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Archive for June, 2013

squirrely sunday: convergence is imminent

Sunday, June 30th, 2013

In less than a week, thousands of geeks, nerds, buffs of anything and everything sci-fi, fantasy, sciency, you name it, will “converge” on the DoubleTree hotel in Bloomington, MN for CONvergence. As a volunteer on the convention committee, I’ve been frantically trying to hammer out last minute details and trying to figure out how I will see the things I want to along with fulfilling my convention duties.

So, in honor of this festival of geekitude, I present you some Star Wars squirrels!

star wars squirrels

linked: liligers?

Monday, June 24th, 2013

First, it’s time to get your cute on. These liligers were born recently in Russia! Yes, liligers! I’m sure you’ve heard of the liger, made when a male Lion mates with a Female Tiger (Which makes me wonder why we don’t hear very much about the other way around, when Tigons are made). Liligers are a Liger and a lion, hence the extra “li.” They are adorable, and I kind of want one. (Only kind of. I know they would grow up and tear apart my apartment and then I would be on the hook for a very expensive repair list.)

Strangely, I love baby animals, but baby humans? Not so much. So, we look at my nightmare scenario: not knowing I was pregnant until the baby came. AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGH!

Back to something amazing: this apartment. Outside of the bed, I think I could live there.

On a funny note, these images of famous statues dressed as hipsters is pretty entertaining.

Also entertaining, this tumblr in which things are written and drawn on scenes from Mad Men. In fact, it’s more entertaining and hilarious than I thought possible.

Finally, over at Jezebel, Lindy West tries celebrity liquor so you don’t have to. I admit, I am fond of Crystal Head vodka. Mostly because of the crystal head. I learned some things from this video, including that apparently coconut vodka can be made from fine grapes. What? My favorite part of the video is the tracking down of the liquor.

linked: summer vacation

Monday, June 17th, 2013

So, last week there was no linked post because I was on vacation and the post would have been anemic to say the least. However, I was still on vacation over the last week and while I now have more links, it will still not be the beefiest linked post ever.*

I’m not the outdoorsy type, particularly when the sun is full strength and the heat is rising. However, I thought these summer hacks were cool, particularly for you summer-loving folks.

My folks are avid watchers of both Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank (In case I haven’t mentioned it, I do miss having access to all the Canadian shows). Since I spent my vacation with them, I got to see lots of both. There are some great ideas out there, and some tragic. I wasn’t fully into the hoodie pillow after seeing it on Shark Tank this week, but the more I read, the more I think I need one!

I often feel overwhelmed by the tasks looming over me each day. I’m guessing you can relate? I think I will start implementing these tips for simplifying my day.

I am so hooked on Game of Thrones! I was struggling to keep track of almost all the characters at first, but now that I’m reading the books I am faring a bit better. I do love that a kid quizzed his dad on the character names after this season’s finale, and posted the results.

On the subject of Game of Thrones, I know a lot of people were shocked after the Red Wedding episode. I read it first, so I was less shocked at the episode. During the book, I wasn’t all that surprised. I mean, those poor dumb Starks. Either way, I do think this Princess Bride/GoT mashup is pretty spot on. (Note:If you don’t know what the Red Wedding is-just don’t watch it. You know, spoilers.)

I think my favorite thing over the last couple of weeks, though, is this video of obscene gestures around the world. I know I will be using the gesture for “I am ignoring you” frequently.

*I have been feeling like I’ve been lazy for my Sunday Squirrel and Linked posts being my only completely regular posts so far. However, while on vacation I realized how much work they are to put together, so I feel less lazy. I am still working on getting posts up each day regularly!! I promise!

squirrely sunday: happy father’s day!

Sunday, June 16th, 2013

flying squirrel wrcmn

Isn’t that guy cute? Sadly, he’s an orphan. Luckily, the Wildlife Rescue Center of Minnesota is taking good care of him and his two litter mates. I am lucky that I have both my parents, and they are still married to each other. I have many people in my life who have lost their fathers, and my heart goes out to each and every one of them. I feel so especially fortunate that I just arrived home from visiting my family. I’m glad to be home, but I do miss my family already.

So, happy father’s day to my dad, and all the fathers out there. Much love!

sunday squirrel: taxidermy edition

Sunday, June 9th, 2013

I completed my second taxidermy project! These photos are immediately after I cleaned him up (he was in an accident, so I had to clean off lots of blood), stuffed and shaped him, and pinned him in place to cure. However, it was before I fluffed up his coat some to dry, so he looks a little mangy. I will post photos again when he is done, and there will be a post about my developing hobby coming soon.

In the meantime, what should I call him? I’ve already decided he is a Stark, so he needs a Stark name. (It can be male or female. I just refer to it as a he right now, though I am pretty sure in life it was a girl.) Let me know in the comments!!

