November 29, 2013

A couple things I forgot to mention about Target last night. Both intertwined with each other. The first is that they handled the large amount of people wanting to check out in a very organized fashion. I was impressed. When we came in they had the aisle leading past the registers blocked off. The reason for this was that they wanted everyone wanting to check out going to the same spot. Which was the long line that was snaking its way through the short aisles next to the checkout area. We joined the line at aisle 27, just after 10:20PM. We slowly worked out way through make-up, cleaning supplies, and eventually pet stuff before reaching aisle 1 and the front of the line. The check out area was roped off and there was an employee there keeping an eye on registers so that whenever one opened up he would send the next person through. I have heard horror stories about Black Friday (and technically this wasn't that because it was Thursday and we didn't show up until a couple hours after they opened) but the atmosphere throughout the store was very relaxed and way the checkout was handled just added another layer of positivity to the experience.

As for the second thing, there was an old lady in a motorized cart behind us in line. She did alright with most of the aisles but a couple had stands of stuff narrowing the entrance. At one she took the turn too wide and almost took the stand of whatever it was out. I had already moved on but I walked back and got her unwedged. Then she backed up to take another crack at it and backed into the other side of the aisle. And going forward again ended with several of the things from the stand lodged under the front of her motorized cart. I had already walked back to the line but when I heard that last ruckus I walked back and kicked the things out from under her cart and thankfully far enough out of her way that she could make it into the aisle. I'm just glad she was behind us so I didn't need to worry about her in the parking lot.

Today was pretty boring. I watched YouTube videos and looked up accessories for my 3DS. I want to get a case to put it in and a skin to put on it. Sounds simple enough but not really. I finally found the case I wanted but I could only find it on Amazon and they only had it in a wine color. Which I might have to settle on but I will keep looking. As for the skin, I am fairly certain I know where I'm going to get it from but there are so many options. Over 1800 in the pre-made category. And then there is the option to upload images and make a custom one. There were a couple in the pre-made section that I thought were pretty cool but I also think it would be cool to make my own. I was thinking a Doctor Who theme. Or maybe Laurel And Hardy. Or maybe something entirely different. The site is having a sale over the weekend so I will be able to get a custom one for the same price as a pre-made one if I can figure it out by Sunday.

For dinner I had a big plate of leftovers, which is my second favorite thing about Thanksgiving. The first thing being the food the first time around.

Tonight a work I made a coaster by weaving pages of a magazine together. It seems that I am stuck with the subscription to Flex and I decided to try and do something productive with it. I don't know how I feel about the coaster thing. To finish it off I need to Mod Podge it, which I might do to see if I like it any better.

I also watched the majority of Homefront. It made me want to watch The Transporter and the sequels. And all the other Jason Stathom movies. He is such a badass. I would be way more afraid if he was running at me than Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. My only fear with the latter two would be if they tripped and broke a hip.

I spent a little bit of my night helping one of the managers figure out knitting. He originally got the desire to learn quite awhile ago but lost interest after awhile. Recently he got back into it and told me he watched a bunch of videos today. He kind of had it figured out but his problem was with tension, which was my problem in the beginning as well. It is too easy to go too tight, which makes the whole knitting process a big struggle, and that is the opposite of what it should be. So I showed him different stuff and and gave him tips and tried to explain things in different ways. I think I helped. Maybe. I will say it was quite a bit easier than trying to get little kids to understand what to me seems incredibly obvious, which makes it so much harder to explain for some reason.

Most of my night was spent finishing Divergent by Veronica Roth. During the climax of the book people started dying and it kind of made me feel like I did about the second and third Hunger Games books. Just a lot of unnecessary death. There is a chance that those deaths will be used as plot devices in the other books but at the moment annoy me. Other that that, I thought the book was pretty good. It had some interesting things to say and it kept me wanting to read to find out what happened next. Although I would only read it on Friday and Saturday and then take the rest of the week off so it wasn't that gripping. Now I want to watch the movie trailer and see how it stacks up to my imagination. I'm not sure yet if I want to read the next book but there is a decent chance that I will get around to it at some point.

Now I am waiting for the 11:30PM showing of Catching Fire to get out. A whole five people went to see it. Thankfully no one went to the midnight so I'll be getting out of here closer to 2:30AM instead of 3:00AM. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I still have an hour. Maybe start a new book.

Here is my favorite quote from Divergent, probably because it sounds like an exchange I would have:

"I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."

"That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."

November 28, 2013

Today was the first Thanksgiving since the year 2000 that I didn't work at the theater. It was incredibly weird.

Instead, on this day of giving thanks, I watched movies about journeys of self-discovery. I could use one of those journeys.

The first movie was One Week with Joshua Jackson. A man is diagnosed with stage-four cancer and decides to take a spontaneous motorcycle trip west, across Canada. I have often dreamed of going on a cross-country road trip (and I kind of have with my trip to Washington D.C., but not really). I think it would probably take something as serious as terminal cancer to get me to go on that journey alone. I don't have the balls. And I have always thought it would be more fun, and meaningful, to at least do it with one other person.

The next movie was The Way, briefly starring Emilio Esteves (who also wrote the screenplay and directed it) but mostly starring Martin Sheen. It is about a son (Esteves) who dies on a pilgrimage in Europe and his father (Sheen) spontaneously decides to go on the pilgrimage himself when he goes to pick up his son's body. He meets people along the way, each struggling with some aspect of their own life, and they help each other open up and find at least some sort of resolution. I enjoyed the movie and the soundtrack was really good. Much like my dream to go on a cross-country trip, I would also like to go back to Europe. That was a trip I will never forget.

Next I could have watched Into The Wild because I really enjoy that movie, but the ending is just too depressing. Not that One Week was bright and sunny, but yeah. Instead I watch one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who, when Donna meets back up with the Doctor for the first time after the wedding episode. Then I watched a few of my favorite Psych episodes, including the one at the sorority.

Then there was a little break for dinner. A big, delicious dinner. I had green bean casserole with tater tots, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a cheddar biscuit, a hawaiian roll, and a piece of amazing chocolate pie that my sister made. I gained at least a few pounds but it was worth it. And I exercised today so I don't feel as bad.

After dinner I went back to watching stuff, starting with Killing Season. A movie I had never heard of with Robert De Niro and John Travolta. It was... interesting. Not awful but not anything to write home about. One of the things I didn't understand about the movie, other than all the other stuff, was that one of the bigger fight scenes took place in almost pitch black, and it went on for several minutes. They probably spent all their money on the cast and didn't have enough to film a dark scene.

I watched the epic opening for Flight because it is amazing but stopped watching after that because the rest of the movie drags on a bit. And I ended up going to Target with my mom after that. The 3DS XL popped up in another flash sale on Amazon and I managed to get on the waiting list but didn't get it. So my mom talked me into going to Target. They opened their doors at 8:00PM and we got there around ten o'clock. The place was pretty busy but it was a pretty laid back environment. I had looked at the Black Friday map for Target and knew the 3DS XLs were going to be in the men's wear section so we headed back there. And I got one. It was in a pretty big bin so I don't know how many they started with but there were only about six left. I got the black one because that is the one I wanted. I think I may end up putting a skin on it. Over in the electronic section I found one of the Mario and Luigi ones and asked a clerk about it but he said something about it being listed at the street price and that it wasn't supposed to be out so he took it from me. It would have been cool to get it but I was fine with the black one since that is the one I originally wanted. I also looked at games while I was there but everything they had was a least ten dollars more than on Amazon, or higher in the case of Animal Crossing: New Leaf because I got that on a flash deal today. It would have been nice to get a 3DS game but I couldn't bring myself to spend the extra money. So I'll play my old games until I get new ones. In the end, I had to be talked into going but I ended up getting the 3DS XL for $50 off the regular price. And then another $58 dollars off because I had my gift cards. And then for free because my mom said she would count it as an early Christmas present. So it helps to go to Target with your mom at ten o'clock on Thanksgiving night.

Oh, and I got tortillas, because I needed tortillas.

