Kristin’s Playground

I admit - I tried to hurry up and finish my 101 things list on Thursday; we had plans to go camping on Friday, and I wanted to get off on a good start.

Early Friday afternoon we headed out to go to the Indiana Dunes Campground. The campsite is very near Michigan City, IN, and it was a little bizarre to me to be camping so near civilization. Within a couple of miles, you could see a giant cooling tower for a power plant, and just a couple more miles you can go to Meijer, just in case you forgot anything. On Flickr, jcburns shares this photo of the cooling tower. It’s looks like it’s right out of the Simpsons.

When we arrived at the campground mid-afternoon, Logan’s friends were still at the beach, so we took our time settling in. Eventually, everyone made it back to the campsite, Anya met the other three dogs staying there (not terribly well, unfortunately, though they learned to mostly ignore each other later), and we started to think about dinner. The boys took to starting the coals and grilling some burgers - both beef and black bean. Quite tasty. As the sun started going down, we all continued to sit around and talk by the fire, roasted some marshmallows and made little dessert sandwiches with a sandwich iron. I swear, sandwich irons are brilliant. You can take two slices of bread, coat the outside with some butter and fill the inside with whatever you like - cheese, or pie filling, or nutella and marshmallows. Yum. I took a couple of pictures of the campfire. The auto white balance made some look bizarrely purple, but this one was a bit more realistic:

We went to bed late, and unfortunately, I woke up a couple of times during the night to the sound of rain. We stayed in our sleeping bags, hoping it would let up and we’d be able to have a good day, but it didn’t look likely. So, we tried to quickly pack up all our rain-soaked gear, got ridiculously soaked ourselves, and our camping trip was cut unfortunately short. I didn’t even have time to go see the beach. At least I can see it on Flickr, thanks to people like lapstrake:

We did manage to get one good night of camping, even if we didn’t get to do the hiking or photography I normally like to do on camping trips. Now, if only it will stop raining here long enough for us to set up, dry out and clean our tent!

And before I go, I can’t help but include destabee’s photo of this squirrel found there in the winter. Too amusing!

You may have noticed (you probably didn’t) that my site was down for most of yesterday. Our server got corrupted, and Logan has spent a great deal of time getting us back online, mail and all that included. Our main backup was a few days old, so I had to repost my TT from yesterday. I also need to redo my plugins and a few other things that didn’t end up in our backup, so I’ll probably be playing around with the site for awhile tonight in case you see anything as broken.

So, it’s been a very busy two weeks. Italy was wonderful, even if the internet connectivity was not as consistent as I might have hoped and the trip home took far longer than it should. Then we turned right back around to go to a second conference - a little closer to home this time. Returned from that on Friday, went to a wedding yesterday, and I’m finally getting a chance to breathe. It will take me awhile to catch up on the pictures and the blogging, but I’ll have some stories to tell and some pictures to show of the time that I’ve been gone. For now, I need to go to bed, but I’ll leave you with the oldest picture of the day - when we were leaving for Italy:

8 June 2008: Flying Corn
The Atlanta airport had a number of flying vegetable sculptures. I had to take a picture of the corn jet.

Last week was crazy. I spent far too much time at work trying to get everything ready for the conference. I learned a lot about Illustrator in the process, and thankfully the posters are done! Of course, every time I look at them now, I see something that should’ve changed or didn’t print correctly, or… but that’s all right. I just need to smile and nod and let it go.

Anyway, I meant to do this before I left, but here are the pictures of the day from last week. There’s clearly internet access for me available, so I’ll share my Italian adventures with you later, but for now, enjoy last week’s pictures!

Tuesday, 3 June:

I made my own egg rolls on Tuesday night. I had some friends who were in town (more on that another time perhaps), so I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the process, but they look like egg rolls! (And I thought there were pretty tasty too.) Go me!

