fdsailor.blog-city.com — November 2005
11 pm - a couple of things...
First, I'm all excited - the boats ship from Vanguard (Rhode Island) this Friday, and get delivered on Saturday. And it will be warm (18 to 19 degrees). I won't get to sail my boat, however, because it will be in a (huge) cardboard box, from which it will probably not emerge until spring. Still though, exciting.
This morning I woke up to sunshine and brilliant yellow leaves. It seems that everything has changed in the last two days, and now the world is this wonderful yellow with a hint of orange in it - sort of school bus colored, I guess (but a bad analogy). Either way, wonderful.
Last night when running around the block, I saw a really big meteor - it moved quickly, and had real SIZE - and sort of exploded in the end. I don't see these very often, but what is really strange is that the one other time I saw one, it was almost at exactly the same place! This is just outstanding coincidence, nothing else (and no, they were not fireworks...). I waited for a minute to see if there was any sonic boom, but none to be heard, so a very high meteor.
Halloween was uneventful (I had band, and G entertained 4 trick or treaters). Wegman's seems to be skipping Thanksgiving, and is going directly to Christmas. I AM NOT KIDDING! Example - Chocolate bells and candy canes! No turkeys! What is this world coming to?
10:55 pm - WARM day!
Today was a good day - not only was it FRIDAY, but also amazingly warm - it got up to 19 degrees and was just wonderful! And better yet, tomorrow is going to be warm as well - probably 18 degrees. The lake is too cold to swim in, but you never know, sailing is not out of the question.
I just got back from running the trolley trail. It was really interesting - the trail itself essentially is a railway bed the is built across a swamp. When I started my run, it was quite cold (maybe 8 degrees), which was a surprise to me, given it was 15 at my house. But then you start running and now and then a gust of wind hits, and that, suddenly is very warm. So successive waves of warm / cold / warm / cold - a very interesting experience. And all of this under a starlit night, with Mars at its brightest - just last week it was the closest if will be to earth for quite a few years to come. It doesn't look like a point of light - there is actually a tiny disk there. Very cool.
Tomorrow the boats arrive - 11 Vanguard 15s, each with a hand dolly, all arriving in one big truck. Hope I get to see it.
And oh yeah - I get a long overdue haircut - so I can turn back into a member of the human race again.
10:30 pm - Visited the boats + general Saturday
Woke up this morning to a 9 am phone call saying that the boats had arrived in Canandaigua. Well, it is not my job to actually DO anything with them (that is the boat dealer's problem), but G and I did go down to visit them! You can visit yoj for some more pictures and a bit of a story, but sufficie it to say they are really pretty and now I can't wait until next spring when we can sail ours! Gwendolyn is psyched too - unlike the FD, this is a boat she can take anyone out in, without worrying about if they can right it if they flip. Sweet little boat!
Other than that, we mostly hung out. G studies Nutrition and of course, her Anatomy course. It never ends. We also took ourselves and Anya for a walk on the trolly trail.
7:20 pm - Leaf day
Today was once again a warm day, although sometimes really cloudy, and sometimes a bit sunny. The wind was blowing very, very hard, and all of those wonderful yellow leaves I wrote about only several days ago are now on the ground. It has been a late, golden fall.
I remember back in my days when I was doing theatrical stage crew work a very standard sequence - after one scene, a front curtain or scrim would fall, and while a short scene was going on "out front", there was an almost panicked, whirlwind of activity sweeping off the scenery from the last scene, while the elements of a completely new scene were whisked into place. Then the curtain goes up, and Voila! -- a completely different scene. I think this is how today felt for the world - yesterday most of the leaves were still on the trees and it was fall. Today, everything was changing, a very warm wind, leaves dropped, then an approaching storm and rain, then tomorrow we will wake up to a cooler world that looks more like the winter to come. The winds of change, indeed. Literally.
It was warm and I was doing outdoor activities, like washing windows, emptying the garden hoses so they don't freeze in winter, and finally taking "pass 1" of leaf raking. I know I didn't have time to do the whole yard - I was looking at the weather radar, and there was a clear line of storms coming my way. So I worked for the two hours I had, and did about 1/3 of the lawn before the heavens opened and let loose with rain. It actually was rather pleasant work, it was 20 degrees out, and I actually got to wear shorts!
