Welcome to my twisted mind

Yippee!

2009-12-14T09:21:56Z

Seth was paid tonight, instead of two weeks from now! It's not a ton of money, but when you're as broke as we are, $350 makes a big difference. We should be able to pay the mortgage on time, now, and also afford to buy a tankful of water. I'm not doing laundry or dishes tonight, even though they need doing, because I'm afraid the tank will get too low and the water in it will run out or be so low it freezes (because of less contact with the heat rod).

Went to a nice cast party for the Opera tonight, and was in a very fine house, owned by Kieth something-Italian. He had a collection of art on the walls as well as a large collection of biscotti containers. Someday I hope I'll be living in a large house again, just so that I can store all my crap as well as have guests over and it won't be difficult to do both at once. I'm hoping that two things happen: (1) I'll be offered a Real, Tenure-Track Job at a university when I finish in Sweden (or sooner) getting paid twice what I make now- which means I should be able to cover our basic expenses on my own, and (2) Seth's dreams of becoming a landlord come true. We have all sorts of dreams of buying fixer-uppers like this cabin, fixing them up, and reselling them, renting them out until they sell for the price we want. Before that happens, I'll be happy if we can find a nice tenant for this place for when we are in Sweden- and that we manage to fix up this place the way we are hoping to. We will get a stash of money in January for Seth's financial aid for school, which will probably go toward fixing up the house and buying plane tickets to Sweden. We are hoping that selling off our things in moving sales and so on will pay for most of the rest of our move- or else I can dip into my retirement fund, but I'd need to put things on my credit card until the funds move out and I can use them, because it may take 3-4 weeks to happen.

I went through my stash of fabric today looking for white muslin to make a medieval underdress with, and found it- also a lot of other fabric that we bought last year or in 2008 with ideas of making all sorts of quilts or teddies or shirts with. There's a lot of $2 per yard Hallowe'en fabrics, for example, that we won't be using before it's time to move. I think the reason I find it hard to part with objects is that each object that you buy usually comes with some kind of hope- if you buy fabric on sale, you hope you will be able to make something with it, and if you buy an espresso machine you hope you will use it to make fancy coffees. We do, in fact, have an espresso machine- only no appropriate coffee. I may try to get a little just so we can make mochas on Christmas morning. I'd like to use that stupid machine once before I have to sell it again!

I think I posted this on FB and got a bit of a response, but different people read these here, so I will mention once more that I'm going to be giving away my collection of essential oils (most of it, anyway- I have far more than I can use any time soon). I have to find little containers to put the stuff in, then repackage it, and then post what I have. The deal is, I send you as much as you want and you pay for shipping (probably will fit in one of those post office prepaid shipping boxes). I've kept the oils for several years, but they've been in the dark and relatively cool the entire time, so they should still be OK.

Mission Improbable: Nightwalker Meets Dr. Evil - Part 1

2009-12-11T05:22:36Z

This is part one of three: a silly story I posted in FB (with worse formatting, though in this edition tabs are missing), slightly edited here. It's finally finished now, so I am posting the whole thing in serial format. For those who are curious, Agent Diamond isn't actually me, Nightwalker isn't actually Seth, and any other resemblances of characters to real people is purely coincidental. I apologize for the spaces between paragraphs, but I can't seem to figure out how to change that, and it took me enough of an effort just to figure out how to paste things into this journal to begin with (apparently the security on the browser is such that it forbids simple cut and pastes). I hope it doesn't interfere with your reading. Enjoy!

Mission Improbable: or, Nightwalker Meets Dr. Evil - Part 1

She sat down at the table across from him, wrapped primly in a blouse and pencil skirt, her long black hair coiled atop her head in a bun. He remembered feeling it run through his fingers.

“Diamond,” he said, and she smiled.

“Nightwalker,” she acknowledged him, and he motioned to the waiter. Fans whirred overhead, making no difference in the broiling Moroccan heat.

“Gin and tonic,” he said, and Agent Diamond’s smile widened. There was a mischievous look in her brown eyes.

“You remembered,” she murmured, and Nightwalker nodded.

“How could I forget?” His hazel eyes were soft.

They grinned at each other for a moment, then she cleared her throat.

“Business,” she said briskly, and pulled a pencil from her clipboard. Nightwalker cocked his head.

“British intelligence tells us that Dr. Evil is up to his old tricks,” she said, writing something down on a piece of paper.

“We’ve learned that plans for a death ray machine have fallen into the hands of one Vivienne Lake, a librarian from Oxford. She didn’t realize what she had, and put them into circulation. Thought they were plans for an automated vegetable cooker, or so she says. Naturally, Dr. Evil picked them up at once.

“The problem,” Agent Diamond stirred the rapidly melting ice in her drink, “is that the plans have been out of the library for over three months. In fact, they’ve been overdue so long Ms. Lake has flown here in search of them, which is a problem in itself. Dr. Evil has had plenty of time to make a prototype.”

Nightwalker covered his eyes.

“Don’t tell me,” he said.

“We want you to retrieve those plans,” Agent Diamond continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “and photograph, then destroy Dr. Evil’s prototype, which we think might be located around here,” and she handed him a slip of paper bearing some numbers. Nightwalker recognized them as geographical coordinates.

“And the librarian?”

“She’s staying in a hotel, a few streets over. Go talk to her, then put her on a plane back to London. She may know something useful- she may be in league with Dr. Evil.”

“Is she cute?” Nightwalker used his best leer, but Agent Diamond only laughed.

“Very, actually. Now go before she gets on another plane and out of your reach.”

Nightwalker eyed the coordinates. “Looks like north of-”

Diamond threw her lime wedge at him. “Not here.”

“I’m a photographer, not a spy,” he sighed.

