January 25
[ Taken January 10, 2010 | winter bird, out of focus | Dayton, OH ]
It may not be a good picture, but I do like this photo. I like the way that the narrow range of focus makes the image look, even though the bird (what I intended to be the focus of the shot) is not in it. Oh well.
Learning how to drive a stick shift is going fairly well. This weekend I made it around the neighborhood for a bit, and then went on to a larger road and drove down the hill to the grocery store. I only stalled the car a couple of times at stop signs in the neighborhood. I managed the four-way stop at the bottom of the hill and the two stop lights on the way to the grocery store just fine.
I didn't drive home from the store. John drove home. I didn't quite feel up to driving up the hill, and I had done so well up to that point that I just decided that I wanted to end the practice on a high note.
I think that it will be a while before I feel confident enough for busier roads, to say nothing of navigative the big intersection by the mall and freeway on-ramp, or stop-and-go traffic, but I am getting there. Slowly, but I am getting there. And since slow and steady usually winds the race, I don't feel any terrible urgency to master driving stick in a short amount of time.
Among the myrid other projects that I have going on at the moment, I am working on a redesign of this site. It is going much more slowly then I had hoped (since I had hoped that I would have something new up by now) because I am suffering from a terrible case of designer's ennui. At this point I have come up with three different designs, gotten them through detailed Photoshop mockups, coded them up as templates... and then decided that I was bored with them or not otherwise interested in them enough to transition my whole site over. Bah. I will find something I like enough eventually.
January 10
[ Taken January 10, 2010 | frosted | Dayton, OH ]
I had my first lesson on how to drive a car with a stick shift yesterday afternoon in the big parking lot behind the Home Depo. I didn't do too badly... I think that I only stalled the car out about 5 or 6 times.
Actually I started very well. Starting from a stop in 1st gear, accelerating and shifting into 2nd, doing a big loop in the empty portion of the lot back to my starting spot, coming to a stop, and then doing it all over again. I was doing pretty well, shifting pretty smoothly, and starting with only a couple of small(ish) jerks. Then John decided that I ought to do a little bit more "realistic" driving, and get the car up to 3rd gear. So we did a bigger loop through the empty lot and around the back of the movie theater, and I did fine, up until we got around to the front of the theater and I had to contend with other cars as well as watching the tachonometer, listening to the engine, remembering to use the clutch, and everything else.
We got to a stop sign, and I had to stop to let another car by. And when I tried to start and make my own turn, I stalled the car. I stalled it out about 4 more times at that stop sign before I was able to lurch back into motion and retreat to the empty portion of the parking lot.
John must have found it at least a little amusing. The first time I stalled I panicked a little, actually waved my hands in the air, and said "whatdoIdo?WhatdoIdo?" He had to remind me that when the car stalls I have to actually turn the key to restart it.
I lost a little bit of confidence after that, and even though we went back to doing the big loops, my starts were a lot jerkier and my shifts were a lot less smooth. We kept looping around until my starts and shifts improved a bit.
John said that I did a lot better then he expected.
I think that I would like to try real driving on a road for the next lesson. A nice, deserted, middle-of-nowhere, country road.
January 3
[ Taken December 21, 2009 | winter berries | Dayton, OH ]
The tree is down and the decorations are put away.
It is the new year, so now it is time for a look back over the highlights of the last year, and time for a look forward to the plans for next year. (I think that I would rather call them “plans for the next year” then “new year’s resolutions”.)
Over the last year:
I cut most of my hair off and discovered that I like having short hair and I like the way that I like the way that I look with short hair. (And John got to say “I told you so” on that one.) It is pretty nice having a hairstyle that actually looks better when it is a little bit messed up. A small downside is that I now have to remember to go to the salon more than once a year. Short hairstyles have to be maintained.
I was awarded the Cavendish Knot (SCA fencing honor)
John and I put a vegetable garden in the backyard that far exceeded our expectations as far as the yield.
John and I got married. This is, obviously, the biggest and most important event, beside which all others pale in significance.
We went to Maui for the honeymoon.
John and I made some long-term life plans and started to act on them.
I made a lateral move (one division to another) at work and started a new project.
John and I tore the old back deck down to its foundations and completely rebuilt it.
This coming year:
Since the garden was such a success last year, garden 2.0 will be twice as big and we will try some new vegetables. We will also be a little bit smarter about spacing the plants.
We are going to build a boat (a small trimaran) and how to sail. (Well, I will be learning how to sail… John will be remembering how since he used to sail when he was younger.) This is going to be the big project of the year, and the plans thus far are to have it water-ready in June, right about when the lakes around here warm up enough that falling in won’t be so bad. So I guess that we had better get started working on that pretty soon.
I also want us to strip and re-seal the bamboo flooring in the living room. We have been saying that we are going to do this for a couple of years now, and I want this year to be the year we actually do it. Hopefully.
I have a few, small, personal goals for the year as well:
I want to learn how to drive a stick shift. Really, I am 33 years old. I think that it is about time.
I want to clean and organize the storage in the basement.
I want to learn more about stocks and investing. I don’t think that it is ever a bad time to think about putting together a portfolio (separate from the 401K I get through work) that I can get some additional income off of.
I would like to get more involved with my career outside of the confines of simply “work”. I think that I would like to try writing some articles, maybe contribute to one or more of the professional boards that I read.
I am going to get back on track with dance classes and gym workouts. The past six months at work have been very demanding, time-wise, and regular dance classes and gym workouts ended up falling by the wayside, which I regret.
I want to re-design and re-organize this site. I do that every couple of years anyway, and I think that it is about time.
I want to learn Java. I have some ideas for apps that I would like to write for Google’s Android phones and need to have a working understanding of Java to do so.