Lift, carry, drag, sweep, repeat

Neatnik and I spent a goodly amount of time last week giving chez trek a bit of the spring cleaning treatment. Yes, I am quite well aware that it isn't really "spring" cleaning if you are doing it during the last full week of August. It is more in the nature of summer cleaning but who has ever heard of summer cleaning? Summer is a time for fun and excitement and being outside enjoying the warm sunlit hours not for being inside pushing a vacuum and dusting every horizontal and vertical surface in the house. But, it needed doing and it kept me from stressing out over the absence of my computer and the class preparation which looms.

Riding on the wave of all of that householdy accomplishment, I suggested to NumberGuy that we should clean out the garage come the weekend. He agreed and yesterday morning at 8 o'clock all three denizens of chez trek were to be found lifting, carrying, and/or dragging those sorts of things that seem more to appear than to collect in the garage out onto the driveway.

Note: Brooms are good for hustling big clumps of dried leaves and associated debris from the corners but the leaf blower is better for removing the sandy grit and grass clippings which shed from the lawn mowers.

Neatnik took an hour or so break to attend her tae kwon do class. I continued to drag, carry, and sweep while NumberGuy provided chauffeur service. By noon, everything in the garage and shed had been taken out and either cleaned and returned to storage or designated for immediate removal to the curb.

Interesting questions were raised during this process.

Who knew that we still owned that gas-powered leaf blower? Why on earth was the electric paint roller in the garage instead of the basement with the rest of our paint cans and painting equipment? How come the spring support for Neatnik's crib was in the garage when the head- and footboards are in the basement? Why didn't we get rid of the leftover shingles when we dismantled the old trash shed? How did the Frisbee get stuck behind the stack of shingles? Does anybody actually remember buying that can of bicycle chain lubricant?

Perhaps the most puzzling set of questions was What happened to our chain saw? Did we lend it to somebody who neglected to return it to us? Is it now rusting in someone else's garage?

Sometime in the midst of the cleaning and the restoration of order, I realized that we should have a garage sale. Garage sale items are now tidily piled on the left side of the garage.

Lawn care equipment, including push mower and tractor, share the back wall with the neatly stacked lawn chairs. The right side wall has been designated as the recycling center. All of the shovels and rakes are hung on hooks and pegs in the shed and the fertilizer spreader is cuddling up between the snow blower and the wheelbarrow.

Things that were not on the Keep Me list but were too badly damaged for the Sell Me list were dragged out to the curb in anticipation of telephoning the department of public works to request a bulk trash pick up. My old bicycle was one of those items. I wheeled it out to the curb, went inside to put away some tools and retrieve some water. By the time I came back outside, the bike was gone.

We live on a busy street.

NumberGuy spoke to the fellow who took the bike with him, told him the bike had been in an accident, and he took it anyway. We figured the guy possesses skills which we lack in the bicycle repair department.

A few items from the basement were also schlepped to the curb, though the whole basement has not yet been given the same treatment as the garage and shed. Perhaps next weekend then maybe we could host the garage sale the following Saturday.

It was a lot of work but definitely worth it. We can actually walk in the garage without having to worry about tripping over anything or brushing against anything that might stain, tear, or destroy clothing. We have thrown away the unsalvageable stuff and identified the stuff that is saleable. NumberGuy cleaned and re-set up his fish tank in anticipation of restocking it with little fishes.

And I broke out in a ferocious rash from contact with all of the dust and grass clippings which were thrown into the air from the leaf blower.

Looking forward to cleaning the basement next!

Sort of.

WWW - Technology-lite edition

By the time I fully realized that yesterday was Wednesday and that I hadn't cobbled together a Weekly Wednesday Wrap-up, it was really late and I was too exhausted to do anything productive about it so I simply went to bed, relying upon the blog peeps to visit on Thursday.

• It has been a very busy week or two here at chez trek. Back to school is upon us and I should be diligently preparing lesson plans and lecture notes.



• I've not done all that much of the preparation thus far.



