KymPossible's Mission Journal

pumpkin weekend 2

didn't I tell you that our jack-o-lanterns were going to be badass?

 

check them out here. 

 

everything is better with batman

even Dostoyevsky.

 

check it out.

two great things that go great together

Q. what do you get when you combine Fun Shirt Friday with Toon Tuesday?

 

A. xkcd shirts.

 

I'm running out of fun shirts for fridays, so its time for me to go shopping anyway.  Feel free to send me links to fun shirt online stores, or better yet, just send me fun shirts.  I'm a ladies size M.

Fun Shirt Friday

here it is, the shirt from the couch, where I am going to spend my day snuggled under a red slanket, eating jello, and surfing the web.  maybe I'll watch a movie today.

 

DSC_2060

 

I got this awesome shirt at Defcon from the Jinx booth, and it is finally making its long promised fsf debut.  it would be nice if Jinx had this in a girl shirt instead of unisex, but s'ok.  its still a very cool shirt.

  

where I've been (aka my excuse for not blogging)

On Monday I had outpatient abdominal laproscopic surgery. Two tiny incisions in my tummy, one through my belly button, one lower on my abdomen. Tiny incisions. One or two stitches each. I was told to take a few days off work but that I could return on Friday. Easy peasy.  I've spent my time home on the couch, resting and surfing the web, chatting on IM, reading, knitting, watching tv...

So today I tried going the day without percosets. I was feeling pretty good when I woke up, and in the afternoon I was going to drive to my post-op dr appt to get the stitches out (which really shouldn't be done while on narcotic pain relievers). Besides, I'm supposed to be on the verge of returning to work tomorrow, right? Right? After all, these are just two tiny little incisions - nothing as major as a c-section.  I'll just make sure to keep off my feet as much as possible and take it easy...

Yeah.  So I'm in a ridiculous amount of pain right now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this hurts - the reason it feels like I've been stabbed in the belly button is pretty much that I've been stabbed in the belly button by a fancy expensive scalpel. Anyway, I'm back on percosets. No way I'll make it to work tomorrow.  Friday I plan on keeping my ass on the damn couch and resting all day except for going to the bathroom.  I might even do that again on Saturday.  If I manage to get a picture up for Fun Shirt Friday, it will probably be paired with my jammie pants.  I might not even bother to sit up. 

By the way, thanks to my peeps at work for the flowers. they are beautiful.

 

Quornflour, sorry but I'm going to miss Sushi Friday AGAIN.  I swear I will be there next Friday, and your sushi is on me.

Girls night in

Last night after work I went over to visit with my friend Ellen, who is on leave while she grows up some babies in her belly.  Normally she is in the office right next door to mine and we see each other for coffee on a regular basis, so having her home on bedrest (or sometimes in the hospital) for the last couple months sucks.  Obviously the main reason it sucks is because I'm worried about her and the well-being of the babies, but more selfishly, damn do I miss her!  So we hung out on her comfy sofa and just caught up on life.  It was awesome. 

 

Elle+kympossible L

 

Thanks Matty for taking the picture.

 

the devil hat is home

The devil hat has reached its new owner, and I must say, it looks a zillion times better on her than it did on me.  The yarn may have been acquired and knit into its evil form on the west coast, but I think it knew deep in its fibers that this was never to be its final destination.  It is home now.

 

as I have suspected for the last 7 years, Hell is in the greater DC area.  you didn't really think Satan would live in California or New York, did you?  :)

hat trick

this week I completed three hats.  this is a knitting record for me.  Sure, I knit a sweater in a week once, but that was when I had a lot more free time on my hands and was super motivated to knit something for myself to wear.  This week I picked up two half finished projects and completed them, AND knit up an entire hat in 4 days.  So for the record, I finished

1. the devil hat (which was probably 80% done already),

2. I started a prototype hat on Wednesday at the dentist (yes, I knit while in the dentist chair, and as I mentioned before, I had plenty of time there to work on knitting) and finished that Friday night, and

3. I finished my daughters pink poodle hat that was about 50% done. 

 

Poodly yarn

She was so funny about this hat - this summer she and I were out and I was looking for a specific yarn for another project.  The store didn't have what I needed, but when I turned around she was holding a skein of this yarn and petting it like it was a bunny or something.  She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and said "mommy, will you knit me a hat?"  Of course we bought the yarn.  Every time after that when I'd be knitting in the car, she would say "mommy, are you knitting my hat?" so it was about time I finished it.