When I got home I set up the 3DS XL and messed around with it for a bit. I didn't play any of my games but I tried out the AR card thing, where you put a little card down and a thing pops up out of it and you shoot a targets or a dragon and whatever else. It was pretty cool.

I also watched Rock Jocks, a movie about gamers who work at a secret facility, blowing asteroids out of the sky, saving Earth on a daily basis. It was a very small movie but I liked it quite a bit. Good stupid fun.

And lastly, because that seems to be a thing, this morning I made my first GIF. I woke up with the idea of making a stereoscopic 3D picture, and that didn't really work out, at least not how I wanted it to, so I went with a GIF instead. I took several pictures of a small figurine I have, rotating it a bit after each picture. Then I put them together using Gimp, which can apparently make GIFs. I had no idea. You just put all the images in order as different layers and then save it as a GIF. Very cool. What isn't cool is that when I moved my figurine back to where I had it before the pictures, it tipped over and the hand broke off. And I was out of super glue. But, I picked some up at Target tonight. How convenient. So I am going to fix it tomorrow.

November 27, 2013

No work today and not a lot going on. So this will be an exciting entry. I learned about Pokemon because I missed that whole thing when I was a kid but I have always been interested. Not really in the battling aspect but my favorite part of any game is collecting everything I can pick up, and I think one of the main catchphrases of Pokemon is “collect 'em all”. I could be wrong about that but I'm not going to look it up. Anyway, I learned about all this stuff today because I'm thinking about getting one of the new Pokemon games on the 3DS. When I get a 3DS. I wanna be one of the cool kids. I also watched a lot of Digimon on Netflix, because they didn't have any Pokemon, but also because I did watch it years ago when it was on TV. I enjoyed the sarcasm. And still do.

I watched more bouldering videos. I'm still still incredibly impressed by the absurd level of strength those guys and girls have in their fingers. And the rest of their bodies. The outside, in nature stuff looks far too scary but the inside rock wall stuff seems more doable. In a I'm-never-gonna-do-it kind of way. I kind of want to get a fingerboard now. I don't even know if I can do regular pullups but I might as well jump right into finger pullups. In that same train of thought, sort of, I did actually exercise today. I can't remember what my streak is but I think it is at least a few days in a row. I enjoy exercising when I can find the motivation to actually start exercising.

At Chipotle tonight I got a burrito bowl, in anticipation of Thanksgiving leftovers for the next few days. I didn't want half a burrito just hanging out in the fridge, taking up space. The bowl was really good. I haven't had one in forever and that is a shame because I enjoy them. I don't go through the effort of squeezing lemons on my burritos but I do on my bowls because it makes them extra delicious.

I finished reviewing old sections on Duolingo and moved onto animals. There was: oso (bear), tortuga (turtle), caballo (horse) (which is tricky because it is very close to onion (cebolla)), pajaro (bird), pato (duck), arana (spider), cangrejo (crab), perro (dog), gato (cat), elefante (elephant), and my favorite – pinguino (penguin). The best sentence of the day was “Yo soy un pinguino.”

And lastly, I may be returning my new headphones. They have started crushing my left ear, and that is uncomfortable. So I think I will return them and try one of the other headphones I had picked out when I was researching headphones.

November 26, 2013

I managed to come up with another relatively witty email announcing the giant bag of popcorn I brought to school and it was appreciated by at least a few. And the popcorn was appreciated by at least a few more.

I finally finished the third storybook and got a start on the forth. In that one, I made it to a page where the kid completely colored over the text so it was kind of hard to read. I initially thought I would zoom in and color each letter black. After the first letter I gave up on that idea. Instead I put a text box over it, set up the right font, typed the text, and messed with the size and placement until it came pretty close to matching the original. It actually look pretty good. Before calling it good I also want to try it with white font to see how that looks.

A good chunk of my day was spent with the storybooks. I also helped out with second grade reading groups (which went pretty smoothly) and in the afternoon we had another character trait assembly. This month was Caring. It was the same old thing but at the end of it one of the sixth graders got to hit the principal in the face with a pie. We had a silent auction a week or two ago and one of the prizes was the chance to hit the principal with a pie. She came out wearing a shower cap, goggles, and a trash bag. And it was pretty great. At the end she hugged the kid so he got covered in pie too.

Amazon had a flash deal today for the 3DS XL at $150. I logged in a minute late and it was already gone. From what I've seen on forums about the flash deals this time around, a lot of them are instantly gone, like the second they go live. And there was at least one game bundle that went live on one coast before the other. Kinda messed up. It would have been nice to get the 3DS but I can still get it less than that with my gift cards at Target. I'm still going to wait until at least Monday or Tuesday to see if any more deals pop up. Target will be selling it for $150 Thursday through Saturday but I'm fairly certain that is in-store only and I have no interest in actually experiencing a Black Friday crowd. So if it's not online I'm not going to get worked up about it.

Tonight I played more Ocarina Of Time on the N64 and made some progress. Fought a few ghosts, learned a new song, caught a bunch of chickens, and bought a mask. It is so weird not having a dedicated joystick to control the camera. It makes the game that much more of a challenge.

I ended up watching a bunch of rock climbing videos tonight. And more specifically, bouldering videos. I have always been in awe of the finger strength of rock climbers and the videos tonight just reaffirmed that awe. It is insane. Being able to support your entire body and pull yourself with one hand that is gripping a tiny, half-inch deep grip is super-human. In the World Championships they seem to always have an obstacle where the climber starts under a ledge and has to go upside down and hold on with their feet while they turn themselves around to get in the right position to move higher up the wall. It's incredible. In another life I want to be super motivated and athletic. Not necessarily competitive, but motivated.

November 25, 2013

When I got to work this morning I was greeted by a winter wonderland. At some point between Friday afternoon and this morning someone was doing some work in the ceiling above my desk. I'm assuming it was related to the fire alarm or security system or whatever they're installing. Regardless, my desk (including my monitor and personal keyboard), chair, and surrounding carpet, were all covered in a fine layer of ceiling tile dust, with a healthy amount of chunks mixed in. It has been my experience that when people make a mess with ceiling tiles, they never feel obliged to clean up after themselves. Or even take precautions against making a mess. Even though I know this, it is still quite a bit annoying. I emailed the principal about it, mainly just to vent, and it helped a little.

The went by pretty fast and most of it was filled with storybooks. I wanted to take a break from erasing stuff so I spent most of the day scanning in a new book. And it took most of the day because it was long as hell. Thankfully though it doesn't have that much white so when I go back to erase stuff I shouldn't have too much to do. With the little time I had left I started work on the last page of the story I had been working on. I will be lucky to finish it tomorrow, and I probably won't. I kind of want to scan all the books in, assembling the pages and editing the color as I go, and then go back through and do any erasing I might need to do before putting it into Publisher and turning it into a PDF. That might be my new plan for next week. I think it will make things go faster but the break in between pages to scan the next page does give me a little break. We'll see.

Other than that, I helped with second grade reading groups and had a couple classes in the lab. Overall, not a very exciting day.

On my way home I stopped by Target. I walked through their video game section to see what they had for the 3DS. They had a big selection but didn't have the top two games I want so that is good to know. My main purpose for the trip was too get fake hamburger for my green bean casserole. I wanted the Boca brand because it is better than Morning Star, but Target apparently has an exclusive deal with Morning Star. So instead I bought more of Morning Star's Italian chicken patties because those are pretty good. I also got broccoli (even though I said I was going to stop getting broccoli at Target) and a bag of lettuce. My mom told me to enjoy the salmonella. I also used two different salad dressings, one that was one year old and the other was two years old. So if the lettuce doesn't get me the dressing probably will. Next time I'll probably just buy a head of lettuce. And maybe go to an actual grocery store for my vegetables.

Tonight I watched some YouTube videos and a little Netflix, read about Nintendo stuff and different Black Friday deals for video games, and practiced my Spanish. I have managed to keep that up for five days now. I am very surprised by that.