• It isn't because I want the summer to continue or that I am thoroughly unmotivated.



• It is because my computer is in a dinky little town in the Midwest awaiting its turn for servicing.



• Nothing personal here (the Midwest is a fine region of the country) but it is a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.



• Yep, less than two weeks remain until the beginning of the semester and my laptop is at the computer hospital.



• It didn't want the summer to end either.



• I am managing to check my email and read the headlines on NumberGuy's computer but that's pretty much it for the technological aspect of my life.



• No, wait, I did spend most of a morning earlier in the week setting up the class blog for my computer literacy class and getting the first couple of administrative posts ready to roll.



• I called the manufacturer last night to get an update on the status of my service order.



• The first guy I got told me that my computer has not been logged into their system and that I should call the carrier.



• I politely informed him that I had already consulted the oracle carrier's tracking web site and that they had received my computer at precisely 8:52am (local time) Monday morning.



• For those trying to keep the timeline clear, this meant that they had my computer for three full working days by the time I called and nothing had been done at all.



• Of course, I fully realize that I am not the only person needing service but come on. They didn't even know that my computer was there.



• My laptop boasts a 17" widescreen.



• We're not talking one of those dinky little semi-annual checkup reminders from the dentist here. It is not easy to overlook a carton of this size and magnitude.



• Eventually, I spoke with a supervisor who informed me that they log the units into the system when they are actually going in for service.



• I tried very hard to maintain a pleasant demeanor and not grit my teeth as I explained that my freaking job depends on me having my computer and that sixty-some-odd students have paid money for me to teach them about programming and computers come September.



• I think I impressed upon the dude the urgency of the situation.



• Perhaps I should call them again later today.



• You know, just to check on things...



• In the meantime, I have to visit the eye doctor and get my year's supply of contact lenses sorted out.



• Oh, what have I been doing instead of preparing for classes?



• Not working out, that's for sure.



• It has rained off and on all day long every day since Sunday morning.



• Wet pavement + bicycle = rooster tails



• Yuck.



• I have about 30 Box Tops for Education collected. Not as many as past summers but our buying patterns have changed somewhat over the years.



• Neatnik and I have been keeping busy by committing cleanlinesses about chez trek.



• We have been cleaning rooms from top to bottom, even pulling out all of the furniture and dusting the baseboards.



• I had her check the fit of a number of bits of clothing and we straightened out her drawers.



• Installed a new light fixture in Neatnik's bedroom.



• Very pretty and now she can read in bed if she wants.



• She wanted to both last night and this morning. :: VBG ::



• Several items were offered on Freecycle and either picked up or are scheduled for pick up today.



• Neatnik has been enjoying her third and final week of Vacation Bible School 2010.



• This one's theme is Galactic Blast.



• A bit late, this year, but a rather nice way to wind up her summer.

All in all, a fairly productive week, even if I don't have much in the way of lesson plans completed.

WWW - Really random edition

Well, well, well. Weekly Wednesday Wrap-up actually on a Wednesday. Since last week didn't have so much of the wrap-up due to the hijacking of the post by the sock yarn blanket, this week I shall try to include more of the wrapping-up.

• I am still recuperating from the bike accident. It has been nearly three weeks and my left leg is still chock full of bruisings with a side order of recurrent swelling.



• Picked up my new bicycle to replace the one involved in the accident.



• Only had it out for a short test run last Friday afternoon so far.



• Ride went pretty well though it felt a bit off.



• Toe-clips vs ordinary pedals is like English vs continental: neither one is wrong but when you are used to working one way...



• I transferred the toe-clipped pedals from the old bike to the new bike Friday night.



• Haven't been back to tae kwon do since the accident. Hurts too much.



• Interestingly enough, the cycling didn't affect the injuries. Must be due to the lack of impact.



• When will Sansa come out with a 32GB Clip?



• Burned a pile of iso installation files to disc last week and I wanted to execute a test run before upgrading my operating system, so the dining room now more resembles a server room at a small- to medium-sized company than a place for the family to gather for dinner.



