Reverb, skipped.

Reverb update: getting super busy again and some of these just aren't speaking to me. Skipping two, at least, possibly more.

Reverb 10, Day 10. 11 things.

All-encompassing: stuff. Trimming down the stuff.




prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 10. Wisdom.

Switching jobs.

Also, I get this view:




prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 9. Party.

Lots of parties and gatherings this year: every conference had one or two at least that were pretty amazing, Maker Faire Detroit was one big weekend-long party, K's foodie parties are always fun, S + M's brilliant wedding was quite an experience, Boom's birthday was a lot of nutty, but I think I enjoyed most the couple of Big C Jamborees we managed to hit this year.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 8. Beautifully different.

We all have different perspectives. Going on and on about what makes me a special snowflake won't improve the world, so I can't say today's prompt is my cup of tea.

It's a different perspective, yes: a nerdy, kinda Danish, creative, constructive, making-stuff, detail-oriented, slightly cynical photographer's-eye. And it's mine.

That's what I do.

prompt.

*edit: pinged this off some twitterfolk, and sparkleyturtle came through for me, as she always does. "you find new ways to look at ordinary things and make them seem cooler & more beautiful."

awwww. :)

Reverb 10, Day 7. Community.

Strangely enough, I put Community on in the background when about to make this entry. Unconscious.

Discovered in 2010: can't say. Most were discovered/further developed in 2009 or before—PS:One, the higher ed webbie community, twitterfolks, the theater group I work with. That said, new groups have formed in 2010, mostly smaller take-offs on larger groups: #chewp (Chicago Higher Ed Web Professionals), who I'll see tomorrow; smaller groups within PS:One, etc.

I expect 2011 will continue this trend: niches within niches. I've gotten more selective over time rather than expansive.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 6. Make.

Last thing I made: photos. Processing and uploading from the Denmark trip's taking forever, and I know details that I'd use in titles, descriptions, tags are dropping from memory as time passes. Drives me crazy, but not much I can do. Got crazy busy again.

Despite PS:One, I'm feeling really limited in what I'm making these days. Need to expand out. Will start with knitting shortly, to try it out.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 5. Let go.

Virtually only the best parts of Pennsylvania stay with me now. The rest is just past. And past isn't necessarily prologue. You need to experience it, learn from it, but it doesn't have to live in your head forever.

Go listen to "Pennsylvania is..." by Everclear. That's what got left behind.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 4. Wonder.

Wonder's been easy to come by this year: PS:One and all the inventiveness there, new work opportunities including giving a talk at an international conference, N.

Didn't really need cultivating, but I think I do that in general just by being curious about the world.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 3. Moment.

N and I at Balkonen in Tivoli, opening night of Jultid there.

Just in from Copenhagen cold into the cozy warmth, sitting on the balcony overlooking the park, with all the holiday lights just lit, surrounded by candles and the smells of the Julbuffet.

N, and smiles, and laughter, and just being in the moment. At the occasion. Hygge.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 2. Writing.

I do a lot of reading. A lot. Daily.

I read fast, but it does delay me actually finishing things sometimes, including writing.

If it's not obvious, these will be bite-sized.

prompt.

Reverb 10, Day 1. One word.

I don't want to explain.

2010's word is comfort.

Next year: fit.

Debated belonging, but I think fit works.

prompt.

with Coltrane: the "changes themselves is some kind of story"

Totally lifting this quote from a newfound acquaintance (check him out: he tells beautiful stories), but it's too good to pass up.

While rehearsing the precipitously difficult piece in the studio, John Coltrane can be heard saying to his struggling colleagues, “I don't think I'm gonna improve this, you know . . . I ain't goin be sayin nothin, (I goin do) tryin just, makin the changes, I ain't goin be, tellin no story . . . Like . . . tellin them black stories."  Amidst the confounded mumbles of assent from his bandmates, one colleague rejoins, "Shoot.  Really, you make the changes, that'll tell 'em a story."  Surprised by this idea, Coltrane responds, "You think the changes're the story!" Overlapping him a second bandmate riffs, "(Right)... that'll change all the stories (up)."  His voice cracking with laughter, Coltrane admits, "I don't want to tell no lies (on 'em)."  After a group laugh, the second colleague trails off in a sort of denouement, "(The) changes themselves is some kind of story (man I'm tellin you)."

from Vijay Iyer's "Exploding the Narrative in Jazz Improvisation" [pdf]

THIS.

Changes brewing, more busy-ness-making, but all of it good. And, as stated above, the changes themselves is some kind of story. One I'll hopefully get a chance to share later. But not yet: too much in flux still. Later. Later.

As is tradition, my year in review. Deliberately slightly out of order, though everything should be in the right month. Mostly.

January

Spent New Year's Day unloading the last of the van with the help of H. Followed by Chinatown dim sum. Lots of unpacking in the months to come.

