Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

The Dog

Two days of veterinary intensive care later...

Wednesday she was a good dog. Thursday she must have been feeling better, because she chewed out two IV ports and, once they put her in the collar, she chewed up the IV line.

Wanna know the bill? No, actually...I've said before that it doesn't matter.

All that matters to me now is making her better so that we can add another medical marvel to her list.

Now it's really not funny

The dog's liver enzymes are quite elevated. She's on IV fluids, and the vet wants to keep her overnight.

I'll go by on my way home from work to see her, and see what sort of differential diagnosis the vet's doing.

This could still be no big deal, at least that is what I keep telling myself. She's the Medical Miracle Dog, after all...

I feel sick myself.

Don't read this over breakfast

Back last December my sister pointed me to one of the funniest blog posts I have ever read: the Kid Who Ate Christmas.

Since them "Am I gonna barf and die?" has been something of a catch phrase in the family.

We use it a lot on the dog, because she's, well, a dog. A more sensitive vomit reflex does not exist.

I still remember, not long after I got her, I woke up in the middle of the night to hear her going hork...hork. She was retching, but nothing was coming out. I called the emergency vet, who had me give her hydrogen peroxide. Instantly she puked up a sock.

Over the years she's eaten and regurgitated socks, hair ties, plastic bags, and enough grass to cover the Augusta back nine. (It could be worse. We once attended a brunch where the host was dog sitting a friend's lab. In the middle of the party, the dog threw up a Brillo pad in the center of the living room. You could tell the non-dog owners by their confusion: why would a dog eat a Brillo pad? Those of with dogs nodded sympathetically and ate our quiche.)

Victor came home the other day in hysterics over this Get Fuzzy cartoon.

So I've established: dogs eat random things they shouldn't and throw them up, and the line "Am I going to barf and die?" is hysterical.

When the dog starts puking at 3 a.m., you can mutter "Am I going to barf and die?" and roll over and go back to sleep. When the dog is still puking at 5, and has been continuously puking for the whole time, barfing and dying doesn't seem so funny.

The vet opens in 20 minutes.

And now, my manic phase

I'm not sure if that's a joke or not. I am in an awfully good mood, which seems like a massive change from my usual whining.

That 200-buck desklamp did make a difference in my energy and disposition the second half of the winter, but now that Helios is getting up earlier and going to bed later, I have perked up considerably more. Clearly I must have sun.

It's been cooler than it ought to be for this time of year, but daffodils are blooming everywhere, and so are the forsythias that I love so much. Yellow is my new favorite color.

Saturday afternoon my mom and I worked on the new vegetable garden. After two years of feeding every squash beetle central Maryland with my attempts at container gardening, I'm doing it the right way over at my parents' house. The last two weeks we have been digging, preping soil, and hauling heavy stuff; this week we plant spinach, chard, beets, and I forget what else. And I've even convinced mom that we need blueberry bushes.

Spring training is almost over. I'm in such a great mood I'm ready to forgive Soriano's temper tantrum. (Well...we'll see how often the wind knocks those line drives out of his line of vision before I decide for sure.)

I'm so cheery, I can't wait to get to the Metro so I can help tourists figure out how to use the farecard machines.

Ok, that is definitely a joke.

Nothing but blue skies

I bought that new camera at a local camera shop. I could have gotten a bit of a better deal by going mail order, but once I'd decided to take the plunge I was too impatient to wait for delivery. I also had a few questions, and I didn't think the kid behind the digital camera counter at CompUSA would be terribly helpful (given that half the time they have trouble finding the keys to unlock the case with the media cards). So I went to a shop that's been here so long that Matthew Brady probably got his equipment there.

One thing I love is that the store was just how I remembered it from when I bought my paper and chemicals there 20 years ago. Another thing that I love is that when I went in today they cleaned my sensor, made me feel much better about having gotten dust on the sensor, and made me confident that I can take care of dust on the sensor. I couldn't have gotten that from cheapelectronicsbymail.com.

See the lack of dust?

(Actually, I have seen a new speck already, but it's nothing like that annoying thread-looking thing. And now I know how to clean it, so it's no big deal.)

And when I got home tonight, there was a CDW box in the door with the magic cable. Victor hooked it up when he got home, and I'm working on restoring the PC. In fact, it will be better than it was; better, faster, stronger.

Gentlemen, we have the technology.

