The first real wintery storm of the year. Of course, after most of a week of April-like weather, no one remembers how to drive in the snow. Driving to work this morning was reasonable. Of course the visit from our regional manager was a non-reality. So we had the pleasure of spending a very quiet day in the store - a very clean and spit-spot store at that.

I don't get all het up about driving in snow and I know that as time passes, roads are in better shape at least where I live. My only regret is thinking of all the time I could have spent today with the new quilt. Instead I spent time at a computer learning some about Quicktime Virtual Reality and other fun things.

Written at: 1/31/2002 07:13:00 PM

---

All things change. Today we put aside our very long standing email address and waved bye-bye to the concept of albany.net. Albany.net was a GREAT company - enthusiastic founders who worked hard to provide fabulous services. After they sold the business to mybizz.net things started changing and not for the better. Plus we'd signed on with our local phone company for DSL so were in fact supporting two ISP's for awhile. Now we're down to one. Most people won't notice my changed email addresses since I've been using my domain names for awhile. Still - I'll think fondly back to Albany.net days.

Oh, I just remembered the reason why it was ME who took the bull by the horns and signed up for albany.net and cancelled the aol accounts of our internet "youth" days.... It was because AOL had screwed up my (and many many other) email accounts for like three days and were totally unresponsive about a)there is a problem and b) when it will be fixed and c) where is my mail???? As the friendly AOL voice says - Good-bye! The guys at albany.net talked me through setting up Eudora and we didn't look back.

Ah yes, the early days on the net.....

Written at: 1/30/2002 12:25:00 AM

---

I'm not alone in my thoughts about the attacks of September 11. I read about others' thoughts on their web pages and talk with others about what they're thinking and doing. The attacks aren't constantly on my mind, but it seems the ideas and emotions surrounding them are always nearby. Sometimes they push me to keep away news and new information. Sometimes I seek out new photos and progress. For instance in the year end photos published at the nytimes. Or the special edition put out by Time magazine. Some of these photos are new, some I'd seen before and yet I found myself studying them closely and seeing especially the humanity in them - the people effected. Those killed, those witnessing, those left behind to endure.

I think it's important to remember that we're not alone in our thoughts and emotions these months later. We're all processing and holding it together and trying to make sense of this senseless thing. I'll post again a link about the very normal process of dealing with stress and trauma. Do talk to others about what you're feeling, if only to admit it to yourself and possibly to help them know that others are thinking similar thoughts. I especially liked this part under "common thoughts":

-- Preoccupation with the event/difficulty thinking about other things. This is our way of trying to absorb the enormity of the event, little by little, at a pace we can handle.
-- Thinking of the event over and over, being riveted to television, radio, and web reports. This is our way of trying to re-establish some sense of understanding and control.

Written at: 1/28/2002 10:05:00 PM

---

For BornFamous and other quote lovers: moments of zen 2000. No holds barred, somewhat topical, to the point.

Written at: 1/28/2002 03:10:00 PM

---

Productive day, even with a later start. I cleaned up after the herd of cats on and off. Had some good barley soup for dinner! Hemmed the two skirts I bought yesterday. Had to wash the pants I'd gotten because of the darn sticky label that was on them. Luckily it didn't leave a mark.

Moved things around some in the sewing room so it's not so crazy in there. Started changing over my email addresses on list accounts etc. Hope this works on Wednesday.

Here's a photo of the new color strip in the new quilt, working title: gamut. Not a real title no doubt, just the working one.

Written at: 1/27/2002 11:01:00 PM

---

I stayed up way too late, rather accidently - really! - but I did fix the green fabric problem in the middle of things before I went to bed. Pulled out a bunch of greens from the dark green cubby and there, behind those were some likely greyed-green candidates, one of which not only was a good value, but had some inkblot sort of designs which brought in the couple-columns-over pinks and couple-columns-back orangey colors. Photos later.

Cats seem to think they should eat. Go figure.

Written at: 1/27/2002 11:54:00 AM

---

I went back upstairs to look at what appears to be a dark line down the middle of the quilt (as seen in the photo below). Was this an artifact of photoshopping the quilt halves together? A difference in how the two halves are lit (as apparent in the difference in color as seen in the pale yellow squares along the top edge)? The red triangle on the larger view indicates the actual center point of the quilt. At least you can see a closer view of some of the fabrics. Meanwhile, I think the problem isn't really the dark greens but that first lighter color on the right side of them...