Dishwasher FTW.

Getting set up at the new job: yay big monitors and new whiteboards.

Sudden but lovely C visit: saw Seabound and De/Vision. Great concert.

Locked my keys in my car while it was running as I tried to clean snow off. Broke in with the help of the across-the-street metalworking shop.

Brutally cold out.

Chicago History Museum. Cafe Jumping Bean, Cafe Mestizo (since closed).

Sunday Trib, green tea, grits. Groove.

"Just got called 'a most delightful breath of fresh air' by a faculty member I started working with. Sometimes it's good to be the new guy."

Chicago Symphony: one of the performers from the symphony found my iPhone shot on flickr and faved it.

Uncle passed me an old TV of his. I've joined the league of evil TV owners.

Found a Whole Foods nearby and almost fainted in front of their cheese selection.

Stopped in on Chicago SF, which was fun. Fun bunch of folks, good conversations, etc.

Flickr meetup, then checking out the Zhao B Art Center, where a rehearsal for the Chinese New Year parade was taking place. Plus a very goth birthday. Yep.

Had a tiny, remote mardi gras courtesy of Rev.

February

More setting up of the new place, nicknamed the GoldPeach in my head. Hung curtains. Very exciting.

Had to take a written test to get an Illinois driver's license. Perfect score. But: really? Written test? Yep.

Had my first "I don't recommend this, but I'll do what you say" moment at the new job.

Art Instituting. Got used to the CTA some.

Gene Siskel Film Center. Joined. Good stuff. I need to go back again. Hit up a movie in English, then Swedish, then French (those last two in the same day). Had some linguistics issues in my dreams.

Created a presentation for work that went swimmingly, as far as I could tell. Though ran over and had more material yet to go: would get through more of it later. Then that night: flat tire times two. Tire then spare. Front assembly had dropped into the wheel well and was carving up the tire on one side. In the cold, snowy night. No cabs to be found. At least got it to safe spot and took care of it the next day.

Developed a mostly-hate relationship with our CMS. Read My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor for work. It's good, but her speeches are better.

Started losing my voice on a semi-regular basis.

Went to Capricon: fun but bizarre. Stayed up and danced until way too late.

"Discovered a box w/old negatives, prints, and photo gear. Realized that some of my best work is undigitized and not available online. Hmm." Have since started rectifying that.

Got involved to one extent or another around here somewhere. This got messy eventually.

Started corrupting H with my scent addiction. And hanging out again pretty regularly with her (and her dog), both at her place and Millennium Park and other fun stops around and about.

March

Experimonth: The Eyes of March. Month-long experiment in taking a picture a day. And, in most cases, did a lot of whittling to get to that shot. Kinda stressful after awhile.

Had a very meta March. Started debating how I use various spaces.

Right away, the first of some rocky bits on the involvement end occurred.

Did the big pirate exhibit at the Field Museum with H and etc, which was tons of fun. Also got a membership while I was there. Totally worth it.

Started a new game with some random folks and managed to make a few good friends out of the deal, even though that game dissolved when the host got married and moved to Texas. Boo.

Uncle went in for pretty serious surgery. Was immensely worried for awhile. Visited a few times, etc.

Hit up the first of The New Colony's performances due to a twitter connection, which led to a bunch of freelancing for them, which has been fun. More museum-ing. Allergy issues. Photowalk with a new friend.

Won a t-shirt from Manny's Deli on twitter due to stopping there for corned beef and cabbage that day. Fun times.

Outing with the SF group for Watchmen.

Simone's opened in my neighborhood. Awesome spot.

The Jill Bolte Taylor lecture happened: I took pictures. Went well.

"This is where my wired life bites me in the ass. I assume folks can send a signal one way or another."

Drama. Dramadramadrama. Also: awkward. Awkwardawkwardawkward. Some was popcorn drama. You know, flamewars. No big. Other drama was very personal. This all didn't cease until April sometime. Needed a FFS sign.

"Look, at the moment we live in mea culpa hell. People are so sorry so often and so quickly... Except for in small chance mishaps, 'sorry' is an obnoxious trivial word. . . . the main reason we ought never apologize for such a thing is that it's just too easy. It is so facile, so self-satisfying, so meaningless." - Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women

"I have scars on my hands from touching certain people." - J.D. Salinger

Reliving this month enough to write about it was painful. That is all.

April

Had to lock things down online in certain cases. Annoying. Also had an odd, separate bit of involvement that started this month.

The Flourish conference happened early in April, which was great. Met some great folks and also found out about PS:One, which becomes more important later. Went to my first meeting later this month, when it was still a completely empty space.

Needed a FFS sign for much of the month. "I seem to lack punctuation when I'm in complete disbelief" "excuse my complete lack of grasp of English/there are gaps where words should be"

Second Fridays Art Walk. Started debating getting a pet. Digital Accessibility Expo.