Tomorrow, Act 4, "Late Fall" will dawn.
10:14 pm - How to buy and use your own domain for email
We interrupt this blog for a public service announcement. Sometimes I write some blog entries as a public service on topics that may be of use for our friends and others who find this blog as part of broad searches. This is one of those entries.
Many people we know use the email accounts provided by their internet service providers - for example, thedoes@rochester.rr.com . They use this for years, everyone gets to know and use the address. This ties the person to a particular ISP, resulting in one of several problems:
- the ISP could go belly-up
- you could move to a different area
- The ISP could change its domain name
- the ISP could raise its rates (in fact, this happens automatically with Roadrunner, for example, after the trial period is over) or not give enough storage space.
What is needed is a universal, guaranteed address that you could use for the rest of your life and have "move with you". The simplest way that many do is the get an ISP independent email address that is unlikely to change - either the person's college address, or a web mail service such as yahoo, gmail, hotmail and just use it. These all can work to some extent (even be a sufficiently good solution for many), but in other cases may not be versatile enough, or you may get tired of seeing ads, spam, etc.
A better, more robust method is to obtain (buy) a domain of your own, and then find a provider to host that domain and provide email service. You can then use the email service directly (including POP3, for example), or simply forward it to your ISP-specific email provider - both work.
OK, first, what is a domain? Simply put, a domain is the part of a web address that goes before the .com (or .us, .org, etc). Most, if not all domains that are not already "claimed" are available to be adopted. Once done, for all practical purposes, it is yours as long as you keep it registered. To do this, you register the domain with some entity - this costs a bit, e.g. $5.99 per year. Note that you are not tied to the firm you buy it from - if you ever want to change, the domain is yours, and you can transfer it to someone else. For example, I register my domain with www.1and1.com , because their prices are good. Well, if in the future someone else is cheaper, I can transfer my domain to that other firm. Note this does not change the domain itself - just the company supplying the services.
Once you have your domain, you can then use it for a number of purposes. Many people use their domains to host web pages - but I won't go there right now. You can also simply host a email account using your domain. From this, you create one or more "sub accounts", which are parts you add before your domain name. For example, if your domain was sailingisfun.com, you could create accounts personal@sailingisfun.com and public@sailingisfun.com . More about management and sensible choices in a bit.
There are lots of places that can register domains, host web sites, and host email accounts, and the fees are really low. The firm I am working with (and I am happy with) is www.1and1.com. This provides domain registration for $5.99 per year, and email hosting (up to 5 accounts, 1 GB per account) for $0.99 per month - so a total of $18 a year for quite a bit of control over email, spam, etc, as well as freedom to change ISPs whenever I want without anyone else even knowing I did it!
Here is an example using this firm (which I can recommend, by the way). Lets say you are currently using (tied to) luddite@rochester.rr.com , and want to become ISP independent. Here is what you can do if you want email only:
- Go to www.1and1.com - select their "Instant email" option (currently $0.99 per month).
- The first thing they will ask is to create a new domain (if you are reading this, you probably don't have one already). Here is where you get creative, and think of one. Unfortunately, many "good" ones are taken by people who are "squatting" on your domain and want to you bribe them to give it up. But you can probably think of something that describes you. For example "capsizingisfun.com" is available. Note that you can pick .com, .us, .name, etc. - most people in the US naturally think .com, but others work exactly the same way. The web site is a bit confusing - make sure you only buy the domains you want - they each cost money!
- Continue through the pages until you have both instant mail and your domain(s), and your domain(s) is tied to your mail account - this is pretty straightforward.
- Eventually you get a password mailed to you. You sign into the "manage your email" - and you now can create your email accounts. You probably have 5 accounts and some number of "email forwards" - these are separate concepts:
- And email account is your actual postbox - if you don't pull the mail out, the mail will accumulate and accumulate until you use up the 1 GB limit for that box. These are things that you either sign into (if you are doing webmail), or attach Outlook,etc. to using POP3. Mailboxes (email accounts) also have options for virus checking (do it!) and spam filtering (perhaps do it). For example, I could create an account george@capsizingisfun.com , which would be george's personal email account. Becky could create a second email account becky@capsizingisfun.com .