I have the taxes back. I'm working on finding the pictures (by the time I'm done, I may have more pictures than I thought...I have found folders on the old hard drive containing folders with folders of folders of files going back to the 386 Packard Bell I bought with my tax return in 1991. [I didn't think I'd ever need all 40 megabytes of that hard drive.])

I have a pretty good idea how to resurrect my e-mail and internet stuff.

The weather is supposed to be rather cold and cloudy this weekend...perfect for sitting on my ass in front of the computer for two days.

I don't wanna work, I just wanna play with my camera all day

Although I wish the weather would improve so I could go outside and take pictures of interesting things...

Instead of hogging up a bunch more bandwidth by posting every picture here, I started a new album on my gallery.

Oh, and the camera shop guy doesn't clean digital cameral sensors. What he will do is teach me how to clean it myself, which I guess is what I should do anyway. The other option is to never take the lens off, and that pretty much defeats the purpose of getting a camera that lets me use my existing lens collection.

In totally unrelated whining: remember my emergency clinic visit last Labor Day for the rat bite? I have come to terms with the fact that I will never have the same use of my right index finger. Now I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm not getting reimbursed a dime. I got the final paperwork from the weasles at the insurance company today. It has only taken six months of constant hounding to get them to acknowledge and process this at all, and lo, once you subtract the parts of the bill (the stitches, the doctor, the surgical supplies) they deem unworthy, they pretty much only cover the cost of the drugs. Conveniently enough, what they will cover comes to 30 bucks under my deductible.

I don't say things like this that often on my blog, but I hate those fuckers.

(Did I tell you about the time that I called to check on the process and the "customer service" representative told me that none of the paperwork existed? Even though it had been in the pipeline for three months at that point? And when I pointed out to her that I had spoken to people on specific dates about it it was in the system that she said I was a liar? Or the time that the reason they hadn't processed the claim was because they couldn't read part of the photocopy, and when I asked why they hadn't called me or the doctor for clarification, they said that they never call out to follow up on problems?

Fucking weasles.)

Eggs-plaining aperture*

I'm sorry. I oughta be smacked for that.

But these are the pictures I took to show the differences in aperture. All are full frame, with the lens zoomed in (55 mm), using the built-in flash and 1/60 of a second, changing only the aperture.

This is f5.6:

This is the widest opening I could get. I focused on the spot on the egg, and you can see how the image starts to blur as you go out from the center. The edge of the egg itself isn't even in focus.

This is f8:

The edge of the egg is a little clearer, and you see some detail in the dishtowel.

This is f22:

The whole egg is in focus, the dishtowel is sharper, and (dammit) you notice the dust spots.

*Actually I haven't explained aperture at all, I just couldn't resist the pun. Digital Photography Review explains it better than I would anyway.

Everything is dust in the wind

So I've had the new camera for what, 11 days, and already I have dust on the sensor.

Actually, I probably got the dust in there the day I bought it, because I have only had it open to put the lens on. And while I tried to do that quickly and carefully, God knows no part of my house is free of dust.

I noticed the dust today because it was aperture priority day. See this picture?

I've circled the dust. You really see it when shooting a light background with a smaller aperture. Given my great love of blurred edges, I might not have noticed this if I hadn't been doing shots to see the specific results of each lens opening.

I am terrified to try to clean this myself. I mean, the charge hasn't even shown up on my credit card. It still has the new-camera smell. I don't want to break anything. I will call the camera shop tomorrow to see if they can clean it without my having to drop it off for a week; if not, I do know some pro photographers who probably know what they are doing, and I'll beg for their mercy.

In the meantime I'll keep taking pictures with nice blurred edges and say that's what I like.

Pictures

I'm trying to distract myself from the computer woes...these are the pictures I was trying to upload yesterday when the OS bit the dust. Click on the images to see them bigger, though not in their full 6 megapixel glory...I doubt I have enough readers to eat up too much of Pixy's bandwidth, but I don't want to be too obnoxious.

I took all these with good old fashioned manual settings and manual focusing, and they are unretouched by Photoshop. (Photoshop, of course, is on the dead computer.) I did crop and resize.

What I didn't do is write down the settings (I figured that would be part of that Exif code, but I'm not sure how to find that except in Photoshop). I took this on the kitchen counter using ambient light; I think it was about 1/60 and f4. That's as open an aperture as I get with the lens that came with the camera...I'm not sure if that equates exactly to f4 on a regular SLR or not. (I have ordered a book so that I can learn this stuff.)

Here is where I relearn the concept of backlighting.

