Sunday night I watched Richard's blog video about making an honest cup of tea. I learned that I make my tea properly, with a couple of small variations:

1. The "instant hot" water at work isn't quite boiling (though at home I boil it)
2. I use oversized mugs so my tea is a little more watery than it should be

This has led me to add a second tea bag to my big Actimates mug at work. :-)

Book: Step-Ball-Change

I read Step-Ball-Change as a book on tape from the library. It was light, enjoyable fluff. It won’t change your life but it is an easy, short read if you’re looking for something like that.

Random: Problems with Photoshop CS2 pasting from clipboard?

Do you ever have problems getting Photoshop CS2 to paste the right thing from the clipboard? I frequently have this problem when doing screenshots with Print Screen. I just found the solution to the problem in the Adobe Forums, so I thought I would share. Apparently Photoshop isn’t always aware when the clipboard has been updated. So you can force it to always import the clipboard when switching applications. To do so, exit Photoshop, then insert your Photoshop CS2 CD. Navigate to [drive letter]:\Goodies\Optional Plug-Ins\Photoshop Only\Optional Extensions. Then double click the file AlwaysImportClipbd_ON.reg. Reopen Photoshop and you should be good to go.

All caught up!

Yea. I'm caught up with my blog! I shall revel in this as it will only last a moment. Now on to the photo gallery... Just kidding. I think I'll sleep first. G'night!

Tonight Benjamin and I went to Claire & Erik's house for dinner. We brought salad and wine. They cooked yummy pasta with sausage, potatoes, and beet salad. They also provided an adorable baby (our furry baby stayed at home). As always, it was really nice to see them and Amelia is as sweet as can be. But I am still not ready to have babies of my own.

Today I did a little more work on the yard. I worked for less than two hours, I took down some big branches. I started to tackle the camellia bush in front of the house. I managed to unearth our mailbox and make a little walking room around the side of the house. I also cut a few small branches off our giagantamo cedar tree, again to make walking room around the side of the house. Maple helped out. She;s getting into the hanging out outside thing. She wasn't shivering like yesterday.

Saturday afternoon, while Benjamin was at work, I worked in the yard and Maple hung out with me. Mainly I worked on our front hedge, removing a spiky bush that was growing up inside the hedge. I didn't actually dig it out, since it's deep in the hedge, but I did cut it down to the ground. Hopefully that will deter it for a while.

Saturday morning Maple got her stitches taken out. The vet tech said they looked great. She's a champ! Here she is with her daddy. :-)

Working late and SFU night

Thursday night Benjamin didn't et home from work until 11:30 PM. He was working a web deployment that day that didn't go smoothly. Despite going back at 9 AM the next morning, Benjamin also worked very late on Friday. So late that he didn't get home until Six Feet Under night was completely over (midnight?). Six Feet Under night did happen, and was good, though we missed him. Sylvia made lasagna with Italian sausage and Steph brought over a mixed berry pie she made and froze this past summer. Maple spread the love. Everyone enjoyed wine. Rob played City of Villains in Benjamin's office alone. We watched two episodes of SFU. Sadly, Benjamin had to work Saturday as well, though thankfully not for as many hours as the previous two days. The poor kid. We're hoping he can get some comp time this week and take an extra-long Thanksgiving weekend.

I've been eating at the cafeteria all the time lately. It's sad. I dunno, I guess it's not all that terrible. Maybe the sad part is that I can't figure out what I'd want to eat if I left campus (that's what they call the collection of Microsoft property and buildings). I have this problem at home, too. I eat basic, meat-free burritos almost every night of the week. Mainly I don't care enough to do anything else. But also, I miss them when I don't eat them. Sad.

For years now Benjamin has been waging a campaign to get me to drink coffee. He has failed. Until now? In the last two weeks or so, I have started drinking mochas. Several of them. I'm still not a huge fan, but for some reason I keep buying them. My drink order has settled into a tall (small) soy mocha with one shot and extra chocolate. I have been ordering it without whip to save calories, but I actually like it sweeter.