“You are both,” she replied briskly. “The Allies need your special skills- no one else is as qualified to conduct this mission, and I can’t do it by myself.” She tapped her pencil on the table.

“I’ve got a package waiting for you on base,” she said. “On the airplane. You’ll need it to deal with Dr. Evil’s lair. Take Brutus with you. I’ll be following at a distance, and will be in radio contact with you throughout.”

Nightwalker gazed at her.

“If I survive this,” he said, “let’s get married.”

Diamond flushed, then smiled. “Why not,” she said, and still smiling, rose from the table.

“Do you mean it?” Nightwalker asked, and her gaze back at him was Buddhalike.

“Do you?” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. At the end of the kiss, he felt her teeth nip his skin, very gently.

“Survive this and find out,” she murmured. Nightwalker watched her walk away, eyeing her backside appreciatively. He sighed, gulped back the rest of his vodka, and picked up his dusty black fedora. An equally dusty and black leather satchel sat beneath it, and he slung that over his shoulder. Camera equipment clanked, and he hoped for the thousandth time that it would survive yet another mission.

Pulling the fedora over his graying red hair, he tucked the coordinates of Dr. Evil’s lair into a pocket and made his way out of the bar, into the punishing Moroccan sun.

* * *

The foyer of the Eielson Hotel was tiled in cool white marble, and Nightwalker breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into it. He inquired at the front desk for Vivienne Lake’s room number, and the concierge rambled off something in French. Nightwalker patiently pointed out that he spoke only English.

“Two-oh-thwee. Iz a popular lady, Miz Lake,” he sniffed. Perspiration stained his starched white collar. “She az many visitors.”

Nightwalker pondered this as he climbed the marble staircase to the second floor. What kind of visitors would a British librarian have in Morocco, a place she would not be expected to be familiar with? His ruminations were stopped abruptly by a woman’s scream.

“Those are first editions!”

Nightwalker ran up the rest of the stairs and down a burgundy-carpeted hallway.

“Unhand me, you jackals!”

The brass plate on the open door read 203. Nightwalker entered.

Well, he thought, watching a pair of kicking female feet in sensible Oxfords disappear over the windowsill, there goes the librarian.

“What are you doing? Don’t bend the spine! You- mmph!”

Yep, Nightwalker concluded, looking over the windowsill. Short, stocky forms swathed in black were trussing a curvaceous, squirming burgundy-haired woman with ropes. Nightwalker counted nine of them, arrayed around a large black van. One was holding up the remains of a book, its spine cruelly twisted.

Nightwalker ducked out of sight behind a carved wooden screen as the midget ninja suddenly looked up. He listened to an engine roar to life, more muffled screaming, and the slamming of van doors. He peered through the screen to see the black van begin to trundle away. The street was filled with donkeys and date-sellers, so Nightwalker had plenty of time to observe this.

The van stopped, and Nightwalker watched as three of the midget ninjas piled out to chivvy aside a particularly slow-moving donkey, led by an equally slow-moving old woman swathed in a black burqua. Screams in Farsi and Japanese rose and hung quivering in the air. The elderly woman jabbed at the nearest ninja with her elbows.

Nightwalker considered taking this opportunity to rush the remaining six ninjas and rescue Vivienne Lake, but before he could draw his revolver, two of the ninjas grabbed the elderly woman and bundled her into the back of the van. The remaining ninja kicked the donkey in the rear, and it brayed then moved aside. The van’s motor gunned, and blue smoke rose from the tailpipe.

Vivienne Lake was, for the moment, irretrievable. He would have to use stealth and Brutus’s help to recover her. Nightwalker was only slightly worried. Only one man would employ midget ninjas in such quantity, and that would be Dr. Evil- so probably Ms. Lake would wind up in Dr. Evil’s not-so-secret North African lair.

Being a practical man, Nightwalker decided to go through Vivienne Lake’s things in search of clues as to why Dr. Evil would want to kidnap a librarian from Oxford. Perhaps she had seen the reclusive genius, Nightwalker thought, sorting through some papers on the desk. There was nothing of importance, just a few short letters on pink paper signed only, “Simon”. He moved on to the dresser, pausing a few moments over some lacy black underthings. They brought back some pleasant memories of Agent Diamond wearing something similar.

He shook his head.

Wait a minute- what was that on the floor underneath the bed?

Nightwalker bent down to pick up a torn hardback book cover.

An Evil Genius’s Guide to Jewel-Powered Death Rays was embossed on it in gold. Nightwalker whistled. Clearly, Vivienne Lake was more than she seemed. Why would a simple librarian be researching death rays at the same time an evil mastermind was building a prototype? And where had Ms. Lake found this highly confidential information?

“Bloody Brits, can’t keep anything secret,” he grumbled, pocketing the book cover. If Vivienne Lake were in league with Dr. Evil, why would he have her kidnapped? If she were not in league with Dr. Evil, why would she be researching death rays?

Nightwalker heard voices from down the hallway. It would be a waste of time to try and explain his innocence to the hotel staff, and so he ghosted quickly out of Ms. Lake’s room and down the hallway, passing the concierge at the head of the stairs. Nightwalker found that if he walked a certain way and made eye contact just the right amount of time, that people would usually not stop him in whatever he was doing. His technique did not fail him, and he made his way out of the hotel to the burning street beyond, his head swimming with questions.

* * *

Nightwalker entered the unassuming grey building where Agent Diamond’s unit had its headquarters. It looked like any other office, with desks and telephones, save for the guard at the door with a pistol.

Fans whirred overhead, blowing the hot air around. Nightwalker wiped his brow with one arm, showed the guard his security clearance, and walked past toward a lone figure slouching in the corner over a magazine.

“Brutus,” he said. “All set?”