• Good thing there's a table in the kitchen.



• The test run went well so then I spent a bunch of time backing up my data.



• Why is it that when Windows says an hour is required for the files to transfer, it really takes two hours?



• Not that I was surprised...



• I saved a whole 10¢ at the grocery store with my club card today.



• It activated my giggle reflex.



• During our travels at the beginning of the month, I noticed a few things about our GPS unit.



• There are some useful categories in our GPS: gas stations, banks and ATMs, rest areas and restaurants.



• There are some categories which would be useful if they were in our GPS: churches, police stations, libraries, pharmacies.



• Then there are some categories which are included in our GPS but which we find entirely useless: casinos and convention centers, wineries, golf courses, marinas.



• Just our personal preferences.



• I'm sure there are lots of people in Kansas who need to know how to get to the nearest marina.



• Neatnik and I have read almost all of the Warrior Cat books.



• Next volume comes out in November.



• I guess that means that Neatnik is a real grown up type serial reader now: she has to wait for the next installment on a series just like the rest of us.

Just a few random thoughts for this week. Before you go to greet the remainder of your week, check out these pictures of the cool sun clock at outside the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center.

The hours are the arc across the top.

The staggered months walk up the center.

Stand on the current month and
and your shadow casts the time.

Bzzz... zot!

We visited a pair of museums in Philadelphia yesterday. I took pictures of all of the dinosaur bones at the Academy of Natural Sciences a couple of years ago. You can go back to visit that post if you like.

Wouldn't just be my luck that of all the weekends of the summer, we chose Bug Fest weekend to visit? They offered free chocolate chip and bug cookies. No, I am not kidding. Deadly serious. This entomologist guy, Zack Lemann, baked bugs into poor, innocent chocolate chip cookies and was extolling the fat-free, high-protein virtue of bugs.

Number Guy made a comment about rabbit starvation and noted that the cookie tray was just as full two hours later when we swung by the front of the museum a second time. Fancy that.

The only redeeming virtue of Bug Fest, from my perspective, was Cliff Sunflower's Dancin' with the Honeybees show about the life of a honeybee hive. Yes, we had silly dance moves and hand gestures but he also tossed around some good science terms like metamorphosis and pheromones.

:: bzzz! ::

We did the AoNS in the morning and the Franklin Institute in the afternoon. The Institute was a first for everyone but me and it might just as well have been my first visit as so much has changed in the twenty or so years since I last strolled those halls. Sure, the giant beating heart is still there, but none of the other displays were familiar.

Given everyone's current fascination with planetariums, we made sure to catch a show at the Fels Planetarium. The planetarium itself was a bit of a letdown. The chairs were not theater style reclining seats; they were glorified metal folding chairs with really tall, uncomfortable headrests.

The show itself was called Tales of the Maya Sky. I can't tell you much about this program. It was supposed to teach us about how the ancient Mayas built cities aligned with heavenly bodies and used their astronimical observations and some fairly sophisticated math to build a calendar. They might have mentioned such things but I don't remember any of that. I do recollect something about an ancient Maya legend about two brothers playing "soccer" to win their father's soul back from the underworld but then I got a bit motion-sick. I closed my eyes, rested my head on Number Guy's shoulder and dozed until the closing credits. He doesn't remember anything more than I did for pretty much the same reasons.

One chamber which everyone enjoyed was the new Electricity exhibit. The kids enjoyed shocking themselves over and over on one of the static electricity displays.

:: zot! ::

The Electricity hall is also where I used my digital camera to take my first-ever video. The LEDs of the display Electrical Signals flash as visitors use their cell phones in front of it. Check this out.

Electrical Signals

We didn't get to see all that much since we arrived a bit late in the day. Next time, we shall have to arrive earlier and remember to bring sweatshirts: both museums really cranked the A/C!

