::humming::

“Everybody’s working for the weekend...”

TGIT - I don’t work on Fridays!  Huzzah!

Verbing weirds language…

...or, in some cases, just plain makes it ugly.  To whit: “incentivized,” seen this morning in a NY Times article. 

Glooooooossssss-terrrrrrrrr…

A and I went to see the Gloucester Rugby Football Club play the London Wasps this weekend, here in Gloucester.  We went to the same game last year (or, technically, two years ago - shortly after I arrived in 2006).  It was a lot of fun both times, although this game was more tense because, in the end, we only won 18-17 and the last five minutes of the game were scrums about five yards from our goal line.  Eek!  But it was great - the weather was cold, but not bitter, and very clear.  We had standing-room tickets.  It was nice, because we got there early enough to be the second row of people around the pitch, and when the rather large, burly guy who was standing in front of me noticed that I was behind him, he kindly scooted over so that I was able to be right up against the fence around the pitch.  I really like being that close to the pitch, particularly when play is in my end of the field, because it means that occasionally the ENORMOUS players are only about five feet away - people like Lawrence Dallaglio, who plays for the Wasps.

On a completely different note, I’m going to get a new bicycle. 

Cool

This could be very cool.  If you want to look at the SkySails website, well, you know what to do.  If you’d like to go take a peek at Little Blog in the Big Woods, where I first saw this mentioned, again, you know what to do.

Do you know the only drawback that sprang to mind while reading about this?  Thoughts of the kite-lines getting snarled when ships are passing close by each other.  Kinda like fighter kites, only bigger.

Completely lost

Pitman shorthand.  Now I see why secretaries had to go to school - to learn to change perfectly comprehensible spoken English into a mass of squiggles and back again in very short order!

Woot-y woot!

“:: Schmap London Fourth Edition: Photo Inclusion

Hi J Haskin,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released
fourth edition of our Schmap London Guide:

Old Royal Naval College
http://www.schmap.com/london/sights_outandabout/p=4817/i=4817_10.jpg

If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personal
page, then please also check out the customizable
widgetized versions of our Schmap London Guide, complete
with your published photo:

http://www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=42468577N00/c=SF1001751

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please
enjoy the guide!”

I’m a published photographer!  Huzzah!  Never mind that it’s only a web publication - it’s still neat!

Paris When It Sizzles

We watched “Paris When It Sizzles” last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I loved how silly, contrived and wonderfully tongue-in-cheek it was.  And I adored the peach-colored dress that Audrey Hepburn wears for a large portion of the film.  I’ve tried searching online for sewing patterns for it, but to no avail.  I know that, given that it’s Givenchy’s work, getting a hold of a pattern may be difficult.  And I can’t really sew.  But for that dress, I might make a stab (with a needle and thread).

Any ideas?

Mayday, mayday!

Motivation levels at critical!  Attention span down to 0.2 seconds!  We’re going down!  Brace for impact!  Brace, brace!

::thunk of head on desk::

Yearning

I want to go do my run NOW, while the sky is blue and it’s not so blustery with wind you can’t walk straight!  By the time I get off work this afternoon, anything might have happened!

Maybe I’ll go for my run during lunch.  It would end up with me taking a longer lunch than normal, but it’s already mid-January and I haven’t done nearly enough training for the marathon yet…

GrrrRRR!

About ten miles south of here, it’s snowing heavily and has been for most of the day, apparently.  What do we have here?  Rain.  Lots of it.

Winter day

The rain is pouring down outside, whipped into sheets by the cold January rain.  Every time I go down to the kitchen, for a sandwich or a cup of tea, the plastic roof of the conservatory magnifies the rainfall, the deluge sounding monsoonal.  But I’m spending most of my time upstairs, in my office.  Boxes and books and other accumulations are strewn over every horizontal surface; I plan on getting a cabinet or bookshelf this weekend. The mess is fine, though.  Today it doesn’t bother me.  Perhaps it’s because so much of if reminds me of others, near and far.  A new set of Jasper Fforde books - Mom.  A miniature oil painting of the Seine - P.  A medium-format camera on the windowsill - Pop.  A scarf - Aunt M.  A colorful, abstract painting - me, circa 1994.  A book of Neruda poetry - J.  A book of Frost poetry - my grandmother.

So, surrounded by mess and hemmed in by rain, I am calm and warm and happy, because friends are in my thoughts and heart and the world seems a small place.

First to the Summit

RIP, Sir Edmund Hillary.

Go Portland go!

“Portland, which has a higher percentage of people who bike to work than any other large American city, is already considered one of the country’s most bike-friendly urban centers.”

A quote from another NY Times article extolling the bike-friendly virtues of Portland!  ::sniff:: Makes me proud to be a Portlander (in absentia).

Wow!

I was reading an article on Greenwire about sustainable design which focused on High Point, a sustainably designed neighborhood in Seattle.  It looks fantastic!  I think that I’ll try to visit it when I’m up in Seattle in March. 

Yippee!!!

Text from an email sitting in my Flickr account inbox: “I am writing to let you know that one of your photos has been short-listed for inclusion in the fourth edition of our Schmap London Guide, to be published mid-January 2008.”

If you’d like to see the photo that’s been shortlisted, go here. I read the fine print and by agreeing to submit my photo for the final decision I’ve given them the right to publish the photo in any future guide they choose, but I retain copyright and they have to credit me, so I figure it’s no worse than the possibility of free publicity later on.  Even if I’m not chosen now.  I’m just chuffed that they are even considering me!