Right now I am waiting for 10:45PM, when the theater closes, so I can go get a bag of popcorn. One of the sixth grade teachers asked me to bring some in because her class is having a laid back day tomorrow. Rather than get a giant bag just for one class, I plan on separating out a normal-sized kitchen trash bag full to give to the sixth grade teacher and putting the rest in the teacher's lounge. That way everyone can have some. Or a lot more than some. The hardest part about getting popcorn (right after staying up past my bedtime to pick it up and carrying it from my car into the school) is coming up with a witty email to send the school to notify them of the popcorn. I kind of made that a thing and now I feel obligated to keep it up. The pressure.

And one more thing because I'm still trying to kill time here. On Friday I had to remove the trailer for That Awkward Moment from Catching Fire because apparently corporate had received multiple complaints (not from our theater) from people that didn't think it was appropriate. Hmmm. That Awkward Moment is a movie about dudes in their twenties and relationship stuff. Yes, it insinuates things, like the existence of adult relationships and things that may happen in them, but last I checked, that is kind of life. Now, Catching Fire is a movie about kids forced to kill each other for the entertainment of adults. Parents are mad that their kids might be introduced to the idea of adult situations in a movie, while they're sitting in a theater, waiting to watch a movie where kids kill each other. Makes sense.

November 24, 2013

My main project for the day was hooking my Nintendo 64 up to my TV. This was a bit of a pain. For as long as I've had my Nintendo 64 I have connected it to TVs using the RF cable. So my first attempts were to screw that into my TV, and then when that didn't work, screwing it into my DVR, which also didn't work. This lead to a basement adventure in search of an AV cable. My hopes were not high because I had never used the AV cable and I couldn't even remember if that was a thing that came with the Nintendo 64 or if it was something that had to be purchased separately. And if the latter was the case, I was SOL.

I started my search in and around the area where I had my old racing wheel and pedals of the N64 and some original Xbox controllers and other random bits. I found a couple AV cables but none for the N64. Then I moved to another area with old DVD players and random stuff. Again, several AV cables but not one for the N64. I did manage to find my old knife sharpener which I had looked for last week. It ended up being almost right where I thought it was but I hadn't turned on a light so completely missed it. Anyway, my last hope was in the other room where a bunch of other crap is located. I looked in the box with a couple old laptops with low expectations, which were proven to be exaggerated. I briefly looked under the stairs. And then I looked in a box that looked like it had cables from the SEGA Genesis I bought off eBay so many years ago (a horrible purchase because it came from a smokers home and only a couple of the games actually worked). And jackpot. I found the cable.

First off I tried plugging it into my DVR out of convenience but it didn't work. So I plugged it straight into my TV and I was in business. I started off with a little Road Rash and it was pretty much exactly what I remembered. I got it on the N64 because it was one of my favorite games on the Game Gear but it was way better on the Game Gear.

Then I moved onto Forsaken, which is one of my favorite games on the N64. You're in a 3D space on a futuristic bike thing that can go in any direction and you shoot bad guys. The ability to move in any direction was so novel to me at the time and I absolutely love the game. I always wished they would remake it on another console or come out with a sequel. No dice. And now I suck at the game. I think part of it was an inversion issue but mostly because I'm so used to having two joysticks to move, not just one. But it is still pretty fun.

Lastly, I played The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, the main impetus for me setting up my N64 again. Looking at the save files, the last time I played the game was in 2006 (I named the save file '2006') but I didn't make it much further than the starting forest area. This time I did a bit better, before getting caught up at the target range at the first town. It is hard enough hitting targets with a controller you are used to. It is much harder with a controller you have just picked up after a seven year break. I did eventually get all the targets though. My initial impression of the game on my 32” flat screen TV was “wow, this game looks awful.” There is still the nostalgia there and I love the look of the game, but time did it no favors. And the weird thing is I can still remember way back in the day when I thought the graphics were amazing. Actually amazing. Completely blown away by them. And now they all look awful. It is incredibly strange to have both of those thoughts floating around my head simultaneously. I would like to keep playing the game, however, despite the graphics and the weirdness of the controller. Although it really made me want to get a 3DS XL so I can play the game on that. From the videos I've seen the game looks really good on the 3DS, helped greatly by the fact that the screen is small, not a big TV.

I am going to hold off on the purchase of a 3DS XL until at least after Thanksgiving though, just to see if I can get a deal on it. It is supposed to drop down to $150 at Target on Black Friday but I have never wanted anything bad enough to wake up early and go shopping in giant, frenzied crowd. So if it drops on Amazon or Game Stop or Target or some other website, I'll pick it up. Looking at the price history on Amazon, it was down to $170 at the beginning of November but that was long before I had the desire to get one. If the price doesn't drop for Black Friday or Cyber Monday I will probably try and get it from Target because I have almost $60 in gift cards. Or if somewhere else has a better price, get it there, and use the gift cards for games at Target. Because I have been sitting on these gift cards for a really long time and I'm looking for an excuse. Regardless, I may soon have a 3DS XL.

Keeping with the gaming theme, tonight I played a game on the Cool Math website. At school it is the kids' favorite website, because none of them play any of the math-related games. That's a whole other section but I don't mention that to the teachers and most of them don't seem to care. There is one game recently where you try to shoot Santa into chimneys that a lot of kids are playing and all off them get stuck on the same level before moving onto a different game. I couldn't figure it out so tonight I wanted to. And thanks to the help of a YouTube video I did. I was eventually able to beat the game and only needed help on one or two other levels. Not bad.

I also continued the Spanish thing and redid the first three sections that I have already done. Just to keep things fresh in my mind. It actually felt like I knew what I was doing, shocking. It obviously didn't hurt that I had already done those sections but there was some different stuff thrown in so I am thinking it is a good idea to do stuff more than once because I won't necessarily being seeing the same stuff each time.

And to throw everything in the mix, I also exercised, made chips, and did laundry today. Now I'm listening to Papa Roach on Spotify. Most of it is edited which is annoying. But it does make me want to get my guitar out and relearn some of the songs I used to know back in high school and college.

Once again I have succeeded in staying up well past my bedtime. I want some sleep.

November 23, 2013

I planned on sleeping until ten o'clock this morning, seeing as how I didn't get to bed until close to four o'clock. But I was wide awake a little after nine o'clock so I rolled with it and got out of bed because I figured if I fell back to sleep I would have been screwed trying to wake up later. Basically, all of this means I am tired now. And have been for the majority of the day.

At work I read a bunch and did a little bit of knitting. I would have done more knitting but I spent more than two hours turning a mess of yarn into a ball of yarn. That was a project I was entirely fed up with about five minutes after I started but for some reason I became determined to complete the task. And I did. More than two hours later. Which means I didn't have the time to finish the test of my next knitted thing but I did get a start. It might become an actual thing.

Tonight I watched the 50^th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who and it was pretty great. The interaction between David Tennant and Matt Smith was awesome and I wish the Doctors would have interactions with themselves more often. It was also just great seeing Tennant as the Doctor again. Matt Smith is good and he made it his own but Tennant will always be my favorite.

And keeping with a good night for TV, I also watched New Girl from last week and it may have been the best written episode to date. Coach was going on a date with Cece, Schmidt was trying to stop it, and Jess was trying to stop Schmidt. While Nick and Winston were off on a cat adventure. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I laughed out loud more than once.

I also squeezed in a few Spanish lessons on food. I did decent. At this point I think I should go back over all the lessons I have completed so far and see how much of it I have retained. I have surprised myself more than once with what I have remembered when I have been asked to write out a Spanish translation.

While I was watching stuff I did some research on the 3DS XL. Yesterday I really got into the idea of getting one, mainly to play Ocarina Of Time again. And Animal Crossing: New Leaf. After all my research tonight I added several more games to that list as well a developed a bit of jealousy for the exclusive color releases of the device in other countries. The desire to get one is still going strong two days in but I'm going to keep mulling it over and see if it is a real thing or just a flash in the pan. I might dig out my Nintendo 64 tomorrow and play the real thing.

