3.30.2007

"Do you like my stripe-ed jacket?"

High carved tree trunk Yankee bayonet a sweetheart left behind...


I'm excited because The Decemberists are one of my favorite slightly morbid slightly indie pop bands. I'm going to see them next week, and it promises to be a lovely, lovely time.

Also, I am going to South Africa this summer. (!) I'm much more excited about that, but since I don't have any pictures of South Africa (as I have never been there), this picture of Colin Meloy will have to serve. Colin is not South African. I'm pretty sure he's from Washington. Or maybe Oregon. I'm sure people out there mess up Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan and "all those states in the middle," so I don't feel to badly. I do know that Oregon is the one on the bottom, which is a start. Right?

So anyway, pretend this picture of Colin Meloy is actually a picture of how exciting it is to go to South Africa.

...I know, isn't it?

3.26.2007

Oh, my London girl...


I'm in a ridiculously good mood considering I have an impossible midterm due this afternoon. It's 70 degrees outside, I have all my windows open, and my entire place smells like garlic bread because of the slightly shady pizza place next door. Fan-tastic.

This is not a picture from today. It's from about a gazillion years ago (okay, three) on my spring break road trip to New Orleans. This was also an excellent day.

3.25.2007

It wronged me in another life, let's say that.


It is no secret to people who know me in Real Life that I really, really don't like UW-Madison very much. I'm not even going to start in on why, because I just did in my head and it went on for many, many sentences nobody would read. However, the fact that I dislike the school does not mean that the town doesn't rock a fair amount. These are the "famous" sunburst chairs and tables outside at the union. (Shame it's got to be part of the school, though. ;) ) They make me think of summer and lakes and pitchers of beer and mediocre local bands, which is always a pretty good time.

3.24.2007

Scalable Vector Graphics?

I am taking a class online right now, and I have an assignment due next weekend. I've been a little concerned about this one because I hadn't checked out the assignment yet. This morning my power went out and my cell phones and such being re-connected to the power once it came back up woke me up at 7:30. On a Saturday. Unheard of! However, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and get a bit of a jump on this assignment. Do you know what the assignment has turned out to be? Cake! It's cake! I'm doing it now and then going back to bed. Maybe I'll realize I'm tired by then.


I like globes, and was looking at this globe and contemplating something. Is it just because this globe was made in the United States, or do all globes show outlines of all the states? That seems awfully ethno-centric if they are. Why should people in Gambia have to look at a globe upon which it looks like the United States is made up of fifty little countires? Are they ever going to need to find out where Idaho is? Okay, they might. Props to Idaho, I hear it's cool. I just think it's odd that no other country has it's states or provinces outlined. I never noticed that before, but now that I'm posting about it I realize it's probably been like that my entire life.

Hmmm... I wonder which province Ottawa is in. I sure wish I had a globe with Canadian provinces on it!

3.22.2007


It's 54 degrees today, and the first day of spring was yesterday. HUZZAH!

3.21.2007

She calls herself the queen of Narnia. But she really isn't.


It has been raining allllll day.

3.20.2007

We've got to save Ginny Weasley, from the basilisk! We've got to save the school again!

This week might hate me a little bit, which is a shame because I thought we were hitting it off. I was in a (totally unserious!) car accident yesterday on my lunch break which, no matter how minor, will still shake a person up and make things difficult until totally resolved. Today I was sternly reprimanded at work for something we later discovered I didn't actually do wrong. I'm thrilled that the accident wasn't worse and that my work boo-boo was not nearly as large as originally supposed, but...


...I'd still rather be here, doing this.

Of course, it's freezing in Maine right now, so nobody is canoeing unless they are crazy or some kind of badass wilderness mountain man (or mountain woman) person. I am not a badass wilderness mountain woman person, so I will instead celebrate the things that could've happened but didn't by making myself some stir-fry and starting The Great Six-Book Harry Potter Re-Read of 2007. Mmm, I feel an improved week coming on.

3.19.2007

My goodness!


I'm told it's good for you. Mmm, iron!

3.17.2007

Sleeve Leeg?


These are the highest sea-cliffs in Europe, called Slieve League. I didn't find them as impressive as the Cliffs of Moher, but few things are. And it was quite pretty anyway.

3.16.2007

We're gonna fish and get fat.


Fishing boats! I live on a lake at the moment, and none of the boats at the marina are nearly as pretty as these ones. Americans don't like brightly-colored boats as much as Galway fishermen, I guess.

I like them.

3.15.2007

Beware! Bewwaaaaaare!


Ides of March, huzzah!

And we're back in Glenn Colm Cille! This was up on Glenn Head (taken in February of 2002, and if for getting-your-bearings sake, we're standing on top of the cliffs across the bay in the picture posted yesterday), on a very foggy day when we decided to hike up there and see what the watchtower was all about. As previously mentioned, it seems to be about teenagers carting Heineken up there and drinking themselves silly. Sure is pretty though. Prettier when it's not foggy.

3.14.2007

Pi Day...

...and still Saint Patrick's Day Week!