Couple events at Version Fest '09, including a neat little family-style supper club deal. Had my first Earl Grey ice cream. Amazing, though strange.

Got reacquainted with lightning storms, one of which struck about a block away from my place.

Flew back to State College for the TLT Symposium. Fantabulous, as usual. Got to reconnect with folks, learned a bunch of new things, etc. Also hit up an outdoor concert incidentally happening at the same time.

"The good thing about cities is that there's a ton to do. The bad thing about cities is that you can about kill yourself trying to do it all. "

Rev was in town for a bit, which was fun.

Outings: H's bellydancing exhibition. Also Museum-ing at Science and Industry with some SF folks. And one of their meetups.

Went to my first PS:One meeting, then others.

May

On May Day, planted an indoor herb garden, some of which is still alive and I'm frankly shocked at that fact.

Cinco de Mole, a mole fest in my neighborhood. Great stuff. That night, a Chinatown run and then a close encounter with Journey to the End of Night.

Commencement at work. Grads all excited and me taking a ton of photos.

Mitch Altman stopped by PS:One to run a workshop making TV B Gones and more. Fun stuff. Learned how to solder.

Cousin in town: got into some late-night trouble (and caught up with each other, of course) at a bar in Wrigleyville.

Gained a meerkat angel: Gabe. And later in the month, a tarantula and gecko: V and Sajj.

Was being courted in a bit of an old-fashioned manner during May, which was strange. For me.

Nerdloft buildout at PS:One.

Faculty/staff photoshoot. Good Morning America taping at one of our labs. Took photos, some of which turned out quite well.

Mental note: "Consistency must sometimes give way to readability."

Just listing now:
Gem and jewelry show. Disappointing.
BPAL meet n' sniff.
Memorial Day cookout.
Photowalk with Thomas Hawk.
NIN concert.
Windy City Rollers.
Modern Wing opening, Art Institute.
B's birthday.

June

More shooting for The New Colony, this time for Tupperware.

Flyering for Geek Prom. Second Friday Art Walk in Pilsen.

Social Media Summit at work. Great to connect virtually with colleagues.

Then Geek Prom. Various other parties and gatherings, some more notable than others.

Shedd Aquarium with H.
Father's Day and such.
A tour of Lake Geneva on the Lady of the Lake.
CSA and Farmer's Marketing.
More work on the nerdloft and workshop.
Printers Row Lit Fest.

Serious computer issues started.

Kept finding flickr photos I've taken via everyblock. Placed a bunch as well, pretty much continuously.

Had a sudden leak from the attic into my bedroom. My landlord showed up to help deal with it at around 4 in the morning. I was amazed.

Rediscovered swimming. Wish I'd stuck with it longer. Though winter makes it a bit of a pain.

July

Whirlwind. 4th of July in the middle of Lake Geneva on the Lady of the Lake. Worst place to take firework photos ever, but fun anyway.

Then back to PA for Arts Fest, People's Choice and friends. Had more photography fun at the club. Pirate Day and all.

Taste of Chicago, briefly. More street photography.

Then EduWeb.

Dying with the slowness of my computer at home.

Pink Party.

Sick off and on.

"Despite rather a lot of things, I'm really quite in love with my life right now. It feels really strange to articulate that." Took some photos of that soft morning to try to explain. This hasn't changed, really. Despite some things, but still. Loving it.

August

Very tempted to just sum up this month with: shenanigans.

Fiesta del Sol.

Comic Con.

A pick-up/drop-off favor for an old friend, which ended up with a bunch of experience waiting for buses at Midway.

PPPWRS and victory party.

Learning Retreat. Great conversations: just wish they'd been followed up on.

Got onto the Mac bandwagon when I replaced my desktop.

Watched Moon Machines with PS:One folks.

PS:One hackathon: did some soldering. Outings with some of those folks.

Covered a bunch more work events.

Driver issues on the work machine.

September

Which turned out to be a bad video card.

Continuing drama, but not mine, thank goodness.

Renegade Craft Fair.

Joined the CNSC bookclub.

Discovering that there are good beers out there, finding new good (cheap) wines. Lush is helping. Oyster and wine tasting there.

Buen Provencho Pilsen tour. Good stuff.

Various and sundry meetings, various and sundry parties. Destruct-o-fest. Second Fridays, as per usual.

Thomas Hawk included a couple shots of mine in his Chihuly gallery.

Think Geek meetup. Got to introduce myself by adding "excuse me, I'm adjusting my monkey" (there were a few stuffed Timmy giveaways).

Chicagohenge day, which the weather spoiled. Caught Critical Mass for the first time and photographed some of the team that came out from one of our departments at work. Plus other work projects.

Pilsen Open Studios weekend. & unofficial.