“Yeah,” Brutus replied. He stubbed out his cigarette and stretched. “AD says she left a package for us in the back room, along with a portable radio transmitter. She says not to eat anything.”

“Where is she?”
“Recon,” Brutus yawned. He rose, and strapped to his form were an alarming number of weapons. He slung a black leather coat over one shoulder.

“It’s basically a backpack,” Brutus said. “Not very big. The radio pack is bigger. So who gets to carry the radio?”

Nightwalker sighed. “Flip you for it.”

Brutus pulled out an American quarter from one pocket, flipped it, caught it.

“Tails,” Nightwalker said.

Brutus grinned. “Heads.” His teeth were long and slightly pointed.

Nightwalker sighed again. “All right. Do you have a vehicle, at least?”

“A Land Rover, courtesy of AD, waiting for us in Egypt. She also got us a plane ride there. She left an hour ago. Where’ve you been?”

Nightwalker related the story of the kidnapping. Brutus cracked his knuckles. “Boy, are you ever a wimp,” he commented, and Nightwalker shrugged.

“She may need rescuing, or she may be in league with Dr. Evil,” he said, and explained how he had found the torn book cover. Brutus swung his six-foot seven frame to his feet.
“Let’s go. You get the radio.”

Nightwalker nodded. He always seemed to get the radio. Usually he was lucky, but not where that radio was concerned. Brutus vanished into an adjoining room, returning with a huge rectangular gray box, complete with antennae and straps, and a much smaller tan knapsack.

Nightwalker shrugged himself into the rectangular pack and grimaced. How he was supposed to move stealthily with the thing on was beyond him. He decided he would stash it under a convenient bush once he had located Dr. Evil’s lair.

Brutus was rummaging through the brown knapsack.

“Not much in here,” he said. “Compass, maps, cigarettes, bananas, beef jerky and these,” he held up a stack of paper cards that had holes punched in them.

“Save it all for later,” Nightwalker said, noticing that Brutus had palmed the cigarettes.

“She knows I like this brand,” Brutus said defensively.

Nightwalker nodded. “Let’s go,” was all he said.

* * *

Vivenne brushed a lock of long, curling burgundy hair from her face. She had been manhandled, tied up, forced to watch the mangling of rare and expensive books, driven in a smelly van to a secret airstrip, flown somewhere that was still bloody hot, then blindfolded and bundled off to this place. Her bonds had loosened, and she had squirmed out of them and ripped off the blindfold just in time to see the last midget disappear behind a diaphanous curtain. Investigation had revealed a smooth wooden wall- clearly there was a trick panel, but Vivienne couldn’t figure out how it worked.

Looking around, Vivienne had to concede that it was not the sort of place she had expected to wind up in as a result of a brutal kidnapping. She was in a small octagonal room draped in white curtains, with a small divan and table bearing a basin, a pitcher of water, and a soft towel.

Vivienne fell upon the basin and towel with a glad cry. She scrubbed her face and neck gratefully, wishing she could take a bath- it was cooler in this room than it was outside, but it was still stiflingly hot.

Ruefully, Vivienne thought about her last letter from Simon. He had spoken of bringing her to his new residence, but had only said he would send an emissary to the Eielson Hotel in Marrakesh. Would he be able to find her here? Where was she, anyway?

She thought languidly of Simon. When she had first written to the last forwarding address given in Simon Evil’s library card file, demanding the return of his overdue books, she hadn’t expected such a lively and passionate response. One letter had led to another, and soon they were coming on pink scented paper with small hearts drawn on the margins in red ink. Vivienne’s milk-white skin flushed.

She had flown to Morocco with her head full of his words, wondering if he actually would give her kisses on all her pink parts, and if she would ever see her overdue books again. The Americans claimed it was classified information, but the Tanglewood Institute had published half a dozen treatises since Victoria’s time on death rays in various mechanical formats- surely they didn’t think Simon was more of a threat than, say, that Austrian fellow with the nasty little moustache. Vivienne’s perfect lips formed a moué of distaste.

Her green eyes widened as she heard the click of a secret latch, and she whirled, her hands going to her tiny waist. Unfortunately the midgets had taken away her pocket knife as well as her compact and handkerchief.

The curtain billowed, and in stepped a tall man in white linen suit, carrying a hookah. He looked up from it, and Vivienne’s breath caught. His eyes, the left one framed in a gold monocle, were the bluest she had ever seen.

Ruefully, she looked down at her stained blouse and sensible trousers. “Hello,” he said, in a pleasant baritone. His eyes raked her from head to toe, and Vivienne blushed. She folded her arms.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Why am I being kept here?”

“Simon Evil, at your service,” he placed the hookah on the table, then grabbed her hand and brushed a kiss across it. “I must apologize for the manner of your conveyance here.” His short brown hair fell appealingly over his forehead. Vivienne found herself eyeing his shoulders appreciatively, then tried to grow stern.

“They had instructions to bring you here, but I am afraid my Japanese was insufficient to convey that you were to be my honored guest, and not a prisoner.”

He smiled, and his smile was sudden and brilliant. Vivienne found her hands smoothing at her blouse.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much on hand in the way of women’s clothing,” he continued, not noticing the effect he was having on Vivienne’s limbic system.

“Er,” Vivienne said, suddenly shy. She had been steeling herself for ugly, for overweight, for bald, for crosseyed- never in her wildest dreams had she thought an evil genius could be perfectly handsome.

“None of my research has prepared me for this,” she said, her white fingers resting on the top buttons of her blouse.

“Indeed,” Simon murmured. His blue eyes narrowed slightly, and he grinned.

“Tell me all about your research, pet,” he purred.

“Oh, she said, “I was just reviewing the mineralogical properties that contribute to neural instability in death ray machinery. They say rubies are especially dangerous.”