This week I kept an eye on Maple's stitches as they healed. But never having dealt with stitches before, I wasn't sure if they were in good shape or bad. (It turns out, they were good.)

I got this little squeezey cow at the focus group on Wednesday night. I think he's super cute and funny.

For 5-7 days after her surgery, Maple wasn't allowed to be left alone unless she was wearing her "cone head collar". Apparently dogs tend to chew their stitches. Maple never tried to, but I thought I should err on the side of caution. Unfortunately, Maple couldn't fit through the dog door with the collar on. And I was not going to let her go to the bathroom in the house again. We're doing so well with the potty training! Anywho, I took Maple to work with me on Monday and Tuesday this week. She was extremely popular with my coworkers. The only real problem was that she barked at people when they came in my office and whined when I left her alone (even to go pee). Luckily, I worked around this by enlisting my coworkers to puppy sit. And she doesn't whine when other people leave her alone, just me. And she doesn't do that most of the time at home. Sigh. We still have some training to do and things to work on.

Last Sunday (the 13th), Benjamin and I took Maple for a walk to the library. We took turns going inside. The way there was nice, but we got into a tiff on the way home over proper walking techniques of the puppy. Dumb I know. It's one of those married things. She's our little test baby.

The weekend after her surgery, Maple got several of her favorite treats - Flossies.

On Thursday the 10th, Maple was spayed. The next morning I picked her up from the vet and stayed home with her all day. She was really good from the moment she got home. The hardest part was trying to keep her from running and jumping (doctor's orders). Such a good girl.

On Wednesday (the 9th), we had our semi-annual fire drill at work. Good times.

Sunday (6th) Steph made us a delicious breakfast of chocolate banana french toast and bacon. Benjamin also went out and got us all coffee from Starbucks. After we packed up the room we spent an hour at Powell's Books before heading back to Seattle. On the way back, we picked up Maple and then it was a race against time to get the van back on time. We all piled out in the rain on the side of the road at Mark's house. Then Mark gave Benjamin, Maple and I a ride home. It seems to me that once we got home the three of us proceeded to pass out and sleep until late that night.

After the wineries closed, we headed to our hotel with a stop at QFC. We snacked on cheese and bread and drank some of our new Pinot Noir while Nancy cooked us a delicious dinner. After dinner the group (minus me) played a rousing game (whose name is presently escaping me). We were all sharing a two-bedroom suite and Benjamin and I lost the drawing, so we slept on a blow-up mattress.

After a late start, stop in Tacoma, and terrible traffic due to an accident just north of Portland, we got to the first winery around 2 PM. The wineries we visited were Ponzi, Erath, and Argyle. Erath was the best, and is also where we got a full tour. Benjamin and I bought 3 bottles of Erath wine. Other people bought many cases. This is me at Argyle sipping wine and taking photos. Rob took this picture.

Resuming my chronology, we're back on Saturday the 5th. Benjamin and I are headed on a wine tasting trip with Rob, Steph, and friends. Maple rode with us as far as Tacoma and then we left her at my mom's house. She and Carol were happy to see each other.

Get paid to be opinionated

I attended a focus group last night for work. They're always very interesting. Consider adding yourself to their database so you get called to do future focus groups. They have offices in several cities. Join the Fieldwork database. There are lots of other ones to join I am sure. You can also put yourself in databases for usability and beta testing. Sign up for Adobe and Microsoft usability.

Okay, it's late and tomorrow is Monday so I'm quitting for the night. I didn't catch up, but I made good progress I think. Especially if you count the fact that I was updating the photo gallery at the same time. More soon. Good night!

Saturday morning (Nov 5th) while Benjamin and I were getting ready for the afore-mentioned wine tasting trip, Maple discovered the joy of our bed. She snuggled and snuggled until it was time to go.