Written at: 1/27/2002 01:41:00 AM

---

OK, so I shopped today. First Peter Harris, where I landed two skirts and a pair of black pants. All at cheap. Then to grocery store. Not so cheap, but a reasonable mix of things. Came home and made some very good for you vegetable beef with barley soup. Mostly veggies and barley. Needs a little something - perhaps some beef broth tomorrow. I'm growing fond of putting kale into soup. I sort of overdid it on this, but remedied it by ladling it out of the pot and whirring it in the processor. Voila - a slightly thicker stock and small bits of kale flecking the whole.

Then on to the sewing room, where I laid out the left hand portion of the new quilt. Here's a view of the right side of tonight's layout work. A little closer to real color I think.

Written at: 1/27/2002 12:10:00 AM

---

Weirdness from the web

My advice - don't have a mouth full of food while viewing these pages.

Written at: 1/26/2002 07:56:00 PM

---

In the past two days, over 225 people have viewed this page, mostly from the QuiltArt mailing list because I emailed them about the new quilt photos posted on 1/24. Interestingly enough (ok, perhaps only interesting to me) only 5 people commented on what they found here. One posted an email to QuiltArt and the other four wrote comments via the comment link at the post. OK, yes, that was only interesting to me.

End of a long strange week at work. I think each of us at work this week had a "weird customer" story to tell and some were off the charts. I'm looking forward to having two days off this weekend for sure. And I'm going to bed very shortly, since I haven't slept well the last couple nights for various reasons.

Meanwhile, the quilt section below is sitting there on a board. I think I'll pick it up into stacks and then do the bottom matching quarter. Then I'd like to do the same for the left hand half of the quilt. It's hard when you can't really layout a whole quilt's pieces at once. At least by taking photos I get a sense of the color/values that are going on and can fix any problems. Usually I have a pretty good idea in my head what the whole is going to look like as a finished top. This is a very handy skill to have!

Oh, on the way home tonight, I drove around until I found Crossgates Commons and then found Panera Bread - a restaurant. Even though it's a chain I found the food to be quite good and the menu varied. All this, plus a bakery and coffee. It was a little loud, but I attribute that to the Friday night crowd. I even got a table by the fireplace. What did I have? The "pick two" special where you pick two of three things: bowl of soup, half a sandwich, salad. I had broccolli cheddar soup and a lovely greek salad. Came with a big hunk of "baguette." I went for a large coffee on the way out and it was pretty good too.

Written at: 1/26/2002 12:11:00 AM

---

Maybe I shouldn't have been working while so tired, but it seemed to work out ok.

Here are some partial photos of one quarter top's worth of squares, laid out on general principal. Left and Right and Whole And then a computerized mock up to give you an idea of two quarters making up the right half of the planned top

[updated 1/24 5:57 PM -- Just a quick note to say what you see here is just for color layout sake - the pieces are actually all squares which will be 1.5 inches finished size.]

Written at: 1/24/2002 02:57:00 AM

---

Not my best day for customer service, methinks, although I did get a thumbs up from a very professional woman this evening who was thinking of switching from a PC to a mac. Yes, I did let a small girl (with a screaming toddler brother) try unsuccessfully to log in after she or someone else logged out of a machine. No password, no entry!

Why this low point? Probably a decided lack of sleep. Not because of quilt-related work last night, although I did make some progress on the new quilt. Nope. I ended up on the couch. Not a bad place to sleep in warmer weather, it is cold without enough covers, the cushions want to come out on their own and everything slants towards the floor. Add to this dynamic situation 3 or 4 cats who size up the situation as "hey look! Mom's on the couch - let's go snuggle with her."

My eyelids are definitely droopy. Note to self - time to get serious about a futon for the livingroom!

I did manage to come up with a construction plan for the new quilt over dinner tonight, so I think I'm ready to begin as soon as I shovel off the sewing machine table.

Written at: 1/23/2002 10:07:00 PM

---

Here's a sample of my 49 fabrics. Not all batiks. Not all mushy. Vaguely gradated. Let's see what happens next!

Written at: 1/21/2002 10:22:00 PM

---

Monday Monday!

Worked last night a little too late on cutting strips into squares. The biggest problem there is that it's just darn cold after a certain point so the transition to sleep is not easy. Oh well. I'm about half done with the squares of print fabric. Not quite sure how they'll be used, but so far they look like they'll work fine together.