So I moved to the dining room where I could use the afternoon light but find a subject that wasn't backlit. I still had to keep the aperture wide open, which gave me a shallow depth of field. I was focused on the bottle with the black and gold foil (the one in the center...I need to learn how to use the camera before I start getting clever with the composition) and everything else blurs. Actually, I often use a very shallow depth of field on purpose, and I sort of like how this came out.

And not because it's alcohol.

That scream you heard

See the pretty desktop, all uncluttered by icons?

That's because all my icons are gone. That's because this is a brand-new sparkling clean hard drive, devoid of programs, devoid of data.

Shortly before leaving for the hockey game I went to download some pictures, and when I booted up I got a message that said

Unable to start Windows.
Vitalfiles.sys is corrupt.
You are hosed.
Don't you wish you had backed up all your data?

Press R to destroy everything you've worked on in the last two years.

It may not have said that exactly; I'm working from memory. And I do have a backup, but I admit it's from probably Christmas time or so, and I have taken a bitch of a lot of pictures since then, including the ones of Jim.

I know, I really need to start doing real backups if I care about the photos. I know, I know, I know.

And since I knew I hadn't been doing it, I burst into tears, much to the annoyance of Victor.

While I went to the game, he went to Comp USA and bought a new hard drive. He's asleep now, so I guess it will be tomorrow before I see if I can rescue the data.

You know the saying about no atheists in foxholes? I think there are no atheists with bad hard drives and no backups.

TGN1412

I'm glued to the TGN1412 story, but as I told Victor last night, I've been a little frustrated by the news that's coming out. (And usually, I'm an apologist for the popular press science reporting because of my background: B.S. Journalism, Science Communications sequence.)

As I pontificated over a bottle of wine, he kept saying "Sounds like a blog post." Unfortunately (see "over a bottle of wine") I forgot what I said. But I was eventually able to find some people who know what they are actually talking about who are talking about TGN1412. Go read them.

No Immunity From Immunity and Update on TGN1412 from In the Pipeline.

The Risks of Clinical Trials and TGN1412 roundup at Black Triangle.

Home ec

Until recently, I was intimidated by eggplant. I have never cooked a fresh artichoke. I don't like Victor watching me in the kitchen, because he was a real chef and I'm afraid he'll point out that I'm incompetent.

I just read this article: Cooking 101: Add 1 Cup of Simplicity. I feel so smug. Not only did I go 5-for-5 on the cooking quiz, I have never started a fire by greasing the outside bottom of a pan.

The article mentions home ec in junior high as one place where people do learn basic cooking skills. Thinking back to when I was a kid, seventh grade home ec wasn't where I learned the basics. We cooked in grade school. For an "international dinner" in first grade we made yakitori, in second grade we had a class garden and we made a big lunch to eat the harvest. (I ate broccoli, because that was "my" plant...I had taken the seedlings home to water them over spring break. Interestingly enough, I wouldn't eat broccoli again until I was 18.)

(Of course I also saw my mom and my grandmothers cook, but the fact that this doesn't happen so much now is a point of the article.)

In a seemingly unrelated topic, yesterday Victor and I were discussing science and how it's taught (actually it started with talking about the TGN1412 trial). I hated "science" as a subject in school, and I maintain that's because nobody ever related the stuff that I did like...like cooking...to science. I think teachers should incorporate better. A class garden (which we all loved...what kid wouldn't rather be outside playing in dirt than sitting at a desk?) could be biology, home ec, chemistry, even algebra.

It's probably harder to measure those results on a standardized test, though.

"Tofu and Cabbage" wouldn't cut it

Cardinal McCarrick Gives Dispensation for Catholics to Eat Meat on St. Patrick’s Day

I find this funny. It reminds me of the George Carlin bit about going to Hell on a meat rap.

Actually, around Ash Wednesday I had a discussion with my sister (a good Catholic) about the whole Lenten dietary rules thing, and whether it was tradition or one of those rules that came straight from God through the Pope...I forget what that's called, probably because I had some much trouble with the concept. She found it in the Canon law.

(In fact, she found out that every Friday is a "day of penance." Wow, I don't remember that ever coming up in CCD. Maybe it would work better if they changed it to Wednesday or something. It's hard enough to not sin on Friday, maybe asking for exercises of piety at the start of the weekend raises the bar just too high.)

I'm also curious...if one had given up, say, drinking for Lent, could one get a green beer dispensation?