- Forwards are different - they simply redirect mail coming at your domain to another place - which can be one of your email addresses as part of your domain, or a separate email address entirely. For example, let's say that becky, being wise, does not want to provide her email to every web site on the web - suddenly everyone will be emailing spam to becky. Instead, she creates a web@capsizingisfun.com, and has this forward to becky@capsizingisfun.com - this way, in the future she can always delete that address and lose the spam, without affecting her personal friends.
- Typically you then connect Outlook via POP3 to your newly created email account and test it. Note that programs like Outlook can typically monitor multiple accounts - in our example here. a single Outlook account could monitor the (legacy) luddite@rochester.rr.com, george@capsizingisfun.com, and becky@capsizingisfun.com .
- Tell all of your friends your new email accounts, and there you are - receiving email without using your ISPs services.
At some future time, I will describe my thoughts on account management, for what its worth!
7:44 pm - Suggested use of email mailboxes and forwarding addresses
This is a continuation of yesterdays "get your own domain" notes - today I will talk about what to do with all of those web addresses once you get them.
As mentioned before, you have email accounts (I think of these as mailboxes) and forwarding addresses. Mailboxes actually store stuff, and can be associated with virus scanners and spam filters. Forwarding addresses do just that - they present one address to the world, and when people send to it, it forwards it to another. The important thing is the the original email address is still accessible by Outlook, so you can sort on it.
My philosophy is to make it as simple as you can, while still getting what you want. What do we want? Well, in my case, the following comes to mind:
- To be able to hide our last name for many of the email addresses we give out, while still having one address that is "personal" to give to your friends and other trusted sources.
- To be able to filter for spam aggressively for many of the addresses, but to no lose critical emails from those you trust.
- To be able to perform some basic automatic sorting in Outlook
- To be able to change "public" email addresses when necessary without messing anything else up
With this in mind, we proceeded as follows (I will change the names and domains to protect the innocent:
- Set the mailbox 1: thejones@capsizingisfun.com - this will be the primary mailbox for trusted sources - this will have little or no spam filtering active. This mailbox POP3s to Outlook
- Setup mailbox 2: anon@capsizingisfun.com - this is used for generic, anonymous use - it has solid spam filtering enabled. This mailbox POP3s to Outlook
- Setup forward address: bills@capsizingisfun.com - have this forward to thejones@capsizingisfun.com - you don't want your bills to be spam filtered away.
- Setup forward address: web@capsizingisfun.com - have this forward to anon@capsizingisfun.com - this address will be used to submit to generic web sites with a high potential for spam - in this way, you can change this email address without affecting your bills, etc.
- Setup forward address: mailorder@capsizingisfun.com - same as web, but for frequent mail order places that are a bit less likely to spam, and you still want to keep in touch with.
Either way, you get the idea.
8:50 AM - FIRST SNOW
This morning, just a bit before 8 I was sitting at my computer, and white started falling from the sky! SNOW! Actually, this was snow that needs some more practice before it can really graduate from snow school - fluffy it was not. Rather it is these little round white balls, as much hail as anything else - we call it corn snow. None has stuck to the ground (yet), but that will change, if not today, soon!
Now is a good time for me to wish that it does NOT stick, because we still have acres of leaves left to rake! And wet leaves are NOT happy leaves!
10:57 PM - Yard work weekend
Good news / bad news. The good news that that for both days this weekend the weather was absolutely splendid - highs 17 on Saturday and 19 on Sunday. And no rain in sight. The bad news is that as a result, I couldn't blame the weather for keeping me from doing yard work.
As a result, chainsaw man made another appearance - I chopped down several small trees that had died and several honeysuckle bushes that had been dead for a while, but I never got around to doing anything about. These bushes didn't look that big sitting there in the ground - sort of round bushes perhaps 3 meters tall. But boy - once you cut them and they spread out over the ground, each (and there were three) seem about the size of 3 Christmas trees. And they are a tangled mess - you can't stack them, you can't do anything with this - I can see why in the country some people just set their brush on fire and it magically disappears. Here is suburbia, we need to chop them into small bits, stack them up, and hire a "chipper" to chop them up.