Short day at work today, so I went to Home Depot and looked around for a bit. Replaced the glass in the ever so weird kitchen table light fixture and priced ceiling fixes. at 3-5 dollars a square foot, tiles look like a good idea until you come come and stare up at the ceiling and do a little mental math. Hmmmmmm

Written at: 1/21/2002 06:39:00 PM

---

Had a lovely afternoon with Mrs. Burns and her father, attending a production of Quilters at the Ghent Playhouse. I see looking at this description that the play opened on Broadway in 1985 and received six Tony nominations. The Ghent production was probably a little smaller, but enthusiastically done by the cast of women, backed up by a small ensemble.

After, as we were leaving, two of the actresses walked by me. I thanked the first for a quite enjoyable time. The second one thanked ME for smiling widely the whole time - apparently she was quite encouraged. Hey, what's not to like when you roll a whole group of songs, a bunch of women and a good heap of quilting lore into a couple of hours?

Then I treated myself to a dinner at a local "Super Buffet" which is mostly Chinese food with a lot of seafood (which I don't eat) and a goodly array of nice simple desserts - mostly good fresh fruit (strawberries melons, bananas, cookies and the like. Since Gail had returned some quilting books I'd loaned her, I reacquinted myself with a Ruth McDowell book over dinner and hot tea. Got to feel virtuous too since my dinner was mostly veggies and fruits. OK, a few wings, a dumpling, some hot and sour soup and a couple of macaroons too.

Written at: 1/20/2002 08:36:00 PM

---

Here's a stray thought - there are dreadlocks and then there is just plain ol' messy, matted hair. And let me tell you... if it's not dreadlocks - it's UGLY.

Written at: 1/20/2002 12:27:00 AM

---

Short day at work, stopped by my folks to drop off Dad's birthday present and to say hi. And to do a little computer troubleshooting. It had just started snowing when I left work at 4, came down steadily while I was at Borders and kept snowing. It's still snowing. Beautiful light fluffy snow. A welcome part of winter.

The coming home of course was slower than normal but that's ok.

Stranger than fiction - utterly true. There are more than a handful of people who aren't getting it that Apple computers are DIFFERENT than windoze-running boxes. Hellllllooooooooooooo. Think DIFFERENT! LOL - we don't do Windoze unless it's via Virtual PC. And please don't ask me anymore about putting OS 10 on your Compaq.

On a good note - I've started cutting strips of fabric to think about this new quilt. I'm here en route to get my extension cord from the kitchen so I can **gasp** iron fabric.

On a bad note - there's absolutely zero worth watching on TV. Oh wait - maybe that's a good thing.

Written at: 1/19/2002 10:34:00 PM

---

Sometimes, when you're starting a new project, things get a little messy.
Fabric 1	Fabric 2	Fabric 3
The long view

Written at: 1/18/2002 11:30:00 PM

---

My O'Reilly book cover. I think O'Reilly would make a mint on this one.

Written at: 1/18/2002 12:08:00 AM

---

what happens when art meets destruction? Should it be restored to the moment before or should what's left be mounted as a tribute to survival? Who should decide and how?

Before Caldor's Bent Propellor After
Before Koenig's Sphere for Plaza Fountain After
Another view

Written at: 1/17/2002 09:58:00 AM

---

Almost forgot to mention that I'm on that edge of starting a new quilt. How about that? I can sort of feel something moving in that direction, but what it will emerge as I'm not quite sure of yet. I'm enjoying the moment before starting.

I see that my schedule next week includes two half days again. Although working basically 6 days a week sounds REALLY bad, I found this week that I'm much less exhausted, so perhaps this is worth pursuing for awhile.

On the other hand, I have hurt my right foot somehow. I would like to whine a bit, not about how much my foot hurts (which it does) but about the fact that if it's that injured shouldn't I be able to remember WHEN it was injured? Since I'm looking for new, black walking-type shoes I've moved my orthotics to a pair of five-tennies I have. They're not very sleek looking but they do offer a lot of support and have relatively stiff soles. tomorrow at lunch I'll have to continue my search for new work shoes. Ick. I tried to do this on Monday with some committment and failed miserably while enduring the worst customer service ever.

