May 2, 2006
Done!
As of today, I am finished! the only thing I have left is to attend the Capstone, which isn't graded, and then take the paintings home. (that night. ugh)
Here's how the paintings look in the capstone exhibition:
(Go here to see the other 3)
I am pretty satisfied with how they turned out. I was afraid I'd only get a few in, but I got all 6 in because we figured out how to stand them in the middle of the room- since there were very few 3D works, there was plenty of floor space but very little wall space. If I had known, I would have covered up the backs (they're pretty messy) but ah well, can't have everything.
So this week is devoted to cleaning. I only work 4.5 hours (ouch) but I am going to make up for ALL the cleaning I have not done in the last few months. I'm going to get rid of a ton of stuff, too- like clothes I never wear etc. It'll be... fun. Well, not fun, but I'm always so satisfied when I'm done. Other than that, I plan to dye my hair (burgundy) get it cut(not sure how short yet) and just try to catch up on all the stuff I've been meaning to do for months so next week I can relax.
Oh! And I have an interview next Wednesday, with UNL's love library. The pay isn't fantastic, but it sounds like a fun job with a lot of variety. The other job I'm up for is the framing position at the art store where I work, and I'm not all sure I'm going to get that one, and I don't know when I'll know. If I have to choose... I just don't know. The benefits of working at the university alone are a lot- great insurance, benefits, hours, etc. But I like framing, and if I want to continue doing in the future, there will probably never be another opportunity like this one. So I just don't know.
I had possibly my last tour at the Sheldon today as well, and it went great. The group was talkative, they had a lot of opinions about art, it was about the best group one could hope to give a tour to.
All in all, it's been a good week, though I've been incredibly short and snippy, and I am forever thankful to Geoff for putting up with me.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 2, 2006 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
May 3, 2006
Garden
we're trying to get our yard in shape this year- which means reseeding, which is not going terribly well and planting stuff. (My herb garden is coming along, though nothing is big enough to eat yet. :P)
One little thing we did was bought some Phlox (which will go in the front yard once we remove the forsythia) and got little buckets from the $1 store to plant them in. We also had hanging lights and these garden stakes. I think it turned out very nice, and will be beautiful for the party.
Speaking of, I'm still cleaning away! It's getting old. We need to start keeping up with cleaning much better.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 3, 2006 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
May 4, 2006
The Massacre
Last night I witnessed not one but 5 baby bunny deaths in my front yard. Three were the victims of the next door neighbor's cat, Ranger, who mostly just batted them around and chewed on them. I chased him away a couple of times, but he kept coming back.
Baby bunnies make the loudest, most pathetic shriek when they're scared - like "eeee eeee eee eee eee" so of course all the other cats int he neighborhood came running when they heard the massacre. The neighborhood bully (I'm starting to think this is the one that bit Random, the stray we brought in) got two more baby bunnies. A third cat came by later and got in a fight with Bully, and went away empty handed.
Later still, momma bunny was sniffing around the bunny nest. :( sad.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 4, 2006 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 8, 2006
Bored
I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not in school. I'm resteless, I feel like I should be doing something productive.
So far I've spent too much of my grad $$$- bought myself a Muvo MP3 player, it's a gigabyte and will also function as a flash drive, and I don't need any software to transfer music files, so that's nice. I want it mostly to listen to the podcasts I've been downloading- I'm planning on walking to work (assuming I get a job close enough) so it'd be nice to have an easy way to listen. It also records voice and gets FM radio. My old MP3 player is a bit bulky (one of the old creative zen's) but I use that all the time to listen to music in the house. I have not touched my CD's in months. The only bad thing is my mp3 player is scheduled to be shipped on May 21st. Damn. I want it now!!
Anyway, so besides the MP3 player, I got a couple of skirts @ target on clearance (must remember to check clearance racks @ target more often!) and a new $20 sound card. The sound coming out of my computer is SO much better now. I always used to have a fuzzy sound on my speakers when I tried to turn them up, but now it's clear and beautiful and loud. and I can do surround sound in the future if I ever want to.
I also got a membership to the local zoo (finally). So, now I just need to buy $350 tires (ouch) for my car.