I cancelled last week's Six Feet Under night due to a low acceptance rate and zero offers of food and beverage contributions. Instead, Piper came over and we worked on her wedding thank you cards. Here were the top contenders. We ended up selecting the top right and bottom left cards. One set for the young and one for the old. ;-P

Traffic last week sucked. And sucked. And sucked. On Wednesday night the power was out in a big part of Bellevue so when we tried to go around the freeway deadlock we got stuck in a huge mess on the surface streets. All the signals were out so every intersection was a four way stop with a quarter mile backup. Fun. We actually got home in about an hour, but it was a very trying hour and that was with a HOV carpool (once we finally got on 520 at 108th).

On Tuesday, November 1st, we celebrated my brother's birthday. His birthday is actually at the end of October, but he was in Texas working at one of the hurricane evacuee camps. To celebrate we had dinner and cake at Mimi's house. She and my dad made salmon, white fish, salad, and some yummy rice. It was nice to see everyone. We gave TJ a wood splitting maul and a wedge as a birthday gift. I know, sentimental. ;-)

On Halloween my design team did some "guerilla ethnography". I was part of a group that went to Seattle Central and the UW to observe college students. It was fun to be out and doing something different. We only watched and didn't talk to many people, so we didn't learn a ton of unexpected things.

Miss Maple got a new collar 'cuz she's getting so big. I think it's cute. But, a couple of weeks into it I am noticing that it's making a little bald spot on her chest, so I think I need to get her a narrower one. On a separate note, my friend Rob introduced me to an app called Neat Image that does amazing noise filtering. I used it on this image.

I like sunsets, okay.

Who's the most spoiled dog? Who is it? Yep, it's Maple. The vet said Maple is a little "chubby" (!) and the girl at Mud Bay pointed out that canned food has a substantially lower portion of fat and carbs than kibble. She gave me free samples. I am such a sucker. Maple loves the stuff. This brand, Merrick, is the sure winner (of the two we tried).This stuff is amazing. It looks like canned stew. There are large chunks of meat and recognizable vegetables. When looking in the can you think to yourself, "If I was stranded in a pandemic or hurricane, I'd eat this stuff." Ew, I know. But it's true.

This was a very cool sight as we crossed the 520 bridge on Tuesday the 25th at 8:14 AM. Daylight savings time began the following weekend.

On Monday the 24th my design team got together to talk about lifestyles. We were asked to bring an object and a photo to talk about our lifestyle. My object was my little Casio camera and this was my photo. This is very similar to how I look right now (though I ate my burrito earlier). Sad?

Also on Saturday the 22nd, a cute family friend became Homecoming Princess. More photos.

Bad things part II

This picture isn't very illustrative since I was too busy at the time to snap photos. So, to recap: Pike Place Market, Venge Pee^TM, washing machine, Piper's Halloween party... After the Halloween party, at 2 AM, I went downstairs to switch the laundry. I walked into the basement, and into a pool of water. Something, presumably the washing machine, had overflowed all over our brand new engineered wood flooring. I yelled to Benjamin to bring all the towels and the two of us sopped it up the best we could. Needless to say I was distressed. Monday after work we brought the garden hose in through the window and started trying to isolate the problem. We put water down the outflow pipe and nothing happened. We put water down the floor drain and nothing happened. So I decided to run a small (empty) wash load. I did and nothing happened. So I ran a larger load. On the second rinse cycle, the water in the downstairs toilet started to burble and water came rushing out of the floor drain. We'd isolated the problem and it was in the sewer line. The reason only the washer caused the overflow was because it wasn't a complete blockage and the washing machine was the only thing that send enough water through fast enough to back it up all the way into the house. We thought we were so clever putting in that floor drain to catch emergency overflow from the washer. It never occurred to me that water would come out of it. A couple nights later I had Rescue Rooter come out and snake the line, taking a video as well. Our sewer line is the original concrete jobby from 1919 and it isn't pretty. Let's just say there is a very happy cedar tree right outside our house. We'll starting saving up our ~$10,000 to fix it now...