Written at: 1/16/2002 10:26:00 PM

---

Bob the Corgi was just mentioning nicknames and the names we answer to. I always wished for a nickname, but probably spent too much time reminding people that my name was Mary Beth, not Mary, not Mar', not Beth. So as a result, I'm not a Spike, Spot or other jovial moniker. One boss called me MaryB, actually MaryBB. I sometimes register for things as MaryBG. My brother called me Birdbath growing up, before he could pronounce Mary Beth. Some folks will occasionally call me MB. That works. As does "The Queen" for my more royal roles as quilt show bureaucrat etc. Now it's probably too late to get a nickname.

What's worse than not having a nickname is getting not called anything at all. I wear a nametag at work now and customers often check out my name and use it. All too often though, my name is "what goes unsaid."

Written at: 1/16/2002 10:19:00 PM

---

Sometimes you look at something and think, 'it's a miracle it works at all, and I don't even need to understand why.' Similarly one can look at something like the Winter Garden in NYC and think it's a miracle that any of it is still standing, let alone that there's enough there and the resolve to reestablish it.

Thanks to Fortune Elkins over at bread, coffee, chocolate, yoga for a link to a great article about the Winter Garden and plans to rebuild.

Written at: 1/15/2002 03:26:00 PM

---

Wow - I remember this view: North from the World Trade Center

Many many years ago, I quit my first job out of college. As in walked over to my slimy, who-knew-how-slimy boss and said "I quit." And I left. Had to threaten small claims court to get him to pay the back salary he owed me, but that's another story. One of the things I did the rest of that day was to do things I'd wanted to do in NYC but couldn't because I was working - and chief on that list was to go to the top of the World Trade Center. What a view. Not soon forgotten.

Written at: 1/14/2002 10:54:00 PM

---

Yeah! I finally saw my pyrad on the Blogger site:



How cool is that?

Written at: 1/14/2002 08:39:00 PM

---

Way too funny for words - a late season fruitcake mention

Written at: 1/14/2002 07:17:00 PM

---

I've already admitted to a little fabric shopping yesterday. OK, it was more like a feeding frenzy, but what's 37 yards, I ask you?

I got solids mostly, in a warm range with a few greens thrown in.

plus a few prints for good measure.

Written at: 1/14/2002 07:01:00 PM

---

Yea! To support Blogger (the revolution WILL be Bloggerized!), I paid $12 to de-ad a blog that's hosted on blogspot. In return the revolution that is Blogger gives me 9600 ads on the www.blogger.com pages. Is that cool or what? I thought about just putting "www.quiltr.com - all sex, all the time...." but decided to go with the honest approach. So let's see the power of advertising! Welcome pyrad clickers!

In the meantime, if you want to support a worthy service on the 'net - http://www.blogger.com is a good one. AND you get to make some blogger's day by making their site ad free for a year, for a mere $1 per month. Now, if it's a site you enjoy going to because the writing is good, the photos are good, the links are good - why not imagine it without ads. Even better! Off you go now.

Written at: 1/13/2002 07:51:00 PM

---

Went to KMarts and found an acceptable lunch bag. Went to Ben Franklin and bought a lotta fabric. A lotta fabric. Lots.

On the way to my errands I took these photos of the January sky from the Hayes Road Reformed Church Cemetary. (and I might add, I managed not to get my car stuck on the not-really-plowed road)

Written at: 1/13/2002 06:16:00 PM

---

very very evil. Not *ahem* rated PG, but definitely worth the read for all you LOTR fans: The Secret Diaries Best read in this order:

Aragorn's diary
Legolas' diary
Boromir's diary
Frodo's diary
Samwise's diary

Written at: 1/13/2002 12:20:00 AM

---

Oh yeah, and speaking of the iMac and being busy at work, one admirer actually got down on the floor and kowtowed to the esteemed iMac. Wish I'd been faster with the camera on that one!

What was for dinner? a lovely omlette with more stuff in it than eggs. Yum

Written at: 1/12/2002 09:30:00 PM

---

Got TWO new smart media cards - both 64 MB, so I feel flush with space. If I can manage it at all, tomorrow me and the camera are hitting the road.

Fun short day at work. LOTS of people and the time just flew by.

Back to the "what's for dinner?" question now.

Written at: 1/12/2002 06:48:00 PM

---

Darn. Took photos today - thankfully nothing that can't be re-shot -- tried to upload them to a machine at work and got a "not recognized disk, initialize?" sort of message. Uh no. Came home. Pop the card and adaptor into my machine. Same thing. Put it into the camera. Nada. Kaput.

