Craft time

The craft: a small, light weight camera case
Time: about 10 minutes, not including finding everything.

You start with a rectangle.


Then you sew it almost in half, spray it with water proofer, and add Velcro. Wah-la! (Although if I ever make one again I'd put the velcro on first.)

Test

I think I got it to work! Here is what I see most nights when I go to bed...A very sad Flurry. the water just got turned off.

Monday: hello world

Well, I was trying to upload some pictures onto the iPad but it is going to take a little more effort than what I want to do tonight. i got the pictures onto the iPad but now I need to get them onto the internet.

Not much else happened today. Work was work. I started taking out the French empire in Civ. Quilted.

Sunday: life details

This morning I wore my new duck socks. Aren't they cute? Quack quack.

Hmm...I thought I had a bunch of other little observations from the day but I don't remember them now. Oh, I'm working on world domination in a Civilization game - I'm taken over 3 empires and have 3 or 4 remaining.

Friday: speed meeting

Today I went to a women's event at the church called speed meeting. It's like speed dating, except that it's more of just a get-to-know people thing. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We talked with people for three minutes, and the time flew by. I was always surprised when the buzzer went off. And it was a great way to see people...both the ones I knew and the ones I was meeting for the first time.

Thursday: more ups and downs

Well, most of the day was fine today...normal work stuff. And then I got to the end. First of all, my program isn't working (and when I'm doing the comparisons the data types do match). Then something else happened. Needless to say, I went home in a pretty bad mood. I also found out I'm not a semi-finalist. Not surprising, but still a little disappointing.

However, I did manage to sufficiently distract myself tonight, so I'm feeling better now. And I had some spice tea. That always makes life better.

Oh! I did have one interesting thing today. I was in a meeting with five people, including myself. Three of them were named John. It was weird. I also stuffed the vent in my office a few days ago, so now when the AC turns on I'm not freezing cold.

Wednesday: Sad, happy, not so sad.

So today started at 4:30 when I suddenly woke up and realized that I didn't know where the oil went in the car; when Ben asked me if I knew I said yes thinking about the oil dipstick. It was a big debate as to whether or not to wake him up and find out. I managed to fall asleep, but one of the first things I did when I woke up was to check the car. It turns out there is a big yellow thing that says "oil.". So I was ok after all.

Today was the day the were supposed to call semi-finalists for month at the museum. I didn't get a call. While I'm not really expecting one because I'm sure there are a lot of qualified applicants, I do think I am qualified too. And it would be so much fun!!

then I got my iPad today! I got sick of lugging the heavy laptop around, and it has gotten to old to play most of the games on. I'm posting from it right now. :). I also got a camera adaptor to go with it, but I think I will try that out tomorrow.

Then I found out that the Museum hasn't quite gotten through all the applications (1500 of them), so I won't know for sure until Friday now.

In other news, I got some really delicious blueberries and strawberries at the store.

Tuesday: Dollhouse

I just finished the last episode of Season 1 of Dollhouse. It was depressing. Very depressing.

Monday: jumping pigs

Last night I was having a hard time getting to sleep, so I thought I'd count pigs jumping over a fence. Because obviously pigs would do a better job than sheep.

Well, to begin with pig #1 didn't realize they were going in a circle and by the time pig #3 jumped it was a big mess. It took me a moment to get them all going in a circle at an even pace. And then pig #6 crashed through the fence instead of jumping over it.

I don't remember much after that though, so apparently the pigs did an OK job in the end.

Sunday: Ben's a turkey

Well, I thought today was going to be one of our normal, relaxing Sundays, but instead we ended up doing a lot of fun stuff. (Which really fits well into our month of fun!)

After church we went out for brunch with Ashley and Stanley. The food was good and the company was fun! Then in the evening we went bowling. I got to see a few people that I haven't seen for a few weeks. Ben bowled really well his second game and got a turkey. :) I think one of the things I like about bowling is that people are always moving around, so it's easy to see everyone.

Saturday: sky diving

Today we went sky diving! It was my birthday present. The day started out by trying to figure out what socks to wear for this momentus occasion...I ended up going with pigs so that I would have flying pigs. :)

We got to the place only to find out that our 1pm reservation didn't really mean anything. While it was cool to watch people pack up their shoots, 3 hours of it was a little excessive. (But in the end, the wait was still worth it.) Our names finally showed up on the rooster and it was time to get started!