I also cut down several small locust trees. Gee - talk about trees designed to resist cutting and disposal. Let's tally up their merits (NOT) from a yard work standpoint - well, first the wood is DAMN hard - it dulls chainsaw blades. Then when you cut it down, it is gnarled mess - no straight branches here! No, every twig goes every which way, so that it does not stack. And finally, there are the spikes! Did I mention the spikes? The branches are covered with occasional 3 cm straight spikes, that easily puncture gloves and skin. I am full of holes - let's hope there are no exotic poisons on them, or I am surely doomed for a slow, painful death!
And I raked, and raked some more - but that is boring to write about.
Afterwards, I rewarded myself with Abbot's ice cream (chocolate almond kiddy on a waffle cone), and went for a walk on the Crescent trail with Anya. I love walking with the leaves going "crunch, crunch crunch" underfoot.
Tomorrow I leave for Anaheim, California to present a paper at the Software-defined Radio Forum technical conference. Highs will be 29 to 30, so everyone should be jealous! :-)
11:15 pm - I can't believe it...
OK, I don't understand it a bit, but several days before Halloween Wegmans (and many others) started putting up the Christmas decorations - chocolate foil covered Bells and marshmallow Santas in the bulk section, cards, etc. I know they can't wait until Thanksgiving, but you would think they could at least wait until Halloween is over! I can get used to it - I can handle that.
But what I could not believe was the Santa Claus came to Eastview mall today. Yup, you got it, the jolly fat man in the red suit! I doubt he came in a sleigh, since it was 19 degrees and sunny outside. Ho Ho Ho???!!!? Give me a break! Perhaps we need to rotate the characters to mark their appearances - we can eat roasted Santa for Thanksgiving, the Christmas Bunny can come hopping along, and the Easter witch can leave, well, perhaps toads for Easter!
California - SDRF conference
Life is busy. The the last three days I have been in Anaheim, California. I am attending a conference on Software Defined Radios, where I will present a paper in a few minutes. I arrived Monday afternoon, and since then it seems that I have been doing something continuously (mostly eating), and this is the first chance I have at writing in a blog.
The conference itself is pretty reasonable - the papers are fine, although the presentations are starting to drive me nute - they all start with too much introductory material (which is known to most, usually VERY well), and they never get into the interesting part of their papers. Either that or the papers are thinly veiled advertising, which gets tiring.
When not attending papers, I need to network and talk to vendors - this is not my strong point, and it takes a lot of energy. I am so tired at the end of the days, so I usually take a nap.
I did find a running trail that goes alongside a "river" until it hits the ocean. The river is only a trickle at this time of year, however, although it clearly at times is quite large - huge embankments. So when it rains, it must RAIN. The path itself, which I have only run at night (full moon, though) is boardered by a long strip of a golf course - it seems that on both sides of the river is a long, thin (40 meters wide at points) golf course, winding along the river. So strange, yet at the same time makes sense. Just like everything else in the country of California (I understand this it IS a US territory, however ;-).
The hotel I am staying in is very cool. Check it out! http://orangecounty.hyatt.com
A day in California - not everything according to plan...
Day 3 – Wednesday. I wake up early, not having let my body clock get too used to Pacific time – I have compromised half way – go to bed and wake up 1 ½ hours early by local time, and 1 ½ hours late by east coast standards. After doing some email, I work on API comments to the government (don’t ask) for a bit, then go to the speaker’s breakfast (today is the lucky day when I give my paper). That goes uneventfully – the session chair was changed at the last minute and we all have to get him our bios so he can introduce us.
The paper went just fine, which I didn’t really deserve since I had not dry run it earlier. It was planned for 30 minutes, and took 30 minutes – 2 minutes per slide, about average for me (my slides mostly have pictures to explain). Well, not perfectly – my laser pointer batteries died, but someone took pity on me and I borrowed one. The only shame is that the paper was placed in the wrong section, sort of, and as a result, much of the audience had neither a clue nor interest in my topic – but several people made a special trip and changed sections. It did make it a bit easier for me in the questions period, I guess.
