embassy is currently a huge pit surrounded by a compound that houses the multitude of Chinese workers that are doing the construction work. Joe and I walked the 3 blocks over to the pit to see the progress. Here are some pictures I took there and along the way.
June 10, 2006Statue ContestMy parents have a lot of beautiful art work. They are artistic people. My father paints and my mom does stained glass, needlework, knitting, sewing, etc. But every now and then they buy or create something that is just not to my taste. There is a particular painting of a scary ass clown that my dad painted and that I refuse to be in the same room with. There is also a vase that I actually was sent to pick up at a gallery in Charleston. I should have exchanged it right then and there. My parents also have a small collection of outdoor sculptures and statues and, again, for the most part I like them. But there's this one statue of a little girl that is cloying. It obviously means a lot to them so I try to keep my mouth shut. Well, they bought another outdoor statue and, guess what, I felt it was of dubious or non-existent artistic value. But hey now I really like it because I won the contest that my father orchestrated to name the statue. Here is a picture. I'll let you judge for yourself.
Some more movie/DVD reviews May 29, 2006A Week in MayIt started with Lyla's surprise birthday party a week ago Saturday. Lyla was surprisingly totally surprised. Some of her friends traveled from the northeast and midwest to be there which was great. I caught up with her friends, many of whom I had not seen in 5-10 years. Wednesday Ben and Dennis came down from Secaucus, NJ to attend the reception of their artist friend Chakaia Booker. She is a very interesting person to look at and she does very interesting work with rubber tires. Her pieces are huge and amazingly graceful. Lyla, Tracy, Austin, William and I attended the reception and then went to dinner with Ben and Dennis at Tabaq in the U Street neighborhood. This past Saturday Marcia, Brooke and I drove up to Baltimore for a cookout with friends I met through Brooke. The cookout was at the house of Jill and David who live in a beautiful 1950s house. It was a nice night. There were stories of celebrity encounters. Tanya met Paul McCartney and his now estranged wife Heather at an animal rights event in Canada. But even more intriguing to me was Jill and David's story of being at Hunter S. Thompson's memorial party and meeting Johnny Depp. He offered them cigarettes. Someone also knew someone who dated James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) in school. Apparently he was very nice. Family News (where it's not all about me):
Here are three slide shows of pictures from my week. I experimented with some new formats. If you have an opinion on them let me know.
Some more movie/DVD reviews Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself This movie is a little funny, a little sweet, a little sad. The look and feel is mostly bleak (it is filmed in rainy, cold Scotland) but there are wonderful moments in the film when color is used to highlight an event. And there's this German doctor that has a great face. Another good movie. May 19, 2006New MexicoSo I traveled with Dana and his company to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. They performed at the University of New Mexico as part of a alumni reunion weekend. The performances went really well. At the after performance discussion several people asked questions about the images I created. That was cool. I stayed with Dana's parents in Santa Fe 2 nights and 1 night in the home of a local Albuquerque patron of the arts. Needless to say the accommodations were wonderful. I learned from my visit to Florence, Italy that you really cannot imagine how beautiful or interesting certain places are by just reading about them. Santa Fe is also one those places. The architecture, the weather, the landscape, the American Indian art were all so interesting. I traveled a lot between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and saw exit signs for various pueblos. It was neat to see jewelry and pottery from those pueblos at the stores and museums. I also learned that the word camino is the spanish word path or way. Some memories:
April 30, 2006Vintage BlueFor the last two years in June we've gone to a bike race nearby and I have bought vintage wool bike jerseys from one of the vendor booths. The first one I bought is long sleeved and it is easy to know when to wear it. The one I bought last year is beautiful with handy pockets in front and back but it has short sleeves. I have not worn it much. It seemed to me that if it's cold enough to wear wool it is too cold to wear short sleeves and if it's warm enough to wear short sleeves wool would be too hot. Well today was the perfect weather for it. It was about 60 degrees but the warm spring sun was out. It was a bit cold heading down the hill to the park but after we got on flatter terrain and the sun warmed me up a bit it was perfect. Joe took this picture when we got back so I am still somewhat red in the face and Cardassian headed. The other picture is of me with my new laundry cart which has changed my life. The cart seems to also fit in with the new interior design of our building which is better than what was there before but it resembles a prison. It seems like laundry always plays an important part in movies and TV shows that involve prisons. April 24, 2006CozyMy ankle is getting stronger but I still haven't been back to ballet class. I have gone to 2 jazzercise classes but done the low impact version of the moves and grooves. We biked 10 miles on Sunday and my ankle was a bit tender when we finished but it was not too bad. This weekend Lyla, Tracy, Austin and I went to Baltimore to attend a birthday dinner party for my aunt Zita. It was a nice evening and it was nice to visit a new Baltimore neighborhood. The hosts live in a beautiful old row house in the Bolton Hill area. Another highlight of the weekend was finishing a project. Joe asked me to make a cozy for our scanner so that it doesn't collect so much dust. Here is what I did:
If you think it looks familiar you are right. It is the same material that I used for Running With Scissors Man.