We crammed like sardines into the plane and went up. I was doing pretty well until I had to put my legs over the plane...my brain pretty much shut down for a few seconds. Luckily I was strapped to someone who was going to push me over, so I didn't have to think for those few seconds.

Once I finally caught my breath and was free of the airplane (about four seconds later) things got fun again. It was kind of hard to breathe...like on a really windy day when you need to have your face at just the right angle. We went through some clouds. It wasn't like floating, but it also wasn't like dropping. It was a lot of fun.

Then my guy pulled the shoot and we started coasting to the ground. I saw Ben do a horizontal 360 below us and then we did it. I also got to pretend to steer. It was neat seeing everything slowly get bigger...kind of like from a plane but without the windows. And then we came to a nice, soft landing.

I would definitely do it again...especially a tandem jump. I'm not sure I would do it on my own.

Friday: look alikes

For month of fun day two, we went to the company family picnic. The picnic really is geared towards younger children, but since it also had free food Ben and I stopped by for a bit. I also drove the helicopter simulator and managed to get myself dizzy. :)

It is a night for trying to spot people that you know. I saw a few people that I knew. I also saw my brother Nathan. You know how in crowds you often see people that look like people you know? That happens all the time to me with Nathan. Most of the time it's pretty easy to tell that it isn't him after all. But there's this one guy who flies from Detroit to GR that looks exactly like him. I've flown with him twice. And each time I see him a do a double take because I think it's Nathan...after all, he's going to GR. But there's no good reason for Nathan to be in Detroit. So I walk by a few times, casually glancing at him and trying to decide that he doesn't really look like Nathan. Then I sit somewhere where he can see me, just in case it is Nathan and he wants to notice that his sister just happens to be nearby.

It hasn't worked yet. I still haven't had a surprise sighting of Nathan. Even though we live four states away, I will keep looking.

Thursday: month of fun

Today begins the month of fun. :) It starts with my birthday today. I guess nothing super special happened, but Ben and I went out for dinner and a lot of people said happy birthday and I felt special.

Ben and I went shopping after dinner for a few things. It turns out that even though it is still summer it is no longer swimsuit buying season. At Target I was excited because I found two racks of swimsuits on clearance! Score! And then I realized that there were only swimsuit bottoms. Where did all the tops go?

Wednesday: the special cases

So I'm back to Excel programming at work! I had an idea for a major update to my program a few months ago, but work has been too busy to get started on it. Well, I took some time a few days ago to start it. And then I worked on it all day today. I probably should have done some other work too, but it will be there tomorrow (and so will the work package to charge).

I finished the main body around 11am. But then I realized there were all these "special cases" I had to deal with. They took me the rest of the day. I had been getting a little bit proud of my code because it seemed a lot more condensed then it was when I did it the first time, but after I put the special cases in and looked at how many lines of code it takes to format a spreadsheet I got humbled again.

I still think the overall result will be much better.

Tuesday: donuts

I got some donuts today!! Yum. Since everyone is always wondering what my favorite donuts are, I thought I'd finally make a list.

#1 favorite: Headlight donuts

(image from Serres Donut Shop)

It is a three way tie for 2nd place: vanilla kreme, apple cider, and cake with chocolate frosting

(image from here)

#3: The rest of donuts with chocolate.

(image from here)

#4: All other donuts

(Image from here)

#Last - Jelly Donuts. I think these are some of the only donuts that I've passed up.

Monday: a blast from the past

August 16, 1999 (before my Senior year in high school):

Nathan and I went school clothes shopping this morning. almost $200 spent in less than an hour. I got some fun green pants - I can't wait to wear them, and a hooded sweatshirt, along with a few other things.

We started stripping wall paper today - that was fun.

Nathan wanted to watch Law & Order but it was a repeat from like a month ago. So I got bored and did other things and then Mom and Dad left too.

I remember that shopping trip. We spent money rather quickly, but we also finished all of our school shopping in that hour which was really cool. And I still own the pants. But they have a huge hole in the butt so I don't wear them. Well, maybe once a year at home. They are really comfortable.

