Category: Crankypantsing

Crankypantsing, Meta

508

Shelly

I’ve got 508 posts to go.

I had planned to paint today, but I got sidetracked by other things: washing the dog, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the studio, and straightening up my coffee table mess. And then, I spent some time fixing bad links, until I got so tired that I literally fell asleep in front of the computer. At that point, I decided it was time to go take a nap. When I woke up, The Amazing Race was on, and now it’s bed time. Where the hell did my day go?

The litterbox is clean, though, and the dog smells like Garnier Nutrisse, so I guess it wasn’t all wasted time.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Rain and Links

Shelly

It’s been raining all day. I’ve been on the computer for most of it, fixing broken links. This is the only room you can really hear the rain from, because the downspouts are right outside the window. Over the past couple of hours it’s gradually been raining harder and harder.

I keep hearing sirens, too. They’re distant, but close enough to be distracting. It must be pretty crappy weather to be out driving in. In fact, I just heard an enormous crash, like a dumpster being dropped or two trains connecting. I haven’t a clue what it was, but yikes!

Fixing all those broken links is a tedious and thankless task. I’ve been working on it for a couple of hours, and I think I’ve got about 100 entries done. Going backwards, I’m at 682, which means nearly 700 entries to go. So, to repeat, if you are looking at older posts, and you try to click on an image, to embiggen it, you will likely be taken to a random image. I’m working on it, but it’s going sloooooowly. In the meantime, everything is working properly within the gallery, so you can easily access images from there.

Crankypantsing, Meta, Photography

Comments

Shelly

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I’ve been a bad blogger lately. Most of my free time has been taken up with genealogy crap. I’ve also been inundated with a spectacular amount of blog spam. I’ve installed several filters on the back side, but a large volume of spam is still getting through. Not to the blog itself, but I get e-mail notifications for all the ones that the back-end filters miss. That number has gone up to hundreds each day, which means I’ve had to filter my e-mail, too. Some of the notifications for legit comments have gotten lost in that mess. Not the comments themselves, just the notifications.

That’s all by way of explaining why I did not realize there were comments. Oops!

And now, another random pee-chur from last Sunday. This one without pretty cyan skies. I don’t know why I’m fascinated with electric poles and pylons, but I am. It’s hard to believe that something so primitive could have such a huge impact on our everyday lives.

Crankypantsing

Locks

Shelly

I got home this afternoon to find that:

1. My key was sticking in the small lock. I was able to get it to unlock, finally, but only after a good bit of fiddling.

2. The deadbolt, which my key has never worked in, was mysteriously locked. I can only lock that one from the inside, so how did it get engaged?[1]

Thankfully, I didn’t stop at Target on my way home to pick up laundry detergent, like I’d planned. I had just enough time to get to the leasing office before they closed, and they sent a maintenance guy over. He sprayed graphite in the deadbolt, and his master key worked fine. Mine still refused to budge.

They’re bringing a new set of locks over tomorrow. That means, yet another unplanned day off work and yet another make-up Friday. Hrmf! It’s probably good timing, though, because we’re supposed to have Weather tonight.

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1. I found out from the management folks that my key ought to work in both locks. Who knew?! It’s never worked in the deadbolt.

I also found out that they have no spare keys for my apartment. The lock problem may be a key problem. In fact, it’s likely to be a key problem, since it’s affecting both locks, but since they do not have any other keys for my locks, they’ll have to be replaced.

Crankypantsing, Photography

Saturday Fish Blogging

Shelly

I finally got around to buying my poor fish some aquarium plants this morning. I briefly considered getting a Betta (I just absolutely adore them), but was too disgusted by the way the fish at PetCo looked. One entire display of Bettas was dead, and another was about 75% dead, with the live ones looking near to it. Their fins were all clumpy, which is from some disease that I can’t remember the name of.

I realize I got there at opening time, and that the little PetCo elves were still running around doing cage cleanings and feedings, and I’m sure they would’ve pulled the dead fish off the floor eventually. But, that’s not the problem. That many dead fish indicates that something is very wrong.

Ugh. That is just one of many reasons I don’t shop there unless I really need to. If there were anywhere near me that carried aquarium supplies (and that didn’t sell puppies and kittens!), I’d shop there. As it is, PetCo now has ferrets, in addition to birds and rodents and lizards. And the cashier said that the ferrets had come in sick, too. Not cool.

So now I feel even worse about spending $30 at their store. I shouldn’t have done it, but I was starting to get a serious guilt complex about my poor fishes’ naked aquarium.

