Crazy Gradient in the Sky

This is what I saw the sky looking like one day. I happened to be on a plane, flying from Anchorage, AK to Fairbanks, AK. And I saw this crazy gradient, where the sky nearest the horizon was bright, going to a darker blue with increasing altitude, and then after reaching that dark band, it started to go light again. How did this happen?!? What is going on?!?



This sky does not look natural to me. I promise the photos are showing a true view of what the sky Actually looked like. I think these were taken at something like 8 AM local time, February 27 (ish).

AURORA!

We saw it last night! yay! I need to get myself dressed for talks. I also need to learn to use manual focus in the dark... These photos make it to the adventure blog due to blurriness. Hopefully I'll see more aurora, and be more in focus next time!

first gimp project

So, this weekend I downloaded Gimp, which is a free program that is basically the same as photoshop. only free. It is a little more tricky to use than I was hoping, but I am at the early stages of catching on. I think it will be one of those things where once I know how to use it, it will be very powerful.

Last week at the bar after one of Greg's games, one of his teammates mentioned (in my general direction) how cool it would be if someone was taking photos at the games and making cards out of them. I can take a hint people. Plus it sounded like a super fun project. This is my first attempt:



I modeled it after Patrick Roy's rookie card. I think Greg approved.


The only problem is that my proportions are slightly off. I think my version is a little wider than a standard hockey card.

Safety First

Today after work I went to State Line Sports for the special purpose of purchasing a hockey helmet. This will be handy for two things:

1) Being safe while skating on the pond.

2) Not having to wear the stinky helmets they provide for intramural hockey.



Here is me, posing with my new gear. I got this sweet helmet for a mere $55, which is about the best price you could ask for for a new adult helmet, especially considering this baby was on sale from $119.99. This is the kind of amazing deal you can get when you walk into a store and upon asking if any help is needed you proclaim, "I'd like the cheapest helmet you have!"

My helmet purchase was largely inspired by a very sad horror story. One of the guys Greg skates with was playing pond hockey, and hit a crack or something when he was changing from skating forward to backwards and fell straight back. He cracked his skull and was bleeding from his ears. I do not EVER want to be bleeding from my ears. He is recovering and doing better every day. But still. If a guy who knows how to skate well can have such a terrible thing happen to him, who am I to go skating around without a helmet? So there you have it folks, always wear a helmet when you skate. ALWAYS.

Contra Dance Calling

I just did a quick review of former posts, and it seems I have yet to blog about calling contra dances. I guess it goes without saying that I am incredibly passionate about contra dancing. Sarah and I always talk about "the contra spirit" which basically entails all the good things involved with contra dancing.

So, about a year ago, I started going to a workshop led by David Millstone for learning to call contra dances. My intention in joining was to not actually call dances, but just to learn the mechanics of how calling works, and how the dances work. Well somehow, it managed to be arranged that I would call one single dance at one of the dance sessions that David runs. It was a bit nerve-wrecking, largely because that involves me, on a stage, with a microphone, in front of a large group of people (>50). But despite the nerves and the shaky voice (and not properly lining people up at the start, so the instruction before music started fell apart completely the first time), it was fun! And it worked! It was some sort of great feat of communication, to see if I could get this whole hall of people (or at least a large portion of them) all coordinated up.

So anyhow, David has helped me along, and it has been great to have him as my mentor. I could not ask for anything better really. I have now called a few individual dances. I have also met dozens of other callers, some of whom are starting to remember my name as well, and even offering me guest calling spots if I ever attend a dance they are calling! Plus! I got my copy of Tony Parkes' book autographed!



I was very glad to see the new edition released, since it is nearly impossible to find a copy of the original edition. You can purchase your own copy from Beth and Tony here. I think they said you can also buy the book from Amazon.

The other thing I recently learned about was an online listserv for contra dance callers. I joined up, and from looking at the archives it seems to be a good resource for keeping in touch with other callers, both for asking questions or sharing useful information. I learned from the latest post that there are people who write software to be able to organize dances and program evenings, and then check the dances to make sure there is not too much repetition from one to the next. It is really quite amazing, but also not free. So my new long term goal is to write my own. I haven't done a ton of programming, but with Greg's help, we can make it happen. The plan is to make it freeware that will work on any operating system.

The future looks bright!

San Francisco

You may be thinking, "oh cool, she went to San Francisco, this post will be full of neato photos." Wrong. How very wrong. I did have a good time in San Francisco, but I only took one photo the entire time. I was pretty busy doing work stuff most of the time (since I was there for a conference). On Wednesday night I did go to a contra dance in Berkeley, which was a good way to add some play into the week. I didn't have my camera though, and I would have been dancing the whole time anyhow, so no loss there. The only other fun thing I did was a little bit of shopping.

So now.
The moment you have been waiting for.
I present to you,
the one San Francisco photo.



Amazing and delicious.

sunset

I have been in a new office lately, and now I have a west-facing window, which provides a lovely view of sunsets. Yesterday the sky was getting extremely pink and I didn't have my new fancy-pants camera in the office, so I took a couple photos with my trusty little point & shoot. These photos don't even do the colors justice, as the sky got less bright in the amount of time it took me to grab my camera, shut off the light, and climb onto my desk to get a clear view through my heavily-ivy-covered window.




It was a really lovely sunset!