Luckily I know where I can get a couple new cards tomorrow and reshoot my pictures but DARN. Hate that.

Written at: 1/11/2002 11:54:00 PM

---

You know - I'm not a geek. Not even close. Wanna know something else? I don't care how it all works. I don't want to know. I don't want to know about extensions, and writing html is the closest I want to come to doing code. Can't recite the speed of firewire. Don't know why serials can convert to USB. Can only handwave about oh so many things. And that's perfectly ok with me. And you know what? If you care about those things - that's ok. I just wish you wouldn't think I should. If you keep it up, I'm going to make you learn how to do hand applique. I mean it.

Written at: 1/11/2002 01:43:00 AM

---

It was nice being off yesterday, but now I'm totally disoriented to date....

Today the big buzz was the new iMac. We were very busy most of the day, and you could feel the floor tilting toward the counter with the new iMacs on them. Poor G-4 powermacs and cinema displays. Old news, LOL! Everyone wanted to play with the new and shiney and ooooooh so cool. Positive response from all, especially the mac afficianados and PC users. Interesting.

I mounted the new NYQ! pages with the links to the brochure PDFs. what a swell technology that is, to be able to take any file and convert it to PDF so anyone can download and read it. Positive response on that too. One person couldn't open the files, which probably means an older acrobat reader, or none at all.

Big accomplishment today, other than going to work? doing the dishes. Yes there were a lot of them, and now they're all done. Treated myself to a grilled cheese on rye sandwich and a lemonade and coconut rum drink. There must be a name for the latter tasty concoction. Yummy and easy drinking!

Written at: 1/11/2002 12:11:00 AM

---

NYQuilts! meeting tonight. Now I'm working on uploading the brochure pages and changes....

Tomorrow, back to work. It was great having today off. Mailed my 911 quilt off to it's first showing as part of the touring group. Set up a fed ex account for myself. Picked up a box of NYQ! brochures. Cleaned out my car (man did it need it!) and went to the meeting.

When I'm done with the straight brochure stuff, I have to review how we did the online registration and get that working again. No rest for the webmaster!

Written at: 1/10/2002 12:35:00 AM

---

Wow, lots of writing today. Tonight I completed the final report for my grant quilt project. I was struck by this paragraph:

I completed 6 quilts, ranging from a rather stylized landscape quilt based on a view in Stephentown to some quilts inspired by colors seen in my travels. Although somewhat traditional in design (simple squares of fabrics) the color and abstract arrangement is reminiscent and reflective of nature as I saw it during 2001. I also have one other quilt top related to the series and two unrelated quilts made during the year.

As I thought about that - 6 plus 2 plus one top..... I realized.... wait a min, there's also the big millennial quilt I completed for NYQ! this year - queen size. and the raffle quilt.....

No wonder I'm in need of a new sleep surrogate.

Written at: 1/09/2002 02:09:00 AM

---

My around the corner neighbor Kathy has been thinking of going into a sort of personal-chef/meals for busy working women business. She asked me what I thought - what sort of market, what would they want. Now that whole concept fills my thoughts. I keep thinking of opening MY frig and finding tasty, healthy food there, in small one or two meal portions. A couple things in the freezer ready to microwave. Good food, wandering around in comfort-food-land. The food you want to eat, if only it didn't take cutting up a lot of things and cooking it for awhile. Food which fulfills your wish to really eat healthy if only the food you bought didn't keep going bad from neglect.

I've made soup twice in the last week and a half or so. I LOVE cooking in quantity, which is totally pointless when you're basically cooking for one. Yes, I could freeze it, but I'd still have to eat it quite a few times. I'm getting better at packing things like that for lunch and making that my main meal of the day. A big bowl of the veggie lentil soup (see below) today, along with a nice turkey sandwich. I was very satisfied.

What sort of things would be nice to find in the frig or freezer? I long for mac and cheese with chunks of whole canned tomatoes. Or how about a nice scalloped potato cassserole - could be with meat or not. Chicken pot pies with tender carrots and peas in a yummy gravy. A nice piece of chicken parm with some pasta and sauce. A small loaf of carrot or banana bread. See the key here is easy and or quick to re-heat or put on the table, a nice variety of food - maybe enough left over for lunch tomorrow. A reasonable dessert but not a whole bag of cookies that calls to you to complete. Throw some frozen veggies into the microwave, put it all on the table.