November 22, 2013

Today was a pretty uneventful day. After sleeping in, I spent most of my day watching YouTube videos, coming up with some new craft ideas thanks to Pinterest, and learning (or remembering) Spanish with the help of the Duolingo website. I need to look into the word endings more because I keep getting you and they mixed up. I and we are easy, 'o' and 'mos' respectively. I'll get better. Or I'll keep guessing and eventually lose interest in Spanish, much like I would do after a week or two in class for the the six or so years I took it in school.

Tonight at work I finished reading Aliens On Vacation by Clete Barrett Smith. It was an enjoyable book. And despite the fact that I bought it at the school book fair, and it is written for children, it was pretty spot-on when it came to describing nervous first interactions with girls. Also, the best thing about kids books, a happy ending. As for the rest of work, I switched off reading two other books that I would like to finish eventually, and did my best to avoid the craziness of Catching Fire happening downstairs.

I switched schedules with someone so I will be opening tomorrow instead of closing. I wish I would have thought to check the movie schedule first though because we have a midnight showing of Catching Fire. A movie which happens to be exactly eleven minutes shy of three hours with all the ads and trailers added in. And it started slightly after midnight thanks to the preshow, which means I won't be clocking out until around three o'clock in the morning. I have to be back at work sometime around eleven o'clock tomorrow morning so I won't be getting even seven hours of sleep. That kind of sucks. I am now reminded of why I didn't like closing on a Friday and then opening on a Saturday. Especially when the manager decides to keep me an extra three hours when it is completely unnecessary.

November 21, 2013

Today was a pretty laid back day. I spent the first couple of hours figuring out how to rename hundreds of pictures automatically. We got higher quality student and staff pictures for the yearbook and they all had weird ID names instead of the name of the person or a student ID. It also came with a text file containing a master list (including the weird ID name, the person's name, teacher, grade, and other things). I was able to import that list into Excel and I had the bright idea that I could somehow use that spreadsheet to rename all the pictures without having to click on every single picture and rename them.

It took a lot of Googling and in the end I didn't find exactly what I wanted and had to cobble together several different things. First, I divided each class and then staff into separate spreadsheets so I could easily rename one group at a time and put them into folders. I was a little surprised by my forethought because it would have been a pain going back through and dropping pictures into class folders. Second, everyone's name was split into two cells so I needed to join those together into one cell, and then add '.jpg' to the end so it could be used for the new image name. And then in another cell I had to write the formula that would rename the picture from the name in the first cell to the name in the second cell (the one that I had created). Next, I copied those cells with the renaming formula into a text file and saved it as a batch file, one class at a time. After each class I would save the batch file and then click on it, and it would rename all the pictures in the folder for the most recent class I had added. Then I was able to highlight and drag those into the appropriate class folder. It was actually pretty simple after all the initial formulas and stuff were figured out. And I was pretty excited that it worked. That initial part did take awhile but it would have taken several hours more (and a lot of pain in my fingers and wrists) if I had to go through each image and type in the name.

Even with all the Excel stuff I had time to work on the storybooks. I didn't finish the one I was working on but I did finish the page I have been working on. That damn checkered pattern. I also got the next two pages scanned so on Monday I will be able to stitch them together, resize it, fix the colors, and work on yet another checkered pattern. Hooray.

Second grade reading centers went alright. My first group was somewhat annoying because we started at the listening center. They were supposed to read along with the CD which is a nearly impossible task. The lady reading the story reads way too slow and the kids could never quite figure out the tempo. But I couldn't trust them to read together without the CD either so there was really no winning. Just surviving. When the story was over they got to do silent reading which went a lot better. I ended up sitting with one kid who just kept pulling books out of his desk like it was a clown car. We started by looking through a Scooby-Doo book and then I had him read my Even Monsters Need Haircuts, which had a pretty good ending. We got halfway through the next book when it was time to switch groups. I ended up with the really annoying group but only one of them was screwing around today.

And some random bits. The kindergarten teacher my mom works with won Teacher Of The Month from one of the radio stations so their class had a pizza and ice cream party this afternoon. I stopped by for a little bit but didn't partake in the food. It smelled pretty good though. This morning I “fixed” one of the laptops for the library sub so she could get on the internet. I fixed it by logging off and back on. Technology is a mystery. At the end of the day I wrote a very wordy letter of congratulations for one of the receptionists. I think the librarian's husband finally agreed to come in and fix the big black cord that is hanging from the ceiling in the office. They did something this summer and rather than run the cord through the wall they just dropped it down from the ceiling. The librarian's husband is a contractor or something so he agreed to come fix it and the receptionist wanted to write him a funny letter saying he had won the bid, and she asked for my help. So I wrote something ridiculous that doesn't make much sense but it was kind of entertaining.

It had started to ice up a bit during the day and after school I had to scrape my windshield. It wasn't too bad though because I was under a tree. I also scraped my mom's windshield because she was parked in front of me, not under a tree. I nearly scraped the librarian's windshield because she was across the street, but I didn't, and I kind of feel bad about that. Next time.

Tonight I did not go visit the new volunteer kid because of the weather and he would have canceled anyway because he has a research paper due tomorrow and he hadn't finished it yet. Instead of the visit, I spent my night watching YouTube videos and playing Minecraft. I cheated in all the seeds for my garden and replanted it. All the stuff that had been their previous had turned to asparagus, which is very odd. I also ended up with four extra types of seeds that I had apparently not come across before, so I expanded my garden. This expansion left room for a little patio so I added that in and I'm pretty happy with the look.

At the end of the night I signed up for Duolingo, a website for learning languages. Recently I have wanted to relearn some of the little bit of Spanish I picked up in school. And then tonight I heard about this website so I decided to check it out. I went through the first basic set of lessons and I am liking it so far. It is all vaguely familiar which makes it easier so we'll see how I feel about things when I get further along and out of my familiar zone. We'll also see if I keep up with it longer than tonight. I hope so.

And now it is way too late for me to still be up. But I get to sleep in tomorrow thanks to a professional development day. I am thankful for that.

November 20, 2013

And I didn't finish that damn storybook. The finish line remains elusive. I came very close to finishing the page I was working on but it is filled with checkered white spots with occasional typed words through them, so there is a lot of work to be done. And the page after this one, which is the last one so that is good, also has the checkered pattern, which is bad. I became spoiled on the pages that were fully colored and didn't require any erasing on my part.

I was productive in other areas. Or one area. That being the box of stuff the second grade teacher gave me to copy/laminate/cut/staple and what have you. After I ran the first two packets through the copier I vaguely remembered a stapling feature on the copier. Would have been nice to remember earlier but it did save me from having to staple the next two packets. I also figured out how to change the density of the background (or something) so I could copy a tan piece of paper and have it come out white, not dark gray. One of the other things in the box was to cut out twenty-one big, brown, construction paper circles. Rather than trace the example one on twenty-one pieces of construction paper, I measured the example, made a circle in Word, cut the construction paper down to size so it would fit through the printer, and printed out a bunch of circles. It made for a much cleaner and uniform end product and I was pretty happy with it.

This morning I helped out with kindergarten literacy centers and a sick kindergartener played with my beard. Because of this I won't be surprised at the cold I wake up with in the morning. During second grade reading groups I managed to avoid physical contact with any sick kids. And not sick kids for that matter. The first group I worked with both did vocabulary stuff; picking a word from a list, writing the definition, a synonym and antonym, using it in a sentence, and drawing a picture of it. The hardest part is the synonym and antonym because I not only have to explain what those words mean, I also have to explain that they should just be single words, not a sentence (which inevitably ends up saying it is not the word they picked). This is made even more hard because most of the words don't have easy synonyms or antonyms. Or at least ones that pop immediately to mind. Words like 'recreation' and 'nominate'. I kept trying to persuade kids to look through the list and pick words that they could already think of synonyms and antonyms for, but that didn't really work. I need to start looking up the words ahead of time so I can better steer them in the right direction.