Capture My Chicago contest started.

"bah. I have a sledge. I fear no hammer." Hosted a ridiculous twitter hashtag party by accident on September 25-26. Silliness.

Weirdness from downstairs neighbors. Who had a pet duckling. For example.

Wedding reception for a friend. Did some photo work.

Got a grad assistant at work, which was lovely, and has been massively helpful.

October

HighEdWeb. Great conference: honored to be the official photographer. Also took my own shots of the fun and games.

Welding class at PS:One, which I finally joined officially. Yelp events. Various other parties.

Freelance photos for Calls to Blood, which landed in the Chicago Trib and other places.

Power outage at home while doing last-minute cramming for guest teaching a 9 am class. And then the carbon monoxide detector wouldn't stop going off and I couldn't get it open. Another late-night landlord save.

Adler After Dark.

Costume creation and helping others with Halloween costumes.

Diamond exhibit at the Field with H. Member's night.

Plotting.

Biking in Critical Mass in costume on the Friday before Halloween, immediately followed by Nerd-o-ween. On Halloween proper: Robothaus Halloween.

November

Plotting paid off.

Summer/fall was nutty, schedule-wise. Things have calmed down some for the winter now, though, it seems.

Sick several times in these months. Ear infection this time.

Did a day in the life project.

Furniture rearrangement: moved V to the spare room. Whee. Freelancing. Gløgg. CNSC book club, as per monthly these days.

Started lightning talks at PS:One.

Skipping between far too many gatherings in a month: speed reading class, a friend's party, a soup luck (rather than pot luck), flickr meetup, Second Fridays, birthday party, etc.

Hosted a long-overdue housewarming. Followed by front doorknob repair. "I suspect they were trying fix the way you had to pull it up rather than push it down... but that led to the bolt homing without being able to release it from the outside. ha"

Re-read House of Leaves.

Hackathon, with some chainmailling. Internet memes class.

Hacksgiving. Thanksgiving, with family silliness.

Constantly meeting cool new people.

Convocation at work. Early and long day, after a lot of prep.

December

Arduino workshop at PS:One. Also Pecha Kucha, at which I presented a geology talk. Trip to a hackerspace in Detroit, with a long stop in Ann Arbor to visit L.

"I can be stubborn. and stupid." Been through the wringer a bit, but only off and on. Bit of Murphy's Law. And Finagle's Law. And a lot of Wikipedia. Folks close to me have been terribly supportive, and for that I owe them all. H, Reg, N, other J. You know who you are.

Helped E by taking a few shots of her project to get onto Make and Hack-a-day.

Final design show for a friend who goes to the university I work for. Second Fridays again. More meetings/parties/gatherings, etc, which I'm entirely tired of linking up, frankly.

Dad visit, touring around Chicago. Photowalk and family and city history.

Brewery tour in the burbs. Cousin and her kids came through town.

Building a TARDIS at PS:One: I helped with the painting.

Thank you Warren Ellis. "Walking away from something for a few days or a week is sometimes the best possible thing you can do for a piece." And "the thing about distance from a thing — and this is actually not bad advice for any new writer — is that it gives you essential and often surprising perspective once you’ve been away from it for a few days."

Fender-bender in which I lost my mirror. Entirely the other guy's fault: he admitted such. Spent weeks in a rental. Things still aren't up to par.

"Danish Jul dinner all cooked up: fliskesteg, rødkål, kartoffler, ris ala mande (all dad's work)." Then Christmas Day shenanigans with family.

Productivity time at home: doing a bunch of scanning of old photos (my good work, my crap shots, as well as family photos), shrink-film sealing the windows and hanging the 11 pieces of art I'd made frames for. And the help was immensely appreciated.

And then internet connectivity issues. Lame. Then spending a ton of time not at my place. Quiet New Year's, a big change from years past, when I was usually at the club job, either on-duty or not.

Quite the full year. Nor, certainly, has everything stopped. Quite the opposite. But that's where the year ends, at least. So here, arbitrarily, ends this summary.

still delayed.

It's been a weird few days. Heck, it's been a weird past week or two.

Next year, and in years to come, I need to streamline the year in review thing. Right now, I really do comb the whole past year, and it takes forever. This means photos, all the text I've produced in every little venue I have, my calendar, emails, chats, etc. It's ridiculous.

So basically, this is another promise to get it posted eventually, but it won't be tonight.

delay.

So I've been having Internet connectivity issues, and it looks like it's down at the moment. And since my entire life is online (not to mention posting it requires interwebs), my usual year in review will be delayed.

Just so you know.

about all the extra I can handle right now.

Go vote for a few of my photos: they might make it into the book. Or, better yet, win prizes (though I doubt it: I got a late start).

catching what now?

Remember the "catching up with myself" goal of Sunday?

I failed. So now I'm behind again.

