Two weeks ago, inspired by this post, I pulled out my jewelry- making supplies & used them, finishing today. I made bag charms bc I don't know if these metal findings are nickel-free but bags DGAF about allergies. So, glass, metal, & plastic. Probably will tarnish with time & fall apart with use.

Time to buy more discographies on bandcamp from my mutual sky buddies! Drop your username with a link & if you have a full discography option I'll get it. Otherwise I'll get your latest album. I will pay too much for it. My username is vocalbird, for reference.

Recently learned from a hairdresser that I have curly hair, not just wavy hair, & the less I do to it the better it looks. Like, I always brushed my hair before & after it dried, because that's what one does with hair, right? That was partially straightening my hair this whole time!?!?

“The bird feeder is empty already? I just filled it yesterday, what is go— …oh.”

I should dig out the solar binoculars I got for the 2024 eclipse and see if the potentially civilization-ending sunspot is visible tomorrow. On one hand, it'll really cramp my long-term retirement plans. On the other hand, maybe it stops the giant plagiarism machine for a while.

Maybe there's some exothermic reaction using common household chemicals? Hopefully one that doesn't produce harmful fumes or rapid unscheduled disassembly of the dwelling? One option available online are candle-based radiant heaters that appear to be made from stacked cast-iron or terracotta.

I forget who started it, or why they did, but most of the chocolate consumed in this house is in the form factor of store-brand dark chocolate chips. Like, poured into a little bowl & eaten directly. Sometimes mixed with nuts if we're feeling healthy.

That's about enough time to not get on any flights, fill all the clean containers in the house with filtered water, shut off the electrical breaker to the house, & build the most serious blanket fort ever in our warmest room. What's a good heat source that won't give us CO poisoning? (No fireplace)

BRB unplugging my studio equipment.

A thread of workshop/studio organization help: Separate the tools & equipment from everything else, prioritize their accessibility in relation to your working space. Clean them well, lube if needed. Find their accessories & keep them together. Paintbrushes are tools. So are scissors & rulers.

One thing Chicagoland has spoiled me for is the idea that all snow will be cleared from all roads after a storm. I was in the Baltimore airport area last week & shocked by how many lanes were simply left un-plowed. Turn lanes were basically ignored. & they weren't out plowing more, they were done?

Don't miss out on doing what you want just because no one else can/wants to do it w/you. Go to the movies alone! Take that solo road trip! Go to the concert of a group you like! Take yourself out for breakfast! Hit up that festival by yourself! There's freedom in not being beholden to anyone else.

I went inside our Amazon Fresh a few times to return things (including two things they later re-charged me for saying I didn't return them) but the store smelled so "off" I never bought anything there. Not sad to see it close.

Does your cat play fetch? If so, will they fetch a variety of things or only one particular thing? Dozer does fetch, but only a specific toy we call "fetch mouse" which is on its twelfth reincarnation after being cronched to bits eleven times.

Current status: washing down the store-bought chocolate cookies with a glass of ice-cold tequila.

Question for authors with books on Kindle Unlimited: how much money do you get when I read your book? Like, is it even measurable? Or are we looking at music-streaming type numbers?

the treeline across the park was the color of television tuned to a dead channel

The ridiculously & purposefully terrible Kodak Charmera has effects you can choose in-camera to make the images look more vintage-ish. Here's the regular, warm, cool, & black/white settings. The built-in flash fired for all of these test images so it knows what the white balance is supposed to be:

Me: "It would take an extremely fascinating new bird fact to distract me from the horrors" New paper: hold my beer Birds are very eye-dependent and eyes usually require a bunch of energy (and oxygen to metabolize it). Bird retinas run oxygen-free though, perhaps to fly extremely high (low O2)!

Kodak Charmera blind box arrived today - drumroll please -

Good morning. Bad news free, upgrade to good news by purchasing our Wishful Thinking Tier!

I've made Alton Brown's hot chocolate mix recipe a few times (I never bother toasting the milk powder) but this time I added the optional cayenne pepper. I love how it tastes but there is a problem: cayenne pepper doesn't dissolve at all. So it's just floating at the top of the mug like, "hi!"