Then more food (this particular conference has great food, which can be a problem!), and more API work. This I did from my hotel room, which is better than it sounds. Good light, a full wall window, and good scenery. Add some tunes from my MP3 player, and I can be happy for some time. Focused, because I actually like the work I am doing.
For dinner it was technically appetizers, but these were very tasty, and easily made a dinner. The general theme was oriental, and most items came in a bed of really long, really crispy noodles. They looked like slightly kinky pickup sticks. They were probably there mostly for show, but they were really tasty. Sort of hard to eat.
I had a plan for the evening – lets see how it worked out…
Part one of the plan was to watch the Disneyland fireworks. These happen most nights, just 2 miles north of the hotel. So first, I got online, went to the Disney site, and looked up when they were. 7:45 pm. Fine. Next, I pulled up the map of the area, and tried to figure out a good place to drive that we quite close. OK, found a place, makes sense. Next is to drive there.
So I drive a bit, and locate the neighborhood nearby, and park. Well, there must be other bright people in this world with the same idea from time to time, as the street signs clearly stating that parking is for residents only, and all violators will be towed. Tough – tow me, just try! 7:42 – just in time. 7:45 – not yet. 7:55 - ??? well, maybe they changed it to 8… 8:05 passes – no fireworks, and I don’t have a clue. I leave. I have not idea to this day what the problem was, but that night there were no fireworks.
The next and final thing for my day is an evening walk. Well, OK, I lied. It must be a small Dairy Queen ice cream cone instead. Then a walk. My destination for the evening is “Mile square park” which is indeed, one mile square (as well as one square mile…). Guess what – inside is a golf course – there seem to be lots of these in California! Everywhere I look.
It is 8:45 pm – I want to be leaving my 10. Well, with a one square mile park, I can’t walk more than 4 miles, right? That should get me back around 10. In fact, I will only walk around the perimeter of the golf course – that will be shorter. I park my car in the golf course lot (the park lots were locked).
The moon (one day past full) is in the eastern sky – my compass. Night sounds. The place seems to be pretty safe (yes, I did ask before going there). I settle into my walk – keep the golf course fence to my right, start walking and I cannot go wrong.
Gee, golf courses are big!!!
Then there is the small matter of the software diamonds in the park. These (there were 6, I think) had their own maze of fences, completel with dead ends. I finally get sick of backtracking and in one spot address the “I need to get there” problem by climbing.
Finally, I get back to the park entry road, and start walking to the parking lot. I see a guy fiddling with a chain, and then getting into his truck.
… . . ? ? ? ? ? ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Yup, you guessed it, the gate is locked. And he locked it! I start running, putting myself between his truck and the exit. Start waving my hands. He answers – in Spanish. I explain my plight – in English. He manages to get out the “he doesn’t have the key”. Strange, because he locked the gate, or so I thought. I pause, look dejected, and started walking away. The starts to drive, and then stops again. I walk over to him. He points at a gap of trees and points.
This must be what Ford Mustang convertibles (that is a whole other story) must be for – all terrain vehicles. I can tell you with confidence that they can be persuaded to go over 6 inch curbs, and are quite maneuverable around small trees!
The rest is predictable and boring. Drive, then sleep.
A very nice day...
They say one of the wonderful things about a find red wine is not simply its taste, but rather a mixture of a variety of factors – color, “nose”, the color and the texture. And of course taste – nothing simple, but rather a mix of tastes, each evocative of different things and different times.
By this standard, my “half-day off” has been a fine wine indeed. The evening is settling in as I sit on the back deck of a French restaurant in Laguna Beach (California). I am hungry and nibbling on some fresh French bread as I wait for my bouillabaisse to arrive. Crisp crust, but soft inside. Not far away is a sand beach – the beginning of the Pacific Ocean. The sun set some half hour ago, and the moon has risen in the east. I hear the surf and can see the forming lines of surf form in the moonlight. The ocean surface, indeed the entire world, is deep blue, with just a hint of the sunset past – once orange, but now more a deep lavender looking across the sea.
That is one part of the world – that is out there, over there, the ethereal world. One flavor. Nearby is the here and now – candles on the tables, the early diners arriving, and the music – someone singing in French, from a speaker beyond view. It is a very interesting juxtaposition – Paris meets the ocean. Cobblestones and gulls. The taste of good food with the smell of ocean in the air.