Got my recycling done, but then went to #psone and got sucked in until the night's movie outing. On the up side, I got some great shots.

disorganized breakfast and developments ramblings

It's a tea and marmalade-on-buttered-flax-bread sort of morning. My main task today is to catch up with myself.

I've been so busy, which has been great, but it has also meant that I've left things behind. My recycling is out of control (need to call the alderman, as my area seems to have been left in between systems--blue bag or blue box, and we don't have the new boxes, so I have to haul my recycling elsewhere). I'd like to get started with worm composting, though that may be a task for after I join #psone and thus have handy access to a drill so I can make my own enclosure rather than buying one.

I've already started a small pre-worm composting bin and am tossing my grapefruit rinds (have I mentioned that I've been re-addicted to grapefruit?) and used tea leaves in there. It's sooo nice to toss the tea somewhere I know it will be productive, rather than in the trash where I know it will be plasticized and then take up space in a landfill.

Oh! And just before May Day, I planted a little herb garden and some peppers (and re-potted the spider plant Marty gave me cuttings of) for my porch. The fact that it's enclosed is handy here, but it still gets a ton of light. Though we're already getting those fake ladybugs inside it. I hope they won't become a problem.

But back to breakfast: I picked up the tea last night in Chinatown, after learning that I can walk there in a terribly reasonable 15-20 minutes. Becoming too impatient to wait for the bus does have its perks.

But back to the tea. It's a peach-infused green which will make an excellent (and less caffeinated) alternative to the peach black I originally got a ton of at P.F. Chang's so long ago that I'm almost out of.

And it complements the apple-citrus sylt (marmalade). Which is, rather sadly, from IKEA, since I haven't gotten up to Andersonville to shop for the real thing yet.

Oh, and my favorite thing about this tiny breakfast this morning--the trick I started using to soften cold refrigerated butter: put the butter on the bread but don't even attempt to spread it until after placing it on top of the water boiler near the steam vent. So much easier afterward.

I've now talked with my landlord: I'll be staying in the aptly nicknamed GoldPeach past July and thus for another year. Which is excellent since I've finally got the furniture the way I want it and he's finally letting me hang things (and thus put holes in the walls).

I also started another professional blog since I've lost access to my Penn State blog space. The task right now is importing and adding backdated entries that were housed elsewhere or that I drafted way back when but never posted. Like the one about Flourish conference that I ended up drafting in an email to the head of the central management team when he asked about it. And I still need to write one about the TLT Symposium.

The oblique reference to #psone needs a bit more clarification, doesn't it? I first found out about it at Flourish, which is a conference about open source. And #psone is very open source-minded, though they work on a membership model. Their events are often open to the public, but usually for an extra fee (which is another way they raise money to support the organization, which is legally a non-profit). They recently started renting a space and are in the midst of the build-out, including the building of a loft space, among many other perks. Here are some pictures I took at one of the Tuesday meetings. Members teach each other what they know: programming to carpentry, press release writing to how to use a scroll saw, juggling to electrical engineering, and anything and everything in between. I might run one (if I join) about making chain maille/chainmail, jewelry and otherwise.

Could also do one on photography, now that I think about it. Friday was full of photography: I shot behind-the-scenes on a taping of Good Morning America in one of our labs. It should run next Friday morning. I've got the photos I could finish and post the half-hour I had left after the (long, exhausting) day up on our flickr account for the college.

I'm now out of marmalade and tea, so I'll have to continue this later. Too much else to get on with today.

year in review 2008

As is tradition, my year in review. Delayed this year. Been busy. Hang tight, this'll get long.

January

Weird mid-60s weather in the beginning of January. Then wind advisories. Cool but strange.

Stressed to hell and gone at work, added to by the course I was taking one night a week (which turned into a few nights a week due to group work): Usability Engineering. On the up side, the course was totally worth it.

Hauled out to Palmyra, near Hershey, mid-month to help Shellie renovate the salon for the January BPAL East Coast Will Call. I painted the ceiling. See also: ow. That uses muscles that most people just don't. use. ever. A week and a half later or so, attended the event we were prepping for.

Big changes at the club job: a renovation and new name, which included renovations to my equipment. Serious upgrades and video capabilities. Very cool, though required learning the new system. After being one of the only people that could handle the old system, this was both good and bad.

Placed a third shot in Schmap, an online travel guide (first two were Seattle, this one from New Orleans). Discovered I'd taken over 50 gigs of photos in the year before.

Finally went to an allergist to see what the heck was up. They did the tests: I'm officially allergic to cats. Which is, of course, the first pet I'd consider owning. Then they sent me for a CAT scan. Verdict: long-running sinus infection.

February

Took a last-minute trip to Pittsburgh to see the Chihuly exhibition at the Conservatory, which was very neat. I haven't touched most of the photographs I took there, but I really, truly should. There's some stellar material in there.

