finally got to make the diaper I've been designing (mostly in my head) and wtf actually finished it on the same day! (well okay I haven't sewn the velcro on yet but that is so freakin trivial that I actually got another design idea before I did it!)
The thing looks freakin awesome, if I do say so myself. I made all the seams where I wanted them to be (only had to seam-rip twice), remembered to tuck in the ends, got the elastic exactly where it needed to be and actually had the hems straight HOLY FUCKING MOSES!
This diaper is the culmination of several months of blood sweat and tears and a lot of screaming in frustration.
Why? Because up until attempting this gargantuan task, I was a sewing snob: I eschewed using a machine. Because I am a perfectionist and I insist on perfect seams that are invisible. That's just fine, of course, for when you're hemming up pants or redoing a crotch seam but it ain't gonna work when it's time to sew something from scratch.
The trials and tribulations.... but now I have a fantastic machine, professional thread and material and everything is coming together smoothly, like I knew it would when I started this. "Ya gotta hve the right tools for the job Beavis" - ain't that the ever-lovin truth?!
In other news of the happy; Lil Miss seems to have settled on a feeding schedule of about every two hours now. Well, before 8pm anyway. So now I can actually get a few things DONE around here without having to stop every 20-30 minutes to be Lil Miss' food supply. (Mooo!)
Damn but she's cute though... I am greedy and eat her up with my eyes at every opportunity.
ANd now I am definitely cut down on the cigs and look to be quitting (yes again) within a month. Hard, when "gonna get a smoke" is only impetus to take a break from Lil Miss (and the boys or family in general) but I think perhaps coupled with my renewed interest in getting to a healthy weight will help: I plan to use candy. Tried and true from what I understand. Needing to gain about 15 pounds I suppose the candy plan will work wonders. And I can eat candy since I'm working out every day. Hell I NEED to eat candy.... well we won't get into all that.... fight enough with the mister as it is about my (non)eating habits. But seems like everything is dovetailing nicely.
This is Shadow. No, he's not a "demon dog". He's a two-year-old weimaraner. That's his favorite bunny toy. My aunt says he has more toys than her five-year-old grandaughter. Yes, he's a big puppy alright and yes he doesn't realize that he's as big as he is. "No Shadow, jumping on me is not cute."
Just thought I'd share a couple of photos I took the first night of the so-called "Santiago" arson fire, Saturday, October 21, 2007. Charms and I were driving home from about 20 minutes away when we first spotted flames and enormous plumes of smoke rising from the top of a very distant hill. I joshingly suggested it was the hill across from our abode, and it wasn't until we were off the freeway heading toward home that we discovered how near it really was.
This was a horrible tragedy for so many people and we have so much respect and appreciation for all the firefighters and volunteers that have and continue to help protect homes and lives. It disgusts me to no end that the same type of [expletive deleted] who believe vehemently in 9/11 conspiracies are now also contending that these fires were all started by firefighters themselves because they wanted to collect overtime pay.
This is a shot from the Woodbury Town Center down the street. Notice all the onlookers. The streets were actually lined with parked cars. If many were like us, they were watching to get a handle on how worried we needed to be.
This is from a little while later after the flames spread eastward. The series of lights at the bottom of the hill line a toll road. This burning came as close as just feet away from homes in the village of Portola Springs just on the other side of the road.
Here's a short clip I found on YouTube that starts at the corner where the first photo above was taken and ends around where the second was taken. It gives you a little bit of an idea of the wanton disregard in the air for what was to come.
News coverage seems to have died down, but the fire is still currently burning 9 days later, homes are still being evacuated, and it isn't expected to be squelched before Friday. Wouldn't it be nice if the genius engineers in this country could designed a "bomb" that would suck the oxygen out of a large area or otherwise smother it with massive force.
Meet Chrissy, our 5 year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever. This is her pitiful look, as in "Please don't make me get off the bed!" She's just a great big 100lb baby.
A big improvement in blogging has been made for all Sift Bloggers who are less than very technically inclined when it comes to HTML programming. We've incorporated a fantastic JavaScript WYSIWYG editor (courtesy of MoxieCode Systems).
Currently, it's active for all new blog posting and existing post editing, but it will soon be made optional via account preferences (for those of us who prefer manual HTML). Most features are included in the toolbar embedded at the bottom of the input form, however the one thing that's a little tricky (unfortunately there's no way around it) is when it comes to inserting video embed code. Instead of simply pasting it into the form, you have to click the "HTML" button to access the source code of your blog entry and paste the video embed code there.
We're hoping this is going to be something very positive for all you bloggers out there, so please share your thoughts and experiences with it.
Lately, I've been trolling around looking at YouTube clones. What I'm discovering, is that almost all of them offer better quality and features than YouTube.
The codecs seem clearer and less compressed and they often have the option to go full screen on the remote embeds- unlike YouTube.
The thinking behind limiting hosts to a pre-defined list on VideoSift is that there were (are) a lot of crap hosts out there, that we couldn't vouch for. "Joe's Tube Clone" could easily fold tomorrow, or decide to replace the source file with a big ad, or worse.
Also, we thought that limiting the host list is a good way to prevent self-promotion. We've gotten lots and lots of requests from start-up video sites wanting to get their stuff on VideoSift. If the content hasn't been compelling we usually have not added the host.