Wednesday’s picture was already up. I got a new haircut! I needed a trim anyway, and I thought I’d get rid of most of my blonde highlights from last year. I tend to grow out my hair, cut it all off and donate it, rinse and repeat. Locks of Love doesn’t accept bleached hair, so I thought I should cut it off before growing out my hair in earnest again. Besides, short hair is nice for the summer.

Thursday, 5 June

It was getting late and I hadn’t yet taken my daily picture, so I started looking around the office for inspiration. I settled on this Einstein action figure my uncle got me a few years ago. He looks mildly frightening like this!

Friday, 6 June

Here you get a glimpse of my poster. The dotted lines printed with the dots spaced too far apart, so I had to fill them in with a fine-tipped marker.

Saturday, 7 June

The day before leaving! I was a bit burned out after working all week, and didn’t really want to do much, even pack. Still, some things needed to be done - like transpanting the tomato plant into a larger container. So we did. And we transplanted the sunflowers into the tomato plant’s old pot.

And now, I leave you. Until next time!

Time to catch up on some photos of the day! It’s been a very busy weekend - mostly spent at work trying to get everything ready for our upcoming trip. (We’re not ready.) So, as is the norm, I’ve been remiss in keeping you all up to date with my daily photos! So here you go:

This is Boomer; a friend brought in his dog to spend the afternoon in the office on Friday. It really made my day just that much better. I love dogs. And Boomer is quite well-behaved. We became quick friends.

This is Anya’s bone. After she’s done chewing on it for awhile, she always leaves it upright, and it amuses Logan and I to no end.

While taking a break from work yesterday, Logan and I went to go grab some dinner and saw this on the way. With so many flags of so many different colors, I thought it was like a garden in its own right, so I had to take a photo.

Today’s photo (look, a photo of the day before 9 in the morning!) is another contest. I’m trying to grow this on my deck. Do you know what it is? Take a guess, and win a postcard from Italy if you’re right! (Since this is probably more difficult than the last contest, I’ll come back and post hints periodically - feel free to guess more than once!)

First hint: It’s a dwarf variety. I probably wouldn’t be able to grow the full-size version in a pot like that.

Second hint: It is not a vegetable, but parts of the plant can be used as foodstuffs.

Third hint: One of the (U.S.) states has it as its official state flower. (Not the dwarf version specifically.)

Yay! It has been guessed! Gerhard wins, and the mystery plant is a sunflower!

My mystery picture the other day was cantaloupe. A tasty fruit with an albeit odd outer texture. Fun to play with though. My Dad was the first to correctly answer here, and Miss Efficiency answered correctly on its flickr page, so postcards to them! I’ll have a few more mini-contests like that before I leave, so you can still “win” a postcard. Though I’d probably send postcards to most of the people who would win anyway, so … anyway.

Yesterday’s picture is of an industrious spider. I had to bring our plants inside the other night because there was a frost advisory. I set them out in the morning, and in the afternoon, he’d built himself a pretty wide-reaching web connecting two of the plants! I don’t particularly like spiders, but at least he’s outside.

Today’s picture comes from a run-down part of town near the river. When I bike home, I see a beautiful river on one side, and old warehouses and things on the other side of the railroad tracks. Somehow I don’t think this thing is really celebrating the spirit of innovation anymore, but maybe that’s just me.

How did it get to be Sunday night already? Like I mentioned yesterday, it’s been a busy week for me at work- getting adjusted to a new schedule, realizing just how close the conference actually is, etc. We’re rushing to get everything ready for a conference in Italy, and while I’m looking forward to it, I’m also a bit nervous. Milan is the land of high fashion, and I don’t exactly fit that model well. Nor have I learned enough Italian to survive yet. And I need a new swimsuit - which should be great fun to shop for. I’ve never particularly liked shopping, but I hope I can find something I like.

Anyway, here’s my daily photo:

I saw the shadows from the chess set on the wall, and thought it looked cool - sort of like a little city-scape.