Sunday: stick cows and locusts

Today Maria and I were teaching Sunday School and the teens are drawing through the Old Testament. (Basically they are given a topic/passage and need to draw a picture and write a statement about how God worked.) Maria and I were working on the last four plagues-boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. I drew boils and darkness. She ended up with hail and locusts, both which involve drawing animals. But she drew the cutest animals! The cows were just cute stick figures. The locusts looked like bugs but not bad bugs... definitely not bugs that would eat all your crops and leave you to starve.

It was weird thinking that she drew such a bad bug so cutely. But both of our drawing talents are rather limited, so there wasn't much choice.

Which brings us to the question, what good do ticks and fleas do? There are a lot of bugs that I don't like, but that I can at least understand the reason for. Maria brought these two up and neither of us knew what good they do.

Saturday: reusable bags

I learned today that you're supposed to wash your reusable grocery bags once in a while. Apparently they're full of bad bacteria. And while I'm not very opposed to a little bit of bad bacteria, I might try to remember to throw them in the wash next week.

Friday: the rest of the day

I laid out the quilt...at least as far as I have it completed, only to realize that I need to cut some more blocks.

Ben got me roses!

Friday: vlog

I thought I'd try my hand at a vlog. The sound is a little quiet, but pretty clear at least. If I assume that vlog stands for "video log", what does blog stand for?

Wednesday: Civilization

Well, I may have just played Civilization all night. I was going to watch So You Think You Can Dance, but the TV channel was coming in really poorly. So I played some more Civ. :)

Tuesday: sneezing and pie

Today as Ben and I were leaving work we sneezed at the same time. Really, it was amazing. If you were sitting in the back seat you wouldn't have been able to tell that there were two sneezes we were so in sync.

We also got to eat a passion fruit pie at our cookout tonight. It was just the right amount of sweet and tangy.

I'm rather tired though. I might go to bed soon.

Monday: numbers

Today is 8.9.10! How exciting! It's also Dusty's birthday. I'm a little jealous because I'll never have a birthday that counts up like that. He pointed out that I will probably have an 8.19.27 birthday which is also cool because 8+19=27.

I had to write the date often today. So I had these lyrics going through my head "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (678) 9, 10." (The six, seven, and eight are sung pretty quickly.) When I got to the 8.9.10 I would think "Happy Birthday Dusty!" However, the closest song that I could find is 1-2-3 by Gloria Estefan (YouTube link). My guess is that I made up a song lightly based on the song. Or it's from Sesame Street. But in either case my song is way cooler.

Sunday: tree branches

We have a tree in our front yard. It was put in the beginning of last winter, and so this year is having a slightly hard time taking root. You can tell because there are only leaves on half the tree.

I had taken a week off of weeding and noticed that there were some huge weeds growing up around the base of the tree. Well, when I got there to weed them I found out they were actually tree branches. I sadly didn't get a picture before I took the branches off, but you can see a little nub half way up on the right side and some green at the very bottom.
I'll admit, I'm not really sure what our tree is thinking. Maybe that it's a bush?

Saturday: work

I had to work this morning. Although it really isn't too bad because it's only four hours, I was out of it all afternoon. Part of the problem was that I was up rather late last night...first hanging out with friends and then reading my dragon book. It was worth it.

Thursday: M&Ms

Recently I tried some of the new M&M flavors, so I thought I'd report to you what I thought of them.

First: Pretzel M&Ms. I thought they could have used a higher chocolate to pretzel ratio. While I might eat them again, they weren't my favorites.

Second: Coconut M&Ms. I really liked these. They were coconut flavored but not too strong. And they had some cool extra designs on the Ms.

Wednesday: back to work

Ah, after a lovely vacation I had to go back to work today. Really, it wasn't that much fun.

I thought several times that maybe I should have just taken the whole week off. :)

NYC: Day3

Today we went on a boat tour around the island. It was very nice to see all the landmarks without having to walk. I was doing ok, but my legs were getting a little sore.

NYC: Day2

We started the day by taking a stroll through Central Park.

Notice how well Ben and I match? He wore that shirt just for me.


Hanneke was able to join us! We usually manage to miss each other over Christmas, so it was really nice to be able to see her again.
We took a whirlwind tour through the American Museum of History. I'd love to come back with more time.

