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putting a monthly budget on paper can be mighty humbling; and a little frustrating. it does make me realize, however, that i'm awfully glad i'm not any *further* in debt.
i'll leave you with this picture. it's not great, but i was having a great day by myself when i took it:
i haven't been feeling very "sharey" lately. some personal biz is consuming my thinker and it's really not appropriate content for a social blog.
i have made a small amount of progress on my deck of cards, but nothing to the point of being able to brag about.
this lingering cough and sinus thing has made me kinda cranky. i've been waking up at 1 and 4 every morning to hack a bit, then toss and turn for two hours, then drag my ass outta bed.
i'll try to be more interesting soon, promise.
i've not slept 3 hours straight in five days; i just could not get up for work this morning. hopefully i'll be able to breathe enough to enjoy the nice day. at least i can bike slow.
i've kinda shied away from the lino cut idea, just for now. i think i need to focus on recalling my ability to draw and design. it's been far too long.
i've pulled out an old sketchbook, which contained notes from life drawing, and my portfolio class (from 10 years ago!) and i will resurrect it for the purposes of design inspiration and sketchables.
aand, i'm kinda mad that i only just got a crock pot. i just put chopped onion, a can of diced tomatoes, a bag of crumbles, a can of water, and a bouillon cube into it. 4 minutes of work results in lunch for two days. amazing.
i have been thinking a lot lately about stuff i won't put on the internets, even in this low-traffic medium; but i realize that i cannot expect any one to be my muse. except for me, of course.
also, i will complete and hand in braille lesson 7 today. i think.
so, i've figured that i need 28 4x6" soft-kut blocks to accommodate 54 cards and a back. i can't decide if i should make two jokers. i also think i should experiment with making it a playable deck.
too bad masco and the other art place on state closed; i am loathe to go to michael's craft mart. maybe i'll see if wisco crafts has lino-cut bricks.
i seem to have contracted some sort of springtime cold. but i can't stay home from work because i'm taking friday off to spend the day with kurt for his bday (which is actually tomorrow).
and i don't want to get sicker because tomorrow evening i'm going to see v.s. ramachandran speak at the union and it would be miserable if i were snorting and coughing the whole time.
i've been kinda lax in my braille lately. i haven't even opened up my laptop except for maybe saturday mornings to check the weather forecast. i should be more diligent so i retain more.
also, this design*sponge post reminds me that i wanted to design a deck of cards a long time ago until i realized how much it would cost to print. but maybe i can do a block-printed set... which might not be any less expensive but could be more fun. that might be a good summer goal. i remember learning about why some kings have daggers and other have swords, and one-eyed jack (which made the "gentleman's club" in twin peaks make a little more sense); this was all about 10 years ago.
time is silly.
i got this awesome end table from a friend who's moving to another continent. it's hand-carved from morocco.
another thing i noticed as a non-smoker is that it seems that i have more time. it's weird, you wouldn't think something so passive would take up time, but it did. another reason to feel foolish about having been a smoker.
speaking of time, i find myself filling a lot of it with tasks that, in the past, i wouldn't care about. for example, this weekend i intend to get an oil change and a car wash, clean the fridge (it hasn't been scrubbed out in an embarrassingly long time), adjust the organization of the computer room (a new desk requires moving stuff around), and finish my super awesome sweater.
also, tonight is girls' night out, which means dancedance revolution at the inferno.
aaaand, i have til tuesday to finish the diary of anne frank; i'm currently on page 11.
i just ordered two more copies of allen carr's easy way to stop smoking to lend out. it is my goal to get as many of my friends to quit as i can without being an asshole about it.
i usually shower at night... mostly cuz i like sleeping and don't want to get out of bed before i absolutely have to. unfortunately, i got distracted by the hangover and yummy fish tacos and didn't leave enough time to shower last night.
i got up extra early this am (6:15), excited to warm myself with hot water, and discovered that kurt thought it would save energy to turn the temperature on the water heater to A. A is the lowest hot setting, which is really only barely warm. so, i turned the dial to C and then past C to Very Hot, all while wasting electricity and water waiting for the machine to do its part.
i decided that 6:45 was the latest i could start my shower and still get to work at a reasonable time without having to rush. at 6:45, the water was still lukewarm and intolerable. i considered tossing a bucket of this barely usable water on kurt's sleeping head, but realized that would neither solve the problem nor be a very good idea.
i've been really good about making food and not eating delivery for dinner. i've even kinda broken up with subway by bringing my lunch. except, sometimes kurt wants to go out to eat during the week so i have leftovers from ha long bay (if you have not yet been, you need to go) but didn't bring them to work today because i had goulash from sunday.
so, my current conundrum is whether to eat ha long leftovers tonight and subway tomorrow (total cost < $5) or treat myself to yummy food from burrito drive (total cost > $10) and bring leftovers tomorrow. i do have an avocado that needs to be put onto some tacos...
i think i already know what i'm gunna do.
to explain to people what i do for a living, especially if they don't work on the internets or in design.
i used to rattle off a car dashboard/cell phone comparison, "it has to be usable, i make websites usable just like someone made that steering wheel control the radio volume or the end call button red instead of green." the explanation got too long; people's eyes would glaze over.
i've recently converted my short description to, "i tell other people how to design". which is not really true either. i work with teams on projects where we all have input and i get to help guide us in the direction of the correct solution; along with everyone else.
in addition to the video below, i still get to code a little (html/css) and i've started teaching myself jquery to, you know, increase my knowledge base, or whatever people say. i also write, conduct, and analyze usability tests with real live users.
i follow a lot of ux'rs on twitter, and one of them came up with a video that makes half of what i do seem magical (audio nsfw if you work for a high-strung corporation and don't have headphones--you'll get the idea without them):