My second reading group was working on possessive nouns. Those are tricky. Especially because the kids just learned about plural nouns. Well, kind of learned about plural nouns. It was hard trying to convey the difference between the two when they sound the same. The could sail through the parts of the packet where they just had to copy a word and add an apostrophe and an 's' to the end, but they struggled when they actually had to make up their own sentences. I'm glad I already kind of know all this stuff. Learning looks frustrating.

Today we had our Thanksgiving lunch where typical Thanksgiving food is served and parents are invited to eat with their kids (if they pay). It turns into a whole big thing but I was flying under the radar, making copies, when one of the fifth grade teachers (formerly my para friend) walked by and commented about me not getting wrangled into helping. I had honestly forgotten about the whole thing, and I kind of felt bad for not at least offering to help. So I ignored my own hunger and walked down to the gym to see what I could do. And it turned out to not really be anything. I went and made a copies of the adjusted lunch schedule for the principal, I cleaned up a little trash, and then I stood outside and “supervised” lunch recess. Really I just stood there watching kids play. There were several other adults out there, including paras and regular lunch recess supervisors, and a bunch of parents. It was all a bit pointless for me but at least I made the effort.

Chipotle was alright tonight but nothing spectacular. Other than getting a reduced price on my burrito. I think the reduced price is actually the correct price and I usually get overcharged. At the moment I only get rice, beans, and cheese. Which I assume costs less than the regular veggie burrito that would include salsa and guacamole and possibly other things. But there is no shorthand for this on the burrito wrapper so the cashier sees a 'V' and rings up a veggie burrito. Or maybe the reduced price isn't normal and certain cashiers are just nicer about a burritos that happen to lack several ingredients.

Tonight I finished my third owl hat. It is a bit of a Goldilocks hat because it does seem more adult-sized. Not too small or too big. And now I think I'm over the owl hat. After three hats, I get it. Now I need to move on. I found another thing I want to try and knit so that might be my next project. I would also like to try some other knitted hats now that I have kinda-sorta gotten the hang of circular needles. I'm thinking of variations of the owl hat, minus the owl.

November 19, 2013

I was on a roll with the storybooks today and really thought I was going to finish the one I've been working on because it was pretty much full color pages so I didn't have much to edit, but then they threw in some pages with a bunch of white so I got held up erasing stuff. Fingers crossed for finishing it tomorrow. Although I got a bunch of stuff from one of the second grade teachers to copy/laminate/cut so I might start on that.

Other than the storybook, I did other things with my day. Microsoft Word on one of the computers in the lab disappeared so I tracked that down in the Program Files and added it back in. I re-downloaded SmartBoard software on one of the SPED computers. Second grade reading groups actually went pretty well. There wasn't a parent or a para to help out today so I ended up with a group of eight and a group of six, but the stars aligned and for the most part they were all well behaved. I scanned stuff for one of the resource teachers. And I feel like there were other things that are escaping me.

On my way home I stopped at Target to buy food. And tonight I made some of that food. Well, just broccoli because I am still working on the leftover pasta from Sunday. It may just be because it has been awhile since I've made pasta, but it tastes really good. Better than I remember it tasting.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and knitted a bit more on my third owl hat. Not a very exciting evening. Then again, they rarely are.

November 18, 2013

Today was another day. I finally finished the third storybook and got the cover done on the fourth one. I still feel like it is going to take forever. But I'm one book closer.

I only had two classes in the lab today and second grade reading groups, so there wasn't really a lot going on. The kindergarteners made their Thanksgiving feast where the different foods are set up in stations and the kids go around in groups and help make it. I was there for it last year but for some reason I didn't make it down there today. I think I was just too focused on finishing the storybook.

After work I stopped by the bank to deposit a check from myself. I am finally moving some money around so I can put more in my Roth IRA. I really meant to do it a little while ago when the market was down but I missed that. I might wait a little bit to see if it will drop again.

There is other stuff I could write about but I want to sleep.

This morning I finished watching Indie Game: The Movie and tonight I broke out Super Meat Boy for the first time in a long time. I made a crazy amount of frustrating progress. I think I was somewhere in world two when I started and I stopped for the night right after getting to world five. Lots of progress. While doing that I caught up on DVRed stuff. And before that I watched a documentary on the Three Gorges Dam. I think it was made sometime before it was actually finished so I am going to need to do some more reading. I also need to watch it again and write down some of the cool facts, like we used to have to do in school. The most interesting one that I can remember is that some smart people theorized that the weight of all the water in the reservoir could possibly be enough to slightly alter the tilt of the Earth, which would add a fraction of a second to each day. Crazy. 

November 17, 2013

Lazy Sunday. Not much to write about. As per usual. I played Minecraft today, for the first time in a little bit. I finally decided where to put my orchard and got all the trees planted. I still need to finish the walls (if I want walls), the main path, and the lighting. I also did a lot of decorating, adding a kitchen on my main floor, a library and seating area with carpets on the second floor, and I built a small bedroom on the roof. I was pretty happy with everything. I am still annoyed about not being able to breed animals because they keep disappearing. And today I discovered that I can't put flowers in flower pot and I can't catch fish. I can pull them in but I can't actually get them. Then I decided to try the latest update and see if things would work. But that ended up wrecking my garden because none of my mods loaded. This also made all the food I had collected and all the seeds I had, completely disappear from my chests, except for all the vanilla Minecraft stuff. So that kind of sucks. I will more than likely end up cheating in all the seeds and replanting the garden. I'll eventually get all the food back. Then I can start crafting all the food that is made by combining various ingredients.

Tonight I made chips, did laundry, and watched stuff. I watched the first episode of Under The Dome. I read awhile ago how they had combined various characters from the book to make things easier. My first reaction after the first five minutes was that they didn't get a single character right. There was too much combining for my taste. I am a big believer in the fact that books and their film adaptations are two completely different entities, but sometimes it is hard to accept the adaptation. I do want to see the rest of the show but I stopped after the first episode because I wasn't in the mood for the small amount of frustration the character choices was causing.

So I started watching Indie Game: The Movie. I got it in an indie game sale awhile ago and when it popped up on Netflix I decided to watch it. But not on Netflix because I already had it downloaded on my computer. I've got about a half an hour left but I'll finish that up tomorrow. So far it is interesting. It focuses on three games: Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Fez. I have played the first two but never got around to Fez. Braid is very cool and it also has a really good soundtrack. Super Meat Boy was fun but it was meant to be tough, and it was, so it was also frustrating. I also liked The Binding Of Isaac, which was made after by one of the two Super Meat Boy guys. As for Fez, I read too many discouraging things. I think on Xbox there was a error that would cause people to lose their save file and the creator couldn't fix it because of some issue with Microsoft. And then recently there was a whole big thing about something I have forgotten about but I think it resulted in the creator quitting the video game industry. So there's that.

Also tonight, I watched a segment on 60 Minutes with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and their billionaire pledge, getting other billionaires to sign a pledge saying they will give away half of their wealth in philanthropic ways. It really made me wish I was a billionaire. Not so much to have all the money but for the ability to give that kind of money away. Right now my donations to charities range from five dollars to somewhere over a hundred dollars. That doesn't even show up on the radar of a billionaire. It would be nice to give the amount of money that results in obvious benefits. Some is better than none but it was still be nice to be able to give thousands or even millions of dollars to worthwhile causes. It is inspiration to become fantastically rich but it doesn't seem to come with the motivation to actually get there. Not even to buy a lottery ticket. I may get their someday. One of the people they interviewed on the show was the lady who invented Spanx. That very simple idea made her a billionaire. I need a simple idea. And the balls to follow through with it.

November 16, 2013

I didn't really have much going on with my day. My mom got her new phone in the mail so I set that up for her. Activating it on Ting, transferring her contacts, changing sounds, basic instruction. She only got completely frustrated once so I would consider it a success.

The outside corner of my right eye has been randomly twitching for several days now. I think it is too much storybook editing at work and too much knitting when I am not at work. Either that or a sign of a brain tumor. I am hoping it is just fatigue.