I'm kind of proud as how I managed to get us in this photo on the glass.

In the evening we saw Blue Man Group. It was great. It was much more of a comedy routine than I was expecting, but there was still a lot of percussion.

(Image courtesy BlueManGroup)

NYC: Day1

We started out the day with a delicious strawberry pie for breakfast.

Phew! We made it to NYC without too many issues.

After some walking around to see the sights near our hotel, we finally found something the guys would get their pictures taken with.

We went to a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner. It was a lot of fun, and really interesting to try all sorts of meat. My least favorite was the chicken, and my most favorite was the flank steak. I also loved the sides - mashed potatoes, fried bananas, and a salad bar that had more than lettuce. Laura amazed us all by eating a ton of food; her favorite were the ribs.

We ended the day by going up 30 Rock and seeing the skyline at night.

Monday: dragons

We made it back from NYC! Pictures and such to follow, probably tomorrow. It was a good trip.

I'm currently reading Joust by Mercedes Lackey. I've read it a few times before, but it always makes me want a dragon. I think I want a white one because Flurry is white. I've asked her a few times if she wants to become a dragon, but the answer always seems to be "no."

Floating subs

Why do submarines float (and sink)? It's all a matter of controlling the sub's density. If the submarine is less dense than water, it will float. If it is more dense, it will sink. So let's start by looking at density. In words, density is how much stuff is in a certain amount of volume. Mathematically, density is as follows:

(Side note: if you were to measure density on the Moon, another planet, or deep in the ocean, you'd have to worry about the difference between weight and mass. Fortunately, for most people reading this post weight and mass are approximatively equivalent. For more information, check out this link.)

We're also in luck...water has a very easy density to remember: 1000 kg/m^3. Ocean water is slightly different due to it's salt content, but for our purposes we're just going to ignore some of those subtle nuisances.

When a submarine is floating on the water, its ballast tanks are filled with air. So let's pretend the bottle below is a submarine with air-filled ballast tanks and measure it's weight.

Next the volume of the bottle needs to be deterimed. Normally this would be done by sticking the whole bottle into a graduated cylinder filled with water, but I do not have one. So I estimated the number of teaspoons that the bottle held with a measuring cup. There were about 78 teaspoons.

So now that we've found the weight and volume (and converted them to practical units), we can find the density of the empty bottle.

So here's the big question...will the bottle float?? Do you remember what we said about density up above?

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It floats!

It floats because the density of the bottle (601.5 kg/m^3) is less than water (1000 kg/m^3).

Next let's fill the bottle with blue water and see what happens. We already know the volume, but we need to find the new weight.

With the new weight we can find the density of the bottle filled with blue water:

So, is the bottle with water going to float?

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No!

The bottle sank because its density of 1573 kg/m^3 is more than that of water.

Can you figure out how full the bottle should be so that it will hover in the water?

Here are some more interesting links:

How Stuff Works

MSI learning lab

Friday: scavengers

Today I felt like a scavenger. Ben and I went to Laura's for dinner as she was trying to get rid of some food. It was delicious. Then we got to empty her refrigerator and ended up taking home two coolers worth of food. It was very good timing because we haven't gone to the grocery store for a while and so had lots of room for more food.

I think I'm most excited about the frozen precut chicken. I have realized several times in the past few years that I enjoy eating smaller sized foods more than larger sized foods. If something fits into my mouth without needing a knife (or a bite) that makes my life much happier. (A good example of this is tortilla chips. I enjoy the crumbs and Scoops better than large triangles.)

Thursday: lunch

I had lunch with Jess today. It was really the highlight of my day because work was so busy...it was nice to have a break. It's really nice to just get outside, away from the cold air conditioning, and spend some time relaxing with a friend.

Tuesday: a few more upsides to working a long day

Today was a long day at work. However, there were two good things that happened:

1) I was able to pass off fixing some WIPs to someone else because I'm too busy. SCORE!!!

2) Around 6:45 all the phones started ringing. I was out on the manufacturing floor...a phone was ringing. That phone stopped and a different phone started. I went to my office. Two phones were ringing. They stopped. Another phone rang and someone picked it up - no one was on the line. The fax machine buzzed. My phone rang (there was no one there). Another office phone rang. I went back to the manufacturing floor and the phones were still ringing. When I left 20 minutes later the phones were still all abuzz. Interesting.