“Rubies like your lips?” Simon Evil murmured, and Vivienne flushed. She wished again that she had something other than a travel-stained blouse and sensible trousers and shoes to meet the man of her dreams in.

“You must be hungry,” he said, and Vivienne nodded.

“I’ll fix us something tasty to eat,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll see if there’s anything in the closet that might fit you.”

Vivienne looked up at him.

“Let’s get you out of those clothes, hmmm?” Simon Evil purred, and his lips brushed Vivienne’s knuckles once more.

* * *

“Gimme a banana.”

“She said not to eat it!”

“I’m hungry. And why would she give us bananas that we can’t eat?”

“When has she ever been wrong before?”

“Well, there was that time in Dublin.”

“OK, who could have seen that coming? I mean, one-eyed fishmen?”

“Am I getting the damn banana or not?”

“No. We’ll get something when we land in Cairo.”

“Damn it.”

* * *

Dr. Evil flicked a switch, and the light behind the dressing screen came on. He smiled contentedly, watching Vivienne Lake’s perfectly silhouetted form jump in startlement.

“I found you something,” he said, glancing down at the folds of black silk in his hands.

Vivenne peeked mutely from behind the curtain, her wet hair dripping on the Berber carpet.

“I’ll just leave it here on the bed,” he said. “Dinner’s in an hour.”

* * *

Dressed now in Army fatigues, Agent Diamond peered through a set of binoculars, a pencil thrust into the knot of her hair. She sat astride a cud-chewing camel. A second camel carried a pack much like the one Nightwalker had, and a third camel, a swarthy turbaned guide. All three camels stood calmly among sand dunes, the horizon identical in all directions save one.

Diamond adjusted the focus of her binoculars, examining the building on the horizon more closely. It couldn’t be an authentic Egyptian temple, she thought. All the giant statues on the outside had monocles, and there was an astronomical observatory on the eastern side. And was that a glint of a glass window?

Only one person would build such a thing, Agent Diamond decided. She blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, lowering the binoculars, then checked her watch.

“Almost time for Nightwalker and Brutus to get here,” she murmured.

“What? What?” shouted the guide. His camel yawned.

Agent Diamond smiled. She pulled out a topographic map from her pocket, checked it, checked her compass, and nodded.

“Time for Plan A,” she said, and motioned at the radio pack.

Schizophrenia

2009-12-10T07:29:01Z

So, I was chatting today online with my friend Gideon, who has a degree in psychology and if he were licensed, could work as a shrink. It was interesting because the topic of my illness came up, and he told me that in his opinion I'm schizophrenic. There was more to the diagnosis than that (undifferentiated type) but when I looked up the medication I'm taking I realized it's meant for schizophrenics, and probably when my old shrink told me I had brief psychotic disorder he was talking out of his ass. What does that even mean?

I'm going to ask my current shrink, whose opinion I value highly, what she thinks. I bet in her notes she's got stuff written down that she hasn't told me- I suppose a lot of people would be upset if they were given a scary diagnosis like schizophrenia (which, by the way, does not necessarily have anything to to with multiple personality disorder, which is a common misconception). Now that I've been living with it for 7 years now, it's not so scary and I can actually enjoy reading up on this illness, which interested me even before someone told me I probably had it.

Good news?

2009-12-10T07:20:39Z

We tried a wireless internet service provider instead of our cable company- setting up the equipment and so on was going to cost us around $300. However, the service we are getting is lousy, and we can get DSL (which in our area would be fast enough) for a lot cheaper, no equipment set up, and the service would be faster. And it means getting our $300 back!

So we are doing that next week.

I figured out that if we only spend $200 on groceries in the next 3 weeks, and buy only $200 worth of firewood (we don't need heating oil), our month's expenses should only come to about $3,300. $2,400 of that is my income, and then Seth has to make $900 to make up for that. He's already made $508 on his last paycheque, and should stand to make about as much on the next one, plus he's getting paid to do lights for the opera, and he is getting paid for doing the lights for the Nutcracker.

So all in all, we should be able to put aside a few hundred dollars this month, even if my laptop dies, as it has been threatening to, or finally pay off some medical bills that have been haunting me. Also, Seth and I need to start selling our things (all the things we aren't taking to Sweden or storing at my parents' place while we are gone).

I am torn about this- it means probably liquidating my book collection. Or at least getting rid of half of it. That's hard for a bibliophile to do. Also, I'm sentimental about a lot of the clothes I have, even ones that don't fit any more. I think the clothes horse thing came partly from not having a lot of nice clothes growing up (when I was little, I had a lot of hand-me-downs from my brothers) and partly because I'm just plain vain, and I like to have appropriate clothes for every occasion. It's ridiculous how much clothing I accumulated in LA, though, and I just have to probably give away a lot of what I have left, because if it's not going to Sweden with me and it's not some kind of fancy costume or dress, it's not going into storage. In two years, will I even fit the clothes I have now (after all those meatballs and loganberries)?

I'd say we have a little money this year for Christmas prezzies, but we really ought to be giving away our stuff, not collecting more of it. The only presents (aside from cards) that are going out this year are some teddies for my friend Angela's kids, and those have to get into the mail pretty soon or they won't be for Christmas.

Still working on thank-you cards... I wrote out a bunch of them, and now we have to pick a photo to print out and put in with them (just a small one, that will fit into the envelope). They will probably be more like Christmas cards, which I will probably mail out around the same time. *shrug* At least our cards will be cancelled at the North Pole, Alaska office! I wonder if anyone will notice?

Camo slow cooker

2009-12-10T02:19:22Z

Why??

Plans

2009-12-08T06:57:39Z

Friday: Steampunk group holiday get-together, with Cthuhlu carols, games and gift exchange. Should be fun! I will bring gingerbread and whipped cream.