I guess people who live in dioceses where the bishop was being a hardass will have to make do with fish and chips for St. Patrick's Day.

When I was a kid, I asked my mother why eating fish on Friday was ok, but meat wasn't. Her answer: the fishermen had a very strong lobby at the Vatican.

Local knowledge

At work my screensaver is a slideshow of pictures that I've taken. Today one of my coworkers noticed this shot and asked if it was the Bay Bridge in the background.

"No, it's Route 90," I said.

She asked where the picture was taken. I said "Behind the Convention Center." She looked blank. "It's Ocean City," I clarified. "The bridge is the one up at 63rd Street, not down at the Inlet."

"What body of water?" she wanted to know.

"I think it's the Isle of Wight at that point," I said. "Or Assawoman. I've never been clear on why the bay has different names."

The more I explained, the more confused she got, until we realized that the basic misunderstanding was that she thought that Ocean City was just east of the Chesapeake Bay. She had no idea that it was a barrier island, and didn't realize how much land (and water) there was between us and the Atlantic Ocean.

I forget that not everyone who lives here spends a week in Ocean City every summer.

Then she asked me a question about the zoo, and I told her that I hadn't been to the zoo since Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing were young.

She forgets that just because I've always lived here doesn't mean I know anything about this town.

Girl Geeks, the next generation

Today is Pi Day.

When I was in junior high, some friends and I had a little competition to see who could memorize pi to the most digits. (3.141592653589 is what I remember. I haven't checked to see if I still have that right.)

All the other pi memorizers were boys, by the way. I hung out with the boys who memorized pi and played Dungeons & Dragons.

Can you guess how many dates I had in high school? Yeah. But I digress.

A couple of years ago I was working at a charity event. Two other volunteers saw me mixing regular and decaf coffee in my cup, and I explained "I need to titrate my caffeine." One person said "Huh?" The other one said "What do you do for a living?" When I told her, she gave me a high five and said "Another girl geek!"

Now, I don't think of myself as a geek (more like a wanna-be. Would that I were smart enough to be a true geek!), but I did happen to be browsing the National Academies site the other day, and I noticed that they have a project called iWASwondering.org "intended to showcase the accomplishments of contemporary women in science and to highlight for young people the varied and intriguing careers of some of today's most prominent scientists."

It's kind of neat, and I may get the companion books for my niece.

I hope the kids like it too, because it sure beats the hell out of Bratz.

I want those plumbers!

Woman Gets Beer From Her Kitchen Faucet

It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer.

All hail the magic faucet!

I warned you

(Click the images for larger version.)

Tidal Basin, schmidal basin. Our cherry trees are already blooming.

I haven't been too concerned about bird flu, but today it hit me, what if people start freaking out and round up all the geese?

I used the Photoshop "auto fix" on this, and it did make the water look better. Maybe after I learn to use the camera I'll learn Photoshop. I expect it is going to take awhile. When I first had the KSX I carried a notebook, and every time I took a picture I wrote down the settings I used and what I was trying to achieve. When I got the prints back (remember when that used to take days?), I'd go back to my notes to see where I'd failed. It was sort of tedious, but I may have to do that again...not only have I forgotten what I used to know, I need to learn new stuff like histograms.

Say cheese

My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 100 with a broken flash, so I could only take pictures outside. I was about six or seven. My parents had to put me on a film allowance, I took so many pictures. Later in grade school I got an new Instamatic, then a fixed focus 35mm we got for touring a time share. By sixth grade I longed to focus, and I started saving my babysitting money. That summer I bought my first "real" camera, a Sears KSX.

I loved that camera. I bought lenses and amassed an impressive collection of Cokin filters. In high school I learned how to develop and print. I got a job to help support my habit.

The KSX was everything I needed in a camera, but the film uptake mechanism broke on me when I was in college...while I was doing an assignment for a photojournalism class, in fact. In need of a camera right away, I didn't shop around. There was a Pentax P3N at the first store I checked, my lenses fit it, I had to move on.

There was nothing wrong with the P3N. Sometimes I even got lazy and left the shutter and apertures settings on auto. When I spotted an old-school Pentax K1000 in a Pensacola pawn shop, though, I couldn't resist. In theory, the K1000 was going to be my then-husband's camera...he wanted to move beyond the point & shoot...but more often that not I gave him the P3N and used the K1000 myself. (I did turn my darkroom stuff over to my brother, though. He was headed to art school, and I had accepted the fact that I'm too impatient and too sloppy to ever do a good job doing my own printing and developing.)

