I ran away to the circus.. er, Renaissance Festival today!
It was pirate weekend, so I got into a pseudo-costume (I wore jeans), and met Donna, Jon, Lando and some friends.
It was a long drive, by the way. Geez. It seems so much shorter when there is another person in the car.
This is us in front of the waterwheel by the carousel, which was the designated "let's all meet here" location.

This weekend I cleaned and rearranged with my parents' help, and it went really well.  I'm still debating how best to arrange the things I have, but now almost every box has been opened and its contents put someplace.
Today I cooked for the first time - serious cooking, I mean, not just heating water for tea. I made rice noodles in chicken broth with Quorn nuggets, bell pepper, snow peas, mushrooms, and bean sprouts.  There is a big bowl of leftovers in the fridge.
I also made a big list of cooking items it would be helpful to own.  :) 
Now I have eaten, cleaned up the kitchen, and am watching the last epic hilarious battle scene from Van Helsing.
I have lots of art deadlines that I need to get moving on, so that's my plan next. I have one piece almost finished, and the composition of another in my head. I hope to get the one finished and the other sketched tonight.

On the down side, when I came out of the grocery store after work, my car had a massive crack across one third of the windshield from the passenger side. It wasn't even that hot out, but the sun was beating down.  I'm kind of pissed off about it, not that I actually have direction for my anger - these things happen when one owns a car.  I'll have to see how long I can drive with it, and if it gets any worse I'll have to have the windshield replaced.

The Texas Department of Car Bureaucracy had it in for me this morning, in a LOLtastic way.
At the closest dealership, the computer went down, so I was sitting there for an hour and then told "Sorry, no inspection for you today!"  I did get a coupon for a free oil change out of it, at least.
So then I toodled down to the Jiffy Lube, and I got to give these two cute mechanics a thrill because Lo, they have never done a Hybrid Car Inspection before.
They were very funny, the poor guys. I had to explain that the engine doesn't actually idle, but turns off unless the gas is pressed; and how to change gears; and how to put it in park; and how to turn it on and off. And they never actually realized that there was a key, or that it was in the ignition. But they certainly did get it inspected! Except for the issue with engine idling (the emissions test) everything went swimmingly. And then their computer didn't connect to State either! Doh. Luckily for me the second time worked.
So I was late for work but at least I am now legal for the road. I am actually kind of amazed that I never got a ticket. Oops.

So Julie and I are staying at a hotel clear on the other side of town from where I live because it's close to the RenFest. It is in another city. I am so happy I don't live this far out and have to commute into town normally.
We're taking our time getting ready but I am pretty sure we will still be in traffic on our way in.
Yesterday we went to the Museum of Fine Arts and covered pretty much all of the available exhibit space in the Beck Building. Plus the store.  Ooooh, the store.  And the few open spaces in the Law Building, where they were in the middle of restoration and installation on rotating exhibits.
Today we'll be hitting Hermann Park, including the Reflection Pool, the Japanese Garden, the Science Museum and possibly some of the other attractions if we've time.  Personally I wouldn't object to taking a little trip on the mini train around the park. It's a good way to see a lot, and have a fun time, and not walk yourself into a stupor doing so.

It's almost time for us to get down to breakfast, so I'd best go forth to meet the day!  Wish us luck in traffic.

The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have - BusinessWeek:

Ford's Fiesta ECOnetic gets an astonishing 65 mpg, but the carmaker can't afford to sell it in the U.S.

Dad and I were discussing this when I drove him to get his car from the shop, and it does seem a bit like the reason Marketing departments exist in the first place: to sell a product to a public who may not know it or realize what it does, or who have an inaccurate picture of it. I suppose the Marketing people are too busy convincing Americans to vote against their best interests to really think about rejuvenating an industry or promoting fuel efficiency.

I have said before that if I had had more experience with cars or more time to do the research, I might have chosen a diesel car instead of a hybrid, but in this case the hybrid was easier and familiar. (I'd already driven one, and Mom got one of the first generation. Plus the early Priuses are so cute!)

(I'd love to see a move toward more efficient public transportation and alternative vehicles, as well, but I don't really think there's any chance, barring total Apocalypse, that we will see the end of a car-based infrastructure in my lifetime.)

 

ok, so:

a) yesterday I got stopped twice on my commute by police blockades for the presidential convoy. Quite a delay that made.  Whee.

b) the cable went out in our neighborhood at 10:30 this morning, and I am making this post from a restaurant in the Montrose where the Harry Potter Meetup had dinner.

c) I have written almost 800 words of my new story which I hope to finish this weekend for my general group. Also posted a new chappie of the fanfic.

This time with more luggage than usual. Seriously - so many shoes, and a giant plush snake.
I'm spending the weekend at Portus 2008 in Dallas with a bunch of other nuts.
Should be a grand event.
Lots of excellent food, interesting presenters, and awesome costumes! All Harry Potter, all the time!