They're changing up the local zoo, and I don't like it too much. :P It is a children's zoo, but it's becoming more and more kid-centric. They cleared out a couple of areas that were wooded and put in play equipment- so besides being ugly, it makes for a much less pleasant walk around the zoo.
My tummy has hurt the last couple of days. Yesterday, I figured it was hangover related, even though I watched what drank and (for once) felt fine in the morning. Now I'm thinking there's just something wrong with my tummy. It's just sore, crampy... it's like hunger pains, but it has nothing to do with hunger, and it keeps fading in and out, and when it's bad, it's near debilitating. Yuck.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 8, 2006 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
May 10, 2006
Eating like a kid
I have GOT to stop my horrible habit of eating like a 10 year old. What have I eaten today? Let me see. A sugar laden cereal for breakfast, a Chinese buffet for lunch where I consumed way too much fried foods and ice cream. I have not really eaten dinner, but I had a snack of garlic mashed potatoes, garlic bread (I roasted some garlic, had to do something with it) more ice cream and kit kats.
I suppose it does not help that we are surrounded by left over party food- cheesecake, little smokies, potato chips, etc, etc. I don't even LIKE potato chips, but I find myself munching on them all day. Also coke- we have 4 2 liter bottles in the fridge with soda in them.
It's bad, it's horrible, and I'm probably going to keel over of a heart attack at 27.
Eating better is one of the many things I put off until after college-well, the time is now. Time to start doing all those things I said I was gonna.
But why does ice cream have to be so damn good???
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 10, 2006 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
3.76
I got a 3.76 GPA in college. Yay me! I aced all my classes last semester (yeah, all three of them)
I'm pretty happy. I'm such a nerd.
I can't wait to go back to school.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 10, 2006 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 11, 2006
I got it!
I got the job at the university library!
I'm excited, and scared, and I hope I made the right decision- I like framing, too, but this will give me more stable hours and much better benefits, PLUS, I can take up to 15 credit hours at the university free every year! Or Geoff, if he wanted to take a class.
woooo.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 11, 2006 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 13, 2006
New Gallery
I finally finished a new version of my gallery. I'm having problems with the sub pages in Internet explorer- the titles look different, even though the HTML is identical and ut's reading from the same stylesheet. It's giving me a major headach. But it looks fine in Firefox.
So that's it for now. Hopefully I have streamlined the process so I can add stuff easier, now, too. The holdup now is actually photographing the work. I have a lot of archival photography I have been putting off, and I really need to get to it.
Let me know what you thing, and please let me know if anything looks wacky in your browser.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 13, 2006 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 14, 2006
wicket is a jerk
Wicket is the fluffy orange one. He LOVES laying on everyone- Geoff and me, but other cats, too. Corwin (the black one) sometimes puts up with it, but this time he moved a minute later.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 14, 2006 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 16, 2006
Mr. Kitty
We finally named him Random. His medicine is done this Friday, and we'll be letting him go. :( He is still very feral... won't even come out of his box when we're around. (I had to take this from very far away) His leg seems better.
I hope he does ok when we let him go and mr bully cat doesn't bite him again.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 16, 2006 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 17, 2006
This is wrong! (Treat all women as Pre Pregnant)
Guidelines: Treat Nearly All Women as Pre-Pregnant
While I agree with the general guidelines- eat healthy, don't smoke, etc, this whole thing is just wrong. How long before women just won't be allowed to smoke, drink, or change cat litter?
:P
(update, this may not be from the 'official' sources I thought.)
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 17, 2006 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
May 19, 2006
Friday review
It's Friday, and that means my fist work week is officially at an end.
While I don't think I'll enjoy everything about my job (who enjoys taking meeting minutes?) I think this job is very well suited to me. It brings together an odd set of skills I have - Secretary and grant writing (from Arts Inc) Web stuff (lots o jobs) design, photography, etc. It's also at the University, and I'm very happy to be on campus- as much as I'd been complaining that I would miss school, this is nice because I still feel a little like I'm there.