Well, the party went well yesterday. Good food and drink, good friends, some Mario Kart and some roasted marshmallows - what more could you want? I picked this for my photo of the day yesterday, showing some of the tasty snacks we had. The M&M’s are the special Indiana Jones Mint Crisp version. They’re like Thin Mints - in an M&M. Tasty, and all too easy to eat. I have to say though, that the fruit makes me happy too. I’ve been eating the leftovers today, and I’ll have some more tomorrow. The chocolate things in the background are “Mini Truffle Cakes,” (think souped-up brownies) and I might tell you more about those later.

Today’s photo is from my bike ride. I haven’t gotten to go on a good long bike ride since before tour, so I took advantage of the already clean house and headed out to unknown places. It was a good hour plus of solid biking, with plenty of hills, and some stops for photos along the way. On one of the downhill paths (on a not-quite paved road, I might add) I hit 27.9 miles per hour. Kind of terrifying, but fun. Biking home along the river, there were and lots of greening trees on the hillside. I couldn’t help but think that these wooded hills should be in some movie somewhere (well, maybe without the pink utility flag). They were really nice scenery. It felt good to get out, and then to come home and have tasty party leftovers for dinner. For now though, I need to make sure I get to bed early. I’m going to be going to work earlier in the morning now, at least until we get ready for our upcoming conference. We’ll see if I can make the transition to morning person.

Ah, the weekend is here! Since my birthday was this week, we’re having a little party tomorrow. I’m a little nervous about it; I’m not a natural hostess. A chocolate cake-like thing is currently in the oven, and the house is approaching clean. We have plenty of food (I hope), and the weather, while not supposed to be wonderfully bright and sunny, should be good enough to grill tomorrow. Still, I worry about social dynamics at parties I host. Will there be enough people that they’ll break up into smaller groups and entertain themselves? Or will we all end up sitting in a circle staring at each other wondering what we should be doing? Will people enjoy themselves? Generally things work out, but the tendency to worry does run in my family (eh, Liz?), and I’m not immune to that.

Anyway. Lots to do before then. So, for now, I leave you with my photo of the day.

I went outside to see why the dog was barking, and the clouds were absolutely gorgeous. Backlit by the moon, with a cool bluish-gray tint. Run to get the camera, and by the time I get back, the clouds have moved to let the moon shine through, which while still worthy of a photo, wasn’t nearly as cool as the moment I missed. Ah well.

Yes, I’ve been negligent. It always takes me longer than I’d like it to get back into my routine after being away. I feel like I need to spend more time at work to make up for the missed days, but there’s also a lot of things to catch up on at home. So, I’m still behind with processing all my photos from my trip, and I haven’t written anything up about them. Ah well. Blog entries may or may not come. I’m not going to promise lots of entries. I inevitably fail at those.

On the other hand, though, I am restarting my attempt at taking a photo each day. I won’t guarantee that they’ll be posted here in a reasonable fashion, but I’ll try. Logan got me a new point and shoot camera for my birthday (it was Tuesday), and it’s fabulous. I’ve been wanting one for a long time now. Don’t get me wrong, I love my SLR, but there are places I’d like to have to have a camera where I wouldn’t exactly want to bring a hefty, expensive thing. This camera is small, but still quite powerful - the macro mode focuses at 2 cm! - and it’s not so expensive I’d be afraid to bring it on a canoe trip or something. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it’s small enough for me to bring with me constantly. No extra bag if I want a camera with me. Yay!

Here’s today’s picture - my new bike computer. A present from my parents, and I’m quite happy with it. I’ve gone 18.5 miles since last week. It would be more, but I didn’t bike to work much this week. Been kind of rainy. Bah. Ah well. I’m an information geek. I like knowing things, so now I can tell you how far I’ve biked without having to go tediously click through a google map pedometer. And I can tell you how fast I was going, what my average and max speeds were, how long I’ve been biking, etc.

Anyway, I really need to get to bed. It’s past my bedtime, but I had a lot of things to do tonight, and I really wanted to get something up on the blog before then.