On the way there, made an Amazon order in the car on my iPhone. Got en email later that day saying it had shipped. We truly live in the future.

Re-discovered live Rickrolling and song charting and was generally amused.

Cut six inches off my hair.

Again swore that on my next move, I'd move somewhere more moderate in temperature extremes. You see how that went.

Meanwhile, back in class, I was the only female other than the two TAs. Weird.

Went to BPAL East Coast Will Call, as per normal.

Late in the month, my maternal uncle passed away. I dropped everything and went to Minnesota. It was strange, as most funerals are. Not a joyous occasion, but still good to see relatives I hadn't for years.

Came back and was totally slammed at work.

Sinus infection continued unabated, despite antibiotics. Allergist started talking surgery if we couldn't whip it with two other courses of antibiotics.

March

Started prepping early for the move in May by selling some media and scents/b&b stuff I could shed on Amazon Marketplace and through BPAL venues. Oh, and by packing books.

The new antibiotics made me feel atrocious off and on. No fun. Voice started cutting out on me.

Gary Gygax passed away. Sad day. Excellent NY Times obituary here, with a fantastic chart describing virtually anyone exposed to D&D during their lifetime.

Started to get back to reading. Definitely a good thing. Though leads to oddness at the club job: "Reading Canticle for Liebowitz at the club job is surreal: 'We bury you. We are the centuries.' Then shiny happy gay boys make requests." Another choice quote: "Me, I've been lucky enough to be quicksilver; I spatter, but I run back together somehow." - Canticle, p. 233.

New guy at the club job. A CD-based DJ, which struck me as retro. Hilarity.

First draft of the user interface I'd created for our group project went over swimmingly with our main tester. It's nice getting good feedback. Which, I might add, was backed by the professor: was selected to be the only one demo'ed to the class at that stage.

Attended BPAL East Coast Will Call (hereafter referred to as ECWC) as usual.

A pseudo-work-related event happened here (TLT Symposium) and was awesome. Found new and reconnected with old colleagues, some of whom have become friends. Still chat with many of them even though I'm no longer with Penn State. Great keynote, too, by Lawrence Lessig. The hilarity? Lessig as keynote (creator of Creative Commons, which introduced new forms of copyright), yet my photos from last year's Symposium were used in the Symposium program without attribution, which was required by the Creative Commons copyright on my photos. There's irony in there somewhere.

Obama visited Penn State later this month. I only got to see the aftermath.

April

More with the Usability Engineering and some necessary pixel-pushing for our prototype. "Lesson learned from iterative prototyping: do it right the first time, or it's going to drive you crazy for the rest of the project."

ECWC, as per usual.

Tried to charge through my pasta so as not to have to pack it when moving. Got really sick of pasta.

Also, sick again. Sinus infection still/again? Allergist waffled on it. "Me: I'm getting sick a lot this year. What's going on? Doc: Lots of things make you sick. How's your stress level? Me: You're funny, doc." And later: "Antibiotics, round three. Go!" (this was my last chance before talking surgery again)

Finished the virtual tour project at work. "My kingdom for a day without meetings."

With the class group-work: a pivotal member of our group late-dropped due to a medical emergency--and took all his prototypes with him. Nuclear strike. Half our project gone. Yeah.

Walking tour podcast project got approved.

May

Showcased our prototype for IBM. Seemed to go well.

Headed back to Wisconsin in early May to see the first outing of the boats my dad captains. On the way: "Going thru Chicago @ 5:30 on a Fri w/no I-Pass may go on my life list of least brilliant moves." Took some pictures.

Also nailed down a new place about a month early, which made moving way less stressful.

Penn State professionals Tweet Meet occurred. Good stuff. Also started attending the BS breakfasts more regularly: definitely enjoyed that.

Went to an in-house but off-campus conference (for Penn State staff, but between other campuses). Presented between 3 to 5 times, depending on how you count it.

First book finished at the new place ("The Gold"): Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. Also: "People in this neighborhood say hi, exchange pleasantries, and are genuinely friendly, as far as I can tell. It's so bizarre."

"What self-respecting mall closes at 6 during Memorial Day weekend? Wait, I think I answered my own question." Spent Memorial Day bouncing between events.

Started taking photowalks around my neighborhood.

Launched IntelliResponse on the site at work. Huge project over, thankfully.

June

The cicadas at the new place were super-loud, even louder than on campus. Started being annoyed by the lack of drawers in the new kitchen (had exactly one).

Penn State Web Conference happened in here. Had some interesting chats with the central Director of Web Services from a university in Buffalo.

Hit up ECWC, as usual.

Dax's birthday happened in here. Good times.

Yet another conference later in the month: PACAC. Had my first piece of shoofly pie, despite living in Pennsylvania for years and years. "Won a copy of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want at the TargetX session." Hung out with colleagues and boss after sessions.

