Notist

I am on Thanksgiving break.  Here are a few things I have duly noted thus far:

1.)  I love watching people - Creepy?  Yes.  True?  Also yes.  In more             ways than one.  Airports are especially fun.  ...unless you get caught.       .......but still though.

2.)  I find it hard to keep a straight face while getting patted down at the       airport.
3.)  In general, I think that people are better than we sometimes give           them credit for.

4.)  Little kids are adorable - my nieces probably lead the pack.

5.)  Birds from Seattle are lucky - Except the Seahawks.  But seriously,         though.  I don't know if anyone has ever had the privilege of flying           into the Seattle/Tacoma airport, but it's breathtaking.  As is custom         (at least whenever I've done it), you're flying through thick clouds           the whole time you approach the city.  Then all of a sudden, you             emerge and there's a gorgeous vista laid out below.  You see a               gaggle of little peninsulas, sticking out in all directions, covered by         beautiful trees (which were changing colors at the time, mind                 you) and orderly housing developments only partly visible through           the dense foliage.  All of these enclaves are connected by manmade         roadways which skim right across the surface of the water.  Off in           the distance to the east, you've got the Cascade mountains.                   Delicious.  I couldn't find or take a picture though.  Let your                   imaginations run wild.

5.)  Running on treadmills barefoot makes my toes stick together                 and the skin on the bottom of my feet not stick to the rest of my foot       anymore.

6.)  Lower altitudes make me feel invincible.

7.)  I have forgotten how I've survived so many winter moons when it           gets dark before 5 pm.

8.)  There's something emotionally and mentally draining about having a         moustache and seeing it every time you look in the mirror.

9.)  Nostalgia runs rampant every time I come home to visit.

10.) Hygiene runs the opposite of rampant.

.

Modesty

Some food for thought.  And it applies to all women, not just Christians:

PS I'd never really thought about it before, but I like that saying.  

"Hi." -♥, Your brain

So cool.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200307/communicating-brain-waves?page=2

Both of my majors rolled up into one brain-sucking robot. ♥

And it adds more plausibility to the reality of the Ninja Turtles.  Winner, winner.

Gourdal eptitude

Though I’ve always loved craftsy activities, there is one that I had never really gotten into.  ...Until this year.  Pumpkin carving!


Last year was my first real run-in with carving, and it showed.  My ineptitude with gourds shone forth in my sad excuse for a lantern:

First off, yes I did put my number on a pumpkin.  Sad #1.  Sad #1a, it didn’t even work.  Probably because of Sad #2, which was that I couldn’t carve it to save my life.  Turns out 5s are a crazy shape and when you cut out the outer part of a zero, the middle part comes with it.  Same goes for 9s.  Something about science or something. 


But this year was a little different.  After intense failure, one learns a thing or two.  I have learned a large number of things.  My first pumpkin opportunity came at an activity I went to.  There was a pumpkin carving contest and they asked for representatives from each of about 8 groups that were present.  They hadn’t picked them beforehand, so it was essentially on a volunteer basis.  No one offered themselves from my group, and after a while they were getting impatient.  I was near the carving table and a friend volunteered me.  So I went to work and this is what I came up with:

Pumpkin#1!  


My second opportunity came later that night wit some peeps.  Pumpkin #2 ended up being:

A monkey with a chainsaw!  What else?  I learned some cool techniques on this one.  First was that of tracing.  You draw what you want to carve on a separate piece of paper, tape the sketch to the desired side of the pumpkin and trace it on by poking through the paper into the workable surface of said pumpkin. The next one was gradient.  Depending on the thickness of the pumpkin, it gives your carving the appearance of shadedness when lit up.  Apparently these technologies have been around forever.  News to me.  


Next opportunity was time for something epic:

And last but not least, a big toothy grin!

….kind of.  


I now very much enjoy carving pumpkins.

Dress up

What’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys?!

Me.

Or at least I was for Halloween this year.  This, dear friends, was my costume:

The idea came to me with the help of my roommate.  A few months ago, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be (Halloween costumes are like the only thing I plan more than a few days in advance).  I wasn’t really coming up with much and I was getting nervous.  I had won costume contests two years running, and I was going for the turkey. The only thing I had so far was to be Sorry by recreating the lid of the board game and placing myself strategically inside.  I thought the concept was alright, but it wasn’t quite there; it didn’t tickle my fancy.  And I figured this costume was going to have to do some fierce tickling to Complete the Threepeat ™.  So I threw the idea out to my roomie and we proceeded to back-and-forth a couple of ideas.  Sticking with the childhood games theme, he suggested, “How ‘bout a barrel of monkeys?”  And then, thought I, Why not more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

It wasn’t as epic as that narration made it sound, but I thought it was A.) clever and B.) theoretically not too hard to make, though that’s always a dangerous underestimation of mine.  Being a perfectionist who likes to make their own costume causes the days leading up to Halloween to be bizzy.  But make it I did.  The barrel at least.  Let’s get crafty!

Ingredients:
2 Salad Bowls
A bunch of strips of cardboard
Aluminum Foil
Tape
Brown spraypaint
Plastic bags or some other creative stuffing
A bunch of monkeys

I started off by foraging for a bunch of cardboard boxes in the dumpster behind my work and then carrying them home along a busy street at rush hour as any normal person would. Then, I cut them into ~4 inch strips. Next was a trip to the dollar store.  I found a couple of salad bowls that actually ended up being more perfectly shaped than I could have imagined and I managed to get out of there having spent less than $20. Success!  This made things much simpler.  Kind of.  I taped the cardboard strips securely to the insides of one bowl so they were sticking straight up, kind of like this.  I then cut the bottom out of the second bowl (which is surprisingly hard and dangerous when using leather cutting scissors) and placed it on top of the standy cardboards.  Then I taped the crap out of it.  The structure was a little flimsy, so I stuffed it with a small portion of the hoard of grocery bags we have under our sink.  It came out looking full and voluptuous, as any barrel should.

Next came the spray paint.  I spray painted it. I then tooksome aluminum foil and tore it off in long sheets.  After folding them into long thin strips, I wrapped them around the barrel at its respective subtropics.  The finishing touch was filling the barrel with monkeys.

The rest of my costume was monkey/fun themed, making sure to point out that I was more fun than the copiously crowded barrel which accompanied me throughout the evening.  Behold:

PS I love the shirt.  DI.  $2.  Although I in no way condone tobacco use in animals.  Especially animals under 18.

I’ve always thought it’d be cool to have my own arts n crafts show.  Thanks for joining me today.  Now you know how I made my costume.  Did you care?  Either way you know now.  And knowledge is power.

Quaffseason

Have you ever felt like you’ve just had your chest cut open and your heart ripped out?  Like the reason for your very being has abandoned you when you needed it most and you’ll never love again?  I have.  At the end of every baseball season.

I love baseball.  If you watched Game 6 of the World Series this year, you will know why.  If you’re a Mariners fan like I am, you may not.  I like keeping up on stats, player development, the standings—everything.  It has gotten even worse since I got involved in a Fantasy Baseball League a couple of years ago.  ...or better.

Needless to say the close of the 2011 season has been a hard transition for me. Throughout the playoffs, I knew exactly what I would be doing when I got home from work every day.  Now I feel so lost. Luckily, school has got my back.  It was like a good friend who, when seeing my lost and fallen condition, did a great job at keeping me busy to the point of forgetting I ever had any free time whatsoever.  Great, huh ؟
 
But really luckily I have eggnog at this time of year; it helps to fill the emptiness.  I don’t drink the alcoholic kind, but the heart slowing thickness calms my troubled soul and ends up having about the same effect.  Maybe if I drink enough of it and calculate it just right, I won’t wake up until Spring Training starts up again.  If not, there are more extreme methods.  

Who's with me?

Optimism

Yesterday was one of the busiest days of my life.

Okay maybe not.  But it was super busy.  Behold my schedule.  Feel free to memorize it: 

          8-10:45 - Class 

          11-11:45 - Devotional 

          11:45-12:30 - Walking! 

          12:30-4:45 - Warking! 

          4:45-6 - Studies! 

          6-7:30 - Test 1 (exclamation mark removed for lack of                                       excitement) 

          7:30-7:33 - Weeping bitterly! 

          7:34-8:55 - Regain composure/Studies 

          8:55-9:59 - Test 2

I have decided that one of the worst feelings in the world results from studying hard for a test, incurring a late fee upon yourself for extra time to study for said test, taking double-said test, feeling like you know most of the answers, feeling good after leaving the test and then finding out you didn't do well at all.  It's like getting sucker punched by those display screens in the testing center.  This happened after my first test.  I did better on #2, but was still left feeling deceived and betrayed by that skanky first one.  I couldn't get over it.  After a while, I decided to try and look on the bright side.  I came up with a list of things that could leave you with a worse feeling than the aforementioned scenario.  Have a look:

• Playing bulldozer with a porcupine
• Playing bulldozer with a bulldozer
• Having your feet licked by this
• The gallon challenge with lava
• Boils
• Jabba the Hut
• Shaving someone's back
• Losing an arm-wrestling match to this guy
• Taking a shower in acid
• Falling into a vat of snails
• Mistaking a bomb for a jawbreaker (although technically.........)
• Playing catch with a wrecking ball

Needless to say, I felt better.  Life's not so bad if you think about it.