So, wish me a safe drive, and I'll see you folks later!

I was reading this article perfectly cheerfully until I hit #21 and I just couldn't get past it. No matter how valid the rest of the article was, this one item is a sticking point for me.

Save Gas, Save Money: 66 Ways To Spend Less On Gasoline - Green on The Huffington Post:

21. Can it be delivered?
Find companies willing to delivery[sic] what you need to your home. Amazon, dry cleaning delivery services, food, and anything else that will bring what you need without burning up your gas may save some loot and the planet some warming.

Having things delivered may save me some gas, and therefore some money, but let's not fool ourselves that it will save "the planet some warming". How does that Amazon delivery get to me? By flying. Or shipping. Then sitting on a truck (possibly a fuel-efficient truck, but who are we kidding?) for a day or three until it finally stops at my front door. Same for local businesses - somebody had to drive it out to me.
Did I save a few gallons of gas by not driving myself? Sure.
Did I save the planet by saving my gallons? Not remotely. The plane, the ship, and the truck used exponentially more fuel than I would have to run down to the store. If it's something you cannot get any other way, sure, buy online. Just don't think that by doing so you are somehow doing a great environmentalist deed.

Choosing to shop by delivery is not a grand environmentalist stand. It only shifts the cost and the heat onto a different individual or company.

There's a difference between saving my wallet some strain and saving the planet.

Everybody in my office is so nice - they remember that I'm supposed to be starting my apartment hunting now that I'm back from England and ask me how it's going...
And I say, "Uh? Oh, yeah... I should start that."

Also - four stopped buses or transportation vans with hazard lights on in the right lane on Main Street this morning between Southmore and University. How exciting! Plus an accident at the intersection where I usually get on the freeway backing up all the neighborhood traffic. Fun times!

It's humid and hot and sticky and overcast and intermittently raining and kind of gross outside, but it's parka weather in the office! Whee!

That is all for now.
Good morning!

The BioTruck Drive To Timbuktu:

Adventures Andy Pag (34) and John Grimshaw (39) have just returned from the 8500km drive from the UK to Timbuktu using Biodiesel made from waste chocolate.

Today I had a little dialog with Death from the Druidcraft Tarot, and was basically told to go boil off my thick outer shell and be like a snake, shedding the old skin and embracing the new. The crone and the snake both wanted me to get back into regular religious practice, too. That was unexpected in some ways, but not in others.
It was a very odd conversation. It made me want a pet snake. (N.B. This is not a request, anyone in the habit of giving gifts of animals.)

The entire session sort of blew me open, in a very good way. It was terribly fun and entrancing. I had wonderful insights and saw cards in totally new ways.

This has completely effed up the Major Arcana assignments for my Harry Potter tarot. Again. But in a good way. I think I'm getting a bit better handle on Judgment and Temperance, which were giving me troubles.

This has been a totally amazing weekend so far and tomorrow is just more of the same. I'm really tired, though. Who knew this kind of seminar could take so much out of you?

I am not looking forward to the drive back, though. Good grief, I don't think I have ever met a more boring stretch of highway.

I'm off to Dallas for my Tarot Seminar, and probably a little taste of Saturday Night at FenCon.   Wish me a safe and happy drive, with plenty of Wizarding Rock on the stereo and lots of wildflowers on the roadsides!

Have a good weekend, and happy equinox on Sunday if I don't check in before then. 

Mom and I drove up to Austin on Sunday to have lunch with some other TNS grads - that's me, Annie, Nancy, and Aina. Annie was in town from New York to officiate a wedding, so Nancy coordinated this gathering.

It was a great time, and good food at Casa de Luz, and the drive was pretty nice, too. I didn't start to drag unti we were close to Houston on the return trip.

I've got A Day in the Life... for the summer solstice:


Skyline from I-45 (my morning commute)

See whole set here.

And then I've got FSG 2007 (mostly arts and crafts, with a few people thrown in:

Maria shows off a home-knitted sock in a transparent boot.

See whole set here.

Two things:
1. When an ambulance with sirens blaring* is coming up in the left lane of a three-lane road, all cars are supposed to pull to the right and stop even if the left lane is clear and you are in the center, asshole in the Honda who almost clipped my car trying to go around me as I pulled over. (And as a side note, it's also against the law to tailgate the sirens-blaring ambulance to the traffic light, you dumbass!)
2. When the right lane of said three-lane road is a Diamond Lane, that means only buses, or cars making  imminent right turns should be driving in it, so why are you stooging down the lane and blocking me and the other turning cars at the red light, dunderhead in the Impala?

At this point I have my commute down to a science, up to and including having the potholes memorized so that I know which side of the lane to be driving to avoid rattling my chassis. But there will never cease to be idiots on the road. (I hate to disparage** the collective wisdom of the Texas Legislature***, but Parent Taught Driver Education is really phenomenally stupid when there is no required road test to be sure the parents in question ever actually did anything like teach the laws and rules of traffic. Not to mention common driving courtesy. Good grief.)