What intrigues me about all this isn't the business concept but the fact that it's not my idea, it's not something I'm likely to ever be involved in but I'm more than willing to turn over a big chunk of my brain to it. Nothing like a new project to get my teeth into - it's an excitement whether or not it's mine to execute or not. Takes my mind off the same ol' same ol' I guess!

Written at: 1/08/2002 10:09:00 PM

---

The keynote was exciting, the continuing snow wasn't (although it looked beautiful), the new iMac is very exciting, the new iBook we've dubbed "son of Pismo" - very nice. iPhoto - ROCKS. A customer today referred to the new iMac as "half dome" which is very apt.

OK, that's it on the mac side of things.

Finished the NYQuilts! brochure and got it to the printer. Now to find something to eat and the next deadline.

Written at: 1/08/2002 08:40:00 PM

---

So tomorrow's the big Apple keynote speech in San Fran. We're ready to lay the rumours to rest and see the real thing, whatever it is.

Tonight - SNOW. OK - it was an interesting ride home. Folks - most of you have lived here (upstate NY/lower Western New England) for awhile -- don't you remember snow from year to year? All righty then - let me give you two pointers.

1. Don't slow down or stop while going UP hills. Don't put on your brakes. Don't stop. That means - keep going. No matter what it takes. Keep going.
2. Brake before curves and give it a little gas in the curve. Yes. That's right - Don't brake IN the curve.
3. Keep going no matter what. Don't make me do something foolish to go around you - yes YOU - because you're parked in the middle of the road, mid-way up a hill.

See, a nice bonus hint for you. That is all. Now go brush off ALL your windows so you can actually see where you are going.

Written at: 1/06/2002 11:37:00 PM

---

All this and Genius gear too!

Written at: 1/06/2002 01:56:00 AM

---

Oh yes, I could have been doing other things, but I ran across a source of great quotes so I added a LOT of them to the quote rotation at the right - and you thought I changed it constantly just for your pleasure, LOL!

Written at: 1/06/2002 01:01:00 AM

---

Be who you are and say how you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
– Dr. Suess

Written at: 1/06/2002 12:11:00 AM

---

I've been enjoying some recipes from other websites, and thought I'd share the soup I made today. Use whatever sort of meat you'd like for the ham. Sure to be OK.

Hearty Veggie Lentil Soup

In a big soup pot, saute:

vegetable oil

two onions, diced

4-5 cloves garlic, mashed

1.5" thick slice of ham diced (I used turkey ham)

When onions start to turn golden, add:

2-3 quarts of water

1 one pound bag of lentils

5 carrots, diced (about 1/4"")

5 stalks celery (ditto)

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

fines herbes

dried parsley

Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer until the lentils are cooked. Add:

one 28 oz can of pureed tomatoes

one small can beef stock if desired

more water if needed

4-5 large leaves of kale, large stems removed. Stack the leaves and slice into 1/4" ribbons,

Simmer until the kale is cooked. Leave uncovered to reduce stock slightly. Just before serving, add a good bit of grated fresh parmasan cheese to each bowl and ladle soup into the bowl.

Written at: 1/05/2002 08:42:00 PM

---

I spammed my friends and associates to get the word out about the iOpener/iCan idea last night. This morning I received an astute comment from a friend who notes that she would prefer it not synch with iCook, but rather a software interface named "iOrderOut."

This makes it clear that in future, ALL iDevices should have phones built into them.

This one would be handset-less of course and all you'd have to do, after iOpener tells you that all your pantry and frig hold are flour, olives and some generic soda, is say clearly "CALL - Pizza." It would fax an order to your fav joint and moments later - dinner arrives. What's not to like about that? I think the upgrade would be to make it pre-programmable - Wednesday Chinese, Thursday Indian, Friday Pizza, Saturday, for a change, reservations out.

Thanks Gwen!

Written at: 1/05/2002 03:48:00 PM

---

The end of a weird, long week in Apple Store Land First off the entire world it seems, or at least the cultist apple-related world, has gone rumor crazy.Speculation abounds as to what will be announced and debuted at MacWorld Expo on Monday. People have come into the store all week asking questions as though we would give them an answer. uh huh. We are awaiting word along with the rest of the world. Let me put that another way so I'm clear.... we.don't.know.

We'll be showing the keynote, mystery-revealing speech by Steve via Satellite on the big screen. I'll be curious as to how many people appear to watch. Cheaper than going to San Francisco.