Bad things part I

Okay, I guess I mentioned this briefly before. After my trip down to Pike Place Market with Maple on Saturday the 22nd, I picked up takeout and made 2-3 more stops. Maple was in her carrier and whined some, but mostly slept. When we got home I fed Maple, but didn't prompt her to go outside. However, her doggy door is right next to where she eats and she's generally very good about using it these days. I went into the living room and sat on the couch with Benjamin to eat our takeout. A couple minutes later, Maple came trotting out of the kitchen, jumped up on the couch, and peed right behind me (and thus, on me). I was speechless. She hasn't peed on the couch since she got big enough to jump down on her own (well, close). We now refer to this incident as her "venge peeing". All I can figure is that she was pissed off about being in her carrier for too long. Keep in mind our recent trials and tribulations of having the couch steam cleaned three times. So I said "Screw this, I'm putting [the cushion covers] in the washing machine." (Note from the future: they came out cleaner than the steam cleaning, and although they shrunk a tiny bit, they still fit and actually look nicer!)

Traveling back in the time machine to the weekend of October 23rd... When I blogged that night I left out the negative parts of the weekend. I wasn't trying to spare you, I just didn't want to think about them anymore.

I have this silly thing about chronology. My original, and still primary, reason for blogging is for myself. I think of it as my electronic, visual memory. Since my real memory stinks. So when I get behind in blogging, it becomes a daunting task to catch up. Know the feeling? Maybe you don't feel that way about blogging, but perhaps about posting photos, or paying bills, or reading books. Anyway, it's catch up time. Here goes.

Nikon Rob / Kicking Back

I took this photo of Rob with his camera on our recent wine tasting trip to Willamette Valley in Oregon.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. Flickr is such the trend. I just created an account so I could comment on all my friends photos. There is also a 'blog this' feature, though it isn't working for me on one photo. I also added links to friends' photos in the right column of this page so you can go explore them, should you be in the mood to surf.

Supreme Court Justice nominee Alito

I recently got an email from the ACLU about Supreme Court Justice nominee Alito. It had one of the clearest summaries I've heard about the things he's done to cause concern for Democrats. Here's a snippet:

[L]ater this month... the Supreme Court could revoke the long-established principle that abortion restrictions must include exceptions to protect a woman's health...

[I]n Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Judge Alito voted to uphold a state law provision that required women to notify their husbands before having an abortion. Justice O'Connor joined with a majority of the court in rejecting his position. In addition, Judge Alito has been more willing to support state-sponsored religious displays than Justice O'Connor. And he has written several dissenting opinions on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that, if accepted, would have not only made it more difficult for victims of discrimination to prevail in bringing a suit, but would have made it more difficult for them to even get their case to a jury.

Other troubling positions in Judge Alito's record includes:

• Upholding the strip search of a mother and her ten-year old daughter, even though the warrant allowing the search did not name either of them.
• Holding that Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to restrict the transfer and possession of machine guns at gun shows.
• Holding that Congress did not have authority to require state employers to comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Shortly after getting the email I heard a story on NPR about how Alito isn't as conservative as he's portrayed to be. This theory wasn't based on a comparison to Justice O'Connor, but on the percentage of Americans who agree with his views. The example I remember was one of those cited by ACLU above: requiring women to notify their husbands before having an abortion. Apparently ~74% of Americans agree with this. I wonder if these Americans believe it is morally right for women to tell their husbands or if they really think it should be the law.

Regardless of popular opinion, I think this is a terrible law. It's clear to me that the Republicans are taking the tact of undermining access to abortion in every possible way, rather than going straight for overturning Roe (since they currently can't). Whether it is making women notify their husbands, prohibiting the transportation of minors across state lines for abortions, forcing waiting periods, or giving person status to unborn fetuses, they are leaving no angle untried.

Style sheet, oh style sheet

Can someone please tell me why the layout of my blog (and the Blogger Dashboard for that matter) periodically breaks and then repairs itself after a couple of weeks? Are you seeing this as well or is this a problem on my end only? Someone comment and tell me yea or nay. Perhaps once I finish reading all these damn xhtml, css, and web accessibility books I will know the true answer. ;-)