What was also interesting is how we all have the same type of phone and yet they all sounded different.

Monday: 5 question Friday

1. What is one thing you miss the most about childhood?

I miss having summer vacation. Even in high school when I was working I still had a lot of time off. It was wonderful to have a change of pace.

2. Are you still friends with your friends from high school?

Yes, but we aren't nearly as close as we used to be. Probably because I don't live close to any of them anymore. I do keep in touch with several of them though and see them occasionally.

3. Is there a catch phrase, cliche, or word that just drives you bonkers every time you hear it?

"My bad." Bad is an adjective, so you can't own it.

4. What is one thing that you think symbolizes America...besides "Old Glory"?

This picture:

5. Do you have any scars? If so, what's the story behind it?

I have one on my back from where I had a mole removed.

(Thanks to Five Question Friday for the questions)

Sunday: why I am (semi) happy to pay my taxes

Do I like paying taxes? Not really. Does it seem unfair that those who make a lot of money have to pay more taxes? Sure. Do I think the money could be handled better? Yes. But today I don't want to talk about such topics tonight. Today I want to refute the comment "I've never heard anyone tell me anything good that taxes have done for them."

Taxes pay my salary. Taxes actually pay a lot of salaries when you think about it.

Taxes pay for schools. Even if the schools aren't very good learning is still important.

Taxes pay for recycling.

Taxes pay for a lot of social services...some that keep me safe (I can pretend it's like insurance) and some help out people who are having a hard time.

In conclusion, while taxes do have several downsides, they also do have some positive effects on society.

Sunday: cooking frisbees

We looked in our car today only to find that all of our four frisbees were misshappen.

Since it is nice to have a lot of Frisbees, we're hoping that we can reshape them. I placed one in hot water for a while to see if it would come back. It is still a little off, so it is currently under a 40lb bag of salt. The Frisbee did cool down before I put it under the salt bag, so I might need to retry the process again later.

Saturday: movies take 2

Today I worked on my 60 second movie. I spent a fair amount of the day working on it and didn't finish. :( I have most of my scenes finished and most of the prep work all figured out though, so hopefully the last bit will finish easily. It didn't help that my camera overheated and so a few of the good takes that I did get for the last part had some weird effects.

Most of the morning was spent trying to make a bluescreen (and a greenscreen). It didn't work. I probably had the wrong color fabric, because I did get the software to work on small sections of the video. It's too bad, because I was really looking forward to making some stock footage of Ben and I so that we could be in outer space or on the lip of a volcano or swimming under the ocean.

It was rather hot out today so we went out for dinner and then went to see Inception. It was a great movie. I'd highly recommend it.

Friday: movie!

For Month at The Museum, I need to make a movie. I never before realized how hard it is to put everything you want to say into one minute AND make it creative at the same time. It gives me a new respect for advertisement designers.

Anyway, here is the first movie I've ever put together. It was actually surprisingly easy. I know it's not a great movie, but I was having fun figuring out how to put the different components together.

It features my wonderful cat Flurry and her love of water.

Thursday: organized

When I'm asked to describe myself, one of the adjectives that I usually use is organized. These skills came in useful once again this afternoon. I discovered that three cables that need to start being built tomorrow but weren't on the list. Then while looking at the list I realized that two of the planned cables needed some changes made before they could be started. So I quickly did the half dozen tasks that are required to change a single wire.

Disaster averted!!

Business meeting

To those of you who recently had a business meeting (you know who you are):

Sending a card to someone you didn't invite to the meeting that says "We're sorry you couldn't make it" shows complete disrespect for my inherited office of Treasurer.

I expect a formal invite to the next business meeting.

Sincerely,

Amanda

Tuesday: fruit flies

Today we seemed to have a lot of fruit flies in the office. They're annoying, but not too bad. I just hope that we get them under control before there are too many of them.

In case you're wondering, I just read that the life cycle of a fruit fly is about a week. Great news for us! The bad news is that they can lay up to 500 eggs during that time. At that rate we'll be over come with fruit flies rather quickly.

Stay tuned to find out what happens!