Just so you heard it here first, I'm promoting my addition to the Apple Digital Hub. Prepare to be amazed!

Meet the....
iOpener.
**

Let's see what else. Well, a couple too many really touchy-invading-of-personal-space types. Some weird scenarios played out. One request for a receipt that would appear to be from Canada (uh, hello - no STORES in Canada, eh?). Sent an email to someone from their own hotmail account reminding them to log out when checking mail from a public site and hoping they had a nice visit to the Apple store. Counted out $3300 in hundreds for a sale.

Picked up the mail today. Mega junkmail and stuff, bills, and the white flower farm catalogue with a beautiful rose bush on the cover. Oh yeah, tax forms.

**No NDA was harmed in the presentation of this MacRumor!

OK, so I didn't have my lawyers do a search first. There seem to be a few instances of iOpener in use already - especially this which is especially geeky. Hey, whatever, my guys will call your guys, we'll all do lunch. There's always my original concept-name - iCanopener or iCan for short.

Written at: 1/05/2002 12:58:00 AM

---

Finally, I wanted to make note of this cool iPod shareware program that lets you import contact info from Entourage.

Written at: 1/04/2002 12:06:00 AM

---

From a "featured blogger" winterspeak.com - an interesting article about managing your email. I particularly enjoyed the last ideas:

- Too much email is a pointer to over-extension in other parts of life. Unsubscribe to newsletters you never read, get off useless lists, and involve yourself with fewer projects.

Good email habits and non-intrusive technology that lets people manipulate their digital information directly makes it pretty easy to handle about 500 emails a day, more than enough for most.

Written at: 1/04/2002 12:03:00 AM

---

If you haven't been lately to the Virtual Union Square, a collection of art and responses to 9-11, there are some new works shown. For example this photo.

Written at: 1/03/2002 11:56:00 PM

---

Do the holidays seem a long way back? Shades of Future Shock, where the older you get, the less percentage of your life each day, week or year represents, hence the sensation that time is rushing by as you get older. To a month-old baby the month is 100% of its life. To me, a month is a very small percentage of the total.

On a less philosophical note, worked the "late" shift today and did closing. All I could think was that I needed to be home working on that rush project. But no. What can you do? I've been doing more driving with no radio on, thinking about the past year and what it was like to basically quilt full time, working on the grant quilts, and looking for a paying job. Now I have the paying job and little time and energy to do what is important to me. Life is full of complexities. If I didn't work, no money to quilt, no place to do quilting etc. If I don't quilt - no happiness, no joy of creation. So the balancing act and the tension that walking that tightwire requires.

Written at: 1/03/2002 11:38:00 PM

---

Phew. Lost a few things somewhere along the lines but am back to normal now. Interestingly enough, found out today that RoadRunner apparently doesn't "play nice" with forwarded domain names. Which means that if you use RoadRunner as an ISP and type in www.quiltr.com, you get a message that this page can't be found. But if you type in the whole URL: https://mbgoodman.tripod.com/grant01/diary/ it shows up fine. I'll be doing a little poking around to find out why this is. Fun times on the 'net.

Written at: 1/02/2002 10:48:00 PM

---

I'm back to trying to add comments. Let's see how this goes!

Oops, lost the fruitcake link but got it back. All seems well now. Comment away folks!

Written at: 1/02/2002 12:10:00 AM

---

These were my thoughts about 2002 - call them resolutions if you need to:

What do I hope to do?
-- First off, find some way to hunt for a new job that isn't so demanding hours-wise.
-- Continue the path of quilting I started in 2001.
-- Act in an honorable way.
-- Spend time and have fun with kin and friends.
-- Help others.
-- Help others learn about what they really can do and be.
-- Act kindly even to people who hang up on me

Written at: 1/01/2002 02:37:00 PM

---

Feed M e - RSS

Quilt-related:
Newest Quilt May '06
First Gold Feb '06
2006 Postcards
Shine
Pink & Green Quilt

Child Abuse Quilts
Roots of Racism Quilts
Hancock fabrics

QuiltArt

FiberArt For A Cause

Web Design & Internet
Blogger
WebMonkey
SpamArrest
Report Spam - SpamCop

Miscellaneous
The Frezon Family
Astronomy Pic of the Day

Country Dance & Song Society

---

Bill 1985-2005

---

Maggie 1985-2003

---