Right Side

Right Side

Left Side

Left Side

101 things: curl, baby, curl!

Wednesday, June 5th, 2013

Did you know that the oldest person to win a medal in the winter Olympics won it in curling? I would love to have an Olympic medal! Gymnastics wasn’t in the cards for me. I grew up out in the sticks and didn’t have access to gymnastics classes until it was too late. Plus, I’m way too tall. Boo. I’m terrible at running, and if I break a ten-minute-per-mile average in a long distance race I would do cartwheels. (Since I am pretty much the opposite of Kenya, this is no surprise.) I’m mediocre at skiing, and snowboarding didn’t even really become a thing until I was already older than most of the medalists. Pretty much, name a sport, and I can tell you why I will never have a medal. However, curling? There just might be something there! Crazy pants, round stones, sweeping…I think I could handle it. I mean, I know it would take lots of dedicated training, but I am sure I could do it!

My first curling experience was during the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. A friend’s birthday fell during the games, and she had an Olympic themed birhtday party. She set up a court for curling in her living room. The hardwood floors acted as ice, she taped out the house and hoglines, swiffers were the brooms, and squash were the stones. It was a lot of fun, and we weren’t so bad. There was hope! I also lived only a couple of blocks from the Saint Paul Curling Club. That was clearly a sign, especially once I found out that many of the US Olympic team members train there. I was clearly already on my way.

At some point, a friend and I made a pact that we would learn curling. We looked into crazy curling pants. The trick was making it happen. Joining a league was pricey, especially since we thought we should perhaps know how to do it before we joined a team. We tried to find lessons, but that seemed to hit a dead end. At some point, one of her business contacts mentioned that he curls. At the SPCC! He said we could potentially do an intro to curling party. What? Perfect!

It took a little while to sort out, but we recently made it happen. A date was set. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get crazy pants. We did get an e-mail with some guidance of what to wear. We were told to dress warm, as ice is cold. Which, I know ice is cold, but isn’t there some sort of technology that allows for the ice to stay frozen while the air is toasty? No? Huh. We were told to wear clean, rubber-soled shoes and pants that allowed for range of motion. Specifically, we were told we would need to be able to squat like a catcher in baseball. I admit, baseball is not my favorite and I don’t know much about it, but I do know how far a catcher squats. I somehow missed such squatting in my watching of the Olympics. Perhaps he was just exaggerating to insure we would be wearing items to flex in. I planned to wear some running pants, just in case.

We all met at the curling club at our appointed time. Our contact had us gather on the club’s super cushy sofas, around a fireplace. So far, so good. He started with a brief history of curling. Apparently curling is a lot like golf. Did not see that coming. Like golf, it started in Scotland. Like golf, it’s a muscle memory sport. Like golf, there are crazy pants. At least on the Norwegians. I was feeling less optimistic about my Olympic options. He mentioned that he had been curling since he was 11. He went on to say that it was a late start, and thus he had no prospects of the Olympics. What? Most Olympians start at age four or five. His daughter is five, and he’s hoping maybe she has a shot at the Olympics. Darn. Clearly I am a certain number of years too late. I still held onto a smidgen of hope. After all, maybe I was secretly harboring a knack for curling, and would be on my way from Curling 101 to the next Olympics! It could happen!

First, some curling basics. Each team has eight stones (one team is yellow, one is red). The stones are made from granite, and weight about forty pounds. By the way, this has nothing to do with the weight measure of a stone. Boo. The scoring is based on how close the stones are to the center of the house. Whichever color is closest scores. A point is scored for each stone in proximity to the closest stone, and ceases at the first stone of the opposite color in range. There are four players on each team. First, second, vice-skip, and skip. The skip is like the captain. They control the game. They decide where the stone will get aimed, how fast it is released, which direction it is curled, everything. They hang out by the house, and direct the rest of the team with what to do. The sweepers are directed with how much to sweep. The sweeping helps the stone move down the ice by decreasing the friction of the stone on the ice. Still hanging in there. We moved on to delivery. This is the process of the player moving the stone down the ice. Real curlers have special shoes that have teflon on the bottom to help them slide on the ice for delivery. The curler uses a hack, which is like a block that runners use. The delivery involves three steps. Push, retract, push. The first push is to get the stone moving on the ice. The retract is to get into position, and the last push is pushing off the hack into a lunge position. This is when the stone is pushed across the ice. To direct the stone, or “curl,” one’s hand is turned from the three to the twelve position or from the nine to the twelve position whilst holding the stone. Our instructor looked super elegant and graceful doing all of this. He led us through the first phase, the push-retract-push.

The only moment in which I remotely know what I'm doing.

The only moment in which I remotely know what I’m doing.

This is where my Olympic dreams began to fade. My lunges were reverse lunges, and I spent a lot of time on my butt. We were handed brooms to balance and moved to the hack. We also were offered shoe covers to compensate for our lack of special curling shoes. None of this seemed to help me.

Do style points count?

Do style points count?

“Can we just try the belly flop method?” I murmured to one of my fellow curling trainees. She heard me say, “Can we try the Betty Ford method?”
“I didn’t know Betty Ford was a curler!”
“No. The belly flop method.” Though, let’s be honest, if Betty Ford were a curler, I imagine her method to involved some cocktails. I could also get behind that method. At least we were all laughing.
We moved on to delivering actual stones, learned to sweep, and learned all the signals for the skip.

Then, we broke for beer. Maybe a bit of the Betty Ford method after all? We learned about curling etiquette, which includes drinking scotch after the game. This helped with the slow crushing of my Olympic dreams.

After a break and some beer, we moved back to the ice to play a short game. A typical game involves eight to ten ends. We played two. This meant all the stones from one end to the other, then back to the starting end. We made signals, we shouted for sweeping, we provided laughs for the club members. The sweeping was pretty aerobic, and the delivery made for some serious muscle work. I was glad I wore layers, because by the end of the evening I was in my tee shirt and was a little funky. After our two ends, my team was declared the winner, and we retired back to the club for more beer.

By the end, I almost had the sweeping part down. Almost.

By the end, I almost had the sweeping part down. Almost.

So, while my Olympic dreams are no more, we had a fun night. I will have a very different perspective watching curling in the next Olympics, for sure. I might give it a go casually, at some point.

In the meantime, I’ve heard that the oldest summer Olympians are in the equestrian field. I think I may have hope yet.

linked: what if?

Sunday, June 2nd, 2013

ZOMG! So many links!!! I had a few links kicking around because I didn’t have a chance to read them, a couple that I didn’t appreciate on the first pass, and a whole bunch that I discovered this week! Hopefully, it’s enough to keep you distracted while your Monday morning coffee kicks in, but not enough to get you too distracted from getting your week started. Here’s to an awesome first week of June!
xoxox

This was a link within a link, but I think it’s really cool to see the designs that might have been along side their chosen counterparts. While there are some cool options, I think they made the right choice in each case.

This insight to a young girl’s relationship with her iPhone was enlightening and frightening. The fact that there is a generation out there that doesn’t know what to do if they aren’t in front of a screen is terrifying. Mayhaps I just came up with the topic of the next post-apocalyptic film?

This list of common misconceptions is fascinating! As someone who prides herself on knowing all the random trivia, I was surprised at how much I don’t know! I was able to use the tidbit about Napoleon’s height this weekend when a random show that was on talked about how wee he was. Which one is your favorite?

Have you seen the new Cheerios ad that is making waves? Apparently, even in 2013, there are people that don’t want to acknowledge that there are couples of mixed races! Despite the rampant racism, those folks don’t like it if you point out they are racists. This article speaks to the importance of acknowledging mixed race couples, even if it is to sell cereal.

Anyone remember the days when flight attendants were uber-glam and had fashionable uniforms? Well, Virgin is bringing that back with a collaboration with the incomparable Vivienne Westwood. I might have to become a flight attendant now.

Sort of on the topic of fashion, I kind of love this article. I am fascinated by drag queens, and I appreciate some insight to the fascination.

This piece on being unpopular might be my new favorite thing. I’ve never been popular, and have been okay with it. I prefer to be happy with the person I am than surrounded by people. Of course, people aren’t my favorite thing. Maybe the two are related?

I am kind of fascinated with Gwyneth Paltrow. She is pretty honest with the amount of work it is to be Gwyneth Paltrow, and I appreciate that. I also kind of want to do all that work, too. Except I have a full time job, and that amount of work would also be a full time job. Rebecca Harrington tries out the lifestyle, and it makes me want to try it all the more. (Check out her other attempts at celebrity diets, as well. I appreciate her commitment, because most of them are pretty miserable.)

I am on vacation! This article came just at the right time. I began organizing my things, and I kind of love it. I didn’t have enough time to fully implement her system, but I shall asap. I like the idea that I maybe won’t forget my razor or toothbrush because I have a set all packed. I could maybe even have everything in a carry on for once, since all the liquids will be TSA approved!

Finally, this little nugget is on the nose. Maybe too on the nose?

squirrely sunday: commencement

Sunday, June 2nd, 2013

EEK! We’ve been celebrating my nephew’s graduation all weekend, and have had some internet issues, hence my post is delayed. It’s been quite the weekend, I think it will be nice to sleep in and relax tomorrow. I think my nephew will be thrilled to do so, as well!!
In the meantime, I came across this over the weekend. I really wish I would have thought of this!
mortarboard squirrel

For the story behind the squirrel (or at least more of the story) Check out the post on Blueridge Blog.