I have come to like Saturdays for the opportunity to take a nap. The only time during the week that I can really get away with it. I am a big fan of naps. Even if I do occasionally wake up more tired. Sometimes I'm not even tired beforehand. I just like stretching out on my bed, closing my eyes, listening to music, and thinking about random stuff.

At work tonight I continued reading one of the books I got at the book fair (Aliens On Vacation by Clete Barrett Smith) and knitted. I finished the owl hat I started last night and it came out way too big. I am beginning to feel like Goldilocks. I got about halfway through another one, and it at least appears to be maybe the right size. I am actually using the right size needles that are listed in the pattern so that should help. I had to start with a twelve-inch cable and cast-on a little more loosely than I normally do. Even then I probably wouldn't have gotten it to work if the first five rows weren't a knit stitch. Purl was pretty much impossible. After I got through those five rows I snaked in a sixteen-inch cable, to match the pattern, and screwed it onto the needles. Now it seems to be coming along nicely. I'm not sure how making smaller versions would be possible, even with the twelve-inch cable. I'd have to master one of the techniques for using long cables to knit. When I tried before it was stretching weird so I would like to avoid that.

Last night I got off early but tonight there was no such luck. A couple more bucks for me, I guess. I've got a little over half an hour to go and I think I'll make it. Even though my nap does not seem to have given me any support for a late night at work.

And I take back what I said so recently. I got off fifteen minutes early.

November 15, 2013

I pretty much made no progress on storybooks today. I almost finished the page I left off on yesterday but it wasn't meant to be. This morning there was an orchestra performance in the gym and the kids were really good and it made me want to learn violin. I have wanted to learn for many many years now but have never gotten around to it. Really I want to play all the instruments. Someday.

Second grade reading groups went by fast. Mostly because I didn't actually have a group today. Instead, I interviewed two of the kids, had several other kids read their word lists to me, and then read with one of the kids. It was kind of nice not trying to keep a group on task.

This afternoon one of the kindergarten teachers came to the lab and asked me if I knew how to change the color of one thing in a picture without messing with everything else. He recently had family pictures taken and I guess one of his sons was wearing white socks and everyone else had dark socks. And one of the kids had a green stripe on his shoes that is apparently distracting. I told him I didn't know how to do that but I would mess around and see if I could figure it out. And I did. I typed in 'highwater pants' in Google to get a picture of exposed white socks to work with and then tried different things. I used the Path tool to outline the socks, then made a selection along the path which allowed me to alter just that part of the picture. Then I used a few of the color tools and was able to change the color of the socks. It was pretty simple actually. I've always wondered about that but never got around to trying it. I told the teacher how to do it but I'm not sure if he is going to attempt the edit himself or if he is going to have me try it. Or let the photographer do it.

My new phone case arrived today. I ordered it Wednesday night and it showed up this afternoon. Free two-day shipping is a wonderful thing. As for the case, I already like it a lot more than the previous case. It is more bulky but not overly so, and this actually makes the phone easier to hold. My last case was really thin and it is kind of hard to hold a wide phone that is really thin. The case also just feels more sturdy and it could definitely take a beating without hurting the phone. I just wish I had bought this one first.

Tonight at work I read a little bit but I mostly worked on a new owl hat. Trying out my bigger circular needles. I actually came somewhat close to finishing the hat. And I can tell it will probably be too big. It seems as if I am going to have to put more thought into the hat design, beyond just following a pattern. We'll see how the hat turns out. The beginning of the hat was a little troublesome, trying to stretch it along the circular needles, but after the first few rows it became much easier. I just wish I had a slightly small pair of circular needles, I'm assuming 10.5 because I am using 11 and the pattern calls for 10. I think the double-pointed needles I used on the first hat were 9s and they don't seem much smaller than 10s, so I was wary about attempting the 10 circular needles I have (that and dealing with the longer needles) because I didn't think they would drastically increase the size of the hat. But maybe I'm wrong.

Good grief it's late.

November 14, 2013

 Today was a day. It happened. And it was fairly uneventful.

At work I continued working on storybooks but kept getting interrupted by random things so I didn't make it very far. I'm not sure how much time I'll end up having tomorrow but I would at least like to finish the book I've been working on this week. At this point I would be happy with a book a week.

We didn't have second grade reading groups today because there was a second grade assembly where they sang several songs about America. And there was choreography, so I loved it. It is always interesting to see the kids who get really into it. Often surprising.

This afternoon I had back-to-back classes until the end of the day. Normally there is a thirty minute break between third grade and the first kindergarten class but I let the first grade class come in that missed this morning due to the assembly. This made the afternoon go by faster but I didn't really accomplish anything either. Other than a bunch of laminating I snuck in during the first grade class and cutting a bunch of scratch paper after school let out.

After school I went and got my hair cut. I was beginning to feel like a dirty hippie. I didn't know it beforehand but my mom was also there. The lady who cuts my hair (and has since my first haircut) was laughing because when my mom got there she told her to guess who her next customer was and my mom says “I don't know, your son... I mean my son.” So when I was leaving the lady told me to say goodbye to my other mother.

I had a forty-five minute visit with the new volunteer kid tonight. The first one in two weeks, I think. I texted him first but never heard back so I called him and he said he was pissed off but we could hang out. When I got there he seemed like he had gotten over it and we had a pretty good visit. They recently got a gym membership so he has been enjoying being able to workout for football and wrestling outside of school. We also went to Sonic for the first time in awhile and I decided to get a strawberry shake because I haven't had one in years and it sounded really good. And it was but I pretty much immediately felt gross. And all the calcium probably added another ten kidney stones. So probably not worth it. But it was good.

On my way home a green pickup truck flew by me on the interstate going at least 90mph. A few seconds later a cop, sans lights, flew by me going closer to 100mph. This was right before my exit, which turns left, and as I was crossing the interstate I saw that the cop had pulled the pickup over just beyond the overpass. Justice. This is the second time on a trip to see the kid that I have seen a speeder get caught.

It's not quite ten o'clock but I'm going to go to bed now because I have been tired for the past couple of hours and I want to wake up in the morning and exercise so I can feel a little less regretful for partaking in a delicious milkshake.

November 13, 2013

Turns out today was an early-release day. I had no idea until I got to work this morning and was informed by one of the kindergarteners. I have a little magnet with the district schedule on my desk but I obviously never look at it. So it was a pleasant surprise. But also kind of annoying because Wednesday is usually the day I have the most open time and I planned on making a lot of progress on sixth grade storybooks.

This morning I gave a spelling test to second graders. And almost ended it halfway through and sent them back to their room because they wouldn't stop talking. I am not good at being a stern authority figure.

Shortly after that I went down and helped with kindergarten literacy centers because the parent that was supposed to help didn't show up. It is surprising how often a parent doesn't show up and doesn't call or email or give any acknowledgment.

When I got back to the lab after that I talked to one of the paras about the monkey she owned when she was a kid. Apparently back in the day you could buy spider monkeys out of magazine. The monkey's name was Cindy but the para found out later that Cindy was actually a dude. But his name remained Cindy and was still referred to as a she.

And then it was time for second grade reading groups. The first group I had was good because it was the higher level group and are fairly self-motivated. Then I had the lower level group and it all went downhill. Or more accurately, right off a cliff. They were supposed to listen to a story on CD and follow along in the book. Then listen to it again but read along with it out loud. It took me five minutes just to get them to all sit on the floor. It was like Whac-A-Mole. I'd get one kid to sit down and two others would pop up. It grew quickly frustrating. And in the end the teacher came over and got them all to sit down. Which lasted for about as long as it took her to walk back across the room. We eventually made it through the first round of the story but the second round was a lost cause. Much like trying to keep them all seated. Half of them were never following along, one kid was reading aloud from the wrong page (purposefully), some were laying down not looking at their book, they would randomly close their books, one became obsessed with taping the ripped pages in her book, and in the end only two actually read aloud, but only for one or two pages. I was glad to walk out of their.