April 16, 2006More Spring ThingsI went to Lorella's for Easter dinner today. She served two lamb dishes - one Italian, one more traditionally American. Both were excellent. On the way home I stopped at the carwash near my house to clean my very dirty car. I was the last car to be washed for the day and as some of the guys were wiping down my car the others were all taking off their red carwash tshirts and changing into other shirts. That was an odd sight but then after I adjusted my seat forward and started driving down the alley about 10 of the carwash guys had jumped on their bikes and were riding down the alley with me. I felt as if I was swimming with the dolphins. Or maybe it was the white wine and Italian grappa at dinner that made the scene seem so surreal. Here are two signs of spring - a bunny found behind the garden nursery at the National Cathedral and our algae-tinted pool which I will be swimming in one and a half months from now.
Some more movie/DVD reviews April 9, 2006Spring and Cherry BlossomsThere has been some new art work up on the 3rd floor that I enjoy as I walk to my parking space. First it was tulips and then yesterday the Easter-themed art went up. Last weekend Lenore and Paula visited from Chicagoland. They saw the cherry blossoms without me because it is just too much walking for my sprained ankle. We did all go to Eastern Market together though and to the National Cathedral. Lyla, Tracy and my parents recently took a trip to Egypt and brought me back some great gifts - beads, jewelry, a beautiful Egyptian cotton towel and a small statue of the god Horus. Here is a little movie (Quicktime 3.7MB) of Horus in action:
TV Season Update March 28, 2006Injured!I sprained my ankle last night in ballet class. We were doing small jumps and somehow I landed a jump on the side of my foot and went down with a fairly loud bang. Dancers gasped, the piano player stopped playing and the teacher ran over to me. I hobbled to the side of the room and put ice on my foot. Everyone in class sympathized and several dancers who are physical therapists gave me good advice. This is particularly frustrating after a couple of weeks of increased exercise. I started going to a somewhat high-powered yoga class Saturday mornings and my italian friend Lorella talked me into going to a jazzercise class at work. I find jazzercise to be a little corny but it is a good aerobic workout, I like the teacher and it is very convenient. Last weekend I went to Dana's house for a baby shower for my friend Amy who is on Dana's board and with whom I shared a hotel room in Latvia. We drank wine and champagne and Aaron made wonderful tea sandwiches and salads. Other than baby names Aaron's homemade mayonnaise was the most popular conversation topic.
A couple weeks ago Joe and I went down the the Hirshhorn Art Museum to see a video exhibit we had read about in the paper. It was very interesting. A Japanese artist made these quiet little films when he was studying art in London. They are mostly films of animated objects or shadows in his apartment. In one had planes taking off from tables, going in and out of rooms, circling light fixtures. Another had shadows of camels and elephants roaming the corners and windows and staircases.
Some more movie/DVD reviews Reservoir Dogs A classic I have never seen, mostly because I heard it was so violent. After seeing Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill I figured I could handle the violence. I kept waiting for it to be funny like his other films but it really wasn't. But what it lacked in humor it made up in style. And of course I had to see it after meeting Michael Madsen's father and uncle. March 18, 2006The reviews are inThere were two reviews of Dana's concert last week, one in the Washington Post and the other in a Dance magazine called Dance View Times. Both showed that the reviewers thought alot about the piece acknowledging the complexity of the piece and the beauty of the dance movement. My images were mentioned in both, which is cool. I have been asked to show some of the images so here they are. I am sorry they are so big. They will take a while to download.