 

PoodleHat

yeah, every weekend is princess dress up weekend for her - she was Sleeping Beauty this time.  :)

 

pumpkin weekend 1

This weekend the family went out and bought pumpkins for carving.  Only one masterpiece has been completed so far, we are waiting until next weekend to do the rest because we want them to last through Halloween without turning into revolting moldy mush on the lawn.  Trust me when I say they are going to be so badass, you will want to come all the way out to my house to bow down to their awesomeness.

 

Pumpkins 048

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, it is hard for me to pick between it and Christmas for absolute favorite.  And while I love taking power tools to the orange orbs, somebody's got to watch the kids, so my contribution this weekend to squash nirvana was making the pumpkin seeds.  This batch was basic, butter+salt+pepper.  Next weekend we'll have enough seeds that I'll branch out and make some garlic, some with worstershire sauce, some with cayenne pepper...  here are the before and after photos.  Yum...

 

 

Pumpkins 060

 

 

Fun Shirt Friday

I've attended five out of six BlueHat security conferences.  About damn time I put a BlueHat shirt on Fun Shirt Friday.  This shirt is from the most recent event, BlueHat 6.  BlueHat 1 didn't have a shirt, but at some point I'm sure the BlueHat 2 and BlueHat 3 shirts will show up on FSF because I think they are pretty cool too.

 

DSC_1996

and I've got to throw in a second picture just because it makes me chuckle.

 

DSC_1977

little girl, BIG CHAIR

 

devil hat finally done

This has lingered as a work in progress for well over a year.  I finished the hat portion in early summer 2006 but when I tried it on I realized that I look really terrible in red.  So it got stuck in a basket, hornless, while I moved on to other projects that would actually get worn.  I figured I'd eventually finish it and sell it in my etsy shop, Knytz. 

Then one day a few weeks ago, my daughter was wearing her devil hat (though she calls it a scary cat hat) and I took a picture with my camera phone and sent it to some friends.  It occurred to me later that one of them might like the grown up version - and it turns out they do.  So I finally knit up the horns and stitched them on so this devil hat can be sent on its way east tomorrow...  It is so nice to finish it at last (no more unfinished project guilt!), and I would much rather give it to a friend than sell it to a stranger.

 

DSC_1950a

 

I think I'll make myself another one (not in red) and modify the horns into cat ears.  purrrrrr. 

Thanks to Laura, for taking the pics in her office.  Doesn't she have nice curtains?

its the hardware, dummy

In case you thought part of yesterday's Wednesday Whine was a slam on the quality of the software patches that were installed on my box on Tuesday, let me be clear that it wasn't.  It has always been obvious to me that my computer was suffereing from a hardware issue, even if I didn't articulate that explicitly in the blog. 

Anyway, I managed to get my computer running again today.  Suspecting that the power supply might be the culprit, I unplugged all the non-essentials (like my iPod) that were leeching power and it booted up like a charm.  yay!  ok, back to work now.

 

Wednesday Whine

Things I'm whiny about today:

genetics: weak tooth enamel.

biology: ridiculously high tolerance for anesthetics, so I require large doses of them to get through procedures.  that means lots of shots of powerful things that should make me numb for 6-8 hours, but instead just make me twitchy for the first half hour and then start wearing off in 2 hours.

generally uncomfortable and unpleasant: dental dams

physiology: tiny mouth, big tools. 

net result: 2.5 hours in the dentist chair.

 

and to make my day just a little bit better, yesterday was Patch Tuesday.  That means today is Beat My Head Against The Desk Trying To Get My Computer To Boot Up Wednesday.  This happened a couple months ago.  I replaced the hard drive.  I don't think that is a long term solution plan though.