Before and after lunch I got a little work done on sixth grade storybooks but not as much as I would like. I also took a look at a laptop that the teacher thought was broken but that was only because she wasn't patient enough. All she had to do was wait ten minutes to get to the log-in screen, ten minutes to actually get to the desktop, and then another five minutes for the computer to not feel like molasses. Totally reasonable for a newish laptop in 2013. And then I figured out another printer issue (maybe) and an iPad thing for the gifted teacher. I could have used a few more hours in my day.

On my way home I stopped by Auto Zone and bought a regular tire gauge. I found my digital ones but I wanted a regular one in case of an emergency so I wouldn't have to rely on technology. I texted my dad to let him know I was done with work early and he ended up getting back to me right as I pulled in my driveway. So I backed out and headed over to his house.

He was on the phone with my uncle when I got there but my sister and brother were their so I talked with them for a bit. Then my dad and I headed out to get tire gauges for him. He wanted to get a couple regular ones to replace the ones my brother had lost, and he wanted to get one that would work on his air compressor. Our first stop was Car Quest but they were way too expensive. More geared towards someone who is going to use the stuff much more frequently than the average consumer. Even their regular tire gauges were almost twice as much as the one I got. So we went to Auto Zone. My dad got a couple regular gauges and then one for his compressor that was forty dollars less than the one they had at Car Quest.

We found out when we got back to the house that the forty dollars was probably a warning sign. The little nub thing inside that mixes with the nub on the tire to let air in kept getting stuck, and the gauge didn't really work. It kept reading 40psi regardless. On the plus side the little lever on it to operate the compressor was pretty nice. We ended up using several different gauges (the two regular ones my dad bought and the two digital ones I had) on the first two tires just see and we got slightly different readings on all of them. So we picked the regular one that seemed to show a fairly consistent reading.

After finishing we sat and talked for a bit before I had to head out. I stopped and got gas on my way to Chipotle. The place I usually get gas shutdown and my secondary place recently changed from Conoco to Cenex. Kind of annoying because the only reason I got a Conoco card was to build my credit. Whatever. The new computer system is a little confusing because you have to put in your card information first but the information from the last person to get gas is still displayed so it feels like you are paying for that. And then after I filled up a message popped up saying the sale had been canceled and I needed to go in and talk to a clerk. But it seemed to be a little glitchy because mixed in with that message was a 'Yes' and 'No'. So I hit 'Yes' and it printed out a receipt. And then the screen eventually flipped back over to the welcome screen. So I drove off. I just checked my bank account and it shows the transaction so I think I'm good.

I made it to Chipotle shortly before 5:30PM and ended up having to take several laps around the block before getting a parking spot. Then I waited in line for close to a half an hour to order my food. This is why I usually go right after work and put it in the fridge until dinner. The burrito is better when it is just made and not reheated but it's not really worth the hassle of trying to find a parking spot and then waiting in line. And speaking of burritos, mine was really good tonight. The brown rice didn't have even a hint of brown rice taste, which is always a good thing.

The rest of the night just kind of happened. Pretty fast it seems. I watched a show on PBS about parrots because they were talking about it on NPR today and it sounded pretty interesting. And it was. Depressing and uplifting and informative and other things, all at the same time. My favorite part was the story of Lou. I like happy endings.

I also looked into more phone cases and ended up buying a new one so I can replace my current one. It was a nice case until I dropped my phone last night and a piece broke off and my phone got a nick in it. Kind of defeats the purpose of a protective case. My new one should offer a lot more protection.

And here we are once again, past my bedtime.

November 12, 2013

Kids chew on the headphone cords in the lab all the time and today I found that one of them had actually been chewed through, into the inner wires, which were also a bit gnawed on. Good grief. I brought a pair of crappy headphones home last year to solder a broken wire but never got around to it. I might bring home the chewed headphones and fix the cord because I am a little better at fixing that sort of thing. It probably won't look pretty but I'm down to no more replacement headphones so it would be in my best interest to fix the chewed cable.

I did a lot of cutting for one of the kindergarten teachers today. Starting with several hundred 1.5” squares in Fall colors. If I remember right from last year, these will be used in the making of a Thanksgiving placemat. Then I cut out the heads of his students (twice) so that they can be glued onto Pilgrim costumes. I have to say, it feels a little creepy cutting the head out of a picture.

With all the cutting (and fixing a printer issue for one of the SPED teachers and a brief project for one of the resource teachers and reading groups and other things) I didn't have that much time to work on the sixth grade storybooks but I did manage to make a little progress. I will make more tomorrow.

After work I scheduled a haircut and then texted my dad to see if he had a tire pressure gauge. On the way to work this morning I got a warning light that I figured out was for low tire pressure. I am assuming this is most due to the fact that it was just above freezing today. I was going to go put some air in them but I couldn't find either of my tire pressure gauges. He told me to come on over and we could use his compressor to fill my tires. This was a good plan in theory but his digital pressure gauge stopped working after the second tire and my brother had lost my dad's other pressure gauges. So yeah. The car wasn't pulling to either side so I feel like it is safe to assume all the tires were around the same level and based on the two tires we got readings on, I should be safe until tomorrow. I'm going to go get a tire pressure gauge after work and meet back up with my dad. We'll get it figured out.

The trip over there wasn't a total loss because I was finally able to give my dad his birthday present. Over two months late but better late than never. He really liked the picture and it got us talking about Colorado and then Philmont for awhile before I headed home for dinner.

Tonight I finished the owl hat. It pretty much looks like the hat in the picture so I cam going to say it was a success. Other than the fact that it is incredibly tiny. Now I want to try one with the bigger circular needles I bought and see how that one turns out. I am thinking the recommended size in the pattern would still be too small because they are only slightly bigger than the ones I used but the circular needles I bought are a noticeably bigger so that should give me a decent-sized hat.

November 11, 2013

Work went by really fast today and I really didn't do much. Well, I did a lot but it was all scanning and editing pictures so it felt like I didn't do much today. I didn't have any morning classes or reading groups because several classes went down to watch the Veteran's Day parade. So I just sat at my computer listening to This American Life and working on storybooks. I got my second one done and got started on the third. I actually kind of like the ones that have full-page illustrations incorporating the text because it means less editing for me. I just have to join both pages together, scale them, edit the colors, and drop them into Publisher. So the project might go a little faster than I thought.

This afternoon there were two classes in the lab but I missed the first one because I had a meeting with PTO mom I worked on the yearbook last year with and the guy from the company who's software we are going to use this year. There was a battle this year and last year between the mom and one of the receptionists. The receptionists wanted to do all the yearbook stuff at the school and have it printed locally. The PTO mom wanted to use an online program so multiple people could work on it and contribute, not just me and her. It looks like the PTO mom won. And I'm glad the meeting today happened when the receptionist is gone for a week or two because she can be a little scary when you're not on her side. I always try to remain neutral.

After school I went to Hobby Lobby and got knitting needles. I didn't find this out until I got home but it turns out I already had the “right” circular needles. So now I guess I have two that won't work. And the annoying thing was I had to buy the needles and the cable separately because they didn't have the right size in a set. Dumb. I got a sixteen-inch cable (matching the one I already had but I didn't realize and it was the one stated in the pattern instructions) and a twelve-inch cable. I'm not sure why they sell one that short because the needles it screws into seem to be too long to actually knit effectively with a cable that short. Maybe a knit stitch but a purl seems really awkward. To be safe I also got a a pair of circular needles that were a size up. They have a twelve-inch cable as well but the needles are shorter so you can actually comfortably knit with them. When I finish the tiny test-run version of the hat I'll have to do some messing around.

Tonight I went to see Brian Regan with my mom, sister, and her husband. I really enjoyed it. My sister and her husband seemed to be more focused on the people behind us. But my mom also enjoyed it. So there we go. By far his best joke was his closer (before coming back out for a few more jokes). It was about trying to check in at a hotel but them not having your reservation and asking if you used a different name to check in. So he suggests they look up Zippity Doodah and so on, ignoring the long line of people behind him, saying the hotel guy brought the horse out of the stable so he was going to ride it. Not really that funny when I quickly type it out but it is much funnier when Regan is acting it out on stage.