Seiben steppdecken*

Neatnik and I took in a quilt exhibition at my alma mater Thursday morning. I took pictures of most of them. More importantly, I took pictures of the little descriptive signs next to the individual quilts so that I didn't have to try to remember all of the details about each quilt. Given that we came home with thirty-four quilt pictures, this was a good decision.

Allow me to share with you seven of the quilts the Neatnik and I enjoyed the most. I've arranged them in alphabetical order by quilt name. Please be sure to clicky to embiggen. You will be glad that you did.

This quilt is not very creatively, yet it is entirely descriptively, named Alphabet. Each letter begins a flowering plant name and Neatnik recognized yarrow from the Warrior Cats series of books. While this was very cool, it isn't the major reason that this particular quilt made the grade and into the top seven. The clincher for this quilt was that the appliqué was all done by hand using the buttonhole stitch and it is flawless.

Alphabet

Isn't this little guy the cutest? I mean, sure, I would be upset if the masked marauder were to come dumpster diving in our trash can but being made of cotton and sundry other fibers, I think the only danger The Fall Bandit poses is the potential for a third-degree cute burn.

The Fall Bandit

TFB was inspired by a hand-carved wooden raccoon. Notice the three-dimensional leaves cascading down the right side of the work and also the wooden beaded fringe along the bottom border; multi-media quilting!

Fancy Steps is constructed from simple squares so why did it make the cut? It reminds me of the ancient vintage arcade game Q*bert. I know that a Tumbling Blocks quilt is more Q*bert-esque in design but the black background and eye-popping colors of FS triggered memories from my teen years and so there it is.

Fancy Steps

The next quilt shares its name with that of its center block: Feathered Star. Both the central motif and the surrounding Evening Star blocks are very traditional although the fabrics used in this quilt are somewhat less than traditional. While I am no quilting maven, I do know enough to examine the meetings of the points of squares and triangles and all of these points were nearly perfectly aligned. Despite the non-traditional fabric patterns, the warm, autumnal palette seems to give this pattern a very vintage feel, like the faded colors of a Civil War era quilt.

Feathered Star

Not all quilts are destined to be used as bed coverings. There were quite a few examples, like The Fall Bandit, of small quilts solely intended to be displayed as wall hangings. This next quilt is an altar cloth. It was kind of oddly displayed, with folds and drapes instead of flat, so I took a close-up of just one section of Pentecost. The colors are so vivid, highlighting the curving shapes, that they almost seem to leap and flicker like real flames, don't they?

Pentecost Altar Cover

As soon as I laid eyes on the stunning blacks and purples in "Schrodinger" the Cat, I thought of you, Chris. Each of the nine cats is amusingly labeled.

I liked If cats could talk...they wouldn't, Fractal Cat, and Uncertainty Cat, while Neatnik was quick to point out Aristocat.

"Schrodinger" the Cat

I almost missed this last quilt. Literally. I had already put away my camera and was getting ready to leave the gallery when I noticed it hanging on a column facing towards a display case full of antique thimbles. Happily, the bright blues and yellows caught my eye.

The single fabric used to create the quilt top was printed to resemble Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night. I studied Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in high school and while it isn't my favorite artistic style, there are some artists and pieces individually which I like. The Starry Night is one of them.

What I like about Vincent here, in particular, is how the quilter carefully cut identical triangles from various parts of the printed fabric so that the assembled hexagons themselves form pin-wheel, star, and flower motifs. Look at how the flower in the middle of the quilt is formed from the six yellow orbs of the top right of van Gogh's painting.

Vincent

I am sorry about the bright spots in some of the pictures. The gallery curators had motion-sensitive spot-lights aimed at most of the quilts. Not terribly conducive to quality photography, I am afraid.

* "Seven quilts". Just because alliteration is fun.

In which trek asks, "Is it that time already?!"

Sheepie has been nattering on for a week now about the demise of the days of leisure. Since Sheepie is often influenced by Hysterical Mind's fears of doom, catastrophe, and the impending zombie apocalypse, I paid these dire predictions of the death of summer little heed, knowing that Rational Mind would reassert her authority and all would be right in the realms of summer. Then, Neatnik mentioned that she was wishing school started this week.