So when we were growing up we had things we were identified with and that was what we got as gifts. Lenore's thing was pigs, lynda's was mushrooms, mine was owls but that somehow changed into frogs. So I still get frog-theme gifts and sometimes I buy them for myself especially cards. One morning this week I noticed, somewhat to my horror, a "gift" deposited next to my car. I have no idea how it got there. It seems to be made of plastic. March 4, 2006Something New For The ResumeFor the last 6 months I have been working on a series of images that were to be used as projections during my friend Dana's new dance work. I have been editing fun home videos for the last 5 years but this was serious. I could ruin someone's 15 year career as a dancer/choreographer if I did not do it right. Well last night was the performance and as far as I know Dana's good reputation is still intact. The process was interesting. The piece was partly inspired by a world war II love story by Marguerite Duras. I searched the National Archives web site for images of war and death and planes. I video-taped the dancers at one point and did a lot of Google image searches. I put together a lot of little videos for Dana to look at and eventually we decided to use the still images from the National Archives, images of telegrams I found on Google, and some film clips of war planes flying in formation and of typewriters being typed on. The images appeared at the beginning and then towards the end of the piece totalling about 7 minutes. The whole piece was about 75 minutes long. A highlight of the process was going to the National Archives storage facility to scan and print the original photos. I am now an official reseacher and I have a picture ID that is good for 2 years to prove it. Here are some fuzzy pictures of the performance with some of my images in the background. I took these during dress rehearsal. And here's a fun picture from the snowfall a couple of weeks ago. February 19, 2006Bittersweet ReunionMy dear aunt Mary Anne passed away on February 1, 2006. Mary Anne helped me so much when I was setting up the McDonald family web site. She sent me tons of old pictures and typed up pages of family history. Mary Anne had such a great sense of humor. I was amazed at her interest in all new things and her mastery of the internet. She was one of my most faithful blog readers. My dad and brother Tommy saw her the weekend before she died and Lynda, Austin, Lenore, Paula and I attended her memorial service the following weekend. It was so sad but we still managed to have a nice time reconnecting with Mary Anne's daughter Dianne's family and meeting Mary Anne's friends. We also had fun romping around East and West Dundee where Paula and Lenore live and we spent a day with my second cousin once removed Susie and enjoyed meeting her fun husband Jeff. Highlights:
Two little movies:
January 29, 2006Happy New YearI celebrated the New Year on January 1 (well I managed to stay up past midnight), and then the Russian New Year at a party at Zita's on January 13 and now the Chinese New Year by eating candy with a Chinese friend on Friday and again today eating Chinese food at a little get-together. That's got to bode well for the rest of the year I have mentioned before that Joe gets to see artwork by talented children on the sidewalks on his way to work everyday. As I drive to work I rarely have anything new to look at although once I did see a milk tank truck driving next to a Dunkin' Donuts truck. Well luckily there is now a little girl exhibiting her art work on a 3rd floor apartment that I walk past every morning on the way to the garage. She celebrated the New Year with a glitter snowman on a paper plate. This week she changed her artwork and I had to take a picture. It is both cute and creepy, my favorite combination.
January 20, 2006VisitorsLast weekend Lynda and Graeme came up for the long weekend. We went to Zita's Friday night for her annual Russian New Year's party. Saturday Lynda and I worked on her web site project (she volunteered to maintain a website for Graeme's school) while Lyla, Tracy and Graeme went to the Spy museum. Sunday Tracy, Lynda, Graeme and I went down to the Smithsonian Sackler Museum of Asian Art and the Freer Gallery to see the Ottoman Textile exhibit and anything else we encountered.