---

* for context, I work across the street from the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world. It is not a surprise, nor should it be, to hear or see an ambulance bookin' it toward one of the hospitals, but just because it's a common sight doesn't mean you can just slalom through the siren traffic, either!
** ok, not really. I will disparage at will.
*** I know, I know. Not all of them are nutbars, though. Really.

Today was my first appointment with a college personal trainer. She was very lovely, and interesting, and we had a wonderful session including the introduction of several machines. And I got about 45 minutes through before I felt like I would collapse into a puddle of dizziness. This was mostly because she kept my pace moderate, more as a fitness assessment than a true session.
I was shaking so bad I worried about my ability to drive, but sitting in the car (as it started to pour down rain) for a while made it a bit better.
One nice thing was that my PT complimented my form. She said it was nice to have someone who got it after one explanation. It's probably the dance training, plus of course I know how to lunge in many different ways.
Of course, it was, like 80-something degrees during the day proper, but the minute the thunderstorms break open the sky, it drops to 66 (Lila the car has an external temp reading). And I am looking at the last tick on the gas gauge. So I stop at the Chevron (not my first choice, but one of two between work and the freeway, the easiest to get into and out of) and try to swipe my card. The number buttons are broken, so it refuses to let me pump. So I drive around to another pump, the one on the outer edge, perfectly placed so that when the wind suddenly drives a hammering wave of rain in my direction, I get the brunt of it. So, now drenched, I wait for the machine, which beeps at me and says it can't process my card. Aaaaaargh!!!
So I muttered and climbed into the car and toweled myself off and drove to the Valero next to the Mexican Consulate (which is also next to the on-ramp, and the driveways flood, making it doubly annoying to get in and out). I succeed in filling my tank this time, wrapped in a towel although the torrent has let up a bit. Finally, I get in the car and manage to get home in one piece. The rain stops right as I get off the freeway in my neighborhood. Yeah, it's the least it could do.

Aren't we cute?

The World's Tallest Statue of an American Hero is in Huntsville, TX, keeping watch over Interstate 45. Mom and I stopped to visit on our way to Dallas.
See more of our trip to see Cheryl and Sami!

Mom and I took a road trip up to Dallas today (Saturday, that is) to see Cheryl and Sami, who were visiting from San Diego. Yay! It was so much fun and I will have wild photos and things posted later when I have slept.

On the way home, mom and I were talking about stuff and I mentioned that with the various interviews and meetups I have been attending, I sometimes find myself rehearsing answers to common questions. One of the questions I find myself answering is, "Why the Latin major?" And it goes something like this:

"Well, I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a classical archaeologist. Let's see... I remember the way it went, these plans for growing up:
When I was in the second grade, I wanted to be an astronaut and a ballerina.
When I was in the third grade, I wanted to be a paleontologist... and a ballerina.
When I was in the fourth grade, I wanted to be an Egyptologist... and a ballerina.
By sixth grade, I wanted to be a classical archaeologist... and a ballerina.
And in the eighth grade I accepted the fact that I was not the stuff of which ballerinas are made (there was too much of me, in all the wrong directions, and I hadn't the discipline for the upper levels of training - but I appreciate the fact that my parents made the training available), and went on to concentrate on classics, embodied by lots and lots of Latin (and mythology). It seemed the default major by the time I got to college.
And of course, now, I am none of those things I so wanted to be, but on the whole I am content with where I am."

I think when my mother has my kiddie portrait done, she will choose this "... and a ballerina" me to be immortalized.

Yesterday I called Donna from my car and she said, "Why does it sound like you're listening to Martin Luther King, Jr or something?" And I said, "Because I am listening to the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr on CD." And she said, "Oh, I'll have to borrow that for next year. I just did a unit on Martin Luther King."

When I pulled into the garage for the Houston CSS Meetup, another white car pulled into the space next door and the driver rolled down the window and called, "Keri? Are you Keri? Can you give me a hand with this?"
Apparently she has a gift for recognizing people based on fuzzy avatars and internet "auras". It was a great Meetup, though, and hopefully I can do more with her and that group. As she said to me, "When I saw your Prius, I thought to myself, "Oh, yeah, she's a geek. And we love geeks."

From this morning:
me: this just in - scientist conclusively determines vampires cannot exist
Lisa: hah!! I love what people spend their grant money on.... grin
me: well, i don't know if there was a grant.  I found it to be a fundamentally flawed proof, myself.
Lisa: hehe
me: his assumption that vampires convert every person they bite into another vampire ignores much of modern mythology. he seems stuck on Stoker.
Lisa: oh, piff!
(And then I went to the actual link and saw the comment thread, which pretty much covers that. Also, this math dictates that there can never be more than 512 vampires in the Buffy universe. Mmm, math. Tasty.)