I think she is missing her friends. Even with all of the so-called "free time" inherent in the summer vacation months, kids don't get to see all of their friends, what with vacations, camps, and other assorting warm weather activities. I can understand that.

Compounding the Back to School is Immanent theme, I got an email Wednesday morning from Barnes & Noble regarding their textbook rental and new NOOKStudy programs. It's like someone over there read my class blog posts from last semester.

"NOOKstudy turns your computer into the ultimate study tool, letting you tag important content for easy look-up, highlight key sections, and access all your coursework in one convenient place."
   - Barnes & Noble

Notice the emphasis I placed on computer in the quote. Most textbooks have complex charts and graphics. Ereaders have small screens and cannot handle graphics intensive documents - yet. Still, enabling students to carry all of their study materials on their notebooks is pretty cool. Certainly lighter to lug around campus than the 156 pounds of paper I had to schlep back in my undergraduate sherpa days.

The signs and omens are all right there in front of me: summer must be officially winding down.

Refusing to be the last professor standing knee deep in the river, I spent most of one afternoon this week burning iso images to disc so that I can upgrade the operating system on my notebook. Still need to back up the data files and make a list of applications which I will need to reinstall after the OS upgrade but burning the install discs was a first step.

Now all I have to do is to review the syllabi, reread the first chapters and make up some slides for the first few weeks of lecture, work out solutions to the first set of homework assignments, and set up the class blogs.

Oh, yeah, and back up all of my data an then reinstall the operating system and every single application and utility currently in residence on my computer. Won't that be fun?

Sure hope those DVDs burned correctly...

WWW - Blankie edition

On the way to and from New Hampshire last week, I worked on the Mitered Square Sock Yarn Blanket. I have 88 unique squares!

Nearly 90 squares...

Number Guy and Neatnik have both been very complimentary about the blanket as have incidental folks who have seen it in progress thus far and that makes me feel good about it.

If anyone else out there is working on a sock yarn blanket, would you like to yarn swap with me? I have sufficient yardage to knit multiple squares in a bunch of different yarns and colorways. I could wind off and mail about 7 - 10 yards of each in exchange for yarns/colorways that I don't have.

All of my squares are knit from wool, superwash wool, and wool/nylon blends; no cotton blends. Please comment or email me directly. Thanks!

Chuckle, chuckle, smile

A bit like duck, duck, goose but without all of the running around in circles...

In front of the

Capitol Building
in Concord, New Hampshire

is this

replica of the Liberty Bell

I had a brief chuckle, remembering the scene from National Treasure.

Poor Riley

Around the corner from the bell and building is an amazing chocolate shop where we saw some genuine, bottled

Northern Comfort
by Maple Grove Farms

Got a chuckle out of that, too.

A bit down the street, I saw this reminder to bloom where you are planted...

Petunia multiflora

Just had to smile at that. Hope you laughed and smiled along with me today.

In which science is thrifty

This is a photograph of sunspots

Yes, really sunspots, not dust on the lens.

which I took through the eyepiece of this ridiculously expensive telescope

Yes, I'm surprised they let me do it, too.

when we visited the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire earlier this week.

The Observatory was just one of the cool things at the Center. The other really cool thing is the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium.

Our Place in Space was geared to really little kids.
Tonight's Sky was presented by Bob the Retired Physics Teacher
Black Holes was narrated by John de Lancie.
(Q in Star Trek: Next Generation)

Neatnik liked Our Place in Space, loved Tonight's Sky, and was rather creeped out by Black Holes. She really hated how they used an "astronaut" to show how gravity would affect a body near the event horizon and how the person would dissolve into atomic components and get sucked into the black hole.

Hmm... perhaps Dr McCoy saw the same program as a kid and that's why he hates transporters so much...

While we were poking around the planetarium's web site last week, I came across the ticketing information. As I totted up the entry dollars in my head, I realized that if we were to purchase the super-duper plus family plus membership plan, a mere two visits and a few planetarium shows would put us in the black on the investment.