Saturday: Either the matinee or the evening performance of Fairbanks Opera's 'Ahmal and the Night Visitors'. This is basically the Christmas story. Seth is doing the lighting for it. FO has put on excellent performances in the past, and I anticipate this one will be no different. Plus, even if it's not great, I get to see it for free, so I am not complaining.

Sunday: Brunch at Pike's Landing! We were given a free brunch certificate by Seth's boss. After that there is a potluck Christmas party for the Community Writer's Group, which is bad timing for us since it's the only Sunday we can use this gift certificate on- so we will have two eating events in close succession! I will probably bring more gingerbread to this one, and again, whipped cream. Hopefully it will begin with a long session of readings or some such so I have time to digest my brunch! I plan to only have coffee and something small to eat.

Today:

Validated my observations about the wrong concentration of reagent, and now my experiments work perfectly every time like they are supposed to. Now I have found that I don't have enough size standard- I thought I had access to another container, but that's the wrong fluorophore, and the one container that is the right fluorophore is, as far as I can tell, empty. So unless Julia's ordered my size standard (the purchase requests were approved over a week ago, as far as I know) and it's on the way, I'm going to be kicking my heels again. I have enough to do half a plate- I had wanted to do 2 whole plates this week!

Hurrry up and wait is the motto for this laboratory, for certain. Shipping to Alaska is such a pain, and that gets compounded when I have to go through this bureaucratic nightmare to get anything ordered. It's worse for one of the grad students, whose account vanished on him, or something like that, meaning he has no money any more to order stuff. Glad it's Not My Problem...

While I wait I can... hmm. I suppose I can dig out my code for the R programs I was working on and try to remember what exactly I was doing with them when I last touched them, oh, 3-4 months ago. On my laptop that keeps crashing because it has too many programs on it and not enough memory. Bleargh.

headdesk

2009-12-07T21:02:18Z

So, my experiments worked, then didn't, then worked again, then didn't... I couldn't figure out why until this morning.

I was adding everything in the correct volumes. Turns out I was using, half the time, the wrong concentration of dNTPs (a reagent). A stupid mistake, but one that is easy to fix, thank goodness. It could have been really bad, like something wrong with my enzyme or with the PCR machine.

Now we try again, using the CORRECT concentration. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, what a stupid mistake.

I really hate carpooling

2009-12-05T04:06:26Z

I'm tired and hungry and want to go home. Waaaaah!

Nerd videos

2009-12-04T12:48:48Z

For the molecular biology types out there.

Pretty much anybody should be able to get this one. It's about the peer-review process in academia...

Something silly

2009-12-04T08:19:31Z

Here's something fun to do: Phone the Nestle Crunch hotline at 1-800-295-0051. Wait about 10 seconds after the prompts for English or Spanish (don't press any buttons), then press 4. The entire menu is fun, but my favourite option is number 7. If you get a busy signal, keep trying, it's worth the effort. Have fun!

Rammstein vs. Cookie Monster

2009-12-04T02:57:47Z

I have to admit, this made me laugh.

Best Buy ad

2009-12-03T08:06:20Z

Did anyone else get an annoying and intrusive Best Buy ad on their Friends Page here on LJ?

Too much to do!

2009-12-03T07:59:30Z

I should be going to the gym but Seth and I are both too tired, and I have a headache and scratchy throat. In the next week I want to get our thank you cards out in the mail... we bought envelopes for them, and now we have to buy the ink for Seth's printer. We also need to get or print out one of the wedding photos to include with the thank you cards, and link Seth's cousin Steve's photos to the page on Seth's website where he is posting them.

In the next six months, I would like to:

1. Finish my project here and publish a full-length article on it.
2. Write up and publish the nematode disease note Katerina and I have been discussing.
3. Sell off or give away a substantial amount of my stuff. Ebay, Craigslist and moving sales will be our friends.
4. Renew my passport, which expires in October.
5. Finish editing the first batch of my mother's short stories. I am on #5 out of 12 total- this is mostly because I am tired when I get home and my brain isn't up to thinking about writing. I haven't been working on my own writing, either. :(
6. Finish my "Nightwalker Meets Dr. Evil" story that I've got half done (you can see the first half on my Facebook profile, I posted it as a note- one thing though, the formatting is off because I cut and pasted it from Word).
7. Help Seth insulate the house (underneath), and help fix up the interior of the house so we can rent it out for a lot more than the mortgage
8. See if we can get a lower rate on our mortgage- even slightly less would help.
9. Get winter holiday cards out in time for people to actually receive them in December! And mail the teddy bears I made to Angela so they will arrive before Christmas.

There is more that I'm not remembering at the moment- I'm very tired right now, and I do need to get to the gym more often. But this list is enough, if I manage to do all those things I'll be very happy.

Hungry

2009-12-01T23:26:54Z

No matter how much I eat these days, I'm still hungry. I ate my lunch already and it's only 2:30pm. Still hungry. I don't have any cash on me to buy more food, either. Guess during my next break I'm eating the emergency oatmeal packets I keep in my desk. This morning after I ate my breakfast, I was still hungry. I've been hungry all day, and it's not like I didn't eat plenty yesterday.

I'd love a big plate of pasta right now! Must not eat giant bowls or plates of anything. I must be missing some kind of nutrient, but what?

OK, back to work.

We can has wood fires again!

2009-12-01T01:40:45Z

Chimney was cleaned yesterday. Seth didn't fall out of the lift bucket, there were no mishaps (though there was a tense moment when the rig started rolling toward our house) and I got video footage of much of it, including Seth trying to get into his safety harness and, initially, failing. We didn't make too much of a mess, and now we can have fires in the wood stove again!