Irritation with new RAM install going sour on my desktop.

July

4th of July fun and games.

Solved the RAM issue with a new batch. "I've cracked my case open and removed drives so often it's almost second nature now. Sad."

Got our work presence in Teen Second Life up and running and linked from the homepage. Whee. Seriously, though, it was fun, mostly. People are just astonished by it, especially older staffers.

Increasing stress at work.

Arts Fest happened mid-July, over a timespan that included my birthday, as it usually does, yearly. Also hit up People's Choice.

July's ECWC.

A few more TweetMeets happened in here somewhere. I also virtually attended EduWeb, via people who were livestreaming sessions and liveblogging. Next best thing to being there. Seriously.

Started MCing a lot more at the club job. Found that I liked it and was good at it. Oh, and the new new guy was much better than the old new guy (the one that used CDs. yeah).

Cut my hair to chin-length, donated my hair. Work colleagues loved the new hairstyle.

Wandered through Jazz Fest in Bellefonte.

Spend a Summer Day open houses started at work. They're bloody exhausting. Plus the "new" application for admission went up midnight of July 31st. Stayed in late testing. "Had door closed, music on, staff assistant running interference ('She'll get back to you!'), & I still got interrupted a zillion times."

August

As if to forcibly greet me with fine August weather, the sunroof of my car got stuck open on the 1st. Pulled into Saturn right before they closed for them to at least get it shut. Which they did. And it was still under warranty, so I got whatever $1,000 thing that needed to be replaced covered.

Another amusing in-house conference-style event.

At the club job, had intermittent irritation with stupid requests. "Realizing that people making requests may object to my academic tone: 'Could you play something awesome?' 'Can you define that, please?'"

Got a new next-door neighbor who became a good friend.

ECWC.

Threat level at work continues to rise. "Everything's an emergency around here. I wish I could say 'today,' but it's been like this since Spend a Summer Day." And later this month: "Manager of our web programmers to me just now: 'I'm getting the hell out of here before anything else happens.' Yep, been that sorta week."

Trip to HersheyPark with Dax and S. Desperately needed fun.

Club job: "All-staff mtg @ club. Owner of half downtown S.C. picked me out of crowd to shake my hand & ask my name after. I was smiling during speech." Which was accurate. He quoted an author I really liked.

Anticipated Hurricane Gustav by keeping tabs on Rev, a friend in New Orleans. Less serious than anticipated.

September

L announced a big move in terms of job and geography. I was happy for him but sad for me.

Started doing some Wikipedia editing on small towns in Denmark that I knew well when I lived there.

A Victorian stone mansion burns down two blocks away: I sleep through it. Colleagues were concerned about me. I totally missed out on the whole thing.

Another ECWC. More TweetMeets.

Work-related Tweets:

• Running comedy of the day when testing a marketing email that looks different on-screen than printed. Quote: 'But who prints their email?'


• Just got funding to do usability testing on the application for admission to Penn State in Philly as well as UP. Now to schedule.


• Alpha-testing our new app for displaying admissions decisions online via MyPennState. How many test cases can we come up with? Ha.


• Had to repeat a sentence I've heard out of my mouth too much this week: "Let me run the numbers and get back to you."


• I ask for a list of 25 email addresses, & get them old-school. Hard copy. Hand written. Wow.


• So nice to be able to close a ticket with "finished that the day before it was announced."


• Sometimes I <3 my boss. "Tell them to go jump in a lake" re: people pestering me about a problem he wanted to handle.


• VP's son says he only got 1 brochure from PSU, but that's okay because we've "got a great website." #EMA08

Near the end of the month, had another in-house conference, this time on our campus (which is what that last one's from). Presented a lot again, though some were just demos of new tools we'd created.

October

Hosted another, bit more famous DJ at the club job.

Finished one conference, on to another. HighEdWeb, this year in Missouri. This year was . . . notable. Twitter was invaluable here for meetups and coordinating the all-important socializing.

Got back okay, but my luggage had been lost between my three flights.

And then headed to Philly for the usability testing. Hit up Penn State Abington (home of a dear colleague, who invited me to dinner with his family when I arrived in town, which was lovely) in the process.

Stayed an extra day or so, and totally enjoyed myself by exploring Philly and getting into Eastern State Penitentiary, which is an awesome, awesome place to shoot pictures. Listened to the City of Industry soundtrack virtually the whole time. "Shot more than 6 gigs of photos in the last 3 days, between 2 cameras & 3 cards. And I'm shooting .jpg, not .raw (which I should)."

"Getting really tired of '______ never happens' happening. It breaks our (new!) systems. A lot."

ECWC was fun as usual.

Halloween was an amusement at the club job, as always. Pictures from Halloween, and pictures from the costumes from my night.