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The fish weren’t fazed one little bit by me groping around in their tank. That surprised me. As soon as the plants were in, they started exploring them, and when they were done with that, they went back to scrounging for leftovers in the marbles. They’re awfully good fish.

Next, to procure a plecostomus. I think there’s probably enough algae and crud accumulated now to make a decent habitat for one.

Art, Crankypantsing, Journals, Meta, Paintings

Blue d’Anjou Pears

Shelly

Blue D'Anjou
Blue d’Anjou Pears (detail left & right)
acrylic on 90lb Stonehenge paper
9 1/4 x 11 5/8 inches

This spread was done with just acrylic on paper, with the addition of a little bit of acrylic medium in a few spots. Mostly, I worked with the paint without diluting it, because I tend to prefer a bit of texture (you can see it in the detail views).

Non sequitur alert!

What do you say when a coworker walks past your desk and helps himself to a handful of Kleenexes? Seriously! I was at a total loss for words, and that just doesn’t ever happen to me! I have an evil temptation to buy him a box of tissues and leave it on his desk, anonymously. It would be worth it, except that I have a feeling that anyone who is that oblivious to what is and what is not socially acceptable would be unlikely to get the point.

Grrr.

And with that, I believe I have fulfilled my NoMoPoblano (or whatever the hell it’s called) commitment, and without having to resort to fluffy padding, either. Alas, I didn’t quite finish NaNoWriMo, but I gave it a good try. Getting sick didn’t help, nor did having my image database crash and having to rebuild it[1]. I also didn’t manage to do a pear a day, but I’m still working on it, and I’m not worried about completing the project. That, I can do.

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1. On that front, things are going well. I have everything (I think) uploaded and sorted, and about 90% of it is cataloged. Whew! That was a long, tedious, and thankless job.

It’s also a good lesson in why it’s important to do regular back-ups. Or, back-ups at all. I r st00pit. I am religious about making multiple back-ups of my files, but not my databases. Oops!

Crankypantsing, Music

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Shelly

The Bumpasses are totally rocking out to the Bee Gees. At 11:30pm. I’m more amused than disturbed by it, though, because I almost never hear a peep from them.

What makes me cranky is the Claritin commercial with the stone carver who is not wearing a freaking mask, much less a respirator. Because if you have allergies, the last thing on earth you need is to breathe a bunch of stone dust. The stupid, it doth offend!

Crankypantsing

Spillage

Shelly

The list of really stupid things a person might do surely includes shaking a nearly full bottle of black gesso without first making sure the flip top is securely closed. And bonus points if you do so while walking across the carpet.

Luckily, I still had just enough Spot Shot left to clean up the mess. And, more importantly, I was able to find it before the gesso had dried.

Things like this make me laugh at the fact that I had just a $140 damage deposit for me, but had to pay a whopping $300 for the dog. I’m the one who’s apt to wreck the place, not the dog!

Crankypantsing, Photography

Ur Colds, I Has Dem

Shelly

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and somebody’s wool blanket stuffed in my head. I am not amused. And worse, now that I’ve been up and out with the dog, I can’t get back to sleep. So I’m cruising Flickr, looking at other folks’ photos.

2. mc_light_rocks
Michigan City Lighthouse, Michigan City, Indiana

mcityduneslight
Michigan City Lighthouse seen from a sand dune on Washington Park Beach, Michigan City, Indiana

Credit: Tom Gill, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license

This was “our” beach, when my family lived in Michigan City. We lived on California Avenue, which was just a few blocks from Washington Park and the Washington Park beach. We could walk to the park via the beach, then cross the road and go to the Washington Park Zoo. The dune grass is sharp, and will cut you if you aren’t careful. We used to run around and play in the grass, and I remember getting long, razor cuts from it.

Sometimes we’d go to the lighthouse and walk the pier. There were usually old guys lined up on the pier, fishing. While the grown-ups were walking, us kids would scramble around. I remember climbing up on the center section, then down the far side. There was a narrow walkway there, and when the tide was out, it was easy to climb on the rocks. I was a chicken, though, so I only stepped on rocks that were right next to the walkway, and only those that were near the shore.

Frozen Shore
Frozen Shore by Meghan Linehan published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license

I remember going to the beach one winter and seeing, beyond the hurricane fencing, huge frozen waves. I was probably 6 or 7 years old, and I couldn’t figure out how water could freeze so quickly that it kept its wave form. Years later, I remembered those waves, and by then the solution was obvious. It really puzzled me at the time, though.

The photo doesn’t give a good idea of scale. These waves are enormous. And the ones I recall had wonderful, bizarre formations.