Chimney cleaning took pretty much all day, and that night I finished making a green teddy bear for my friend Angela's kid Jordan, sewed up the backs of the three bears I'm sending to her (there's a pink bear for Breanna and a blue one for Nathaniel), and finished one little blue scarf for Jordan's bear. Nathaniel's bear is getting a red scarf, which is currently being knitted. Once I'm done with those three I get to pack them up and mail them to Alberta. Hopefully the kids will like them.

I have so much fabric! I will need to sell off my stash. It will be heartrending since I had grand plans for a lot of it. I'm going to be making a bear for my Mom (either white or brown), and using up some of the white muslin to make a tunic dress for this SCA thing (should be pretty simple). I had plans to make skirts and blouses for our steampunk gatherings with some of the rest of it, but I don't think I'll have the time now, and it would be stupid to ship fabric down to the lower 48 from up here. I'll just have to have a fabric sale one of these days. If anyone wants a care package of fabric from me, just write! I have mostly remnants, since I had planned on making lots of bears, but I do have some larger pieces of fabric also.

Brrrrr

2009-11-28T21:57:42Z

It's chilly out- dropped down to about 0F again, and it isn't going to get much warmer or colder for the next few days or so.

We had to rent a lift bucket to get up onto the top of our chimney to clean the spark arrestor (and while we are at it, sweep the chimney). It actually only cost us about $10 more than the chimney sweep was going to cost (the sweep refused to touch our chimney because of the steep roof) so this isn't such an unreasonable expense, but it's just one more thing when we don't have any extra money to pay for things. We switched internet and cell phone providers to try and cut costs, but we still aren't making enough, because the money we saved from that has been eaten up by buying life insurance. The good news about an impending long distance move is that we can now look at some of the things we've bought and think about selling them. I might cull my book collection and sell some of those (unfortunately, my clothing won't be worth all that much up here, though I will have fewer storage space issues if I got rid of some of it), and Seth has a table saw still in the packaging that we can take back to Sears. In 6 months we will have a moving sale and get rid of our furniture and TV, and maybe also Seth's car and our trailer. So only Christmas cards again this year, though I'm making a few bears and sending those out. Hopefully I'll get them out soon because I can't afford to ship them priority (they may be New Year's Bears otherwise). I am optimistic that Seth's plan to teach computer classes on the side will work out- there is no overhead involved because we get the classroom for free, and the computer shop already has customers asking for them. All Seth has to do is spare his time, which is in great demand lately, unfortunately. In this way we should be able to pull in enough money to cover our bills and hopefully have extra that can go toward home improvements. He's also getting paid to do the lighting design for the Fairbanks Opera, $250, which is better than nothing.

I am going to videotape Seth going up in the lift bucket. Hopefully we can post that to YouTube (along with our wedding video- which I still haven't seen!). And hopefully he will not fall out of it!

All righty, back to work with me.

Turkey day, and Black Friday

2009-11-28T00:45:19Z

Turkey day was low key. We had one friend over for dinner, another kind of showed up for a brief period to get away from his family, and we just sort of hung out and ate all day. Leftovers galore.

Today there is a bit of a shadow over things because we realized that it will cost us about $200 to get our chimney cleaned so that it works properly, and with the other expenses we are facing (more money for insurance, our other usual bills, setup for a different ISP) we just don't have that money. So guess what, I did what I promised myself I wouldn't do again and asked my parents for help. I hate, hate, hate doing that, but I seem to be doing it all the time. It's embarrassing. I wish Seth had a better-paying job, or I did, so we could afford to live here without constantly having to get help with our basic expenses. I thought this might happen when we bought the house- that maintaining it would cost more than we could afford- and I hate being right. I had visions of "The Money Pit" when we bought it and Seth reassured me that it wouldn't cost that much to fix up. Well, we have the house, it was my decision and it was an emotional, not a sensible, one. We will just have to hope that the investment pays off so I can gift my parents with a nice trip somewhere (or at least the knowledge that we are not going to ask for any more money). Nothing I can do about it now.

To afford to fix it up (hardwood floors, etc.) for sale, Seth has to find some other form of work, or be allowed to work more hours than he is. I'm not legally allowed to do anything but work for UAF in my current capacity, or I'd see about a weekend job in a tea shop or something. Seth has plans for teaching computer classes at a local computer store, so hopefully that will work out.

He says I'm not allowed to worry about money, but how can I not worry?

Sweden

2009-11-25T23:06:26Z

I have a job offer from Sweden!

I've accepted. It's 23,000 kroner per month (about $3,300) with no taxes coming off it, for two years. I might get to teach classes in addition to my usual work, and Seth can get a work visa too. The cost of living in Uppsala, Sweden is about 10,000 kroner per month for two people, so I would be able to cover that plus my credit card settlement bill (I had to go to a consolidation service, so I can't not pay it). This means for travel and fun money we would need Seth to have a job. We will try to rent out the house after we move until we can sell it, so we would have to put money aside for property management and maintenance upfront (I am not sure how much extra this will be), and we will have to save for moving as well. We will get some money via Seth's financial aid this January and we have to put all of that into savings for these purposes- which will be hard, since we often are short money each month. We will have to sell or put most of our things into storage here (on the property, secured somehow) and take only some clothes and our computers and some papers to Sweden, probably our suitcases full plus a few shipped boxes. This scares me (what if something happens to our belongings?) but at the same time it is a bit exhilarating- no having to deal with a lot of stuff! We will have to get insurance on the things we put into storage. If it were feasible I'd ask my parents if I could store our things in their garage, just so I know no one (or no critters) would be getting into them, but I think that would be too expensive. Maybe we can get a Conex container, fill it, ship it to Guelph, and then it can sit on my parents' property so that if we sell our house we don't have to find a new home for all our things.