Gleann Colm Cille is one of my favorite places in the whole world, ever. And I've been almost everywhere (LIES) so you know it's got to be superduper if I say so (LIES!). It's very small and down in this little valley on the west coast, in County Donegal. This is a view of the beach looking north toward Glenn Head as I went a-wandering one afternoon up the cliffs.

Across the way, there, on the next cliff-like outcropping, there is a watchtower you can't see due to a combination of the fact that my camera was not so great, and I let the film sit for two years after I got back before having it developed (it's expensive!). It's really there. The idea was that the Irish would build these watchtowers up and down the entire West coast of the island, and when Napoleon came to invade, the watchtowers could light their grail-shaped beacons. Thus, the signal that Napoleon was coming would travel up the coast a'la Return of the King. I think my favorite thing about this story is that the Irish absolutely knew Napoleon was going to invade, so they actually built some of these things. (Though, if I were Napoleon and decided to invade Ireland, I think I would've invaded England first and come from the East. That's why I'm not an emperor, though.) Anyway, they never actually used them for that, though from the look of it, local teenagers have been climbing inside for several hundred years to get drunk.

The beach looks fake. I promise it really looks like that, only prettier. And with more sheep.

3.13.2007

(Not) the broad majestic Shannon.


It's still Saint Patrick's Day week!

This was taken in a town called Gweedore (pronounced gee-door) of my friend Joe attempting to walk into the wind at the beach. It didn't work very well because it was that sort of wind that, when you jumped straight into the air, would blow you twelve inches inland. Really!

We spent a weekend in Gweedore, and I think we were supposed to be learning Gaelic, but what I remember most about the weekend is the fact that there was a bachelorette party at the hotel where we were staying, and they were really, really excited. About everything.

Incidentally, Enya is from Gweedore. We didn't see her there, though. My guess is she was probably off in fairyland.

3.12.2007

Where streams of whiskey were flowing.

It's Saint Patrick's Day week!! I'm a little sad that I didn't have a terribly decent camera (or a digital one) when I was in Ireland, but I wasn't paying much attention to how my pictures turned out back then, anyway. I guess that just means I'll have to go back with the Nikon. Soon. What a shame!


This was taken in April of 2002 on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. The islands are off the west coast, near Galway. This is a very ancienty fort on the cliffs called Dun Aonghasa. Local farmers were grazing their cattle behind me. Nice of them to let the cows have a view.

3.11.2007

What are you DOING?


I haven't had a single issue with my Mac since I got it about a year ago, until yesterday. This picture was originally in color, and the steam coming off the top of the building was this awesome sort of pink-around-the-edges color. Then while I was uploading yesterday iPhoto decided it would be better in black and white. I don't know why it did this and I'm pretty sure I don't agree, but it's still sort of interesting.

And if that's the only issue I have with my computer, I'm happy as a clam.

3.08.2007

Drip drip drop little April showers... it's still March.


...it's a flower. Because it's almost spring.

There have been a series of armed robbery-muggings around campus the last couple weeks, which doesn't scare me as much as it annoys me severely. It's going to start getting really nice out, and you want me to quit walking to class because some jerkface wants to steal my iPod? Not on!

So I walked to class today with my iPod, my class notes, and three dollars. If someone is going to mug me for an extremely obsolete iPod and three dollars, they almost deserve it for the effort.

3.07.2007

If there were people, it would look like they were walking on water.


I like the art museum. Clearly. There weren't very many people there today, which was both nice in that it was quiet and sort of sad in that nobody really felt particularly cultural today. Culture = good.

Ooh, blue and reflecty!

3.06.2007

Gaggle


So... one goose is not a gaggle. Good thing there are several dozen others just out of the frame that you can't see. You will just have to trust me when I say they were there.

Geese are obnoxious, though. They're sort of cute, but they are very messy and loud and twenty of them will walk over to you when you're just minding your own business, trying to go around town and get some exercise, because they think you have food. Why would I bring my snack on my brisk fresh-air walk when I could just as easily have eaten it in my cozy, goose-free apartment, hmm? Mister Goose?

Anyway, he's sort of cute.

3.05.2007

Grainy! Art! Museum!


I have to post this because I'm peeing myself over how it turned out. Mmm, art museum.

("Peeing myself" above is purely... not true... and is used for emphasis of excitement only.)

3.04.2007

On Prospect


I've been absolutely terrible about updating. I shall be making a conscious effort to better keep up in the future.

This is a picture I took the other morning while driving to work (naughty). This was the first time in a couple weeks I've seen the sun during a sunrise (not that I haven't been awake - I have, it's just been depressing and gray out lately) and all the light bouncing off the lake was too good to pass up. It's crooked (and you can tell my car window is covered in salt and other road grossness), but I did take it with one hand over my shoulder in the car. I just like how the yellow of the sun changes so quickly into the blue of the sky, and the trees are silhouetted against both. And I like it better crooked than I think I would if I straightened it out.

[Disclaimer] However, taking pictures in the car is a bad idea if you are the driver. No matter how neat and glowly it might be. [End disclaimer]