 

 

QotD: Organ Donation

Are you a registered organ donor?  Why or why not? 
Submitted by jacolily.

yes, I am, though I did make one exception (something you can do where I live).  My eyes are going with me.  I don't care so much if someone gets my heart, or kidneys, or liver.  Those things save lives, and if I don't need them anymore, it seems like a good idea for someone else to have them.  But my eyes are something else, the window into the soul and all that.  I just don't like the idea of someone else having my eyes, someone looking into their (my) eyes in their body after I'm gone...  it just seems weird. 

 

chatterbox

have you seen the commercial where a man puts his daughter in her carseat, she looks about 4 years old, and she is chattering away about something that only a 4 year old would understand?  He hesitates a couple times closing the door, waiting for the child to stop talking, then gives up and closes the door, walks around to the driver side of the car, and gets in, and she is still talking nonstop as if he was listening her the entire time.

 

This is my daughter.

 

in the car on the way home she tells fantastical stories that go on and on and on and on.  sometimes she just makes gibberish sounds.  last week there was an evening where she was saying 'go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy' until I just about lost my mind.  So I said rather sharply 'ENOUGH.  Allyson, BE QUIET.  STOP TALKING.'  She stopped talking.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

2 seconds later:

'look! a pumpkin!  go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy go daddy'

 

There are days where I just want to tell her to STFU.  But that wouldn't be very nice as a mommy, so I don't.  But I understand why some mommies drink. 

 

Fun Shirt Friday

 

 

 

Triumph

this one comes with its own FAQ

 

Q. what is on that shirt?  it is hard to see in that shot

A. yeah, I know.  This is the problem I face every FSF.  In shot A, the shirt looks perfect but I look terrible.  In shot B, I look great and the shirt is impossible to fully appreciate.  This week you are getting a shot B.  So if you really want to know what the shirt looks like:

 

Capture Tri

Q. why are you wearing a motorcycle shirt?  You don't ride a motorcycle. 

A. no, I don't ride a motorcycle, but many of my friends do, and I just recently went on my first ride as a passenger.  it was awesome.

 

Q. did you ride on a Triumph?

A. no, it was on a Harley Davidson with one of my friends/co-workers.  But I have other friends who ride Triumph's, and one of them got me this badass shirt.  God save the queen.

 

Q. isn't that a tank top?  Don't you realize it is only 50 degrees out?

A. yes, dammit.  That's why I'm wearing the jacket.  But the shirt was just too awesome to wait until next summer to wear.

 

OMG, TEH HALOZ!

I cracked open my shiny new copy of Halo 3 last night and sat down for some FPS schooling.  On the upside, I didn't get motion sick like Quake and Doom used to make me.  On the downside, I discovered I am still a spaz.  I spent most of my time saying one or all of these things:

• "Where am I?"
• "Where are my people?"
• "Where am I going?"

 

Interestingly, I was way better at killing things with the small gun that requires individual trigger pulls for each shot than I was with any of the automatic weapons.  Go figure.  But after an hour of ego-battering ineptitude (and ALMOST getting to the point of saving Johnson, damn those hammer wielding things that beat my ass), I called it a night.  I'll give it another go in a few days and work on building my skills from feeble to at least marginally respectable. 

 

Toon Tuesday - XKCD

Don't get a pissy with me about not picking a cartoon character, but a cartoon series.  It's my blog, and Toon Tuesday can mean whatever I want.  pffft.

 

This week, let's all celebrate our inner geek and give a shout out to XKCD, "A webcomic of romance,
sarcasm, math, and language".  Four of my favorites:

 

this just cracks me up.  ...hey, where are you going?

 

some days, this is my life.

 

theoretically sound, but while she has microscopically more time, she is probably too dizzy to enjoy it.

 

Sometimes they even come in color.

 

hover over the comics and read the tags - they are just as funny as the comics themselves.

 

50,000 monkeys at 50,000 typewriters can't be wrong.

Wil Wheaton is on Vox.  It's true.  I've been a WWdN reader for a long time so I went ahead and added him to my neighborhood.  :)