A very fine wine indeed.
And now, a rare entry from my sister
My sister Kathy, as it happens, actually is genetically related to me, and writes better blog entries - she just doesn't write a blog. Until she changes that, from time to time I post her stories. As background, she teaches veterinary surgery to impressionable young vet students. She is a very good teacher - we just hope her students don't turn out as strange as she does. Anyways, here goes - enjoy!
------------------------------
I just had to tell you this story. Neighbor up the road (George) invited me to join him at team penning practice Saturday night. Team penning involves a herd of young steers with numbers on. Three people on horseback ride down to where the mob is and strain out the three steers bearing a given number, then send them down to the other end of the arena and herd them into a pen. You have a minute and a half to do this; a competitive time is under 30 seconds. No problem, I reckoned--as a vet I've spent far too much time (on foot) chasing cattlebeasts into pens when the farmers have failed to trap them for me ahead of time. Well. The first problem was that I own only a dressage (fancy English--well, actually German in my case) saddle, made for doing horse ballet or escorting the Queen. No horn, looks pretty darn prissy up against the standard-issue Western saddles at this event. Second thing was that (having had three friends have brain surgery after horse accidents) I wear a helmet, not a cowboy hat. So I stood out a bit, especially considering that the horse I had to ride was Coco, a huge fat palomino of George's. Coco is a horse of exceptional imagination but very little courage (he's the one who has been dumping me by tapdancing).
So Coco and I got into the arena with the other two horses...and then Coco caught sight of the steers. Oh my God. They might have been smaller than Coco individually, but there were a lot of them, and clearly all of their fangs were dripping horse blood already. Coco panicked and his transmission broke; thereafter he was stuck in reverse. So while the other two horsemen went up to round up the steers, Coco and I did several circuits of the periphery of the arena, backwards. Needless to say we didn't make the allotted time. Unfortunately, as the next group was getting ready, Coco and I were now supposed to stand guard up by the steers, to keep them bunched together until the chosen number was called. This did not go well, since I couldn't get Coco to move forward toward the steers at all.
We were in six go-rounds, with Coco making only tiny incremental strides towards coming to terms with large animals of another species. I stayed on top but provided endless amusement to everyone watching. We were in the final heat of the evening. As we set the first foot in the arena, Coco went into his backing up routine again. I decided, screw it--if he wanted to back up, then he was damn well going to back up a lot. By this point we had no dignity to lose. So when the flag went up, I sent Coco to the other end of the arena, full speed in reverse. He happened to just blindly and randomly back up beside three steers, who just by accident happened to be of the desired number. The steers were so astonished at having a horse ram into them full speed astern that they high-tailed it, on their own, to the other end of the arena and dashed into the pen for safety's sake. 28 seconds. We got the low time of the night and won the $200 jackpot!
Championship volleyball in Rochester
It all started on the plane when I was returning from California - the couple sitting next to me was having some debate and asked me if I was from Rochester. Well, that conversation was pretty amusing, but I am going to skip that for now. What I did learn is that the top four NCAA college volleyball teams were going to be in Rochester the next day (Saturday) as part of a tour prior to holding the semifinals and finals. Of course, I went.
There are some detailed photos on the photo site http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery
Several years ago I had gone to a exposition match played by the US Olympic volleyball team. The volleyball was incredible, but quite hard to analyze. In this match, the good thing is that I could understand most of what was going on - I could keep track of the setter, see his signals, and could often guess what was going to happen. As people who know me could guess, I broke the game apart into pieces, and watched several points with a specific question in mind, like "can I keep track of the setter", "can I read the setter's signals" "who is calling the plays", "are they actually executing the plays they called" "how do they set up a triple block" - stuff like that. Is anyone surprised?
One amazing thing (and I am NOT making this up) - one player (he played the whole match) for Rutgers - the front left power hitter - had a CAST on his left arm. It may have been a splint, but, for example, no fingers showed, and it want to just below the elbow. But it didn't seem to bother him, as he hit with his right hand. I never watched him to see if he ever passed or bumped. But boy could he hit!
