This isn’t it either..
.. the general update that is. *smile*
Instead this is a call to the general ether for suggestions, but it needs a little background.
I’m having a rather lovely, glorious morning. I got to meet with a faculty member this morning and talk about what I could do to help them with some planning they’re trying to do for their department and it’s the part of my job that I tend to like once I start it because most people start into meetings with me a little nervous. I’m a statistician and like it or not, that comes with a lot of stereotypes and expectations that make people won’t don’t live and die by the numbers a touch anxious. But I, personally, am also both a social worker and a policy analyst, which I like to think allows me to put data into context, though in truth any good institutional researcher can and will do just that. The numbers can tell any story.. it’s the people with the context who make the numbers tell the *correct* story. My role is to help tell stories, help provide some framework to display the intricacies of what really happens. So it makes me happy when, somewhere around the middle of meetings like the ones I had this morning, the trepidation starts to fade away and the conversation becomes about the story and how we can build the framework to bring out the most important pieces.
I’m now looking at the rest of the day – a day with no other meetings, a day where I can kick off my shoes, close the office door, and turn up my iTunes and .. hrm. I’ve heard everything in my iTunes a million times or more and while some of it definitely fits well with my current mood, a lot of it is stale. So.. here’s the call for suggestions.
I need new music. I’m open to pretty much anything but rap and overtly religious stuff; most of my music currently runs toward folk-ish (Indigo Girls, Cowboy Junkies, Barenaked Ladies, Moxy Fruvous, The Paperboys, etc.), classic rock (The Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, Traveling Wilburies, etc.), and a bunch of random bits. I’ve got a couple Pandora stations tuned to the sorts of stuff I like, but I’ve also found those to be pretty stale lately. So.. what am I missing? What’s good and new and not to be missed? I have a preference for buying actual CDs instead of electronic music (and I’m fine with outlets like CDBaby – it’s the only way to get some of the stuff I like), but if it’s only available electronically, I’m okay with that, too.
I don’t care if you know me or not – if you’ve stumbled across this randomly or lurk or anything – drop me a comment with a suggestion.
Cows go “moo”..?
From Very Short List:
Ask any 2-year-old: Cows go “Moo!”; pigs go “Oink!”; sheep go “Baaah!”; and so forth — except, of course, when they don’t. Colombian cows “maa.” And, according to Bzzzpeek — which just might be the cutest website we’ve seen this year — Korean pigs say “No!” over and over again.
The site is a collection of animal sounds made by very short people from around the globe. Hear what frogs sound like to Hungarians. (Apparently, Hungarian frogs carry submachine guns.) Hear the world’s spookiest owls. (Japanese owls are especially spooky.) Then move on to the vehicles — cop cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and trains. Best of all, you can submit sound files of your own, and hear your sons and daughters making asses of themselves on the world stage.
A real update may be impending.. that time of year and all..
Ink, Part II – 72 hours later
And, as with last time, 72 hours after inking (clickable thumbnail.. apologies for the errant hair).
This one also shows a little better how much the ink fades as it heals; you can see the spot that was touched up in the full moon (the shading in the bar to the top right of the pentacle) because it’s still so much darker than the rest. Eventually, it will all fade out evenly and you won’t be able to tell that the full was done first. I’m told that some colors will fade with time much faster than others – reds are apparently fairly notorious, especially in skin that get exposed to sunlight frequently – but that the black stands up to time the best.
A number of people, after seeing either the full moon or the other four the day after they were completed commented on how good they looked and how they didn’t look brand new. This may be in part due to my healing ability, but I doubt it. 
I’d credit it more to the skill of the artist; I had an extraordinarily good artist – he works confidently and efficiently – and I’m pretty sure that all four of the partial moons were completed in about or a little over an hour. I can’t speak to any other artist, but I do believe that a good artist can do a lot to keep trauma to the skin, and thereby swelling and pain, to a minimum. It will still hurt – the four are still somewhat tender to rough touch, but are also now starting to itch as they heal – but a good artist will take care of your skin as they work and make sure you know how to care for it once you leave. That being said, everyone’s body will react differently, so your mileage may vary.
I’ve also had more than one person comment on the size of these in a “I could never do that” way. If we’d try to do all five in one sitting, I’d have agreed – the first one was hardest, but only because I wasn’t sure what to expect. The other four still hurt, but I was much calmer, so it wasn’t as scary and I think that for a lot of people getting a first tattoo, it’s the fear more than the actual pain that freaks them out. If you’re contemplating a larger or multi-piece tattoo and you’ve never had one, I would strongly advise you to find a good, reputable artist and pick one element that can stand alone to do first. That way, you get the unknown taken care of and still have a piece that won’t look incomplete if you decide you don’t want to get the rest.
As for me.. *smile* Watch this space in a few months for the next installment.
In keeping with the theme..
.. started earlier this summer, I spent my holiday weekend once again painting, this time in the bedroom.
Before painting (all pictures are clickable thumbnails):
You may or may not have noticed that the walls in the room were actually two colors – not in an accent wall kind of way, but in a two walls are pale aqua and two walls are yellowish white kind of way. The ceiling is, of course, different from both former wall colors (the second picture shows all three the best), but fortunately it’s white so I opted not to paint it. I did, however, decide that it needed to be primed:
I loved that they tinted the primer to match the paint – it really made it a lot easier, especially because you could tell that a single coat of the paint wouldn’t have covered the lighter paint underneath – as you can see if you look closely at the primed walls. I still ended up doing two coats of paint because I must not have mixed as thoroughly as I should have at some point and the brushwork was noticeably different from the stuff done with the roller. In the end, though, it looks pretty good:
I still need to go back and do some touch up in spots where the tape pulled a little bit of the paint away, as well as some spots on the ceiling that I didn’t notice got smudged, but that is pretty quick work once I get around to it.
The reason for painting *right now* arrived today:
