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Saturday ruled. Mid-week we got the idea in our heads to have a Cinco de Mayo party on Tres de Mayo. After Josh’s company picnic, which was at the national zoo. First off: that was a great idea for a picnic. Spying on monkeys and pandas greatly exceeds the fun of the three-legged races and moon bounces of yore. I think everyone but Dan’s kid agreed (he just wanted to be home with his playstation).

I called Angie the night before to invite her to our party. I saw Amy on the bus on the way home from the zoo and invited her as well. That kind of spontaneity is abnormal and a little scary for me. But when it turns out well it’s thrilling. And it did. Everyone showed up and had a great time. Amy & her husband stayed the latest of anyone :). Paul & company came decked out in sombreros and shakers. We served carnitas, margaritas, and guacamole that I made using fresh cilantro from our areogarden. We played ImagineIff (had to force the guys) and had some interesting conversations.

I paid for it the next day when I didn’t wake up until 11:00. Even then, I was in no mood to program. I was supposed to be putting the finishing touches on my class project: a mock culinary herb online store complete with catalog, shopping cart, and checkout process that writes the order to a database. Plus an administrator section accessible through login that allows order management and product catalog management. It’s been fun. It kept me busy the entire week Josh was in London. I did get to it… just… later in the day. Then I cleaned the kitchen and went back to bed.

And still yawned all the way to work this morning. But hey. It’s a short week. And I think I’m going to see the butterfly exhibit on my Friday off.

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Written on 4/30/08
I have a new task at work: mosaicing together 113 scanned maps from a street atlas into one large graphics file. This is going from fun to excruciating as the file size of the final image is growing. Each of these scans is 300dpi — so try to imagine. I wish I had a more powerful computer. Isn’t it strange that no matter how far technology progresses, we could always use more disk space, more memory? They can’t make them faster than we can figure out new ways to fill them up. Why does that make me sad? It feels decadent, or something. Anyhow, I have become an expert in Photoshop’s Large Document format. I have also learned that dealing with unnaturally dimensioned images is a key advantage Photoshop has over Paint Shop Pro. It takes the former much longer to trip out and display an “out of memory” message. Not to say I didn’t get there eventually :/. Though the message is different: it’s “scratch disks are full.” Which apparently, is the harddrive. I think Paint Shop Pro doesn’t know it should use that as a backup. A fatal flaw in my most beloved software.

I wouldn’t normally blog about such a topic, but I have no other option as I sit here watching the status bar inch along. Notepad doesn’t take up too much system memory. I should have brought a real book. Though, I don’t like either of the books I am reading now. Naked Lunch and The Year of Living Biblically. The first, I heard was good; the second, sure sounded like it would be. But I find the first incomprehensible and the second tedious. I left a third book on the plane. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I wish I had that one. It hits close to home & makes me sad, but that beats bored.

Update as of today 5/2/08
Got access to a computer with double the memory and a faster processor. Finished the mosaic. Will be georeferencing it today. Also, found the third book. Hadn’t lost it afterall. Read some more of it last night :).

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• INFP Relationships
  I dub this my instruction manual. Also my warning label.
  (tags: psychology relationships)

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• Cogitamus: How Good People Can Be Guilted Out Of Their Rights
  “The range of things that most good people will feel bad about… is wider than the range of things where they do wrong or violate someone’s rights.” Specifically as it applies to abortion, but the entire concept is noteworthy.
  (tags: philosophy)

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Central Park is beautiful in the spring.

And so are the flowers [at Madison Square Park].

I had a great return trip. The weather was much better. The hotel was much better. My legs never got sore, even though I walked just as much. (They didn’t get sore in Paris either, which leads me to laugh at my lament about “getting old.” I think the culprit was, rather, doing my exercise routine that involves an excessive amount of lunges the day before the protracted walking, with no rest day.)

And the food. The food, I can’t even say. I thought I didn’t like Kobe beef, that it was too heavy/greasy. I changed my mind after trying it at Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse. They apparently have the real thing, and Ruth’s Chris’ is an imitation. They also don’t cook in butter. (The only case I can think of where butter doesn’t make it better). It was succulent. And so was the French Martini that the bartender recommended. It tasted like a beverage made from draining cans of fruit cocktail. But in a good way. A so good way.

I stopped at Filene’s Basement, which I thought could only be found in Boston. Guess I haven’t been keeping up with the times; looks like they have stores all over now. Including one in Tyson’s Corner (the black hole of Virginia). Since Aubrey deems it prudent to stay far away from the event horizon… to New York it is! I love that store.

I also stopped at Chelsea Market, home of gourmet food shops & Food Network headquarters. Plus a couple minor parks. The trees are so full of flowers that my pictures are overloaded with color. (And you thought NYC was all about buildings…) I was minding my own business in Bryant Park when I got stopped by an evangelist. In a breathy voice she asked if I had heard of “Mother God.” I smirked and told her I was in a hurry. But now I wonder what religion that was…

Josh did some press stuff there. He’s going to be traveling tons this summer. Way more than I could possibly tag along on. He’s in London this week. He says the airport is becoming his second home. I’m getting more used to it than I used to be. But I still think it’s going to be a weird / long summer.

ANYWAYS it’s worth it for the perks :). Like, you know, chillin’ on top of Belvedere Castle on a warm April Saturday.

Oh! Photos here, pinned on to the end of the album I started in February: http://picasaweb.google.com/aubrhea/NewYorkCity
Will there be more to come? Only time will tell. Though I’m making good coverage of the city, I still have some major landmarks left. Like ground zero and the Statue of Liberty.

If I go back, it’ll be on the train.

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• Plants ‘thrive’ on Moon rock diet
  “Bernard Foing believes that Europe or one of the other players will eventually decide to plant the seeds of Earth where previously humanity has merely planted flags.”
  (tags: science)
• Worldwide ‘Love’ Vibe Detected
  Love the headline. Makes you think you’re getting New Age Gaia Earth, when you’re actually getting seismology.
  (tags: science)
• Flowers Are Losing Their Smell
  A more convincing explanation than cell phone usage for the decline in bee population.
  (tags: environment)

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Weekend was fun. Went shopping on Friday for my outdoor container garden and planted it on Saturday. I got a mix of white and blue flowers that grow in the shade, and my normal herbs. I still have mini-roses coming, but I learned last year these don’t bloom well in the shade so I am only putting them on the sunny porch.

There is still dirt under my fingernails :). I don’t wear gardening gloves because then I can’t feel what I’m doing and end up tearing too many fragile roots. Actually, I boycott any kind of gloves for the same reason. Tiny ipod/cell phone/camera buttons also don’t respond well to bulky fumbling fingers.

Anywho — celebrated Yuri’s Night on the 12th. This is the anniversary of the first human in space, Russia’s Yuri Gagarin (1961) and NASA’s first shuttle launch (1981). We watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, ate the closest we could get to Russian food (pierogies) and drank tang with vodka. Later Josh and Sarah watched the Russian movie Night Watch. I watched the sequel with them the next day. Really weird=good movie. My alarm this morning woke me up from a dream where I was killing “Others” with laser beams shooting from my eyes. Only blue-eyed people could see them. I don’t normally dream things like that :).

Was a zen weekend. I spent quiet time watching petals dance by in the wind and thinking how I would never see that particular bunch of them again. Spring is so short. But I get to spend some of it in New York because I’m going back next weekend! THIS time central park will be in prime form!

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Things I would like to say to people who have found my website through rather odd search phrases:

• “crazier than evangelion”
  you’re gonna have a hard time finding that
• “aubrey lavinge”
  uh, it’s avril
• “busstopwho”
  I don’t think you’re gonna find your missed connection this way…
• “cobwebs and wisdom”
  strange combo, there. I must be lacking the wisdom to understand.
• “fallon family photos dublin”
  would really like to know who this was!!
( Read the rest of this entry » )

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• Photos of tourists taking photos of DC Cherry Blossoms
  One of my coworkers got caught by someone taking the same sort of pictures. It’s a really cool idea.
  (tags: photography)

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Some of these I need right now; others I just find cute.

“Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary of the talkers who talk.”

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• The Color of Plants on Other Worlds: Scientific American
  You probably won’t find this as fascinating as I did. Unless your master’s project was also about the wavelengths of light reflected and absorbed by vegetation, like mine was.
  (tags: science)

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• Lessons of the Square Watermelon
  Apparently growing a watermelon in a box is an example of thinking out of the box. Worth checking out just for the pictures. These things are funny looking.
  (tags: weird)

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I made it to the tidal basin last Sunday morn. With my close-up lens in tow. I didn’t spend very long there, but I think my time was well used. I’ve been waiting a year to nestle these blooms among the lyrics to what is probably my favorite song of all time.

April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;

May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.
June, she’ll change her tune,
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night;

July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight.
August, die she must,
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;

September I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old.

You should all share in my delicious experience by: listening to that song, and visiting the blossoms, if you haven’t. It’s not too late! They were peaking last weekend but are definitely still around this one. And if Garfunkel’s voice doesn’t make your skin tingle, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

Happy April!

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• ‘No Sun link’ to climate change
  “Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun’s activity.” This article busts my old meteorology teacher’s argument.
  (tags: science environment)
• GMU to Construct $30 Million Hotel and Conference Center
  The neighbors are mad, but I think it’s pretty cool.
  (tags: local)

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The Book is: “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I bought it at Heathrow airport to read on the plane.

The Poem is: You Want a Social Life, with Friends

You want a social life, with friends.
A passionate love life and as well
To work hard every day. What’s true
Is of these three you may have two
And two can pay you dividends
But never may have three.

Homer nightly went to banquets
Wrote all day but had no lockets
Bright with pictures of his Girl.
I know one who loves and parties
And has done so since his thirties
But writes hardly anything at all.

— Kenneth Koch

Do you think that’s true? It certainly would explain a lot about my life, if so. But I can think of counterexamples. People who do seem to have all three. Like Josh, for instance.

Also, Kenneth, what happens when you try to fit kids in there? Does the whole thing just fall apart?

Yes, yes, it does. For certain types of people, at least. The exhaustible types. The “me” types.

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Thoughts on “Into the Wild.” My comments will probably contain spoilers, so don’t read before seeing the movie.

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Well… Paris. Certainly is a beautiful city. It’s more beautiful than London, Dublin, New York, DC, and probably San Francisco too (my memories of how it actually looks, beyond the Golden Gate, are fuzzy). The fantastically ornate buildings in London impressed me a great deal. Paris has one of these around every corner. They all use far more squiggles and dangly decorative bits than are needed. Even the apartment buildings are covered with window boxes featuring wrought iron swirly designs. There is simply not an inch of space left bare or plain. The impression it gives is one of excessive opulence.

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• Squirrels Network Like Facebook Friends
  No, for serious!
  (tags: cute science)
• City dwellers seek solace at cat cafes (Tokyo)
  Aww :).
  (tags: cute)

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My shamrock plant, basking happily in the late morning sun.

Happy first day of Spring, everyone!
(I would have a better picture, and might later, but at the moment am having battery issues).

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I almost forgot to wear green today, because I’d already celebrated St. Patrick’s Day! Josh and I had a party at our place on the 14th. Which, by the way, is when the Catholic church has asked people to celebrate it, so it won’t be a distraction from Holy Week. (Our reason for doing it was more, “who wants to go to a party on a Monday night?” But, you know, it’s nice to have some official sanction).

Yup. Easter is super early this year. I am going to be in France during. Josh’s birthday, and the cherry blossom peak, are the day we get back. Funny, I remember lamenting something getting in the way of these joys last year, too. But this year it’s a far better thing :).

Anyway, back to our party. We had Irish music, Irish cocktails, Irish trivia, an oxalis (shamrock) plant, Irish fortune cookies, soda bread, stew, corned beef & cabbage, and lots of friends. It’s been a long time since we hosted a party and I forgot how fun it was. After getting engaged in Ireland, this holiday feels like our banner to bear and I think we did a great job of it.

The day after, Josh showed me this:

I can’t think of a better way to wish you a happy St. Patrick’s Day on the real one.