Then there's the benefits- Free classes (15 credit hours a year) lots and lots of days off- there's 12 "official" holidays- the library isn't closed for all of them, but instead we get two weeks off at Christmas. I also get 12 vacation and 12 sick days (I think) a year. I almost never use that many sick days, but it's good to know they are there. Then there's the athletic center, which I can buy a membership to, and pretty good health and dental.
yup, I could definitely do worse. And though I'm not thrilled with the hours- it would have been nice to have Mondays off with Geoff- at least I know what they are, it's the same every week and NO MORE EVENINGS!
I'm really excited about many of the projects there. If anything, this one week has made me more sure I want to spend my life in academia.
Web site: http://ecdrh.unl.edu/
In other news, I'll be volunteering for Jazz in June the 6th and 27th- so if you're down there, see me at the 'Super Sleuth' table and say hi!
Also- we let Random go tonight.
Geoff videotaped it for posterity. What a weirdo.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 19, 2006 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tartan
I changed dalziel.org to show off the family tartan. I also hope to do some improvements here later- I would like to scan some family images.
I also added a pointer to karin.dalziel.org - nothing is there yet, but I envision this will be my "professional" site someday. Or something- I am not sure yet.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 19, 2006 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 25, 2006
Feeds
I added a feeds page to my about me section:
http://www.nirak.net/about/feeds.html
Mostly so that I have something to read during my lunch breaks.
I also have my netflix queue up there, though, so it might be worth a look.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 25, 2006 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
May 26, 2006
Ashamed
Today, I am spending my time at work catching up on web standards and XML and TEI and all sorts of other acronyms. As a result I am suitably ashamed of the code for this site. I've been meaning to do a complete update for a while, but time issues have stopped me. I realize, though, if I do a complete redesign of the HTML and content structure, not only will updates be easier, but it will be much easier to switch to another server. Network Solutions has been woefully inadequate for me. They will not install certain Perl Modules (like Image Magic) that would make my life oh so much easier- their excuse is, since I have shared hosting, I can't customise the system. But ALL of my four other hosts have been willing to install Perl modules for me, so I chalk it up to poor customer service. They also constantly tell me that the problem is on my end, when nothing has changed on my end and I have the problem on different computers and different networks. They are also more expensive, which I would be willing to deal with if I got better service. /tangent
Plus, I would love to be able to install a newer version of Movable Type (mostly so I can have enhanced spam control for my comments), but the last time I tried it would not run on this server. I also have had no luck installing Wordpress. Major headache.
So I will start, little by little, stripping all the code and making the site, as much as I can, table free and all run off one style sheet. It's just no fun, because the effect is not so visible as a redesign.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 26, 2006 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 27, 2006
Prototype
I have a part of the new test site up:
www.nirak.net/test/about/index.html
The page is scalable, which means if you increase or decrease your font sizes the page will change. I really like this idea, and I think it will work for most things, but I'm unsure abotu the gallery. In the worst case, it will just look a little weird if users set their fonts too small. I would like the make the images scalable within the journal as well, but the problem is the vertical images would come out HUGE while the horizontal ones would be smaller. I'm trying to find a workaround for this.
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 27, 2006 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 30, 2006
100
This is the 100th entry in this online journal. I wish I still had the old ones but alas, they are lost forever. *sniff*
So the new site is up - still a few kinks to work out, like spell checking and finding some higher resolution graphics for the about me page, but in all I like this. I will eventually have the new stuff page linked to the journal page, and I may change the name of the journal page, I dunno.
I've been thinking about this a lot. This isn't really a "Journal" in that I don't write down anything personal, but I don't really see it as a blog, either. I think calling it a journal is a bit off putting to some, like maybe my mom, who may not want to read what I would put in a journal. But I don't put anything on here I wouldn't want my mom or grandma to read. I want this to be a place where people can see what I am up to, and I wish all my family members had a blog of their own so I could see what they are up to. I may eventually add a "private" section that will be a bare all journal, but if that happens I'll let my regular readers (I know there are at least 4!) know what the address is.
So... any ideas?
My brainstorming has produced these ideas "The Latest" "Letters" "Etcetera" and "On my mind"
Posted by Karin Dalziel on May 30, 2006 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)