Imagine how pleased I was to learn that not only would they discount the tickets 10% due to my exalted educator status, we can also use said membership card to gain entry to a whole host of other museums around the country, including at least a half dozen or more within easy day trip driving distance from home.

Not just cool stuff and lots of learning, but thrifty as well!

WWW - Wild edition

Some weeks are very tame and domestic. Others not so much. Here we go with the Wild edition of the Weekly Wednesday Wrap-up on Wednesday, if you can believe it.

• Neatnik really enjoyed Vacation Bible School last week. This one was Baobab Blast and on Thursday they brought in some wild animals for "science" class.



• Sorry, no lions, elephants, nor gazelles.



• They did get to pet a rat, a wallaby, and a hedgehog.



• Nobody was allowed to actually touch the descented skunk.



• I think all of us moms were grateful for that one.



• Thursday was also the day of torrential rain.



• I had planned to ride my bike each day while the kids were busy at VBS. I racked up mileage Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.



• During my rides, I re-read listened to some of the Dresden Files on audiobook.



• I just love my library system.



• When I awoke Thursday morning, however, the skies looked...ominous.



• Quickly, I booted up the laptop and checked the local weather. The hour-by-hour report claimed that we would experience clouds at 9am and 10am and that the rain would fall at eleven.



• Given that the driveway looked like it had already sprinkled earlier in the morning, I left the bike in the garage.



• This was a wise decision.



• So was leaving a golf umbrella under the backseat of the minivan.



• It rained and cleared off and on all day. When it wasn't raining, it might as well have been: we felt as though we could backstroke through the air.



• Our little white belt had tae kwon do that afternoon. When we left, the skies were spitting intermittent dewy droplets.



• Halfway to the tkd school, I was seriously considering turning around to go back home. I couldn't see the traffic lights in the downpour.



• No, really. Red lights looked like faint pinkish blurs until you were right on top of them and traffic was moving at a deliberate crawl, each driver attempting to retain brake function as we carefully navigated the canals which had somehow replaced the state's highway system.



• The rain resolved itself by the end of her class and by the time I returned for my own class later in the evening, the torrent was but a memory, the only evidence of its existence the continuing drainage of the low-lying zones on the highway.



• Friday dawned clear so I hoisted my bike onto the car rack before driving Neatnik to the fifth and final day of VBS.



• State law round about chez trek requires minors under the age of fourteen to wear safety helmets when bike riding. Since I am nothing if not a safety-minded individual, I wear a helmet when riding my bicycle.



• I had a fully-functional, intact bicycle helmet on Friday morning, right up until the right end of my handlebars had an upfront and intimate encounter with a 96-gallon trash can.



• If not for my helmet habit, the imprint of asphalt would have ended up on my head instead of merely pressed into my headgear.



• Not a very good look on the side of one's safety equipment.



• Even worse a look on the left side of one's head.



• Yeah.



• They say you should get right back on the horse after a fall so that you do not develop a fear of riding. Same thing applies to bicycles after taking something of a wild ride.



• Of course, an accident in which one's cranium comes close to contacting the concrete calls for quick replacement helmet procurement.



• Saturday morning, we took both my beaten up bicycle and my beaten up self to the bicycle repair shop. Between the accident-induced repair requirements and the mundane maintenance needs, we were looking at a couple of bills' investment.



• Did I mention that my trusty old Raleigh has nearly reached the legal drinking age and is heavy?



• We started shopping for new wheels.



• At another shop, we found a decent ride and a helmet which matched its paint job.



• The new bicycle is termed a hybrid; a cross between a road bike and a mountain bike. Basically, it is very much mountain bike framed but with thinner tires and not front nor rear fork suspension.

The nice young man at the shop promised to fully tune and align my new machine and have it all ready for me to pick up by the weekend.

Now all I have to do is wait for all of the various random swellings to subside and bruisings to blow over...