The Limey This thriller is about an ex-con who travels from England to Los Angeles to find out more about his estranged daughter's death. It has a very interesting look to it and the editing is unusual without being too gimicky. The story is not complicated so it is more about the characters involved. Terrance Stamp and Peter Fonda do a great job with the characters. I thought this was much better than some Soderbergh's more ambitious movies like Full Frontal and Traffic. As I was just now looking over Soderbergh's film list I saw King of the Hill, a bittersweet movie that spawned my interest in vintage Hamilton watches. I had forgotten he had done that. Another excellent film that seems to have slipped through the cracks. It is not on out on DVD. January 12, 2006Job Title: Computer Programmer/BaristaI spent two days at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting at a hotel in my neighborhood this week manning the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center High Energy Astrophysics Archive ( or NASA GSFC HEASARC) booth. My job was to entice attendees over and give them a demo of the software I work on. It was not too hard because
December 31, 2005Goodbye 2005Christmas in SC was fun and the Christmas contest went well. I did not place or show but I was happy with my entry and I was glad my mother won 1st place. There were a couple of years when my grandfather was judging that she should have won. He was not always a good father but that's another long and twisted story for another time. My mother's entry this year was good. Wanna see them all? Highlights of the trip:
Haven't seen enough pictures? Look here December 18, 2005Tis the seasonAt Christmas time some Metro drivers decorate their trains. Decorations consist mainly of fake snow but that's OK. Seeing a Christmas train is like seeing a money train which is a train that runs through the system collecting the money from the fare machines. It is empty except for the employees who push the money vaults around and the 2-3 armed guards who step out of the train and stand on the platform until the vaults are back in the train. I have not seen a Christmas train or a money train in a long time. But some of the station managers also decorate. Joe took this at the Friendship Heights station.
I am almost ready for Christmas. I leave for SC on Thursday. Hopefully the weather will stay good and we will all get there on time. December 11, 2005Long Time GoneA new entry is long overdue. I have been a little busy with christmas shopping which I do mostly online but it's the management of all the alliances I have built with my sisters and brothers for gift buying that takes time. It is so complicated I have to keep a spreadsheet and this year Austin is organized enough to join in on the alliances and my aunt Zita wants in too because she hasn't travelled much this year, her usual source for presents, so it's even more intensive. But most of my shopping is done! And then there is the Christmas contest. It's coming along. I have found that working on black velvet requires daylight. And I have also been working on images and little movies that will be used in my friend Dana's dance performance in March. I am enjoying doing the research and video-taping and video-editing but I am now starting to think of the hundreds of people including dance critics from major newspapers who will see the performance. I am now wishing I had gone for that BA in Art instead of that BA in Astronomy. Here are two pictures I took recently.
Some more movie/DVD reviews
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back November 24, 2005Craftiness and CutenessA couple of days ago I had my camera out at work so I took some pictures of some cute things around my desk including my dinosaur-with-his-lunch-box iPod cover. I went over to Austin and William's place today to visit with them and my aunt Zita as they prepared for Thanksgiving dinner. I did not stay because I decided to work on my Christmas Contest entry and have a nice quiet veggie Thanksgiving dinner with Joe. We had a corn pudding, the traditional and apparently 50 year old green bean/cream of mushroom soup/french fried onions casserole, pull-apart rolls and cookies that Austin made this morning for dessert. I did make some progress on my Christmas Contest entry but I still have a long way to go before it is a true work of velvet art. Austin and William's table looked quite elegant with a touch of cuteness. Austin made the napkins and I loved all the textures on and around the table.
Some more movie/DVD reviews
The Secret Lives of Dentists November 12, 2005Hospital LifeI was in Charleston this past weekend to help Lynda recover from surgery after her ovarian cancer crept back after 3 years of remission. I spent a lot of time sitting in the hospital room meeting the parade of doctors and nurses and watching them poke and prod Lynda. I kept hoping it would be more like an episode of Grey's Anatomy, you know pretty doctors saving patients while engaging in outrageous activities like flirting, affairs, drunken confessions, getting pregnant and spreading syphilis. Well all the caretakers were professional and there was one pretty doctor and a couple of pretty nurses but we did not get to see any behind-the-scenes shenanigans. When I was not at the hospital I was putting in some work hours at Lynda's house. It was actually pleasant sitting looking out her back door at the birds and turtles. Willow the cat kept me entertained by trying to be the lion of her backyard although she mostly chased bugs. Graeme and I watched TV together but he was working on a school project so we did not have time to do much else. Here are some pictures from my trip.
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