Did definitely miss Dax's usual costume antics, though.

November

Voted. "My 'Peppermints we can believe in: Mints for Obama' tin is getting comments at every meeting I bring it to."

Got another sinus infection. Whee.

Yet another ECWC.

Applied for a job in Chicago that I had no connection to, but was a perfect fit in terms of qualifications for (though not sure if this was October or November). And, after a phone interview in mid-November, they brought me in for the in-person. And by the end of the month, got the job.

While in the area for the interview, stopped in on my dad. Good visit. Also stopped in at the Shedd Aquarium for the heck of it on my way out.

Started doing more photoshoots for my DJing manager and other DJs from our company. "My place is a sty that hasn't been cleaned since the first of my fall trips; just booked a shoot this weekend and one more in December. . ."

Made gløgg for Thanksgiving hosted by a couple Penn State tweetpeeps. "Also: that orange has been officially zested. TO DEATH. Or at least until it was white with rind. Then I ate it." Yes, real gløgg does require orange zest, in my humble opinion.

Everything with the job and a new place and the whole bit just fell into place, as if by magic, though some of it somewhat last-minute.

December

Announced I was leaving at work, prompting these sorts of conversations:

T: "How could you?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
T: "You're really good!"
Me: "I think you may have just answered your own question."
(this said jokingly, of course.)

When I announced it on Twitter, I was completely overwhelmed with messages of congratulations and we'll miss you-type things. Supremely flattering.

Eventually, similarly: "Wow. Just got a round of applause from the huge Admissions college & campus reps meeting when it was announced that I'm leaving. . . . Good applause! The 'you've done a lot for the office, sorry to see you go' type."

Pulled a 12-hour Saturday in order to finish the usability report. Then shared the results of testing, which was way more info than they probably thought they'd get. I hope they use it.

"Usability: 4,000+ words, 11 solid pages. 15 when formatted for each case to begin on a new page. I'm exhausted. And I'm going home. /grump"

The aforementioned "new new DJ" quit the week after I left. Left me with the "hmm"s.

Got to attend the company's holiday party, though, which is always a good time, surprisingly enough. Which again, surprisingly, led to some actually decent shots of me by the bar's manager. They're on Facebook if you're over there.

"This week is an oncoming train, and I seem to be tied to the tracks."

"Never a good sign when you have to decide between finishing work or documenting it for your successor. Only a few days left here."

Got sick, with stupendous timing. Another sinus infection. Fun times.

Last steady ECWC. Sad to be missing them now. No one else is taking photos as exhaustively or as well as I did. ;)

And notes from the very end: "There are so many times when I really want to interrupt people saying they're amazed at my work with: 'but it's what I do.'"

Stupidly lucky to find a subletter for my apartment: first guy I showed it to. Also stupidly lucky that my neighbor-friend decided to come with me for Christmas to see Chicago, hang out at my family Christmas celebration, and to help me move.

The Facebook Class of 2013 debacle occurred. I was finished working by that point, so had a bit of a unique view on the whole thing. Got pinged by a journalist from Inside Higher Ed, and thereafter quoted. Terribly.

Though I was later quoted well about something else: Penn State's use of Twitter, in University Business. Made me feel a bit better.

Packing, packing. Packing burnout. Running out of boxes. Taking down my curtains, which was what was making my place so toasty. Froze without them.

Underestimated my belongings: truck was too small. Ended up making two runs: one with a truck, one with a van. Which was fine, since I needed to bring my neighbor back and wrap some things up anyway. Had help hauling stuff in from an old college friend and his girlfriend, which was immensely helpful.

There was a Christmas. I was mostly distracted with the moving. And then, in the payback for my neighbor-friend's help, played tour guide as much as possible. We hit the Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, Woodstock (where Groundhog Day was filmed), the Sears Tower, the Chicago Board of Trade, Chinatown (where he was an immense help since he knew some Mandarin), various other street/Loop photo ops, and a lot of restaurants. "I'm resigning myself to feeling like a tourist for the first year or so I live here."

Setting up utilities was a kick. "Unbelievable. Got an automated informational call from my new gas company at 8:08 Christmas morning. Guess computers don't observe holidays."

Comcast technician: "'Are you a designer?' looking at my desktop. 'What's it mean?' indicating the picture of the Experience Music Project in Seattle." It's abstract, I understand. But man.

Landlord so far has been stellar: offered to, and then did, leave a matching couch (fold-out, even) for me to use. And some decor, and a rug, which was appreciated. Perfect in terms of timing, and immensely flexible, even when it came to rent. "I now have an actual couch. It is comfortable. Let's see if I can pry myself out of it."

My uncle got a new TV and passed me his old one. Got that into my place as well as the stuff from the van (at different times) with the help of H.

Last van stuff was brought in on New Year's Day. And that concludes 2008's year in review.