Seth thinks we can afford to pay for home improvement expenses- like flooring and drywall and paint and wood- and it will only come to a few hundred dollars. I myself doubt this, but he's the guy doing the work so I have to wait and see. We now have a deadline for fixing up the house so it looks nice enough to sell. There is a possibility of getting some money back for energy efficiency improvements made to the house, but that means a lot of work fixing air leaks and chinking it. Again, this is in Seth's realm. He thinks he can get it all done over the winter, and I think that's possible for as long as we don't have internet at home... heh. Seriously though, he's been working part time and going to school full time, and that doesn't leave a lot of time for home repair. I wonder when he will be able to do this work.

In other news, went to the gym last night and I feel great today. I think exercise is really beneficial for my energy levels and mood.

Lazy

2009-11-25T02:35:07Z

Today and tomorrow are my lazy days (and Thursday of course). Friday to Sunday I will be working full time. I feel this entitles me to goofing off for a couple of days.

Tonight: gym time! If not tonight, then tomorrow morning for sure. I really feel the lack of exercise.

For some reason, I am craving pineapple. I wonder how long this will last?

Scalloped potatoes

2009-11-24T07:44:08Z

Seth bought a mega-bag of potatoes, and now I want to make the scalloped potato recipe I found online. I can't cut and paste it for some reason, and I am too lazy to type it out. But it looks creamy and delicious.

Mmmmm. Potatoes.

Going home in 10 minutes, yay!

Not so tired any more, but...

2009-11-24T06:59:00Z

... now I don't want to work, either. I've been noodling about on the internet for a good hour or two. Haven't done much of anything on my review, mostly because I know the deadline will be extended. My collaborator has been flaking on me.

I was exhausted a few hours ago, ate some protein and drank some tea, and now I feel a lot better. But I don't want to focus on anything, either, so my brain is still asleep. I will get back to work after writing this post because I have no one left to IM, but basically I'm ready to go home and take my meds and fall asleep. *yawn*

This has been a most unproductive evening. At least I managed to get a few things done during the day. I'd go home now but I'm carpooling with Seth. Carpooling sucks when you're ready to go home and your ride isn't.

*yawn*

Winter

2009-11-24T02:24:02Z

I never thought I would consider 0F to be warm, but compared to -30F it is. Today was a pleasant day, and I even got to walk around a bit outside while the sun was up. It's long down now, and I'm still here at work- I'm exhausted! I think because it's so dark out. I'm going to take the happy light my folks gave us and plug it in tonight and see if that makes a difference.

I'm also hungry all the time, probably because I'm malnourished. Today for breakfast I had coffee, and for lunch I had pasta and alfredo sauce. Not exactly health food. I have a protein bar in my desk and an orange, and some yogurt (not low fat, alas). I'll eat the bar and orange and half the yogurt for dinner. I also am sinning in the form of having a hot chocolate instead of tea. I'm here late tonight so I'll have tea later on.

This weekend we made a restocking trip to Sam's Club and bought lots of things, including a battery backup/surge protector for the desktop computer in case the power goes out, a King-size warm fuzzy blanket, a folding table (though I believe half the folding chairs we bought at Sears are destroyed) so we can have guests over for dinner and have a place for sewing, and a set of utility shelves so we can put more of our crap away in the closet room. We have enough food to last until Christmas, barring things like milk and bread. The only thing I'll buy after Thanksgiving are cranberries, if they go on sale like they did last year (3 lbs for 99 cents). I feel bad for having bought all these things but they are all needed- well, maybe not the blanket. But it's so warm and soft and fluffy, I love it. Our guests can sleep under it when they visit this Christmas.

I made up thank you cards which we need to print out and cut, and then we can start writing notes and sending the cards out. I may need to find smaller envelopes for the cards to fit into than the big letter envelopes we currently have. We used up a lot of those for the wedding invitations, in any case, and need more.

Today it feels like I haven't done anything, though I spent 2 hours buying life insurance (eep, another expense we can't really do without and yet can't really afford either), and the rest of the day planning what I'll do the rest of this month and December, and preparing some samples for a big experiment I plan to do tomorrow. Seth has my scanner or I could put in a couple of purchase requests today that I've filled out for stuff I will need. I have another 4-5 hours here so I'll be working on my review paper, a draft of which is tentatively due Dec. 1- only I haven't heard from my collaborator, so probably it will be delayed another month or two. :(

Job interview for Sweden, bunny boots, house woes... etc.

2009-11-21T21:17:51Z

So I had a phone interview last night with Dr. Petra Fransson from the agricultural university in Uppsala, Sweden. It's warmer there than in Fairbanks- they haven't had snow yet and it only rarely hits -20C. Here it's well below that, and we've had snow for a month or so.

She seems very nice, there was not a lot of awkwardness, and I was able to pull answers out of my butt like "What are your greatest strengths?" and "What is your greatest weakness?" that didn't make me seem too stupid. So I am optimistic. It only pays about 23,000 kroner a month, which I think is about $3000, so I will have to get Seth to go online and see how much rents are and contact Seth's cousin in Stockholm with questions about groceries and so on. I think if Seth has a job also (we should be able to arrange a work visa for him as well) we will have enough money to live there and travel around a bit. It will be difficult moving there, but it would be exciting to live in Sweden for a while. I would worry about having money put aside for expenses related to selling or renting out our house- we don't have any savings for me to draw upon, and I'd have to take out money from my retirement fund for that after I cease to be employed by UAF.

I will find out sometime next week if I am offered the position or not.