Over the years I got very lazy even outside the darkroom...the camera bag was heavy, and I had a series of pocket 35 mm, and then an APS, that I could carry around more easily. Then came the digitals. I haven't actually focused a camera in years.

I love digitals...I love the instant gratification, I love being able to take 500 shots without buying film. But increasingly, I've been wanting more control. I've been frustrated by depth of field. I've wanted to do my own focusing.

My tax refund came in on Thursday, and I went shopping.

Expect this to be a photoblog for a while...well, once I've figured out how to use it in something other than the auto-everything mode. It's a snazzy camera all right, but it isn't my KSX.

Get outside, it's a beautiful day

Hush, not so loud, or everybody will show up

Peak Cherry Blossom Season Announced

...and announced, and announced, and announced. The only place I didn't see or hear this yet was a variable message board on the highway on the way home.

Last year was the first time I ever went down to see the cherry blossoms, and I couldn't believe how many people there were. Utterly claustrophobic. I vowed never to do something so stupid again.

Except...they were really pretty. Maybe if I'm there at sunrise...

It's trade time

Victor just called me from the Cap Cen--MCI--that arena where we watch hockey to tell me that Witt wasn't dressed tonight. That reminded me to check the trade news from TSN.ca.

The only question for Witter is where he'll go. This doesn't tear me up the way the trades did last year--season--you know when I mean, so I can watch this with interest instead of dread.

Hey, Jose Theodore to the Colorado Avalanche for David Aebischer. Ok, the Olympics aren't the NHL, but I'd say Montreal got the better of that deal. Jose's got nice hair and all, but I don't think he's gonna pull a Patrick Roy.

Get those neurons to straighten up and fly right

I was trying to read this at work this afternoon:

Tumor promoting activities of ethylphenylacetylurea and diethylacetylurea, the ring hydrolysis products of barbiturate tumor promoters phenobarbital and barbital, in rat liver and kidney initiated by N-nitrosodiethylamine

But all that was going through my mind...an endless loop, very distracting...was the theme from Hong Kong Phooey.

Is this a sign of actual brain damage, or are my neurons just slacking?

(In case you don't recall: Hong Kong Phooey, Number one super guy/Hong Kong Phooey, faster than the human eye/He's got style, a groovin' style, and a car that just won't stop/When the going gets rough he's super-tough, with his Hong Kong phooey chop.That's how I remember it, anyway.)

Four days to go

We had a busy weekend planned, so busy that Victor and I took today off to spread out the fun stuff and still have time for the critical stuff. Saturday we toured Boordy Vineyards, tasted some wines, picked up a spare case for later. Sunday we went to a glamourous Oscar party (the closest we'd come to seeing any of the nominated movies was watching the ten-minute preview of March of the Penguins in our hotel room in Vegas, but free booze and free food are, well, free booze and free food.) Today we were going to play tourist and finally go see the Indian museum.

The Fates had other ideas, and we spent all day yesterday at the emergency vet, which pushed the laundry/grocery shopping/etc. chores to today. Then we both started feeling kinda crappy (I'm confident that this has nothing to do with the wine or the booze or the food. Really.) and the grocery shopping fell off the bottom of the list again, as did my intention to go to the gym, as did my intention to go get my squealing brakes checked. (I got new brakes in December. Should they be squealing already?)

All of a sudden it's 5:00 and I have wasted an entire vacation day.

I guess it's only for days til the weekend, and I can take another stab at that list.

Lent

One of my coworkers has given up swearing for Lent. My niece (2nd grade) was a little fuzzy on the concept...she didn't realize it was only 40-whatever days, she thought the giving-up thing lasted forever...so she was reluctant to give up candy or ice cream. She settled on giving up being mean to her brother.

Victor asked me what I was giving up. I told him that since I gave up being Catholic, it didn't seem to matter any more.

Honestly, I don't remember ever giving up anything for Lent. The parish I went to as a kid, a nice touchy-feely-liberal place, didn't stress the giving up of treats so much as the doing extra good. We had "rice bowls" that we filled with change; presumably that money went to buy food for the needy somewhere down the line.

Long after I quit going to church I still did the abstaining from meat on Friday thing, but now that I only eat meat a few times a month, seems like that would be pretty hollow.

When I realized I hadn't blogged since Tuesday, I thought about giving up blogging for Lent...by mid-April surely I'll have thought of a topic or two.