As Lucky showed recently, over 80% of our content comes from YouTube. Perhaps it shouldn't anymore. Not that I'm expecting YouTube to fold, or radically change their source files, but now- the momentum is with the smaller providers that have higher quality players and exclusive content.
We could do a couple of things to bring in fresh sources. The most radical would be to remove all limits on hosts. Any flash video file would be allowed.
A more gentle approach would be to give Gold Stars the ability to submit from any host, (as diamonds do now).
Check out this excellent 60 Minutes video on Plumpy Nut, and go full-screen with the player. Great quality and great content. OK, it's not embeddable- but this is where I think it's all going - this kind of premium content will be embeddable, once some kind of ad system is worked out. The days of YouTube hogging all the good Flash video are numbered.
I read the scary stuff: Mysteries, thrillers and suspense. The stuff that makes you squirm and think "ewwwwwwww."
As a Librarian I have access to, well...alot of books. I can get advanced reader copies of new titles, but since I'm not in charge of Collection Development anywhere, I just pluck the ones that look like they'll make me have bad dreams. If they do, I recommend them to Acquisitions. I'm also a slave to the NYT bestsellers list, but it's got to be a mystery...I do have my principles. Dean Koontz probably tops my list of favorite authors: his books are intelligent suspense, not just gore.
Lately I've been into crime stories, especially Robert Crais' Elvis Cole mysteries. Robert Crais was a principal writer on the old cop show Hill Street Blues: you see his work more than hear it as you're reading. Elvis is smart, sarcastic, funny, and not living up to his potential. Kind of like me. So as I wait for the early Elvis novels to come in from the branches, I noticed a new mystery author getting a short spot on the NYT list...
Chelsea Cain is an Oregon reporter who has just released Heartsick. The main characters are punk noob journalist Susan Ward, sharing a toke with the high school kids during the interview; Gretchen Lowell, beautiful serial killer who can make a man do anything; Archie Sheridan, damaged detective in love with the monster who killed him. This is a great read, a really surprisingly excellent first novel.
The story line switches between Gretchen and Archie's memories of his kidnapping and torture with Susan's all-access invitation to cover the new, brutal murders of three high school girls. Archie's just back from medical leave, heading the Beauty Killer task force. He visits Gretchen in jail every week: she offers the location of her victim's bodies for his cooperation in her sick mind games. Archie had been victim number 200.
I was kind of spooked at how much I cared about these people. Susan is making all the wrong choices in her life, Archie is wallowing in self-pity and pharmaceuticals...Gretchen is the sickest character I've seen in a LONG time, perhaps even rivaling Hannibal Lecter. Her capacity to inflict pain and kill is bone-chilling.
So anyway...as I mentioned before I'm not much of a blogger but did want to talk about this book. I did try to find the "What are you reading" thread in SiftTalk to spare you this post, and couldn't. If you're into Crime Drama, do check-out Heartsick. It's a damned good read.™
Just added a new sidebar panel to the blog pages containing the obligatory "archive" links to collapse and expand blog post information by year and month. It seems to be in working order, but if you experience any difficulties or think it's not functioning properly please report here.
As requested by some members, the next additions to these charter member blogs may be to have a WYSIWYG editor available, specify your own title for it, and also maybe have a custom sidebar panel (a la channels) that you can play around with. Look for such features to appear in the coming weeks.
Side note: This is my absolutely very first blog post ever. I wish it were something a bit more spectacular, but this is the way the cookie crumbles. Of course, it is still a "dear diary" moment...
You’ve seen Ginger Rose before. She was nursing in a video swampgirl posted this past summer. ‘Thought y’all might need a cute fix. If this is not enough for you there are more shots of Ginger Rose at her new home in Lafayette, Louisiana.
The avatar that I’ve been using recently was photographed at an opening reception at The Dutch Alley Artist’s Co-Op in the French Quarter on August 11th. It was one of many gallery openings that took place in celebration of “Dirty Linen Night”. Why “Dirty Linen”? Well the Julia Street art galleries celebrate “White Linen Night” the week before. So five years ago the French Quarter art galleries decided they should have their own event. In keeping with the theme dirty rice and dirty martinis were served.
That night I had a collage piece featured in a small group show in the co-op gallery. We were guests of the co-op. Freddy Omar and his band played as people danced. There was a steady crowd that visited the gallery. It was very hot that night. It’s good thing water and ice were both available – besides the other beverages.
I thought you would all be amused to know that I made gold 10 days ago, and am now 72% of the way to my hundred star. Also, I've only been a member for a little over three months. I call for your assistance to help me set the record on the Sift! Be a part of history, and help me make 100 in four months!
Nah, just messin'.. but I thought it was humorous.
I killed my blogspot McBlog page and have moved most of the content here. I don't want to flood the system, so I will try to spoon feed the rest of my content over the long haul. So here we go, a place to drop my brain load and let my freak flag fly. Enough about me, what about me... I'm a audio engineer, I do a fair amount of mastering, and transfer for the Recording Industry. I have been doing this for around 7 years, 3 years ago I busted a move and opened my own biz. Much happier working for myself. I work essentially with all of the same people, only now it's from my home studio instead of the ol' office building. Got my start in the arts back in the day, Got a college degree in the arts back in 88 from The North Carolina School Of The Arts. Was lucky enough to move around a bit as an army-brat. I make my home in the sleepy seaside village of Los Angeles, with my super groovy 5 year old son.
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