I also have a lot of applications out there for tenure track university jobs- in which case I'd be an assistant professor, and get paid at least about double what I make now. I won't find out about some of those until next year. This would mean I'd be able to cover basic expenses on my salary, which means Seth would only have to work for fun money and maybe some retirement stuff (which is just delayed gratification fun money). I'd be happier since I worry about paying bills all the time now. I'd be working harder, but I'd have a supportive husband willing to cook and clean for me, and take care of all the household stuff. So I would prefer that, no matter where the job was (most are in the lower 48, one in Canada), and if I were offered one of those I would take it, and try to arrange something so that I wouldn't leave Dr. Fransson without someone to do her project. I don't know that one of these positions will offer me a job, though, so that's why I'll take the postdoc if I'm offered it. Better a low paying job than no job at all.

l also have on the warmest boots ever- they're military Arctic boots that make you look like you have Bugs Bunny feet (hence, "Bunny Boots"). My feet are toasty, even though it's weird to have on such bulky boots. I brought things with me to work (I'm at work since we have no internet at home, and I have lots to do here at work) to take a shower- there is ice plugging the drain to the shower right now, and the tub is full of sodium hydroxide (crystal drain opener, which can thaw ice when it dissolves as it is an exothermic reaction- didn't in our case) and some standing water. It has been this way since we got home! :(

Seth has to go under the house tomorrow and heat up the drain with a propane torch or heater or something, and put insulation around it like we had been planning to since August and somehow never got around to doing. He's also going to finish insulating under the house (I have to help him) and then will spend the day plugging air leaks. We are hoping we can open up the side rooms which are closed off right now due to coldness before our friends Matt and Jill come to visit for Christmas, and the first step is finding and plugging all the air leaks. We used some of our wedding money to buy supplies to fix these leaks, so now all we have to do is actually fix them.

Other news: there may be a full-time job opening up for a theatre technician in Fairbanks, paid by the borough, which pays a lot more than Seth's current part-time job. So he would be a shoo-in for that, and it would help us a lot financially. I hope they make the position happen, and soon.

I am also knitting a new scarf, this one for me. It is going to be purple and green, stripes.

OK, off to my shower, then to focus on getting my papers sorted out for a Dec. 1 deadline.

Bad day

2009-11-21T01:43:51Z

Today we got the oil heaters fixed - $800. We think that some crap on the bottom of our tank got into the fuel lines and messed them up (the inside of the burner was covered in gook) when we ran out of fuel earlier this year. Should be good for another two years. We also bought 300 gallons of the correct fuel type - another $800. We are going to get it tested on Monday to make sure the fuel is good and if it is not, we will arrange to have the tank pumped and correct fuel replaced. I think the fuel is fine, though.

We currently have no cable or internet at home. We are going to see if we can get it cheaper through another provider (just internet, no cable). We do have a land line, which is powered via the phone line so our house can phone us if the electricity goes off (before, it couldn't phone until after electricity had been restored). I can't recall the new number off hand.

After we buy firewood, pay off my credit card and make Seth's car payments I think we will have used up our wedding money! So no septic tank pump and no maintenance for Seth's car, unless he manages to make more money on the side. He has a few plans but no time to implement them. We also have no money for other home improvements we have to make, and the magic way we have been pulling it out of our asses is basically to ask my parents for it, and I want that to stop. So hopefully Seth will find the time to implement his money-making plans soon.

Later today I have an interview on the phone with a woman in Sweden- might be doing a postdoc there if the timing is right. I would prefer a real job, so I will ask for time to discuss things with Seth should she offer it. I've also applied for a postdoc at Harvard, and a group in Glasgow is interested in having me work with them, but again, these aren't real jobs. So my plan is to take one of them as a temporary fix while I keep looking for tenure-track work. It would make the most sense to take the Harvard job, since it is closest and least problematic, but I have to see what work I'd be doing for the others, at what pay scale, and whether Seth can work in Europe on some kind of work visa. I won't be making enough to pay our bills on a postdoc's salary, especially in Europe.

If I hear back from one of the tenure-track jobs I applied for (expecting to hear from them starting perhaps in December) and get an interview, I'll take it, and if they offer the job I'll take that. My ideal situation would be to have more than one offer, so I can negotiate better salary and lab space, and possibly a position for Seth as well. This means he needs a CV- he has one but it is out of date. One more thing on the list of things for Seth to work on in his nonexistent spare time.

Tomorrow Seth says he will work on insulating our home and fixing some leaks in the pipes. I need to come in to work and do a week's worth of PCR reactions, which I can run out on gels on Sunday and submit for fragment analysis on Monday. It's fine, since I don't want to be at home all day with no internet and no way to organize my crap except to move piles of it around on the floor. A lot of it is also Seth's crap which if I touch he won't be able to find again, so I can't do anything to clear off the floor anyway. I just have to live with the piles of crap until we get better storage.

I also don't know when all the paperwork will be clear so Seth and I can get legally married up here in AK. We had the ceremony already, but not the actual paperwork. There is a lot to do and I can't start any of it yet, which frustrates the hell out of me. Long story as to why we can't do anything yet, don't even ask.

Tired

2009-11-19T18:12:34Z

Pump works. I'm up for the day. Sooooo tired! But I need to be at work in 50 minutes. Sponge bath in the sink (mystery problem with cold water in shower is a mystery) coming right up.

Welcome to my twisted mind

Yippee!

Mission Improbable: Nightwalker Meets Dr. Evil - Part 1

Schizophrenia

Good news?

Camo slow cooker

Plans

*headdesk*

I really hate carpooling

Nerd videos

Something silly

Rammstein vs. Cookie Monster

Best Buy ad

Too much to do!

Hungry

We can has wood fires again!

Brrrrr

Turkey day, and Black Friday

Sweden

Lazy

Scalloped potatoes

Not so tired any more, but...

Winter

Job interview for Sweden, bunny boots, house woes... etc.

Bad day

Tired

headdesk