Finally, for those still reading on, here are some technical observations from watching several hours of this:
- All teams played a 5-1 offense. When the 5-1 setter was in the front, sets were from front right - just like the book says.
- Rally scoring, games to 30.
- For those who haven't been keeping close track of the recent rules changes - you can now serve anywhere in the back row, net serves are in play, and there is a "libero" - this is a pure defensive player (back row only) that has special privileges in exchange for never leaving the back court.
- In several plays I was amazed on HOW true the "setter has second hit" is true. In one play the guy literally dove into a back bump set as two players watched him do it nearby (instead of playing the ball). Why? Because they were preparing to hit the set "promised" to appear. And appear it always did - and it was almost always hit. I never heard a setter call help once, although in extreme cases others DID play the ball.
- Jump sets were routine, some floaters, nothing else. All serves were "normal", not roundhouse.
- An amazing, and very effective play was for the front-right 5-1 setter to back set to the back row right hitter.
- Most center hits were "twos", not "ones"
- Most sets were overhand jump sets (can you tell I am a setter at heart?).
- There is no way I could keep track of where the libero was - rotating in, out, you name it.
Gwendolyn was accepted! Yaaaaayyyyyy!
Way to go!
Snow, finally....
Yesterday morning, we woke up to about 3 cm of snow on the ground. And unlike several weeks back, which was just barely recognizable as snow, this was normal stuff - fluffy. The roads were even a bit frozen, just to warn us to drive carefully. A bit more got added this morning. So unofficial winter is here.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving - we are staying home for a change.
Thanksgiving!
OK, certainly not a standard American thanksgiving. I slept in a bit, we both did some house organizing, Gwendolyn did a lot of house organizing - "fall cleaning"?
Instead of having a traditional turkey dinner (a bit anti-climactic given there are just two of us, although Anya volunteered to "eat for four", in a strange play on words, we ate at an Indian restaurant. After all, Thanksgiving is about Indians and Pilgrims, yes? OK, so we got the type of Indian a bit off -- when Columbus did his thing, he was looking for a route to India, yes (or did I get my stories mixed up -- can't remember). Either way, that is what we did, and it was tasty.
Then we watched the Harry Potter The Prisoner of Azkaban - very strange. It has been a long time since I read the book, but it seemed much different. Unlike the first several movies, I liked the book more on this one.
Puzzle Quilt
OK, Gwendolyn should write this entry, but I expect she will edit it if I get things wrong. She is working on a puzzle quilt, and this is how it works. First, you take a pattern - imagine something that makes a small square (maybe 30 cm square) with 9 internal "panels" inside - each with some interesting shape.. Number each panel 1 through 9, and cut the pieces apart. So now you have effective a 9 piece puzzle that can be assembled into a 30 cm square.
(Note to quilters: now you have to add the 1/4" seam allowance to each "panel" and make templates that include the seam allowance.)
Now take nine different squares of cloth, each 30 (plus a bit) cm square. Stack them exactly on top of each other. Then lay down your puzzle template pieces (assembled so they form the square), and (using a rotary cutting wheel) cut out each shape, through the nine layers of cloth. You now have nine different pieces of cloth for each shape - 81 pieces total.
Here is the tricky part. For panel 1, you leave them stacked exactly as they are. For panel 2, you move the top cloth from piece #1 to the bottom - giving a rotated pile. For panel 3 you move the top 2 cloths of piece #3 to the bottom. You continue this series until finally, for piece nine, you move the top 8 cloths to the bottom, leaving the original bottom piece on top.
Now set all of the stacks down, take the top layer, assemble and sew into a 30 x 30 cm square. Then take the second layer and sew into a second square, etc. - you end up with 9 squares, each with a different color in a different position.
In G's case she actually wanted 12 squares, so she then made 3 more squares picking the color orders in random.
Now, you just sew the larger squares together into some pattern that pleases you - and you have your quilt!
Back to being warm outside
Today the world is confused again, but in a good way. It is currently 16 degrees C outside. The snow is gone, and I took a short walk during lunch with no jacket. Somehow this seems strange, because the trees and the rest of the world look like they are dug in for winter - a black and white world, save the grass.
This too will pass.