Tuesday: month in a museum?

Ben told me this morning that the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology is going to host someone in their museum for a month. The person would live there (all day and all night) for a month.

I'm very seriously thinking of applying. How much fun would that be! I love science museums. I could sleep in the train. I could sleep on a ship. I could check out all the bathrooms and figure out which one is the best. I could watch all the movies that no one ever watches because there isn't enough time. I could watch them twice.

So while I sit here, trying to think of three words that describe me and reaching for the thesaurus, you can help me too! Which of my blog posts do you like the most? Or, at the very least, which of the blog posts do you remember? I know there are a few that have stood out for me, but I'm curious if any have stood out for you.

Monday: TV shows

Following in Lisa's steps, I listed the TV shows that Ben and I have watched (or are in the middle of watching) since we started Netflix.

Big Bang Theory - five stars (hits oddly close to home sometimes)
How I Met Your Mother - four stars
The Office - five stars
Battlestar Galactica - five stars
Firefly - six stars (<3 <3 <3)
Arrested Development - three stars - it's on instant view
Dexter - three point five stars - season two wasn't so good, but we've heard season three gets better
Scrubs - five stars
24 - four stars
That 70s Show - five stars
Red Dwarf - zero stars - we barely made it through one episode

So now we need your help - what other good TV shows are out there that we've missed

Sunday

Hmm...it was a fairly normal Sunday today. Ben played drums and I did some errands during the off service. Then we had a church picnic. There was a tent and nice breeze so it wasn't too hot, but it was still hot. We didn't stay long because we had already been at church for a while and I was getting tired.

I also did some chores, watched some TV, and worked on a quilt. Oh! and I talked to Nathan on googlechat! I couldn't get my video to work most of the time, but the voice worked pretty well.

Saturday: kitten

we were at a friend's house and they recently got a new kitten. It was so cute! And so small! Ben and I have talked a few times about getting another cat so that Flurry wouldn't be alone so much when we're working, but we decided that Flurry would really just hate that more than being alone. So...no new kittens for us. :(

I saw a live skunk on the way home! I think it is the first time I've seen an alive one. I know they're all over because you can smell them regularly.

Tonight

Friday: haircuts

Ben and I got hair cuts today! Yay. I was looking forward to it all day...someone semi-massaging my scalp. Aahh. Anyway, she wanted to talk, which kind of ruined the whole semi-massage.

Maybe I should ask for a gift certificate for a massage for my birthday instead of ski-diving. They're kind of at opposite ends of the adventure-spectrum. I know! I'll ask for both. :)

In other news, I was reading an article during lunch about movies that make people cry and one of them was when Dumbo's mother can only hold him through the bars of the jailcar. Just thinking about it almost made it cry. But then I almost laughed as I imagined explaining why I was crying to my coworkers with whom I had a meeting in five minutes.

Thursday: life cycle of a couch

Dusty and Laura are giving their old couch to our church's youth group, which encouraged me to think about the life cycle of a couch. I found it rather interesting...

Year 1: Brand new! My owners love me! They won't let anyone eat on me or put their stinky feet on me!

Years 2-10: Well, I've become slightly worn, but I am still in a place of honor. I have a good life.

Years 10-15: I was given to the kids. They just got their own apartment and while I don't match any of the furniture, I am the only sitting location. I get used a lot! Life is good.

Years 17-19: I was given to a college kid. The room stinks, but I'm the only piece of comfortable furniture. I am loved!

Years 20-23: I am back in an apartment with non-matching furniture. I'm getting very worn at the edges and some springs don't spring anymore, but things are going ok.

Years 24-26: I was given to the youth group. I'm in rather terrible condition, but I at least get to be with other couches in terrible condition. Life is fun, and I don't have people sitting on me very much which is good at my age.

Year 27: I was put out on the curb to die, but some college kids picked me up before it rained. Phew. They kept me for four months. And then ceremoniously buried me in the dumpster. It was a good way to go. It was a good life.

Tuesday: cereal-luck II

Today we had our second cereal-luck. This time we invited all of the church. Not many extra people came, but it was still a good time! We played frisbee golf afterward and had many laughs and many cheers. I found that I really like Reese's PB cereal...it was delicious! It is probably also a once-in-a-while treat. :)