I read 4 books on Sunday and 3 on Monday. Well, the last one was technically read today because I finished it at 3AM. And they lived happily ever after.

Welp, now I have the situational awareness to deal with my let-down coworkers tomorrow.

I like how the camera kept going down field even though the ball didn't.

B just explained why that play reminded the internet of TECMO BOWL. So real life just acted like a bugged NES game.

We're watching the Bears game. This is quite fun.

I would like to draw the attention of the birders in my audience to this talented person who paints birds on vintage coasters. @chaseprairie.bsky.social @secondnaturemb.bsky.social @skwinnicki.bsky.social & probably others.

Home again, finished my post-airport cleansing ritual, realizing I've been up for 10 hours & it isn't 2 PM yet. This probably makes me weird(er) but I still enjoy business travel. Like, it's nice to be home, but it's also nice to be somewhere else. Especially if someone else is paying for it.

The land yacht I'm renting has decided it needs a software update, which it asks if I want to do each time I park it. It could take up to fifteen minutes it says. I don't know about you but when I park a vehicle it's because I'm going somewhere & wouldn't have time to babysit a software update?

Landed at Dulles and saw what Avis assigned me this time. This fucking thing!

Chicago Botanic Garden photos from January 2nd are up on my Flickr. Note I've got a Pro membership so you should see ZERO ads while looking at these pictures: flic.kr/s/aHBqjCGeSL

Several hours later, mostly spent on what turned out to be extremely subtle changes to exposure, I'm now exporting the images to JPG. Export to disk - 159 images 50 images exported in 2min 20s (Using DXO PhotoLab 8.11)

Finally got the motivation to do some RAW photo post-processing. Current status: Windows Update purgatory.

Nuance?!? In this economy?!?

Today is a good day for going through a fun thread of people conversing about <niche interest> to find a bunch more nifty people to follow on here.

Most of my post count here is actually tweets I brought over using BlueArk starting 11/13/24. Now they all sort under that one date even though it does say "archived from" with the real date if you look at the individual post. So on Bluesky it looks like over a decade happened to me in one day.

I finished the Sashiko washcloth I've been working on. It's not neat or even, but it exists & I got to stab something hundreds of times in the process.

Humble Bundle just put up 65 books by women sci-fi+ writers for $18, if that's your thing: www.humblebundle.com/books/fierce...

How about those new American dietary guidelines? I watched a few 'tubers takes on it. The Vegans are obviously upset. The Carnivores are not happy there's still a limit on saturated fats. The Homesteaders don't think it says enough against seed oils specifically. Everyone references South Park.

pixel sketch

The errand was deciding to use my day off to get a RealID from Illinois. Normally one needs an appointment, but when you live close enough to Chicago there's another way:

Was downtown Chicago to run an errand, decided to walk to the massive Starbucks Reserve location on the Mag Mile. This is a flight of cold brew coffee which I am drinking at 6:20 PM. I have already had my caffeine dosage for today, so this is extra credit.

In the mid 1800s, almost half of all photographs were taken in 3D, and we should try to get those numbers back up.

No one saves twine anymore (as in "The biggest ball of twine in Minnesota") but I can't be the only one saving these things:

On PTO. Logged in anyway to do a timesheet & some expense reports. Set my Teams status to include "if you see me here, I'm not here."

What's the last car you stopped to take a photo of?

Spent ~3 hours at the Chicago Botanic Garden shooting outdoor & indoor shots. Had more trouble than I remember having before with the camera just intermittently deciding to *not take a picture* when I pressed the shutter button. I switched from AF-priority to Release-priority & it got a bit better.

Planning to go do photography tomorrow morning with my DSLR at the Chicago Botanic Garden. So you could expect to see those photos post-processed & uploaded sometime in the next year. (Discovering that if I don't have a planned quest on a day off I'll literally sleep until 1:30 PM.)

Me: deletes all games off my phone for at least one month to do more with my life Also Me: opens Bluesky for the first time in months & spends an hour reading the feed