November 10, 2013

I bought the owl hat pattern this morning and I spent most of my day figuring that out. The pattern itself really isn't that hard but I've never knit a hat before. Circular needles are a bitch and I don't like them. I tried several different techniques with short and long cables but I couldn't get anything to work for me. I think I just needed an even smaller cable but I don't know how small they go. So instead I switched to double pointed needles. And relearned how those things work. I eventually got it all worked out and made it about halfway through the pattern. Unfortunately I won't be able to actually wear the hat (although I didn't really plan to) or give it to someone because I only have one size of double pointed needles and they are much smaller than the ones required for the hat. So the hat is way too small. But I want to finish it so I can see what it actually looks like in person. Tomorrow after work I may run out to Hobby Lobby and see if I can get some bigger needles.

The most frustrating part, well, second most frustrating part after the circular needles, was the yarn. I prefer to pull it out of the center of the skein because it is much more manageable that way. When it works. It tends to be hit or miss, especially when the end of the yarn isn't obviously coming from the center. And when you're using cheaper yarn. Today was one of those misses. Every several inches I had to undo a knot, sometimes pulling out big chunks of yarn to find out where it was getting hung up. It was all a minor nightmare.

I had Terraria running in the background while knitting and watching YouTube videos and DVRed stuff. I would occasionally kill bad guys and take a break from knitting during a blood moon, and I managed to get quite a few goodie bags throughout the day. Unfortunately they were all filled with crap I already had. No luck with the Ninja Turtle costume. Or I guess it is a karate turtle costume, so as to avoid any copyright issues. I have put so much time in and it is a bit disappointing that I didn't get the costume but I am glad today was the last day of the Halloween event. I am very much burnt out on Terraria at the moment. And I haven't actually played it that much during the Halloween event. At least relative to the time Steam shows I have put into the game in the last couple of weeks. Most of it is idle time where I left the game running in the background to let mobs build up. But I'm tired of it and want to get back to Minecraft. Even if I can't breed animals because they keep disappearing.

Tonight I did laundry and made a bunch of chips. Hopefully enough to last me through the week. I ran out last week and wasn't in the mood to make more so I when with Triscuits. I liked the smaller wheat tortillas I was using because it was easy to count out how many I was going to have each day. Now I am using bigger tortillas and I cut them up a bunch more and I tend to just fill up my bag until it looks like enough. I could do the math and count out how many I need every day, and I did kind of do that, but I think I would rather be annoyed with my estimation.

November 9, 2013

Not a surprising development but I didn't really accomplish much of anything today. Pretty much the same old thing and I don't feel like repeating the same old thing. So I won't. At least for the next few sentences.

I came across a cool knitted owl hat on Pinterest and I think I might give that a shot. I still need to re-learn how to crochet a hat but the owl hat looks way cooler. And I have never successfully knitted a hat. I fixed the one for my friend but that doesn't really count. So I might get the pattern and see how bad I can mess it up. It definitely looks like one of those things that looks cool when someone else does it but awful when you attempt it yourself. Maybe tomorrow.

Tonight at the theater I finished reading Lone Survivor. It was a really good book. Very sad but also inspirational. Humans are capable of amazing things, not only physically but emotionally. Falling down a mountain, having your friends killed in front of you, and being shot and nearly blown up, but managing to keep going and survive. Incredible stuff. I would like to write more eloquently about the whole thing but it is after midnight and I am still at work and I am a bit at a loss for words. At least ones strung together in a thoughtful manner. I just want to say that I liked the book and I find the human race to be an incredible species. I am also often saddened by humans and what we're willing to do to each other, but that makes us no less incredible. Maybe just in a different way.

Also at the theater tonight, I was recognized by a kindergartener. She went running into one of the bathrooms, then slowly opened it and peeked around it, staring at me for a second before waving very enthusiastically. And I waved very enthusiastically back at her. It was a bit of an odd encounter only because she doesn't tend to be a very enthusiastic kind of kid. At least in school. She spent the first month or two crying throughout most of the day. But maybe outside of school she is the life of the party. Who knew? It was pretty cool. The school job is way better than the theater job. Even though the theater pays me to read books.

November 8, 2013

Yeah, so card art lives. At least for another day. Last night there was a pizza night and silent auction at the school and one of the parents handed the librarian another piece of art to put on a card. And she left it for me to scan today. Again, it's not really a hard thing but it is an annoyance considering the due date was a week ago. Next year not only does the deadline need to be enforced, the total number of cards needs to be limited. Let everyone submit art but then vote on it or something and whittle it down to a more manageable number.

Throughout the day I continued working on storybooks and managed to finish my first one. It was something over twenty drawings that I had to scan, paste back together, and further edit before putting them into the Publisher story. I took a gander through the rest of the storybooks and all but one incorporated their illustrations with their text. Which is annoying. Sometime next week I'm going to have to figure out how I want to deal with those.

The rest of my day at school was fairly uneventful. At least that is what my sleep-deprived mind is telling me at the moment. I was up until midnight last night watching a walk around Machu Picchu that include binaural sound. It was pretty cool but it was shot with a Go-Pro and that was making me sick at times. Before that I listened to part of a mock interrogation with binaural recording. That got creepy real fast.

Tonight at work I ingested some ads and added them to all the movies, but I spent most of my night reading Lone Survivor and I started reading one of the books I got at the book fair. Lone Survivor reads like an action movie and I like the funny remarks that are added in here and there. I am still curious to see what the actual movie is like. If they go for over-the-top action (because it seems like it was a real-life version of an over-the-top action movie) or if they go more realistic.

November 7, 2013

Today I finished the card art. Again. I finished it yesterday but we had two more turned in today. They didn't really take long to make but it is a little annoying considering the due date to turn in art was last Friday. It is also stressing out the librarian because she is in charge of printing everything off on top of teaching classes, running the book fair, and running the library. She's got a lot on her plate at the moment. After I made the last two today we went through and made sure we had everything printed so they could be put on display. We ended up catching five that had been missed and discovered one that I had made upside down. It was the one I had to scan in two pieces and put them back together. I thought it was supposed to be a mash-up between pumpkins and flowers, so pumpkin flowers with the green stem on bottom and the pumpkin flower part on top. Turns out they were just pumpkins. I like my interpretation better. One card had already been printed off so I kept it as a reminder of my handiwork. All-in-all, I made fifty-seven cards. That is a lot of scanning and editing.

I got a start on digitizing the sixth grade storybooks. The cover, title page, and two pages of one book. I decided to scan each half of a page, put it back together in Gimp, erase the text, edit the colors, resize the whole thing to an 8”x13.5” image so it fits on legal size paper with a quarter-inch border, insert it into a picture frame in the actual story the kids typed up, and then send it to the background so the original text is on top. This technique is working well for the first story but it looks like most of the other ones continued their illustrations in and around the text on the page, which is going to be a pain in the butt. The easy solution would be to continue in the same way but put the text in a white box. That will interfere with the illustrations but my scanned image is slightly smaller than the original so matching the typed text with the scanned text isn't going to be a thing. And I don't want to use the scanned text because I don't think it would look as good as the typed text. But I might try it out to see what it looks like.

Tonight I didn't have a visit with the new volunteer kid because he had homework. I ended up having to call his foster dad because I didn't hear back from the kid when I texted him after school. While on the phone with me the foster dad yelled at the kid to call me. So he texted me a minute later saying he had too much homework. So another week of not see him. Not really a bad thing considering there really isn't a case anymore.

I spent my night watching YouTube videos, clicking randomly around the internet, and farming Terraria in the background (I didn't get the Ninja Turtles costume but I did get a reaper costume that is pretty cool). I also wrote my monthly report for my volunteer thing. Pretty much a non-event of a night.